The word ofay, sometimes aphetized to fay, is used among themselves by American blacks as a warning of a white man's approach. Apparently because of this use it has been transferred to the white man himself and is now generally said to have the meaning 'white man' in such dictionaries as list it. Its source, however, has not been satisfactorily explained. The more cautious dictionaries say "etymology unknown" (Merriam-Webster, Random House) . . .

The only full documentation of the word that I have found is in Wentworth-Flexner, Dictionary of American Slang, with the first of four dated quotations from 1931. The summary note says, "Common Negro use since 1925. It has been suggested that this may be from 'foe' as said in Pig Latin. Archaic." Other quotations show it as having connections with both city and plantation life. It may safely be assumed to have had oral use, and perhaps currency, before literary interest in the Negro brought it into print. Moved to northern cities, it got a new lease on life when "black power" emphasized that the white man is the enemy-and this is probably responsible for the Pig Latin explanation. As a warning, the word certainly had good reason to be disguised, though the uncommon and rather literary word *foe *would seem an implausible candidate for this disguise. In short, this explanation has all the appearance of an ex post facto attempt to fill a vacuum with an imaginative guess-a situation familiar to etymologists. The far more plausible source would seem to be some African word, if such could be found and reasonably supported.

Through correspondence in 1967 with Richard A. Reyment, then at the University of Stockholm, I was put in touch with his student, now Dr. Ebi Omatsola, a Nigerian of the Itsekiri tribe who grew up in Lagos and is a fluent speaker of Yoruba, of which Itsekiri is an offshoot. Mr. Omatsola kindly wrote me a detailed letter of which I quote the greater part:

"ofe-This Yoruba word originally means to disappear (as for example at the instance when a more powerful enemy whom you can't beat is at sight). The witch doctors of many years ago are said to have a means by which they can spiritually and as believed physically disappear at the moment of intense fear, or under adverse conditions. They are said to be able to instill [this] into people, who afterwards possess the same power of disappearance under various adverse conditions and/or situations."

. . . From my own fieldwork among the Maroon Negroes of Jamaica (Moore Town, St. Thomas parish) I can report that this belief in the magic power of transporting oneself physically and instantly from one place to another is still well known. The "old Maroons" are said to have had this power; and before the truce with the English (1783), while they hid in the mountains and made guerrilla attacks on the plantations, they no doubt counted on it as a means of escape. Of the word ofay, however, I found no trace in Jamaica.

R. C. Abraham's Dictionary of Modern Yoruba (Univ. of London, 1958) makes the entry: "ofe (I) a charm supposed to make P. [a person] so light that he can jump very high." This is no doubt the same as Omatsola's word: the charm element is still present and the lightness which thwarts weight and permits the physical body to move-perhaps out of sight or to another place. The semantic connection would seem undeniable. I have further consulted Professor Ayo Bamgbose, of the University of Ibadan, a native speaker of Yoruba, who confirms the word's meaning of instant disappearance.

That this word could have been brought to the United States by slaves is altogether possible. Speakers of Yoruba and related languages were numerous among Nigerians transported to the American colonies. The Negroes' practice of putting on a mask of "know-nothing" at the approach of bosses or other whites as the better part of caution is well known. Thus ofay may be taken as a word said for self-protection in times of threat, which was then transferred to the source of threat, and so came to mean 'white man.'