The precious oil of words

Words in Africa have weight, there is strength in them: “They create and give you life”. Some words are solid as the yam (roots) and as sweet as kola (nuts), especially those spoken by the ancestors, who have handed them down to their descendants for them… to eat. And to make them tastier, they have flavoured them with the oil of proverbs. The proverbs are like the oil with which we eat the words (Igbo). Nothing reveals a people’s spirit more than their proverbs. Proverbs are a mine of wisdom from which we can learn or reaffirm certain valuable realities such as peace, harmony, love for life, respect for the person and for property. In the olden days, in the village, an improper behavior would be made known and denounced in ways that makes it easy to identify and correct the wrongs; tensions were released. Today with urbanization and anonymity that goes with it, this disciplinary exercise is left somehow to everybody and to nobody.

Poor proverbs! For centuries they have been commented in earnest and we kept repeating them. Now they are forgotten, made fun of, considered dim and childish, repetitive and boring. The time is gone when, to stop a heated discussion and shut the adversary’s mouth, it was enough to utter a solid of truth of old times. This is true also for Africa, though only in part. In the sense that it is true that the tradition griot (the sub-Saharan African street singers) are diminishing: the role is that of singing stories that recall and transmit the moral and social values intrinsic to their socio-cultural system; traditionally their roles was especially that of musically entertaining the royal family and on occasion also acting as mediators and court counselors. Yet the public means of transport, t-shirt, casual clothing, songs, are loudly flaunting sententious expressions. They give flavor to the speech or they can induce interest in important and practical problems. It is no longer necessary to be an outstanding person in the community to proclaim a slogan with authority. Today everybody can do it. It is enough to have a microphone of a brush and a little paint.

The expects explain that, if the proverbs still survive the erosion of time and the current cultural evolution, it is because in cultures that are still basically oral  they can offer irreplaceable elements able to give an insight into the reality in which we live, and especially in the human heart. Proverbs are an enormous deposit from which to draw enlightenment and confirmation on every relevant values of today, such as peace, social harmony, love of life, respect of the person and the property. We all witness what is happening, more than in the past, especially gross violations of the social order. At the village, acts of improper behavior were told often as story and conveyed with a corrective approach that gave to the culprits the opportunity to admit their faults and make amends. Tensions were released. With urbanization and the anonymity that comes from it, this correction exercise is left to everybody and nobody. It has been written by researchers that in many societies an “ethno-implosion” is in progress, a social fragmentation, caused by disastrous social conditions, wars, people’s displacements. This has repercussions on the transmission of knowledge. In so languages, to say a proverb meant to tell the truth. Today this is far more difficult to prove.

In the Haussa language, proverbs are called Karin Magana, which literally means “wrapped words”. Those who knows how to tell them, are as if they open a little jewel box which contains the wisdom that throws a new light on events and moods. This without being an oracle that claims to have the last word. In his book the science of being concrete, Claude Levi-Strauss asserts that the so called traditional culture is tied to verifiable data and not an academic and totally an changeable approach. And the Malawian Catholic bishop Patrick Kalilombo wrote: “Proverbs are a mirror in which a community can look at itself and reveal itself to the others. They highlight the values, the aspirations, the worries, the behavior of people and the angle from which they see and appreciate their reality, and their response. In the proverbs we see what we call mentality or living habits at their utmost.” Reading or listening to them, we become more and more that not only African wisdom is rich and profound, but that it is possible to collect and group it into great themes, highlighting the common points (and also the differences) with other cultures.

Many proverbs spring from an identical perception of reality, even through different images. For example: The farmer who has never left his field thinks that his farming system is the best (Haussa). – He who has never left his village believes that no one can prepare porridge than his mother (Ewé). The proverb is the way of looking at things. It is the only way, but it has the merit of indicating a direction: One way only is no way (Malinké). It offers no final solutions, it does not depend on technology. Technology has no soul, ignores culture, and claim total independence from values such as ethics, religion, art, poetry, tenderness, compassion, suffering and joy. The science behind this technology is blind. It doesn’t read the world, it strips it and, in the face of it’s nudity, if paralyzed by it’s blindness and gives in to concupiscence.

THE COBWEB

The use of proverb is still very popular to stress the importance of education and the family. Educating a child is the responsibility of the whole village, says a igbo and Yoruba proverb. In 1996, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the USA former president’s wife, published a book entitled It takes a village, inspired by this proverb, on the values of the family and necessity of educating children. God has given a child but he will not educate him in your stead, asserts a Rundi saying, to remind parents that bringing into the world human is only the beginning. The education of an honest person begins when he/she still wears a little rag (Lari); Education is more important than birth (Rundi). If later the son goes astray the shame falls on the parents: A child playing with mud will make the parents’ skin glow grey (Mongo). Family ties, the necessity of co-operation and co-responsibility for all those who share the same blood, are constantly repeated. The spider moves only inside it’s web (Songo): in life, one can only rely on one’s family, generally a large one. A buffalo does not abandon the swamp where it was born (Nbaka); A fish is strong only in water (Tonga); Men’s steps always lead him towards the roof of his house (Fon); The monkey said: “Your spouse must be from your clan” (Ewé)… These are proverbs often quoted especially to denounce certain trends that seems to move away from inherited ideals or to answer critics on traditional bonds today considered absurd.

