Proverbia

The accumulated wisdom of the tribe comes down to us in many forms.  I am partial to proverbs, particularly in translation, which afford both sage advise and humorous incongruity in equal measure.  Africa in particular has a great wealth of proverbial lore:

The Ashanti caution that "it is the calm and silent water that drowns a man" and "when the cock is drunk he forgets about the hawk." 

In Congo "those who are absent are always wrong", which has a corollary in our own "if you don't vote, you can't bitch."

In Senegal "an intelligent enemy is better than a stupid friend", which I swear I heard Connecticut Republicans saying about Joe Lieberman.  In Ghana they say "the chicken is never declared in the court of hawks."

In Namibia I learned  "when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers."  I also heard a proverb in the making, when a friend teaching in the Peace Corps who was trying to grow out his facial hair was told by a female colleague that "a kiss without a beard is like an egg without salt."  As one who has not seen his upper lip since graduating from high school and is getting increasingly long in the tooth, I heartily support the propagation of this profound understanding of the desirability of the older man.

There are many more African proverbs here.  For a more scholarly exploration of meaning and context, The African proverb of the Month and also of the week are good resources.

Comments

[GreenmanTim]

Nice one, Clyde. Ow! Sorry, dear, don't know what came over me!

[Clyde]

I myself am partial to an old Norse proverb: "Praise no day until ended, no beer until drunk, no wife until buried." Naturally, this one wasn't particularly popular with the lady Vikings...