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    Owe. Yourba by Proverbs
    Owe. Yourba by Proverbs
    Owe. Yourba by Proverbs
    Ebook119 pages1 hour

    Owe. Yourba by Proverbs

    By Anthony A. Kila

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    About this ebook

    Enjoyable and informative, Anthony A. Kila’s account is both a concise introduction to the sayings and myths of a people that have so influenced black cultures, from Brazil to Britain, and a little ‘lesson-in-living’ that we can all still draw on today.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCIAPS Press
    Release dateSep 29, 2019
    ISBN9788834191118
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      Book preview

      Owe. Yourba by Proverbs - Anthony A. Kila

      Anthony A.Kila

      Yorùbá by Proverbs

      Òwe

      CIAPS Press

      Cambridge Lagos Paris Washington

      www.ciaps.org

      © Anthony A. Kila 2018

      First published in 2003

      Copyright notice

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner, except in accordance with the provision of the copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP.

      Applications for the copyright owner's permission should be addressed to the publisher.

      British Library Cataloguing in publication Data

      Data available

      ISBN 978-0-9545465-1-9

      Illustrations by Reggie Pedro & Ben Adedipe

      Cover Design by Ikenna Anabor

      UUID: 7a38ce42-a6c3-11e9-bfe1-bb9721ed696d

      This ebook was created with StreetLib Write

      http://write.streetlib.com

      Table of contents

      PREFACE

      FOREWORD

      COLLABORATION

      ENVY

      HONOUR

      MONEY

      MUTABILITY

      PATIENCE

      PESSIMISM

      REALISM

      RESPECT

      SELF-RELIANCE

      WORDS

      GLOSSARY

      About the Author

      PREFACE

      In my quest for the means to understand different cultures and societies and the factors that regulate and determine their ways of life, I have always been fascinated by the capacity of proverbs to encapsulate complex themes and ideas.

      This is not a book about Yorùbá language; the language with which we write or speak constitutes just a fraction of our mode of communication, which in turn constitutes just a fraction of our cultures. Yes, important fraction but just a fraction.

      The proverbs cited in the following pages were initially collected for my personal studies. I realized however, that not only did they succinctly express some Yorùbá concepts but they also helped to illumine the society in which they originated. This has, above all, motivated me to share them with others who may be interested.

      The selection of Yorùbá proverbs is intended to provide the reader with a glimpse into the culture of the Yorùbá people. There are thousands and thousands of possible proverbs but only those proverbs which are both typical of Yorùbá culture but that can be easily understood by those unfamiliar with the Yorùbá people and culture are included here.

      Each section and indeed each page has been set in a way that the reader can read as a standalone.

      Many people have contributed to the research and compilation of this book. Here I would like to remember and thank Adriana Piga the first person to suggest writing this book, Bola Ajayi and Fidel de Silva who helped with the gleanings of proverbs, Chief Adeola Adeyemi my main contact with oral sources, Cecilia Gatto Trocchi with whom I had long and lively discussions about some of the ideas expressed here, Danny Aeberhard who worked through the whole book, Valentina Buonumore, whose friendship laid a bridge between us.

      Also a special thanks to Tutu Bashorun and Wunmi Adegunwa that helped with tonality, accents and other linguistic aspects of the book, Ayobami Kila who typed and read drafts of the book, Ikenna Anabor who worked on the cover and formatting, Noemi Kila who coordinated the illustrations.

      Anthony A. Kila

      FOREWORD

      There are over 40 million people who recognize themselves as Yorùbá people and they live mainly in Nigeria and Benin. The Diaspora induced by centuries of slave trade and immigration have however taken their descendants and culture to countries like Gambia, Sierra Leone, Brazil, Cuba and to the eastern cities of the United States of America, to the UK and now to the Ireland.

      Since around AD1000, the Yorùbá people built a thriving network of cities and trading routes. Most of their cities and towns still exist today and many of the societal structures are still intact. Their kings, known as Oba, are regarded sacred, and they live in town centers encircled by chiefs.

      In the Yorùbá worldview, there is a supreme God called O̩ló̩run and about 400 deities called Orìs̩à who are his emissaries. The complexity of the cosmology has led many western scholars to compare them to the pantheon of the ancient Greeks and Roman ones. In countries such as Brazil and Cuba where the Yorùbáand their traditions have an impact on the social life, the rituals of the Orìs̩à have been incorporated into the Christian rituals to create a syncretic religion called Santeria.

      According to the myths, the world began at Ilé-Ifè̩, a city of great historical and religious significance in the heart of the Yorùbá nation. This is where O̩ló̩run lowered a chain from the sky to allow a party of deities led by Odùduwà, the ancestor of mankind, to descend into the world. Before leaving the sky, the deities were given a cockerel, some earth and a palm kernel. When Odùduwà got to the world it was covered with water. He threw the earth into the water and lowered the cockerel onto it. The cockerel scratched it and the earth expanded to become land while the kernel grew into a tree with sixteen limbs; from this beginning, farmland spread across the world. Ilé-Ifè̩ in fact literally means the land expands.

      The Yorùbá people believe everything in life is related and every aspect of life is a continuum. They believe that a

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