Proverbs and the Ethnography of Speaking Folklore1

Abstract

L IKE other forms of folklore, proverbs may serve as impersonal vehicles for personal communication. A parent may well use a proverb to direct a child's action or thought, but by using a proverb, the parental imperative is externalized and removed somewhat from the individual parent. The guilt or responsibility for directing the child is projected on to the anonymous past, the anonymous folk. A child knows that the proverb used by the scolding parent was not made up by that parent. It is a proverb from the cultural past whose voice speaks truth in traditional terms. It is the One, the Elders, or the in They say, who direct. The parent is but the instrument through which the proverb speaks to the audience. The impersonal power of proverbs is perhaps most apparent in the well-known African judicial processes in which the participants argue with proverbs intended to serve as past precedents for present actions. In European courtrooms, of course, lawyers cite previous cases to support the validity of their arguments. In African legal ritual, an advocate of a cause uses proverbs for the same purpose. Here clearly it is not enough to know the proverbs; it is also necessary to be expert in applying them to new situations. The case usually will be won, not by the man who knows the most proverbs, but by the man who knows best how to apply the proverbs he knows to the problem at hand. The distinction just made is expressed succinctly in the remark of an Ibo youth, studying at the University of California at Berkeley, which we have quoted as an epigraph: know the proverbs, but I don't know how to apply them. He explained that his Western-oriented education in Nigeria had cut him off from the daily use of proverbs. Thus, while he did recall the texts of a great number of proverbs, he was not really certain as to precisely how and when they should be employed in particular situations.