Oral Literature in Africa (64 page)

More often the proverbs are figurative in one way or another. Direct similes occur fairly often. The Hausa, for example, say that ‘A chief is like a dust-heap where everyone comes with his rubbish (complaint) and deposits it’ (Tremearne 1913: 62). Among the Southern Bantu the likening of something to dew melting away in the sun appears in many forms: the Zulu suggest that something is only a passing phase by asserting that ‘This thing is like the dew which showers down’, and the comparison often appears in a more direct and concise form, as with the Thonga ‘Wealth is dew’ or Ndebele ‘Kingship is dew’ (Stuart and Malcolm 1949: 70; Junod 1938: 49; Leaver and Nyembezi 1946: 137). Wealth is another stock comparison, as in the Swahili ‘Wits (are) wealth’, or the vivid saying of the Thonga and others that ‘To bear children is wealth, to dress oneself is (nothing but) colours’ (Taylor 1891: 2; Junod and Jaques 1936, no. 450). Many other examples of these direct comparisons could be cited: the Southern Bantu ‘To look at a man as at a snake’ (i.e. with deadly hatred), or ‘To marry is to put a snake in one’s handbag’; (McLaren 1917: 336; Junod 1938: 50) the Ashanti proverbs ‘Family names are like flowers, they blossom in clusters’ or ‘A wife is like a blanket; when you cover yourself with it, it irritates you, and yet if you cast it aside you feel cold’; (Rattray 1916: 125, 139) and the Xhosa ‘He is ripe inside, like a water-melon’, describing a man who has come to a resolution without yet expressing it publicly (one cannot tell if a water-melon is ripe from the outside) (Theal 1886: 194).

Most frequent of all, however, and the most adaptable are the proverbs where comparison is evoked metaphorically. In this form proverbs about
animals and birds are very common indeed (perhaps particularly in the Bantu areas); here, as in the tales about animals and in certain praise names, a comment is often being made about human life and action through reference to non-human activity. Egotism, for instance, is commented on and satirized in the Sotho ‘”I and my rhinoceros” said the tick bird’ or the Ndau ‘The worm in the cattle kraal says “I am an ox”’, and among the Ila it is said of squanderers ‘The prodigal cow threw away her own tail.
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Similarly, generalizations about animal imply a comment on human affairs. Thus the Thonga ‘The strength of the crocodile is in the water’ (Junod 1938: 47) can comment in various ways, implying from one point of view that a man is strong when his kinsmen help him, from another that a man should stick to his own place and not interfere with others. The importance of self-help is stressed in ‘No fly catches for another’ (McLaren 1917: 340), while the Zulu generalization ‘No polecat ever smelt its own stink’ alludes picturesquely to man’s blindness and self-satisfaction (Mayr 1912: 958).

Though proverbs about animals are particularly common, generalizations about other everyday things are also used to suggest some related idea about people. The Zulu observe that man is able to manage his own affairs through the metaphor that ‘There is no grinding stone that got the better of the miller’, and the Ndebele remind one that ‘The maker of a song does not spoil it’ when wishing to warn that it is not right to interfere with someone who understands his own business (Stuart and Malcolm 1949: 17; Jones 1925: 66). The Lamba ‘Metal that is already welded together, how can one unweld it?’ can be used in the same sort of way as our ‘Don’t cry over spilt milk’, while the Thonga ‘The nape of the neck does not see’ alludes to the way people get out of control when the master of the village is away (Doke 1934: 361; Junod and Jaques 1936: no. 352). Perhaps even more common than the metaphorical generalization is the form in which a general or abstract idea is conveyed not through any direct generalization at all but through a single concrete situation which provides only one example of the general point. Thus the Thonga ‘The one who says “Elephant die! I want to eat! I am on the way”’ alludes to the way in which some people are over-impatient instead of taking the time to do the job properly, while a different point of view is suggested in the specific Hausa statement that ‘The man with deepest eyes can’t see the moon till it is fifteen days old’—in other words is so narrowly concentrated that the obvious escapes him (Junod and Jaques 1936, no. 2; Whitting 1940: p. 3). The Zulu express the general
idea that people reap the fruit of their own folly by mentioning specific situations: ‘He ate food and it killed him’ and ‘The won’t-be-told man sees by the bloodstain’ (Ripp 1930; Dunning 1946). The frequent effects of over-confidence and officious advice are alluded to in the pointed Nyanja saying ‘Mr. Had-it-been-I caused the baboons belonging to someone else to escape’, while they comment on fools from the specific case of ‘Mr. Didn’t-know’ who ‘took shelter from the rain in the pond’ (Gray 1944: 112; 117). Fools are similarly alluded to in the Ewe ‘If a boy says he wants to tie water with a string, ask him if he means the water in the pot or the water in the lagoon’ (Ellis 1890: 260). This hinting at a general or abstract idea through one concrete case, either direct or itself metaphorical, is a common proverbial form throughout the continent.

