Proverbs

[Lance Foster]

The Yoruba language (of the Yoruba in Nigeria, just to the northwest of the
Igbo) was and is FULL of proverbs. I was there in 1996 doing research for
three months on indigenous knowledge in primary health care. There were dozens
of proverbs simply on maintaining health. As a side project and with the
assistance of my Yoruba language tutor, I wrote a short book on the daily life
of a Yoruba woman based specifically on the use of proverbs. In the
traditional Yoruba way of life, all of life was guided by proverbs.

Lance

rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote:

> > Pamela wrote:
> > But some non-European exotic languages are very rich in proverbs (the
> best
> > case I know of being Wolof).
>
> I seem to recall running into an enormous body of proverbs a few years ago
> when I was looking at Igbo.  Is West Africa in general an area particularly
> rich in this genre?
>
> > I hope more people will comment on this.
>
> Here's my two cents (cheap at the price!):
>
> I wonder if we shouldn't try to refine what we mean by a proverb?  Is a
> proverb just any standard saying?  Is it an admonition?  Does it have to
> be metaphorical?
>
> If we find proverbs to be almost non-existent in some cultural regions, and
> overpowering in others, then perhaps their presence or absence is an
> indicator
> of differences in the historical life circumstances of the people living in
> these respective regions.
>
> Suppose I live in a relatively egalitarian society where intra-group
> conflict
> is frowned upon, and where strong people will surely lose respect and power
> if they assault their compatriots simply for disagreeing with them.  Here,
> if I
> have a disagreement with my neighbor, I can speak my mind plainly (if
> politely),
> without fear of serious consequences.  In this scenario, I don't need a
> proverb; I just need to state my views about the concrete issue at hand.
>
> On the other hand, suppose I live in a socially stratified society where
> group solidarity takes a back seat to cutthroat competition for status and
> power among its members.  Here we have a teeming mass of struggling
> peasants
> and social nobodies, dominated by castes of chieftains, warriors, clerics
> and other social-climbing elites, who themselves live in constant terror of
> falling back into the black hole of social nullity over which they rule.
> To these elites, honor is of the essence.  Being bearded to their face is
> an embarrassment, and embarrassment signals weakness and brings unwelcome
> attention from ambitious rivals.  If I state my disagreement to a person in
> this position, I force him either to be embarrassed or to squish me like a
> bug, and I can easily guess which route he will be inclined to take.  So I
> suffer my resentments in silence along with everyone else, until one day a
> diabolically inspired raconteur tells us an amusing story he has made up
> that metaphorically nails the very behavior we are all so frustrated with.
> We listeners enjoy a catharsis of hysterical laughter, and pass the fable
> along.  Soon our ruler is losing credibility by the bucketload, but can't
> very well punish anybody without first acknowledging that the lampoon
> applies
> to him, which would bring him even greater embarrassment and dishonor.
>
> Eventually the story is so well known that it doesn't bear repeating.  To
> express devastating social criticism, we need only reference the title bar
> of the appropriate story.  The party being criticized cannot easily
> respond,
> because doing so would require him to assert that he is being criticized,
> which in turn would mean that he must assume the logic of the metaphor.
> And it is not only tyrants that can be caught in this rhetorical Catch-22;
> it can be quite effective in winning arguments within your family and local
> neighborhood as well.  When it reaches this stage of usage, I think we have
> a true proverb.
>
> If this model for the origin of proverbs is valid, then we should predict
> that they are a fairly recent development in human history, and that they
> will be richly represented in chiefdom, feudal and state-form societies,
> but rare or absent in band- or tribal-type societies, including most of
> aboriginal North America.  I would expect them to be present in Mexico and
> Central America, and likely in the societies of the Pacific Northwest
> coast.
> Can anyone shoot down this hypothesis?
>
> Rory