Selected Ika proverbs: their aesthetics and contexts of usage

Education, Summer, 2007 by Canon Benji Egede

   in proverb speech, the speaker promotes the perception of the
   proverbs as an intrusion by a third person in a situation where a
   neutral authoritative source is needed, rather than the speaker
   himself, to articulate redeeming cultural principles appropriate to
   the situation at hand (26).

It is the neutral essence associated with proverbs that tends to set them apart as a communal property and that awareness helps to explain why they command some popularity among traditional communicators. However, it is not in all cases that proverbs use the third person point of view. In Kofi Awoonor's Night of my Blood, for instance, we have: "I was there when we pledged to the ancestors/and swore the oath/That you do not thirst/when your palm trees are prospering" (45). Besides, some didactic and heuristic proverbs use the first person plural, especially those that teach morals, e.g. Yoruba proverbs that begin with A Kii ...

A Kii ra o oyi ko maa koni loju (meaning you do not buy wind with money without experiencing a storm). Even though they may not have been used for analysis in this work, some Ika proverbs, like those of the Yoruba or the Ewe/Akan ethnic nationalities equally make use of the second person singular/plural. Their non-inclusion is not unconnected with the interface of time and space constraint.

CONCLUSION

The subject of proverbial communication has for long been a contentious one. In the past, especially, proverbial communication had been thought to belong exclusively to 'primary oral cultures', non-literate societies like traditional African societies where "thought is exquisitely elaborated, not in any analytic linearity, but in formulary fashion" (Ong, Literacy and Orality In Our Times", 11). The argument by such scholars was predicated on the notion that the mind cannot engage in analytical thought without writing. All those assumptions have been proved wrong. In the light of the examples of Ika proverbs which we have used for explication here, we can say that proverbial statements derive from analytical thought; they are not realizable "through rhapsodizing", as Walter Ong would put it. Rather, they are a reflection of the life force, the nuances and mannerisms of traditional speech. Ika proverbs are a mark of accomplished oratorical endowments. Skilled traditional African communicators including the Ika people, who conceive of the proverb as 'the horse of conversation' have, through their deft use of that art form, contributed towards the promotion of African orature.

For purposes of future record, these proverbs should be collected and stored for posterity by way of committing them into writing. In this way the proverbs, as documented, can become a rich reference point capable of furnishing ethnographical information on the Ika people in terms of "their way of life, their philosophy, their criticism of life, moral truth and social values" (Akparobaro, 2004:78).

Against the background that proverbial usage in any society forms a part and parcel of the moral code of that society, there is the need for everyone involved in proverbial communication to be discreet in guarding against what has been described as its 'misapplication' by unfamiliar hands. In the words of Sam Ukala, in "Performance of the Ika Folktale: The Aesthetic Enactment and Propagation of Ika Folk-law",