A Selection of Haitian Creole Proverbs on Religion

Abstract

Proverbs play a role in many religions. The Ketuvim in Hebrew scriptures, the Book of Proverbs in the Christian Bible, and the Hindu Upanishads all involve proverbs as part of their sacred written texts. In the Caribbean, historical factors limited much of the sacred knowledge of African diasporic populations to oral traditions. Such knowledge has only begun to be transcribed or published in earnest in the past few decades (e.g., Fernández Robaina 1994; Planno 2016). Similarly, in Haiti, sacred texts beyond Abraha-mic works exist mainly in the context of a ceremony as songs (Hebblethwaite and Bartley 2011) or, in daily life, in the form of proverbs that offer moral instruction. Despite a significant number of publications dedicated to proverbs (Audain 1877; Ceuppens and Désir 1973; Courlander 1973; Fayo 1980; Hall et al. 1953; Jeanty and Brown 1976; Joseph 2009; Sylvain 1901; Turnbull 2005), scholarly analysis of them rarely occurs (cf. Comhaire-Sylvain 1937; Comhaire-Sylvain 1938a; Comhaire-Sylvain 1938b; Herskovits 1937; Ivy 1941).