Open AccessEATING 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 , ecology , psychology , 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