Tradition in motion Throughout the region, proverbs provide a highly condensed, often poetic window on human experience and on local understandings of the world. African proverbs are in fact a finely-wrought form of expression where meanings are tightly interleaved, creating associations between apparently disparate realms of experience that throw new light on events and order perception. They can be as spare and evocative as an Emily Dickenson poem, and as central to establishing shared understandings of collective phenomena as any political assembly. African proverbs are both new and old. They scarcely constitute a fixed canon of wisdom, New ones are being invented all the time and old ones are falling into disuse, a constant process of what linguists would call lexical creativity.
Proverbs are more like a language of thought.
But they afford a capital means for linking current concerns with the historical experience of the group and helping to ensure continuity and coherence in the value systems and motivations that underlie new initiatives. To imagine that there was no accountability for resources at the local level prior to the intervention of official development programs is like presuming that no one learned anything before formal schools were established or that agriculture was nonexistent prior to the arrival of the extension agent. In short, certain things may seem incomprehensible to the outside observer, but insofar as they concern people s essential health and welfare, you can be sure that those involved worked out solutions to their at least interim satisfaction long ago. Flash back to an evaluation of functional literacy in the Republic of Mali over two decades ago. In truth, there can be all kinds of nourishment on the table at a feast, but unless and until it gets down to the ground the dog has no part in it.