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

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“He jumped up and stayed aloft almost for ever”: that is a lie.

It may seem like staggering, and it may not seem like staggering, but he is tipping forward on tiptoes.

You do not spit it out, and yet you do not swallow it.

“It is an exact fit for my hand” leads to thievery.

You hold corn loaf in your right hand and hold a cudgel in your left hand, and you call to Orímáfọ̀ọ́ to come take the food from you.

It wiggles its arms as though it would have one dance with it, and yet it is working its mouth as though it would swallow one.

It is mere circumlocution to say “A person has a mouth like a monkey's”; one should rather say, “You, so-and-so, you are a monkey.”

He shot an arrow towards the sky and covers his head with a mortar.

Kolanut dropped from the grips of a monkey and it says it makes a gift of that to ground dwellers; if he does not make a gift of it to ground dwellers would it come down to fetch it?

A woman who has six lovers: the six lovers never know about one another.

That a woman has had one's child does not mean she cannot kill one; that a woman has not had one's child does not mean she may not kill one.

A woman tarried too long at the market and returns home with a brazen face.

A woman goes to her lover's house and uses her mother's home to deceive her husband.

The parrot is a bird of the sea, and the kingfisher a bird of the lagoon; even though we might forget that we once partook in the food, let us never forget what we covenanted.

All we see is shadows, not clarity; but clarity will come, father of all openness.

An audacious lie does not trip one in one's closet; it exposes one in a public place.

It is what one wishes to keep a secret that one does in private.

A little cowardice, a little bravery; all it brings one is trouble.

A midnight rain does not beat a decent person; if the person it beats is not a habitual thief he/she will be a habitual “night” wanderer.

It is out in the open that one spreads a huge skin.

The eyes do not, because they do not see one, engage in evil against one.

Women know only the face.

Discourse is in the eyes.

It is in the presence and with the knowledge of the kola-nut seller that one receives a gratuitous addition to one's purchase.

The eyes that used to recognize one cannot say they no longer recognize one.

So, giant bush rat, such is your character; you made a pact with Ifá and you betrayed Ifá.

The large bush rat says it knows everyday, but not some other day.

The eunuch never has children close by.

The tattler does not earn six pence; thanks are all he gets.

The honest person in a town is the ogre of the town.

The honest person will not sleep in the place prepared for the wicked person.

Lack of compassion is the elder of back-biting.

“May my head grant that I have a partner” as a woman's prayer is not sincere.

Truth arrives at the market but finds no buyer; it is with ready cash, though, that people buy falsehood.

The truth does not die to be replaced as king by the lie.

Truth never goes awry; it is falsehood that earns a gash on the head.

Truth is bitter; falsehood is like meat stew.

Truthfulness is the chief of attributes.

It is truth that unpacks the load of the wicked for all to see.

Women care only about money.

21. Orímáfọ̀ọ́ means “Let not the skull crack.”  [Back to text]

22. When one purchases some commodity the seller often would give one some extra as a sweetener, or gratuity.  [Back to text]

23. Giant bush rats love palm kernels, and these are also used in Ifà divination. The rat is apparently raiding Ifá's preserve when it gathers palm kernels.  [Back to text]

24. In a bid to conceal his calamity the eunuch will always claim that he has fathered several children, but they always live far, far away.  [Back to text]

25. The reference is to a woman's having a co-wife.  [Back to text]