The online version of Chinua Achebe’s 1964 novel, Arrow of God, has an appendix at the end listing ‘sayings of wisdom’ from the text, things which I think we Brits would call ‘proverbs’. I quickly realised the list is surprisingly incomplete so I added ones I spotted myself, more than doubling its length.
It’s interesting that many sayings occur more than once in the novel (and also appear in its two predecessors), adding to the sense that they were not the rarities that proverbs are in our contemporary British discourse but to a much greater extent made up the warp and woof of everyday conversation among the Igbo people. On many pages more than one saying occurs, particularly in the context of meetings and conversations. Here they are, arranged in loose alphabetical order:
A bad moon does not leave anyone in doubt.
A fowl does not eat into the belly of a goat.
A man is like a funeral ram which must take whatever beating comes to it without opening its mouth; only the silent tremor of pain down its body tells of its suffering.
A man must dance the dance prevalent in his time.
A man should hold his compound together, not plant dissension among his children.
A man who asks questions does not lose his way.
A man who brings home ant-infested faggots should not complain if he is visited by lizards. (chapters 6, 12 and 13)
A man who does not know where rain started to beat him cannot know where he dried his body.
A man who has nowhere else to put his hand for support puts it on his own knee.
A man of sense does not go on hunting little bush rodents when his age mates are after big game.
A man who visits a craftsman at work finds a sullen host.
A man who would swallow an udala seed should consider the size of his anus.
A snake is never as long as the stick to which we liken its length.
A toad does not run in the daytime unless something is after it. (chapters 2, 12 and 18)
A woman cannot place more than the length of her leg on her husband.
An adult does not sit and watch while the she-goat suffers the pain of childbirth tied to a post.
An ill-fated man drinks water and it catches in his teeth.
A traveller to distant places should make no enemies.
Every lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a bellyache.
Every offence has its sacrifice, from a few cowries to a cow or a human being.
He felt entitled to praise himself if nobody else did – like the lizard who fell down from the high iroko tree without breaking any bone and said that if nobody else thought highly of the feat he himself did.
He pleaded with him but his ear was nailed up.
He whose name is called again and again by those trying in vain to catch a wild bull has something he alone can do to bulls.
How do you carry a man with a broken waist?
Hunger is better than sickness.
‘I am like the bird Eneke-nti-oba. When his friends asked him why he was always on the wing he replied: “Men of today have learnt to shoot without missing and so I have learnt to fly without perching.”’
‘I am the tortoise who was trapped in a pit of excrement for two whole markets; but when helpers came to haul him out on the eighth day he cried: “Quick, quick! I cannot stand the stench.”‘
‘I prefer to deal with a man who throws up a stone and puts his head to receive it not one who shouts for a fight but when it comes he trembles and passes premature shit.’
‘I shall sit here until I have seen the head and the tail of this matter.’
I prefer to deal with a man who throws up a stone and puts his head to receive it, not one who shouts for a fight but when it comes he trembles and passes premature shit.
If a man sought for a companion who acted entirely like himself he would live in solitude.
If the rat can not run fast enough, it should make way for the tortoise. (chapters 12, 14 and 19)
If one finger brings oil, it messes up the others.
If you thank a man for what he has done, he will have strength to do more.
Let us first chase away the wild cat, afterwards we blame the hen.
Only those who carry evil medicine on their body should fear the rain.
Umuaro had grown wise and strong in its own conceit and had become like the little bird, nza, who ate and drank and challenged his personal god to a single combat.
Make them see their ears with their own eyes.
No man speaks a lie to his son.
No matter how strong or great a man is he should never challenge his chi.
No matter how many spirits plot a man’s death it will come to nothing unless his personal god takes a hand in the deliberation.
The evil charm brought in at the end of a pole is not too difficult to take outside again.
The fly that perches on a mound of dung may strut around as long as it likes, it cannot move the mound.
The fly that has no one to advise him follows the corpse into the ground.
The language of young men is always pull down and destroy; but an old man speaks of conciliation.