Infinite are the debates that testify to the change that are in progress and which often become prime material for stage productions, where the inherited wisdom is no longer indisputable and from which emerges the refusal of the old schemes of authoritarian structure and leadership in the community. Paulin Manwelo, a Congolese Jesuit, recently wrote: “We are tired of the theories and the monotonous, nostalgic, and generally pessimistic talks of our ancestors…We wonder why African political leaders excel in selfishness, greed and in the “stomach politics” more than any other political leaders of the world. The traditional family, seen as a whole, may turn into a trap: anyone who wants to emerge is a prisoner of the clan or tribe, to the extent that no one, becomes rich or dominant alone: either we are rich together, or we aren’t at all”.

IF A LEADER IS A PARANIOC

After a football match, a TV commentator encourages the losing team’s trainer not to lose heart, not to give up: “The elephant never abandons his tusks on the road, however heavy they may be.” On radio or TV, a death announcement begins like this: “When one is born, he is already old enough to die.” Or: “death is like an eagle that snatches away a chick and leaves its mother in tears.” Or again: “Death is like a dress all must wear”. Politicians are very clever in their sagacity, and not only in Africa. In answering press insinuations that her husband was available for a third term presidency, Bernadette Chirac, the French leader’s wife, quoted a Chinese proverb: “Those who know don’t speak, those who speak don’t know.” In the days of Houphouet-Boigny, in the Ivory Coast, people were saying: “A thief with a full stomach is better than a hungry thief.” In Guinea, a country that has known only two “strong men” since 1958 (Sekou Toure and Lansana Conte), people say: “A well fed old lion is better than a hungry young one, that is”: a known dictator is better than an unknown one.

In august 2003, ex-president Charles Taylor, leaving Liberia by him depleted in fourteen chaotic years, said: “I leave you with these farewell words: “God willing, I shall return” and added a number of biblical quotations and African proverbs. Sheik Yassine, Hamas group’s spiritual leader, was murdered in 2004. An Algerian website kept giving the news with a proverbial saying: Blood begets blood. When a televised round table was held in Kinshasa, attended by several political leaders, on the theme: “What kind of leader does our country need?” The moderator opened the meeting quoting from the biblical book of Proverbs, 28:2: If a land is rebellious, it princes will be many: but with a prudent man it knows security. An opposition party candidate also forcefully quoted another biblical proverb: The less prudent the prince, the more his deeds oppress. He who hates ill-gotten gain prolongs his days. An interviewed minor opposition party leader, asserted: However long the night, in the end the sun will rise. Let people not lose hope: they will win. Do we hear rumours of a plot to assassinate the current president Kabila? A Kinshasa daily, after his father Desiré’s murder, reminds him to be on the alert: If you are not dead yet, don’t be too sure to be buried with the same head you have. A business director rewards a worker who retires? A pygmy’s shadow is greater with the setting sun, the radio speaker comments, meaning that the worker’s merits are recognized only afterwards.

Belgian Foreign Minister Karel de Gouch had some harsh critical words towards the Kinshasa government. His Congolese counterpart retorted: “At this time my government has other more important things to attend to than answering the Belgian minister’s reveries. We are attentive not to make the same mistakes. African wisdom crazy fellow steals your clothes, if you run after him naked, you too run the risk to be taken as insane “. Newspapers- as much as tradition- are lavish in eulogies and counsels to the men in power: A keeper of a drove of toads must go easy with the use of the stick (Kongo). In short, people do not walk with regular steps or together and in the same direction; they are vulnerable creatures and if their leaders get worked up and start brandishing the stick violently, they may end up crushing somebody. It is the king who plants the tree, it is the king who uproots it (Tigrigna); Two chiefs never sail in the same boat, or who would throw out the water? (Ewe). Opportunism is discouraged: If the chief is limping, his subjects limp with him (Bantu).

 In the year 2000, the Congolese writer Nobert Mbu Mputu published a short novel, Dead town, and obviously it began with two local proverbs: It’s the bones that hold the bones, and A dog that lives on the bank of a brook never tires of lapping the water. Today, against a despotic ruler, a new proverb has been coined: Dictatorship always has the last word: accept it and you’ll survive. Citizens have no alternative except folding their arms: shopkeepers, teachers, doctors, taxi-drivers…, all must stay put for twenty-four hours. The dictator’s arrest by the police must be watched with an easy attitude, especially bystanders who wonder what is happening: Laughing is a precious commodity. To stop laughing is the worst prison. Also because, writes the same author, ”the state has only one aim: to devise slogans to fill our stomach”.