Hyperbole and exaggeration are also frequent motifs, often in addition to some of the forms mentioned above. Many instances could be cited, among them the common Bantu saying that ‘If you are patient, you will see the eyes of the snail’, or ‘The monitor has gone dry’, which alludes to the fact that even the monitor, famed for I (Werner 1906: 212; McLaren 1917: 335). There is the Fulani proverb ‘You will not see an elephant moving on your own head, only the louse moving on another’s’; and the Zulu description of an unblushing and flagrant liar, ‘He milks also the cows heavy with calf—he would actually go as far as saying he could milk cows
before
they had calved (Whitting 1940: 160; Nyembezi 1954: 40). Paradox is also occasionally used with the same kind of effect, as in the Hausa comment on the effects of idleness (‘The want of work to do makes a man get up early to salute his enemy’), or the cynical Ila remark ‘He has the kindness of a witch’ (Whitting 1940: 121; Smith and Dale ii, 1920: 323). The quality of being far-fetched and humorous is used for similar effect in the Zulu reference to impossibility ‘A goat may beget an ox and a white man sew on a [native] head ring’, the Yoruba ‘He who waits to see a crab wink will tarry long upon the shore’, the Nyanja ‘Little by little the tortoise arrived at the Indian Ocean’, or the exaggerated Yoruba equivalent of our idea that one reaps as one sows—’One who excretes on the road, will find flies when he returns’ (Stuhardt 1930: 69; Ellis 1894: 237; Gray 1944: 110; Gbadamosi and Beier 1959: 60).

The allusions of proverbs in the various collections are often not obvious. This is frequently due to our ignorance of the culture, particularly with proverbs that allude to some well-known story or famous individual. A knowledge of the situations in which proverbs are cited may also be an essential part of understanding their implications, and this is complicated
further by the fact that the same proverb may often be used, according to the context, to suggest a variety of different truths, or different facets of the same truth, or even its opposite. Some proverbs, furthermore, are obscure even to local individuals or groups. We cannot, then, expect African proverbs to be crystal-clear or to be able to grasp in each case the modes through which they figuratively or picturesquely suggest certain truths. However, it does seem that the main ways in which these are expressed are the ones already mentioned: by a straight, relatively literal statement; by similes; by various types of metaphor (often comparisons with animals or with one particular case suggesting a generalization); and by hyperbole and paradox.

Having considered some of the general forms in which proverbs appear we can now look at the detailed stylistic devices which these mainly figurative sayings employ to make their points effectively. Unlike stories and songs, the
performance
does not generally seem to be of importance. Rather, proverbs rely for their effect on the aptness with which they are used in a particular situation and—the point considered here—on the style and form of words in which they appear.
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Proverbs are generally marked by terseness of expression, by a form different from that of ordinary speech, and by a figurative mode of expression abounding in metaphor. The first two characteristics can be treated together here with illustrations from the Bantu group of languages. There are no
general
rules for the formation of Bantu proverbs and particular peoples have their own favourite forms, but certain common patterns are apparent. Pithiness and economy are always noticeable in proverbs, but in the Bantu languages this can be achieved particularly effectively through the system of concord. The subject noun, for example, can be omitted as in ‘It is worked while still fresh’ (i.e. ‘Make hay while the sun shines’), where the concord makes clear that ‘it’ refers to ‘clay’ (Doke 1947: 106). Economy of wording is also often achieved through elision: not only are whole words left out (often for the sake of rhythm) but vowels are frequently elided, especially the final vowel of a word (Nyembezi 1954: 13). The terse expression grammatically possible in Bantu can be illustrated from a Tswana proverb, ‘Young birds will always open their mouths, even to those who come to kill them’, which in the original is only three words (Werner 1917: 184). Furthermore, proverbs are often quoted in abbreviated forms; in Bantu languages these are almost always preferred to more drawn-out forms (Doke 1959: 150).

