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Lifelines: The Black Book of Proverbs, by Askhari Johnson Hodari, Yvonne McCalla Sobers
Free Ebook Lifelines: The Black Book of Proverbs, by Askhari Johnson Hodari, Yvonne McCalla Sobers
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This little book contains the wisdom of the ages, and is guaranteed to produce a smile of appreciation at the sheer sense of the proverbs you will find inside. From advice you wish your mother had given you, to things you probably suspected, but had never put into words, Lifelines is a book to be read, absorbed and treasured.—Pearl Cleage, New York Times best selling author of What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day
This illustrated treasury of proverbs unites the timeless wisdom of Black communities in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas, while speaking to the triumphs and challenges of everyday life.
Lifelines: The Black book of Proverbs travels to all corners of the globe to reclaim and preserve African wisdom. This book offers the remarkably wise heart of Africa and her children to readers experiencing career changes, new births, weddings, death, and other rites of passage. Readers will find truth in the African saying, “When the occasion arises, there is a proverb to suit it.”
Proverbs are presented in vibrant story-poem form; and are uniquely arranged by key life cycle events such as birth, initiation, marriage, and death. The proverbs can be found under themes such as “wealth”, “parenting”, “change” and “strength.” Inspired illustrations introduce each section along with beautiful vignettes showing how African proverbs comfort, inspire and instruct during different phases of life.
Lifelines illuminates how traditions, civilization and spirit survive and thrive, despite centuries of loss of freedom, family, identity, language, land, and wealth. The proverbs offer wisdom for every stage of our lives. Collected in one place as never before, it is the perfect addition to the book shelves of families large and small, from Nairobi to New Orleans and every city in between.
From Birth:
Every cackling hen was an egg at first.
-Rwanda
to Marriage:
A woman's clothes are the price her husband pays for peace.
-Central Africa, East Africa, and Southern Africa (Bantu)
and Elderhood:
Every time an old man dies it is as if a library has burnt down.
-West Africa
as well as every stage of life in between, the proverbs found in Lifelines offer the guidance and wisdom to last a life time.
Unlike other collections of proverbs, Lifelines hews closely to the cycle of life and draws inspiration from the authors combined 110 years of experience. Askhari Johnson Hodari and Yvonne McCalla Sobers have set out to let their proverbs both tell a story and stand alone. So whether you flip it open to a random page, read it through from start to finish, or go searching for a proverb to match your unique circumstance, you’ll find just the right lifeline to provide the comfort and guidance you’re looking for.
- Sales Rank: #349518 in Books
- Published on: 2009-11-10
- Released on: 2009-11-10
- Ingredients: Example Ingredients
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.80" h x .79" w x 5.26" l, .70 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 256 pages
Features
- ISBN13: 9780767931205
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Review
These black proverbs will make you laugh, nod in agreement, remember your grandparents’ wise sayings or simply mutter a heartfelt “amen.” Crammed with pithy advice, Lifelines sheds wisdom on just about every situation from childbirth to adultery to choosing friends. Hallelujah and pass the proverbs.–Betty DeRamus, author of Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories from the Underground Railroad and Freedom by Any Means: True Stories of Courage and Cunning on the Underground Railroad.
Lifelines is an indispensable gem to have wherever you are. But most importantly, it is the life-line our youths need to buffer their rough edges. What a marvelous gift the authors have compiled for us. Nuff Respect. –Opal Palmer Adisa, author of I Name Me Name
Lifelines is a rich and fascinating exploration into the vast well of African wisdom throughout the centuries. The authors have superbly culled and categorized an exquisite array of ancestral insight and knowledge. This book not only reflects Africa’s intellectual contribution to humanity, but it inspires and encourages self-reflection while educating one on history, geography, and social customs. Lifelines provides the necessary perspective and clarity we need in these complex times. - Tony Medina, author of I and I: Bob Marley
When I am attentive in my living, I learn....but to be given all these lessons of ancestral wisdom through Lifelines is a sacred honor. If I had any doubts as to where new inspiration and direction for my composing would be found, I can rest assured that it is within this brilliant gift. Asante sana.–Nitanju Bolade Casel, of Sweet Honey in the Rock
These are proverbs about life, not about race. Here are memorable truisms full of wit and wisdom. These are pithy proverbs anyone can understand and powerful proverbs everyone will be able to use.–Kalamu ya Salaam, New Orleans writer/educator
Lifelines cleverly and uniquely helps to motivate and inspire individuals from all walks of life to move beyond challenges and roadblocks to enjoy a wonderful and awesome life! The authors and creators are truly ingenious, very witty and most insightful.–Michele Wright, Ph.D., Author of Dear Success Seeker
About the Author
Yvonne McCalla Sobers
Yvonne McCalla Sobers is a Jamaican living in her home island where she received her university education. She added to her store of proverbs during the four years she lived among Ghanaians who spoke Ga, Ewe, Akan, and Hausa. She was frequently amazed to hear Ghanaians use proverbs that felt as culturally familiar as ackee and saltfish cooked in coconut oil over a wood fire in her grandmothers’ kitchens. She is author of Delicious Jamaica! Vegetarian Cuisine (Book Publishing Company) and is the mother of grown twin sons.
