Proverbs

[Koontz John E]

On Wed, 19 Dec 2001, Richard L. Dieterle wrote:

> 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.

A comparable comment in Omaha, though I don't know of a traditional form,
concerns the desirability of dying facing the enemy, which is a conception
not alien to Euro-American culture, i.e., making sure the bullet holes or
wounds are in the front.

> 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 --   ...
>
> 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.

You could regard this as an idiom, but it's also a traditional form of
argument:  "I am better than you because I am X and you are Y, and Y is
but the feather of or down on an X, i.e., X is much better than Y."

JEK