Part 3: On cageyness, caution, moderation, patience, and prudence

M

Avoiding contact is the only medicine for leprosy.

Do not ask me to play the sort of game the gourd played and got a rope around its neck.

Do not eat up my stew with pounded yam made from wateryams before your trip into the forest farm.

“Do not cut a path through my farm” is a protest one must make some day.

“Do not hang your trouble around my neck” is the oracle delivered to the shuttle and the weft thread.

Do not go impatiently about enjoying life, the oracle delivered to the Alárá household; do not rush into chieftaincy, the oracle for the Òkè Ìjerò household; there comes another life in the future that is as delicious as licking honey.

I will eat a whole yam, I will also eat a slice of yam, satiation ends it all.

Never be sluggish; sluggishness killed Bíálà; but then over-eagerness killed Abídogun.

Mábàjẹ́ will never think of giving his covering cloth to a shiftless person to use.

Two gbẹ̀du drums are too much to hang on one's shoulders.

“I did not come to live a life of litigation” gave his daughter to six suitors all at once.

60. The proverb is obviously from the days when there was no cure for leprosy.  [Back to text]

61. Wateryam (Dioscurea Alata) is a poor make-do for preparing pounded yams. The objection is that the person addressed is eating up valuable or scarce stew with second-rate pounded yams.  [Back to text]

62. The name Mábàjẹ́ means “Spoil not.”  [Back to text]