Askhari Johnson Hodari
Askhari Johnson Hodari, a practitioner of Black/Africana Studies regularly studies and travels the African diaspora. She has visited numerous countries in Africa, Central and South America and the Caribbean. Hodari received her B.A. from Spelman College, and her doctorate from Howard University. She is the author of The African Book of Names (Health Communications, Inc., February 2009).
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
i n t r o d u c t i o n
The tongue of Egyptian experience has the most truth. A lie runs in Cuba only until the truth overtakes it. The tree with the most leaves does not necessarily produce Brazil's juiciest fruit. It is before the drum that a Haitian learns the samba. If you dance with a crocodile in Guyana, you better plan what you're going to do when the dance is done.
As "daughters of experience," we share a passion for proverbs. Short, snappy sayings surround our lives. During our upbringings, we both learned that "a proverb is to speech what salt is to food" (Ethiopia). When Askhari misbehaved and believed she had gotten away with something, her grandma Addie always said All shut eye ain't sleep.
Grandma also reminded her not to be picky, but that she always had choices, by saying Any kind of water puts out a fire.
Askhari's great aunt Weezy, a proud but poor woman, used to sit in her rocking chair, cross her legs, and say Even a poor rat has at least one hole.
Askhari's mama, referring to her father's dark complexion, told her The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice. Askhari's mama frequently used that proverb to remind Askhari to feel beautiful and to strengthen her children's and students' self-esteem in a whitedominated society.
In Jamaica, Yvonne's mother, like Askhari's mama, warned against premarital sex by saying He won't buy the cow if the milk is free.
Yvonne's mother also warned her that disaster could follow the pleasure of the moment: Chicken merry, hawk near.
Miss Annie, Yvonne's grandmother, cautioned her, in particular, against creating problems where there were none before: Trouble don't set up like rain.
Yvonne's dad advised her always to take responsibility for solving her problems:
Who have raw meat must seek fire.
Some of these elders have passed on, but they left us both with words and wisdom collected over centuries. All over the planet, individual experiences have become part of a collective experience: "Proverbs are the daughters of experience" (Sierra Leone). These proverbs provide lifelines that we can grasp in trying to understand and appreciate our world.
Someone once described proverbs as "short sayings based on long experiences." Around the world, people use proverbs to express basic truths in memorable, commonsense form. These proverbs gain credibility through widespread, repeated use.
Adults often use proverbs to give children advice and instruct them on ethics and values. Many parents and grandparents, as well as many spiritual and community leaders, guide young people with messages. In that same way, people use proverbs to resolve arguments and to solve problems. One proverb even speaks to this point: "A wise man who knows proverbs reconciles difficulties" (Benin). In fact, since "one who applies proverbs gets what she wants" (Zimbabwe), people frequently use proverbs in discussions to add weight to or to support a particular position. Proverbs can also shed light on problems, from the personal to the global.
Proverbs reflect common human experiences as well as unique views of the world. Messages may be similar, but the wisdom of proverbs is often based on setting and experience. European proverbs often refer to oaks, ravens, geese, castles, kingdoms, porridge, and horses. Asian proverbs may speak of flutes, bamboo, roses, and rice. In contrast, African proverbs speak of drums, crocodiles, yams, and gourds.
African elders have kept alive centuries of experience by handing down proverbs by word of mouth. However, much of this wisdom seems in danger of being lost in a world driven more by technology than by collective experience. We intend to preserve African and Africentric proverbs.
Lifelines crosses Africa and travels with Africans to all corners of the globe. Readers will find more than two thousand proverbs from more than fifty countries, from about eighty ethnic or linguistic groups. We identify proverbs by country and/or ethnic or language group. The most popular, widely used proverbs are identified by region (West Africa, Caribbean) or continent.
In this collection, we include proverbs that we attribute, without question, to continental or diasporic Africans. We avoided proverbs associated with non-African cultures. Therefore, we excluded proverbs known to be associated with Afrikaans, British, French, or Portuguese settlers in Africa.
We favored proverbs with self-evident meanings that did not need elaboration. We preferred proverbs that seemed likely to offer "lifelines"—lines that can provide our readers with a handhold in the rough weather of life.
