Part 1: On humility, self-control, self-knowledge, self-respect, and self-restraint

I

The disgrace one incurs in one day does not disappear that soon.

Whatever one names as the head, one does not tread the floor with it.

Wherever one situates the body, there it inhabits.

Salt dampens only the place where it is placed.

The part one names the head is the one that grows hair.

The place where a lazy person was apprehended bears no marks; the place where a powerful man was apprehended is broad enough to plant a farm.

Where one must recite genealogies in order to establish one's claim to inheritance, one should know that one really has no claim to patrimony there.

Where life catches up with one, there one lives it.

It is the master's engaging in silly antics that affords the pawn the opportunity to laugh so hard that he tosses his cutlass away.

It is with its own sword that one kills the tortoise.

The sword is destroying its own home, and it says it is ruining the scabbard.

The two buttocks are sufficient for their owner to sit on.

The vulture perches on the roof; its eyes see the homestead as well as the farm.

When the clay statue hankers for disgrace it asks to be placed in the rain.

When will (or how can) Maku avoid the danger of dying? Maku does not know the mysteries of the cult yet he joins in its vows; Maku does not know how to swim and yet he jumps into the river.

What sort of hole does the rat live in that makes him say that household work preoccupied it?

The wild cat never roams in daylight; a well-bred person does not wander around in the night time.

The brown ant cannot lift a boulder.

How one sits causes one to carry the leaves used to wrap corn-meal to the dump.

The government summons you and you say you are busy eating cassava grains soaked in water; who owns you, and who owns the water with which you are eating the cassava?

“I-was-in-my-home” is never the guilty party in a dispute.

A house does not burn while the landlord lounges with indifference.

A house does not burn and fill the eyes with sleep.

One drum is not enough for an Ègùn person to dance to; if one drums for him he too will play a rhythm on his chest.

Fire burns and the wall does not run from it; now it moves threateningly towards water.

An unpleasant inside is what a venerable elder should have; a venerable elder should not have an unpleasant mien.

The wound left by a cutlass may heal, but the wound left by speech does not heal.

One sees only other peoples' occiputs; only others can see one's own.

The eyelashes do not make dew; a venerable old beard does not behave like an ingenue.

There is no cheating in photography; it is just as you sit that you will find your image.

The likeness of a particular type of cloth is not lacking among those in fashion.

The likeness of an elephant is not scarce in Alọ. [57]

The horse-tail whisk does not shun Ifá; high-fashion maiden, pause awhile and give me a greeting.

The fugitive does not stop to pull a thorn “from his/her feet”; the fugitive does not stop to clear dinner dishes.

Destitution does not attach to one at a particular place; suffering does not attack a person at a particular place; if one walks like a wretch into a town, if one looks like a loser when one enters a town, it is with a miserable calabash that the people will offer one water to drink.

A vine as thick as a palm-tree trunk will not stop an elephant; whatever vine attempts to stop an elephant from going to Alọ will go with the elephant instead.

Character is always remarkable (or good) in the opinion of its owner.

A pawned person always dances with a pawned person.

The measure of the rat is the measure of the nest; a robin does not live on a cushion.

Trading insults brings ruin to an elder's home.

The wife who whips a relative of her husband is asking for stern rebuke.

53. Customarily, the tortoise is killed by pulling its neck and rubbing it against the sharp edge of its shell behind the neck until it comes apart. That part of the shell is known as the tortoise's sword.  [Back to text]

54. Ṣ"ìgìdì is a clay image one makes of one's enemy and endows by means of incantations with the power to harm the enemy in his/her dream. Although thus endowed with supernatural powers, if it is placed in the rain it will crumble.  [Back to text]

55. The name Mákùú (má kùú) means “Do not die.”  [Back to text]

56. It is the manner of one's sitting in a company that causes one to be selected as the right person to clear the garbage.  [Back to text]

57. Àlọ́, mythical city of elephants, also a jungle.  [Back to text]

58. Ìrùkẹ̀rẹ̀, horse-tail whisk, is one of the tools for consulting Ifá the Yoruba oracle.  [Back to text]

59. A wife is expected to accord respect to the relatives of her husband, even very young ones, especially those born into the family before she is married into it.  [Back to text]