Proverbs

[Richard L. Dieterle]

The Winnebago have sayings, although a mere saying lacks the metaphorical
element necessary to proverbs.  Here is one from memory in English:

"The old people (always) say, 'It is good to die on the warpath'."

This is quite often quoted, but it is a far cry from "A stitch in time saves
nine," which is hardly ever applied literally to clothing repair.

Mention of a political context brings to mind something very similar to a
proverb.  This is from Foster who collected his material from the Nebraska
Winnebago in 1854 and alludes to a myth in which the lesser bird clans come from
ancestors who were generated from the feathers of the Thunders, the bigger the
feather, the more important the clan --

"Those named from the Thunders or Elements, who 'kindled the fire,' are said to
have the most power, and they claim to be superior to the others. ... Those
belonging to the First Thunder Family or Elemental Family are not slow to remind
even the Second Thunder Family, or Visible-Bird Family, of their right of
precedence ... if two whose names are of the First and Second Thunders, get into
a dispute with each other, the former will sometimes end the argument
contemptuously by saying, 'Why, you are nothing but a feather of mine,' and some
will go so far as to say, 'you are nothing but the fuzz of my feathers;' and
even the children learn early to retort in this wise." (Thomas Foster, Foster's
Indian Record and Historical Data (Washington, D. C.: 1876-1877) vol. 1; #1, p.
4, coll. 1, 4.)

The implicit proverb would be, "A Hawk (Clansman) is but a feather of a Thunder
(Clansman)"; or "A Pigeon is but the down of a Thunder."  However, I am not sure
we have an explicit proverb.

Richard Dieterle