EATING THE LOUSE AND ITS LARVA! THE INDIGNITY OF POVERTY AS EMBEDDED WITHIN SELECTED AFRICAN AND OLD TESTAMENT PROVERBS | Zendy

Madipoane Masenya | Zendy

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EATING THE LOUSE AND ITS LARVA! THE INDIGNITY OF POVERTY AS EMBEDDED WITHIN SELECTED AFRICAN AND OLD TESTAMENT PROVERBS

Author(s) -

Madipoane Masenya

Publication year - 2013

Publication title -

scriptura

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

eISSN - 2305-445X

pISSN - 0254-1807

DOI - 10.7833/111-1-27

Subject(s) - poverty , dignity , old testament , louse , flourishing , history , sociology , literature , art , political science , psychology , ecology , biology , law , social psychology

Go hloka le pudi ya leleme le letala, ie, to lack even a green-tongued goat, is an African idiom which reveals extreme poverty for one who lacks such a goat. Such a person “eats a louse and uses its larva as relish!” From the wisdom literature of African peoples, it becomes evident that even in pre-colonial Africa, poverty stared some in the eye. Similarly, some Old Testament scholars argue for a popular setting of the Book of Proverbs. Using the Marikana incident as a hermeneutical lens to show the indignity of poverty, I argue in this article that to be poor, is to be deprived of human dignity. Selected Northern Sotho/Pedi and Old Testament proverbs will also be used to show the indignity of living in poverty.

doi: 10.7833/111-1-27

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