Black Proverb of the Month

Black Proverb of the Month
April, 2013

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 Until the lion has his or her own storyteller, the hunter will always have the best part of the story.  

Background, Explanation, Meaning and Everyday Use

The above proverb, which exists in different forms in many parts of the Africa, describes the unknown realities in the forest when a lion and a hunter come face to face. In the proverb the lion, considered to be the king of the jungle and the most powerful animal, symbolizes all the animals. NOTE: Variants are: Until lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter. Until lions start writing down their own stories, the hunters will always be the heroes.     

Hunters are powerful and respected personalities in their communities. They are believed to have some supernatural powers. They often have great stories to tell that emphasize their achievements and their hunting skills. People often praise them and celebrate their exploits. This is especially true when they come home with big animals like an elephant or a lion.

Even though people celebrate their stories, they are also aware that they will never know all that goes on in the forest. When a hunter brings home a lion (or any animal) it may very well be due to the hunter's skills, but it may as well be due to pure luck. The lion might have been sleeping or injured. No matter in what circumstances the lion is killed, a hunter will always tell a story that makes the hunter shine. Is the hunter telling the true story or just bragging? No one will ever know.

This Proverb refers to this unknown part of the struggle between the lion and the hunter because we know well that a story is never complete until one hears from all three sides. The one who does not have the voice is often the loser. This loser might well be the lion to the hunter. It is in these circumstances when one voice dominates the other that this proverb is often heard.

Biblical Parallels

The best biblical text that comes into mind is the Exodus Story, particularly Exodus 3: 9-16. By having their own storyteller, Moses, they developed a new perspective on their realities. Until then their story was told by the Egyptians who referred to them as slaves. They were aliens in a foreign land and as such they had to undergo many hardships. They were nothing but what their oppressors wanted them to be, and they had nothing apart from what was been given to them by their masters. Being a dominated majority in a slaveholding culture, Moses and this people could not have any other worldview than the one created by its oppressor in order to keep them oppressed. To free themselves from such bondage, the Moses and this people had the courage and the genius to retell their story from their own perspective. In so doing they rejected their received identity and gave themselves a new one.

First of all they ceased to see themselves as a slave which was an accepted practice in their imposed worldview. Now they perceived themselves as oppressed person which was a new concept in describing the same reality. Second, they refused to consider themselves as an inferior class. Now they were the chosen people. They moved from being at the bottom of the Egyptian social classification to being a unique people set apart by God.

Neither the reality of slavery nor the fact of being strangers had changed. What changed was their way of telling the story, of describing their reality. They entered into a new cosmology with a new set of values and a new perception of themselves. Through their belief in a God who was liberator, they would come to free themselves from the Egyptian bondage.

Contemporary Use and Religious Application

What does this mean for us Blacks today? We Blacks often take history as it has been narrated to us and do little questioning. But, as the proverb tells us, unless we have our own story-teller, the oppressors will always have the best part of the story. To free ourselves from oppression, we must tell our history from our own viewpoint. The current history has been told and written from the dominating class's perspective-white and black oppressors alike-in such a way that the victims' voices are silenced. Our duty is to tell the Black story in the way that does justice to our sufferings and our struggles.

Let us take an example of how history is told from the perspective of the winners. When the Europeans came to America they called themselves colonizers and conquerors. Now they are considered to be foundering fathers, and citizens.   

But when Africans were stolen to the United States they are referred to as black cargo. How will we tell the same story?

Telling our own story also implies that we must reject the discriminatory and oppressive expressions used to describe us. We must invent a new language to talk about ourselves. Indeed, the way we choose to name our experience affects the way we look at the world. This is especially true for us Africans (black stolen cargo). The way we came to perceive ourselves since our contact with the West has drastically changed the way we look at reality. For instance, the way we see ourselves today as Black, Negro, Coloured, Afro-American, African American, People of Colour, and Black American was absent in Africa a centuries ago. As we have all these attributes, we are expected to behave in a certain way, and we must come to think about ourselves in ways of power and love. Our worldview is defined by these attributes. We must accept a way of portraying ourselves, and not by the dominant culture, because, this is not sufficient. We must also create our own terminology to talk about ourselves.

Hence just like Moses and this people refused not to move the landmarks of old and to tell their story of slavery and called it oppression, we too must retell the history of slavery, reconstruction, Black Codes, Jim Crow, lynching’s, Segregation, Civil Rights, Integration, Human Rights, and our contributions to human civilization because: Until the lion has his or her own storyteller, the hunter will always have the best part of the story.