LAUGH AT YOURSELF

In the song “Bana Lunda”, the Congolese music star J-B Mpiana describes the pains of Congolese emigrant to Angola in search of diamonds. He makes a list of ill-treatments he received and states that he too is a human being; “A star is always a star; a lamp is always a lamp”. In Moussoukou Soukou, Antoine Koffi Olomide sings: ”We are all children of God, we are all sinners, rich and poor: let’s make love, not war”. Pepe Kalle, another Congolese music star sang: “Money brings no happiness, God only knows”. Joseph Andjou, an I-Afrique TV newscaster, in 2003 published a collection of proverbs, the same ones he presents and comments on TV. “Too many depressing things are said about Africa, Reflect smiling: “If somebody fakes his death he must also have imaginary burial. He who looks for honey, Must have courage to face the bees. Even the fish which lives in water is always thirsty”. Burkinabe comedian Hippolite OPuangrawa, better known as Ba Bouanga delights his spectators with his wisecracks in mossi, borrowed mat, is sleeping on a cold, very cold ground, Your bear a child and take care of you when yours fall out…

 Zamenga  Batukezanga, a most popular Congolese storyteller, wrote: “As a broom cleans a dirty house whenever it is needed, literature cleanses an ailing spirit. The proverbs, the maxims, the songs, the dance all move around humanity and honesty. A tale without proverbs and songs is a drill without sheen nor taste” He also added: “curiously enough, television is bringing back the whole planet to that oral interest that Africa is abandoning. In his For a white hair, he describe the dispute between men and women near a coffin. The elder’ chief calls for calm, recalling the saying: when the woman revolts, for the better or the worse, the village changes. They agree with the old master. But before the sick man passes away, somebody advises the woman to consult a soothsayer, prompted by the wise dictum: When you hunt for your lost knife, look first under the bed, you never know.

Don’t Be A Fool 

In the last two decades, many studies have been made on African mentality compared with the biblical thinking. Recently the Global Mapping International has produced a CD with over 27,000 sub-Saharan African proverbs, together with a research on the relationship between these and the biblical proverbs. The traditional wisdom of Israel, amply spread out in the Old Testament, has many points of contact with the African tradition. For instance, a woman is seen in her relation to man, as a wife and mother, doing her utmost to make him comfortable. The cultural context offer several analogies and finalities: such as the relationship between parents and children, the man and the woman, the idle and the active, the rich and the poor, life and death.

Both the biblical and the African knowledge were born in cultures where the spoken word was dominant. The Bible had been transmitted by word of mouth from generation to generation before it was written: “I will open my mouth in stories, drawing lessons of old. – We have heard them, we know them; our ancestors have recited them to us – We do not keep them from our children, we recite  them to the next generation”. The closeness lies also in the fact that wisdom we find in both the biblical and the African proverbs has the same intent: to encourage man to live his humanity and create harmony in the group one belongs to. The final aim is obviously: to guarantee a happy life. However, in time, Israel was able to deepen its reflection on God and man through a revelation that was not to be found in the popular African culture, especially with the awareness that human wisdom has limits and cannot warrant happiness. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov. 1:7) “Behold, the fear of the Lord is wisdom” (Job 28:28).

Here are some biblical and African proverbs in their affinity:

• The indolent man says that there are no locusts, even though they are sleeping in his yard (Lovedu)
• The idle man says: “There is a lion out there; if I go out I may be killed in the street” (Prov. 22:13).
• Wealth is a door to honour (Fon). He who is rich, is respected (Oromo).
• Even by his neighbor the poor man is hated, but the friends of the rich are many (Pro. 14:20).
• Stolen things are so sweet (Acholi)
• Stolen water is sweet, and bread gotten secretly is pleasing! (Prov. 9:17)
• Kind words are good, bad ones are poison (Madagascan)
• It the lips of the liar that conceal hostility; but he who spreads accusation is a fool (Prov. 10:18)
• A person alone is like light porridge, two or three together are like a hard chunk (Kuria)
• Better two than one alone… A three strand rope hardly breaks (Prov. 4,9a 12b)
• When an enemy digs a grave for you, God prepares a safety exit (Rundi)
• Thus says the Lord: those who hope in me shall never be disappointed (Is. 49:23)
• Where the heart is, the feet hasten to go (Ewé)
• I sought may love but did not find him. I will rise and go about the city: in the streets and crossings I will seek him whom my heart loves (Song of Songs 3:1-2)
• He who seeks his neighbor to kill him, smashes his face on the ground (Igbo)
• He who digs a pit falls into it; and a stone comes back upon him who rolls it (Prov. 26:27)
• A gentle word sends the sword back into the scabbard (Igbo)

A mild answer calms wrath (Prov. 15:1a)