The little bird which hops off the ground and lands on an anthill may not know it but is still on the ground.
The ikolo was not beaten out of season except in a great emergency – when, as the saying was, an animal more powerful than nte was caught by nte’s trap.
The noise of even the loudest events must begin to die down by the second market week.
The person who sets a child to catch a shrew should also find him water to wash the odour from his hand.
There are more ways than one of killing a dog.
Things are always like that. Our eye sees something; we take a stone and aim at it. But the stone rarely succeeds like the eye in hitting the mark.
The unexpected beats even a man of valour.
Today there are too many wise people; and it is not good wisdom they have but the kind that blackens the nose.
Unless the wind blows we do not see the fowl’s rump.
Unless the penis dies young it will surely eat bearded meat.
In all great compounds there must be people of all minds – some good, some bad, some fearless and some cowardly; those who bring in wealth and those who scatter it, those who give good advice and those who only speak the words of palm wine. That is why we say that, whatever tune you play in the compound of a great man there is always someone to dance to it.
We are like the puppy in the proverb which attempted to answer two calls at once and broke its jaw.
What man would send his son with a potsherd to bring fire from a neighbour’s hut and then unleash rain on him?
When a father calls his children together he should not worry about placing palm wine before them. [I.e. formalities need not be observed between kin or close friends]
When a masked spirit visits you you have to appease its footprints with presents.
When a man sees a snake all by himself he may wonder whether it is an ordinary snake or the untouchable python.
When death wants to take a little dog it prevents it from smelling even excrement.
When hunting day comes we shall hunt in the backyard of the grass-cutter.
When mother-cow is cropping giant grass her calves watch her mouth.
When two brothers fight, a stranger reaps their harvest.
When brothers fight to the death, a stranger inherits their father’s estate.
When the roof and walls of a house fall in, the ceiling is not left standing.
Who ever sent his son up the palm to gather nuts and then took an axe and felled the tree?
Why should a man be in a hurry to lick his fingers; was he going to put them away in the rafter?
Why should anyone worry about an old man whose eyes have spent all their sleep?
You tied the knot, you should also know how to undo it.
You passed the shit that is smelling; you should carry it away.
At the end of the novel there is an explosion of proverbs as Obika adopts the persona of the ogbazulobodo in the funeral rites of Ogbuefi Amalu and runs around declaiming a non-stop stream of wise sayings:
“Darkness is so great it gives horns to a dog. He who built a homestead before another can boast more broken pots. It is ofo that gives rain-water power to cut dry earth. The man who walks ahead of his fellows spots spirits on the way. Bat said he knew his ugliness and chose to fly by night. When the air is fouled by a man on top of a palm tree the fly is confused. An ill-fated man drinks water and it catches in his teeth…
“Even while people are still talking about the man Rat bit to death Lizard takes money to have his teeth filed. He who sees an old hag squatting should leave her alone; who knows how she breathes? White Ant chews igbegulu because it is lying on the ground; let him climb the palm tree and chew. He who will swallow udala seeds must consider the size of his anus…
“When a handshake passes the elbow it becomes another thing. The sleep that lasts from one market day to another has become death. The man who likes the meat of the funeral ram, why does he recover when sickness visits him? The mighty tree falls and the little birds scatter in the bush…
“A common snake which a man sees all alone may become a python in his eyes… The very thing which kills Mother Rat is always there to make sure that its young ones never open their eyes…The boy who persists in asking what happened to his father before he has enough strength to avenge him is asking for his father’s fate…The man who belittles the sickness which Monkey has suffered should ask to see the eyes which his nurse got from blowing the sick fire…”
Credit
Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe was published in by Heinemann Books in 1964. References are to the 2010 Everyman’s Library edition.
Related link
Chinua Achebe reviews
- Things Fall Apart (1958)
- No Longer at Ease (1960)
- Arrow of God (1964)
- Arrow of God: Sayings of Wisdom
- A Man of the People (1966)
- The Trouble with Nigeria (1983)
- Anthills of the Savannah (1987)
Books & Boots 