I've come across a Dictionary of Kashmiri Proverbs by the Rev. J. Hinton Knowles (Bombay: Education Society's Press, 1885). There I found our household friends used to illustrate all sorts of concerns in ways very different from my everyday life. Have a look.
If the cat grew wings, the water-fowl could not live in the lakes. -- That is, when a cunning tyrannical fellow is checked from doing much harm by sickness, poverty, or some such.
I am not so angry at the cat eating the ghee, as I am at her shaking her tail. -- It was not the loss I minded so much as the man's rudeness and impenitence.
The cat's moon. -- That is, such excitement that I could not sleep or do anything; cats were said to get more and more excited as the moon waxed, till their shrieks kept up the neighborhood.
I would sing but the cat has eaten my ghee. -- Circumstances are so that a person is afraid to speak or to act for himself.
You only get manure from hitting a dog. -- What is the good of a policeman beating a poor man? He will not get a bribe.
A village tiger and a city dog are equal. -- A stupid man from the city is equal to the great man of the village. (Hmm!?)
He has not even a 'bishtah' for the cat, nor a 'durah' for the dog -- so good is he! -- That is, he would not hurt a worm. Bishtah and durah are sounds for driving away cats and dogs respectively.
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6 comments:
Fascinating...insight into how other cultures view animals. Where do you FIND this stuff?
Unusual! Never heard of any of these proverbs before.
Hi Katnip Lounge - you ask how I find these things. I guess it's part of why I went into art history in the first place: the thought of all the ways people think and feel left behind, not just in art, but in writing and daily objects etc. Anyway, I just get a wild hare and I hit the Internet. This turned up on Google Books.
A village tiger and a city dog are equal
How sure are you of the explanation for that one? We would suspect something more along the lines of a 'big fish small pond' reference.
Hi Lee Co. Clowder -- well, that's what the book gave as its meaning. Maybe an inaccurate translation.
Khamaan gur te khamith gunne (The horse is panting and load is pretending to be panting)
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