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

• Madipoane Masenya Department of Biblical and Ancient Studies, University of South Africa

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7833/111-0-27

Keywords: Book of Proverbs, Northern Sotho/Pedi proverbs, Poverty, Marikana Mineworkers and Human Dignity

Abstract

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