Proverbs

[Trechter, Sara]

I had never really thought about this, but it seems like the entire
introduction to "Napping" from Deloria's Autobiographical texts is the
speaker trying to explain a proverb but unsuccessfully. "Napping brings on
consequences."  He goes to lengths to explain that this is because one has
dreams of the thunder being in naps. His sentence summary is in 2 below.
Thus, Deloria gives in (8) an explanation of the lost? genre, which doesn't
seem proverbial, but akin: (Please excuse my lack of making this all into
the right font. Grave accents are nasal vowels.)

Hé unwicháxcala thóiyepi kì él "Àpé ishtì'*mapi kì
   hé shíce ló, kiktáhà unpó, naíchib.Leb. Les ééománi pó;
   tókshá wí kì hé mahél iyáya chà naké? hehanl wichásha
   ishtíme ló!" Eyáya wawáhokunkhiyapi?.
2 That/ on account of/ old men/ their words/ the/ in/ "Day sleeping/ the/
   that/ bad/ in a waking state/ be!/ Rousing self by foot/ instead/ walk
   about!/ Later/ sun/ the/that/ in / it goes/ then/ at last/ then/ man/ he
   sleeps!"/ So saying/ they exhort the people.
7 Wicháxcala thóiyepi
8 Old men's precepts consisted of stock phrases, many of which are no longer
   heard or even quoted, but which were a definite group or set of
teachings.
   One I heard elsewhere was "Hàhép﷓thani'*ya kì shíce ló;
   oíyokpaza c'@'4* wakhanheza kì thíl awíchaku pó!" (The
   breath of night is evil; when darkness falls, bring the children into the
   house.")  There were ever so many more. I do not know whether they could
   be gathered at this late day. With some of these precepts, maxims, or
   what you will, to serve as texts, the old men would walk around the camp
   circle uninvited, and preach little sermonettes to the tribe.  They were
not
   always carefully attended, but they didn't seem to mind the indifference
of
   the hearers. They would go talking along anyways.

Dr. Sara Trechter, Assoc Professor
English/Linguistics, CSU, Chico
Chico, CA 95929-0830
(530) 898-4449 (office)
(530) 898-4450 (fax)
strechter at csuchico.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: Koontz John E [mailto:John.Koontz at colorado.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2001 1:26 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Proverbs


On Tue, 18 Dec 2001, Catherine Rudin/HU/AC/WSC wrote:
> But actually I can easily imagine people living a long, full, and
> talkative life with no proverbs.  I don't think I use them often in
> English, and then usually as a joke.

I don't think I use them particularly frequently myself, but I certainly
recognize a long list of them and can produce a fair number off the top of
my head if I try to.  And you encounter phrases or allusions (often
humorous) lifted from them even when you don't hear the full proverb,
e.g., "My, you're an early bird today!" or "I was early once, and found
out I didn't like worms."  However, using proverbs as a source of idioms
and basis for allusions is probably no different than making biblical
allusions, or, taking a different tack, using naval idioms - also
widespread in at least American English.  Any domain can be used in this
way.  It's the existence of the particular domain that seems to be
questionable.

I can think of a Siouan (or Northern Plains) literary allusion of this
sort:  the age-grade society name "Little Dogs" referring to 'the little
dogs without names', in contrast to the named older puppies and named
youngest one, in the basis myth of the dog series of societies.
Naturally this would have gone past me completely, except that Lowie, I
think it is, happens to mention it, it having been explained to him.  As
he put it, the full name of the society was 'little dogs without names'.

JEK