Oyekan Owomoyela

"Eni ti o sa la nle'."

In Yoruban, it means: "People chase only those who flee," or, those who act guilty are presumed to be guilty.

After Oyekan Owomoyela came to the United States in 1964, he soon longed for his homeland of Nigeria, and found comfort in remembering metaphors and proverbs from his culture.

A member of the Yoruba people -- a distinct culture of more than 25 million people (about 21 percent of the Nigerian population) living in the southwest corner of the West African nation -- Owomoyela came to the United States to study acting at UCLA. While distance separated him from homeland, Owomoyela's culture-rich upbringing shaped his career.

"When I first came to UCLA I started collecting the proverbs," said Owomoyela, a professor of English and coordinator of African American and African studies at UNL. "At first, it was a modest collection. But I was feeling nostalgic and it became a way for me to stay in touch with my home."

Collaborating with a colleague at UCLA in 1973, Owomoyela published a book of about 150 of the metaphors on Yoruba life. He has continued to collect the proverbs and in 2005 published a second book titled "Yoruba Proverbs" at the University of Nebraska Press. The book lists 5,207 of the proverbs and is considered the most comprehensive collection to date of the Yoruba oral tradition.

"I am very pleased with the book," Owomoyela said. "And, to me it is especially important because it preserves a part of my heritage that is being lost."