Agbe alahun alahun aro
Aluko alahun alahun osun
Lekeleke alahun alahun efun
B’omo o lahun won a pe baba.

From time immemorial, the Yoruba language has taken in a lot of nature into the building bricks of her linguistic structures. In the same vein, Yoruba has remarkable love for comparative descriptions of nature around them in form of opposites. Agbe, Aluko, Lekeleke are but birds of special beauty and natural significance with the Yoruba people and poets.

So the Yoruba will say Agbe lo l’aro, aluko lo l’osun, lekeleke lo l’efun. This is implying the beauty of the feather that graces the birds that roam Yoruba skyline as from time immemorial. Early writers and commentators of the beauty of Yoruba homeland says “Yoruba contain many wonderful things, in it is found the bird called Babanga” -that is, the parrot.

The parrot is known as Ayekooto in Yoruba. The name is indeed a thoughtful one. Ayekooto means ‘the world reject truth’. How forthright a notion! The Yoruba believes that the man that held to the truth may not have common mat to sleep on. The naming Ayekooto and the folktale of the Indians show that the Yoruba may have had a forgotten story behind the name of this beautiful bird.

The story is told of the time that animals speak the language of man. A farmer was enticed by the Lorikeet and he brought in the bird to stay with him. The lorikeet speaks and understands the language of man. So she goes and come back with the man each time of the day.
One fateful day, a buffalo belonging to the neighbor of the farmer wandered ro the farm of the lorikeet keeper. The farmer slays the buffalo, he smoke part and cook part of it and also kept what remains away in the farm. Not long after, the true owner of the buffalo came to the farm and asked his neigbour if his buffalo has wandered to his farm. No was the answer.

Then the lorikeet began to talk: “My master slay the buffalo, he cook some and smoke some. He hid part away down there”. The owner of the buffalo summons the farmer to the judge after part of the meat was found where the lorikeet described. The lorikeet argued that his master killed the buffalo still, and the farmer asked that he be given a grace to defend himself the next morning.

That night, the farmer took in the lorikeet under the cover and covered the bird’s housing with a shawl to make it look dark, and then he began to sprinkle water drip down on the lorikeet. He intermittently hit at the metal, giving the lorikeet an impression of rain and thunder.
In the morrow, the judge was seated and all the community with them. They want to see how the case at hand ends, with the lorikeet being the principal witness. After the lorikeet has retwitted its line, the farmer said

“People are you going to condemn me on the allegation of this unfortunate bird? If so, ask the bird what kind of night we had last night.”
So the judge asked likewise, and the response of the lorikeet was that the rain fall and the thunder struck all night. Then the farmer said, “Is it on the account of this unfortunate thing that you will condemn me?” At this, the judge set the farmer free and banished the lorikeet from living among men, lest it should sow discord capable of setting people apart.

As the bird flew into the forest, it came across parrot and found out that parrot too can speak the language of man. “Oh I see you too can speak the language of man”. The lorikeet says. “Man will find you and take you in, but never should you speak your own mind if you must co-habit with mankind, only mimic whatever he says.”

And not many days afterwards, man found that the parrot could talk. They took home the bird just as the lorikeet has predicted. Also, they expected it to talk from its mind. But for as long as man has harbored the bird, it never says its mind, it only repeats few words that man says to it. This was just as it is said in Yoruba, Ayekooto.

Happy weekend Nigeria.

Stay blessed,

God bless.