Part 5: On consistency; honesty, openness, plain speaking, reliability

Odot

The stew is delicious, the stew is not delicious; the pounded yams meal is completely gone from the dish.
(Said of people who complain about something yet will not let go of it.)

One conducts affairs with one's kin with forthrightness; one enters into covenants (with non-relatives) in secret; as one attends to one's secret compacts, one should also attend to affairs with one's kin; on the day one dies it is one's kin who attend to one's funeral.
(Never neglect your kin in favor of others.)

The path of deceit soon ends.
(Deceit is soon exposed.)

The sage asks for information; Àjàpá the trickster asks, “About the person who was killed yesterday, is he already dead?”
(If you know the answer to a question already, don't ask it.)

“This matter does not hurt me”: stating it only once suffices.
(If one is indifferent to something, it should not dominate one's conversations.)

Secret matters have open exposure as their ultimate destination.
(Whatever is done in secret will eventually be exposed.)

The matter in question does not make a noise.
(The matter under discussion poses little problem.)

One's enemy never kills a huge cane-rat.
(One is always tempted to minimize the accomplishments of one's enemies.)