The actual wording may take the form of a simple positive or negative proposition, as in the Swahili ‘The goat-eater pays a cow’ (i.e. sow the wind and reap the whirlwind), or the Zulu ‘He has no chest’ (he can’t keep secrets), or of various types of simple rhythmic balanced propositions (e.g. the Lamba
munganda yacitala, ubwalwa wulasasa
, ‘In the house of wrangling, beer becomes bitter’, where there is exact balance in the two parts, each with three followed by four syllables). Double propositions in which the second portion is explanatory are also common, as in the Lamba ‘A male is a millipede, he is not driven away with one driving (only)’ (a man does not take a single refusal from a girl). Negative axioms also occur and are a particularly popular form in Xhosa and Zulu: ‘There is no elephant burdened with its own trunk’ (a comparison which occurs widely with various connotations, among them the idea that a mother does not feel her baby’s weight), ‘There is no partridge (that) scratches for another’ (everyone for himself), ‘There is no sun (which) sets without its affairs’ (every day has its own troubles). Contrast propositions are a particularly striking and economical form and may be presented in either of two ways: by a direct parallel between the two portions of the proverb, as in the Lamba ‘The body went, the heart did not go’ (
umuwili waya, umutima tawile
), or by cross parallelism (chiasmus), as in the Lamba proverb ‘One morsel of food does not break a company, what breaks a company is the mouth’ (
akalyo kamo takotowa—citenje, icitowe citenje kanwa
). Another common form is reduplication, with repeated words or syllables. This usually comes at the beginning, as in the Swahili ‘Hurry, hurry, has no blessing’ (
haraka, haraka, haina bar oka
) or the Ganda ‘Splutter, splutter isn’t fire’ (
bugu-bugu simuliro
) (examples from Doke 1947: 106–10).

Among the Bantu, as elsewhere, the use of quoted words attributed to some actual or fictional person is another device for giving point and sometimes authority to a proverbial saying, the form sometimes known as ‘wellerism’.
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This may be humorous as with the Ganda ‘“I’ll die for a big thing”, says the biting ant on the big toe’ (Doke 1947: 110), but is usually more serious. There are also miscellaneous patterns of fairly frequent occurrence such as the widespread ‘If … then …’ formula, the proverbs opening with ‘It is better’, particularly popular among the Thonga, the frequent Lamba form ‘As for you …’, the Zulu negative axioms opening ‘There is no …’ or ‘There is not …’, the Nyanja use of special diminutive prefixes
(
ka
- and
ti
) (Gray 1944: 102), and the ‘slang’ form in Tumbuka-Kamanga proverbs of
cha
-, referring to the typical behaviour of some animal or thing (Young 1931: 266). Another form that occurs occasionally is the rhetorical question, as in the Karanga ‘The swallower of old cows, is he choked with the bone of a calf?’ (a chief who settles big cases is not likely to be overcome by a small one) (Bisset 1933). Although not mentioned by Doke, a further formal element in the proverbs of certain peoples is that of tones (e.g. in Luba proverbs (Von Avermaet 1959: 3ff.) and rhyme, in parts of East Africa.
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The wording of Bantu proverbs seems to be relatively fixed in outline so that these general patterns are maintained, or recalled, in their various citations. Minor variations, however, not infrequently occur. A proverb may appear in the singular or plural, with various verb tenses, or in the first, second, or third persons.
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The forms also sometimes vary from place to place. Two sets of Ndebele proverbs, for instance, collected about a hundred miles from each other, differed slightly in form though they were clearly the ‘same’ proverbs (Benzies and Jackson 1924; Taylor and Jones 1925) and over wider areas there may be similar variations due to differences in dialect (Hulstaert 1958: 8). As mentioned already there are sometimes two forms, the full and the abbreviated, the second being the one normally cited. Sometimes the saying is cut down even further and merely referred to in one word, a phenomenon particularly common in one-word personal names. Thus among the Ovimbundu a woman may be called
Suknapanga
(‘God willed’) from the proverb ‘God willed; Death unwilled’ (
Suku wapanga; Kulunga wapangulula
), or
Mbunduimm
a proverb about customs differing: ‘The mist of the coast (is) the rain of the upland’ (
Ombundu yokombaka ombelayokona.n
) (Ennis 1945: 3). A similar tendency is noted among the Ganda, who often prefer to leave a proverb to be completed by the hearer: names are sometimes the first word of a proverb, and even the title of a book appears as just ‘
Atanayita’
(from the proverb
Atanayita atenda nyina okufumba—
‘The untravelled man praises his mother’s cooking’) (Snoxall 1942: 59; Nsimbi 1950: 204–5). Thus on any particular occasion the actual form of a proverb may vary according to whether it is abbreviated, merely referred to, or cast in one or other of various grammatical forms. But the basic patterns which mark Bantu proverbs tend
to recur and be recalled in their various citations.