Ìjàpá and the Princess Who Would Not Speak
A tortoise tale in which Ìjàpá wins half a palace by provoking a mute king's daughter into speech through a false accusation of theft, recorded by Ellis in 1894.
Ẹni tí ó kójọ
Orísun tí a wò kò dárúkọ ẹni tí ó kójọ rẹ̀.
Bí a ṣe ń pa á
Evening telling, treated in `yoruba-alo`. This tale is unusually song-driven: two full sung stanzas answering each other, carried the whole distance from the bush to the palace. In performance the walk to town is the sung section, and the teller would be alternating two voices while the audience holds the refrain.
Àlọ́ náà ní ṣókí
This is a tale about Ìjàpá the tortoise and Bola, a king's daughter who cannot or will not speak. Ìjàpá bets the king that he can make her talk, and does it by planting a bottle of honey where she will find it and then accusing her of stealing it. The outrage of a false accusation is what breaks her silence. It is recorded in English by A. B. Ellis in 1894, and no Yorùbá text of it is known to this compiler. The genre frame, the Ààlọ́ o / Ààlọ̀ opening and the division of àlọ́ into riddles and tales, is set out in `yoruba-alo`. Ellis's tellers used a different opening, discussed in `alo-ijapa-singing-drum`, and this tale begins "My alo is something about a certain king".
Àlọ́ náà
A king had a daughter who was dumb. The girl's name was Bola. The king did everything he could to make his daughter speak, and none of it worked, so he stopped keeping her in the town and sent her into the country. Then Ìjàpá, "of the thousand cunning tricks," came to the king and asked him: what will you give me if I make your child speak? I will divide my house into two halves, said the king, and I will give you one half. Ìjàpá went and bought a bottle of honey, took it out to the bush where the girl was living, put it on the ground, and hid himself. The girl came, saw the bottle of honey, and put out her hand to it. Ìjàpá came out from his hiding place, came up behind her, and gave her a slap, crying: Thief! So it is you who steal my honey and eat it. I? said the young girl. I have stolen your honey to eat? I? Then Ìjàpá tied her with a rope and sang. Original The Yorùbá is not given. Ellis prints the song in English, retaining only the refrain word in Yorùbá. Literal gloss - Kayin, which Ellis derives as ka-iyin: to celebrate, or to sing the praises of. Idiomatic English Translator: A. B. Ellis > Bola stole honey to eat; > Kayin, Kayin. > Bola is a cunning cheat; > Kayin, Kayin. > Bola is a shameless thief; > Kayin, Kayin. And when Ìjàpá sang this, the girl sang back: > Into the wood of the elephant I went with the elephant; > Kayin, Kayin. > Into the wood of the buffalo I went with the buffalo; > Kayin, Kayin. > And Tortoise has come to accuse me of stealing honey to eat; > Kayin, Kayin. Notes on the translation. The refrain is the only Yorùbá that survives in this text, and it is doing something the English lines cannot show. Ellis's gloss makes kayin a praising word, and it sits at the end of every line of an accusation and then at the end of every line of a denial. A word for praise is being used to punctuate a slander and then a rebuttal, which is closer to the antiphonal structure of oríkì than to anything in English song, and both singers use the same refrain, so the chorus does not take a side. If the audience is joining on Kayin, Kayin, as the àlọ́ àpagbè form described in `yoruba-alo` implies, then the audience is singing the same word for both parties in the quarrel. Ellis's derivation is presented here as his; this compiler has not verified it against a Yorùbá dictionary of the period, and the tone marks that would settle the reading are absent from his text. Ìjàpá led the young girl back to the town. He was singing his song and she was answering with hers, and in this manner they arrived before the king, who cried out in astonishment: my daughter, who has never been heard to speak, speaks today. The king divided his palace in half and gave one half to Ìjàpá. Ellis closes the tale with a formula of his own: "That is how Tortoise succeeds in everything".
Orin náà
Ìpilẹ̀
The Yorùbá is not given. Ellis prints the song in English, retaining only the refrain word in Yorùbá.
Ìtumọ̀ ọ̀rọ̀-sí-ọ̀rọ̀
- - Kayin, which Ellis derives as ka-iyin: to celebrate, or to sing the praises of.
Ìtumọ̀ Gẹ̀ẹ́sì
Translator: A. B. Ellis Bola stole honey to eat; Kayin, Kayin. Bola is a cunning cheat; Kayin, Kayin. Bola is a shameless thief; Kayin, Kayin. And when Ìjàpá sang this, the girl sang back: Into the wood of the elephant I went with the elephant; Kayin, Kayin. Into the wood of the buffalo I went with the buffalo; Kayin, Kayin. And Tortoise has come to accuse me of stealing honey to eat; Kayin, Kayin.
Orísun tí a wò kò dárúkọ ẹni tí ó kójọ rẹ̀.
Àwọn ìyàtọ̀
This tale appears in the inventory of the modern retelling site `yorubatales.com` as "The Princess Who Could Not Speak". That site publishes a site-wide bibliography rather than per-tale attribution, so its version cannot be traced to a collector, an informant or a performance, and no text from it is quoted here. Its existence is recorded only as evidence that the tale still circulates. No Yorùbá-language version was located by this compiler, and no second collected version is available for comparison. The record consulted is silent on regional variation.