Postproverbials in Yoruba Culture: A Playful Blasphemy

Abstract

In the study of oral literature in Africa, the collection (and analysis) of Yoruba proverbs has attracted so much attention that it would be painfully repetitive for a paroemiographer to begin to make belated speculation on the meaning and function of a proverb. There is virtually no substantial controversy about the value of proverbs in culture, and the significance of proverbs in Yoruba traditional societies as repository and verbal effulgence of wisdom is indeed proverbial. They are "culture markers" in the sense that they tell us, in rather brief and intense terms, so much about the history and psychology of the peoples and communities from which they emanate.