Early on, our then editor, Christian, said, "I am not interested in another collection of proverbs arranged alphabetically by theme." He suggested we arrange the proverbs by life cycle, so we began to look at the proverbs as they related to important life events. These life-cycle events are a part of the natural rhythm of Afridiasporic communities across the world. The proverbs in this book are therefore organized broadly by life cycle: Birth; Childhood; Adolescence,
Initiation, and Rites of Passage; Love, Marriage, and Intimacy; Challenge; Ethics and Values; Elderhood; and Death and Afterlife. Within the lifecycle categories, we grouped proverbs by theme. In the Love, Marriage, and Intimacy category, for example, there are proverbs grouped under the themes of friendship, women and men, sex, and home. We placed proverbs under themes based on our response to the content of a particular proverb. However, our themes are intended more as a guide to the reader than as a classification. We therefore wish readers to consider and reflect on the proverbs beyond the assigned categories and to form their own impressions of each proverb.
Yvonne introduces each section with vignettes that show how events in her own life led her to greater understanding of proverbs, or how proverbs led her to greater understanding of her life. We both speak and understand other languages and dialects, but English is the language we share. For this reason, we included only those proverbs available to us in English. We relied on European translations of African proverbs, so we acknowledge the possibility
of shifts in meaning and nuance in the translation process.
Several proverbs are offered in creole, pidgin, patois, and other forms of localized speech. In these cases, we chose to honor and appreciate the rhythm of the people to whom we attributed the selected proverb.
We used our best information to source proverbs and identify a specific ethnic or language group with which a proverb was associated. We sought to use names of countries and ethnic and language groups used or preferred by African peoples. For example:
• Côte d'Ivoire. "Ivory Coast" is often used in English, but the government prefers the French name, Côte d'Ivoire, to be used in all languages.
• Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The country was called the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 1964, renamed Zaire in
1971, and again renamed DRC in 1997.
• Igbo. The name of this ethnic group was misspelled "Ibo" by colonial powers.
• Agikuyu. The British colonialists introduced the spellings "Kikuyu" or "Gikuyu."
• Akan, Ashanti, Twi. Twi is a dialect of the Akan language—other Akan dialects include Fante and Akuapem-Twi. Ashanti is one of several geographical areas in which Twi is spoken.
• Mandinka. This term refers to the ethnic groups also known as the Malinke and Mandingo. In general, proverbs in this collection offer a broad, inclusive view of humanity. However, readers will come across proverbs that demean women and
proverbs that exclude women by using male-centered language. We have retained some offensive-sounding proverbs, as we consider them to represent an authentic aspect of African cultures, even though we personally (and politically) disagree with sexist language and concepts.
We are persons who love, live by, and learn from proverbs. We believe in the oral and written tradition of our ancestors. Most essentially, we are people who value, respect, and appreciate Africa and her children, wherever they may be. For a combined total of ten decades, we have been collecting proverbs, and we are pleased to be finally able to share the proverbs in written form.
We hope that you will want to keep Lifelines close by to remind yourself of sayings that you may have forgotten; confirm a moral creed you already knew by instinct; and find freedom in truths that may have been buried. "A proverb is the horse of conversation: when the conversation lags, a proverb revives it" (Niger). These proverbs may indeed provide a lifeline, something to grab hold of or refer to in times that require grounding and/or spiritual connection.
Here, in Lifelines, we share with readers the wise heart of the motherland and her children. The proverbs on these pages offer inspiration. Guidance. Wisdom. Passion. Inspiration. Strength. Truth.
"When the occasion arises, there is a proverb to suit it" (Rwanda, Burundi).
Please accept our invitation to Lifelines by turning the page.
Askhari Johnson Hodari
Birmingham, Alabama
August 2009
Yvonne McCalla Sobers
Kingston, Jamaica
August 2009
Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
A Gift Of A Book
By Tommy Fluker
This book is a reminder of how oral traditions have carried us through since the beginning of time. It teaches us how simple words of wisdom can shape us in our present, while providing us with the strength, courage, and peace to reach towards the future. The beauty and magic of this book is how the proverbs can literally jump off the pages and into your life, as if they were already there waiting to be unlocked from our ancient memories.
Thank you all for this work and we will keep this treasure in our family for generations to come. Peace and Many Blessings.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Inspirational, thought provoking gift
By Avid Reader
This little book is incredible. I keep a copy on my coffee table at home, on a small side table in my waiting area at work for patients to browse through and in my brief case to share with girls that I work with through a small non-profit agency I am committed to. I am consistently pleased with the provocative discussions I have with children about these proverbs and feel inspired when I come across one that resonates with me on any given day. I have purchased several of these and plan to give them as Christmas and Kwaanza gifts this year. This is a must have!!!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Perfect Gift
By Savannah Jones
A friend of mine gave me this book and I realized in the first 15 minutes of reading that it is a real gem. It's one of those books that belongs on your coffee table or bedside. The section on Childhood is one of my favorites along with Ethics and Values. Just makes the perfect gift for your book club companions, for a person who loves language or just have in the bathroom for short inspirational read. And, Archbishp Tutu's foreword is a blessed endorsement. Proverbs on everyday life...something for everyone.
See all 17 customer reviews...
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