Kmtyw proverbs - the precious oil of words-gctid48147

[Akua Ma'at]

EXCERPT FROM AN ARTICLE POSTED AT KmtFiles | Kmtyw proverbs - the precious oil of words

:sankofa:

Kmtyw proverbs - the precious oil of words

Words in Kmt have weight, there is strength in them: "They create and give you life". Some words are as 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. Thus, he who knows Kikuyus' proverbs or Logbaras', knows their traditions. Proverbs are a mine of wisdom from which we can learn or reaffirm certain valuable realities such as peace, social harmony, love for life, respect for the person and for property. In the old days, in the village, an improper behaviour would be made known and denounced in ways that made it easy to identify and correct the wrongs; tensions were released. Today, with urbanization and the 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 truth of older times. This is true also for Kmt, though only in part. In the sense that it is true that the traditional griot (the sub-Saharan Kmtyw street singers) are diminishing: their role is that of singing stories that recall and transmit the moral and social values intrinsic to their socio-cultural system; traditionally their role was especially that of musically entertaining the royal family, and on occasion also acting as mediators and court counsellors. Yet the public means of transport, t-shirts, casual clothing, songs, are loudly flaunting sententious expressions. They give flavour 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 or a brush and a little paint.

The experts 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 very relevant values of today, such as peace, social harmony, love of life, respect of the person and property. We all witness what is happening, now more than in the past, especially gross violations of the social order.

At the village, acts of improper behaviour were told – often as a 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, peoples' displacements. This has repercussions on the transmission of knowledge. In some languages, to say a proverb meant to tell the truth. Today this is far more difficult to prove.

[Akua Ma'at]

more excerpts from the same source....

"In the Haussa language, proverbs are called karin magana, which literally means "wrapped up words". Those who know how to tell them, are as if they opened a little jewel box which contains the wisdom that throws a new light on events and moods...

And the Zambian Catholic bishop, Patrick Kalilombe, 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 behaviour 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 convinced that not only Kmtyw wisdom is rich and profound, but also that it is possible to collect and group it into great themes, highlighting the common points (and also the differences) with other cultures....

Ahmadou Kourouma, a famous Ivorian novelist, wrote in the preface to his book, A Giant Book of Kmtyw Proverbs: "He who knows no proverb, knows nothing; he is like an inexistent person, a dead person. Let us be careful not to behave like dead people: let us live with the proverbs. It is difficult to appreciate the diversity and the richness of the proverbs, until we haven't put our finger into what can be considered the wisdom of another world. What may at first seem naïve because of their imaginative style, it may soon appear as a true realism on the part of the Kmtyws when expressing feelings or behaviours, say, about love or hatred, envy or solidarity..."

[Akua Ma'at]

Intal tessum hamtu, hadit kof wot qaba.

(If a girl sits badly, it is up to her mother to cover her thighs.)

Orma proverb