Tom’s Note: Here are some fun proverbs from the Dusun people of Sabah. Are there any similarities between Malay, Chinese or other languages?
Some Dusun Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings
1. “One way or the other, when defeated becomes ashes when winning becomes charcoal a man engaged in a lawsuit. There’s no profit in it.
2. A worm swallowed a python; of a poor man who has married a rich wife.
3. Like the flowers of the dedap, red, but not scented. Of a pretty girl who has no manners. She may be pleasant to look at, but she has no sweetness.
4. Though there is fine weather year after year, a day’s rain wets everything. Though a man may have a good reputation for many years, one bad action will destroy his reputation.
5. True that grains of good seed, scattered in the sea, will rise and grow. Persons of good stock will rise to the surface wherever fate may cast them.
6. Pestle broken and the mortar lost: of a child who has lost both parents.
7. Pressed down by what is heavy and coiled round by what long. Of troubles without ceasing.
8. The index finger thrusts at the eye. Of a person in a position of responsibility who is guilty of breach of trust or an inmate of a house who steals the property of others.
9. The fence eats the crop. This is a Malay proverb. A person is in a position of responsibility and betrays his trust. He is placed to guard somebody’s property, as a fence to guard a crop, but instead of taking care of the property, he converts it to his use.
10. When fording a river, I had rather be swallowed by a crocodile than be intercepted by small fish. Better to be hardly dealt with by an important person in some affair than attacked by a swarm of little ones. If one loses a fight with a big man, one is not ashamed, but if one succumbs to the attacks of little ones, one’s pride is hurt.
11. Face as if patched with monkey skin. Spoken of a person who knows no shame, just like a monkey.
12. Like a gecko lizard who has eaten lime. Of somebody who has been shamed in public but either does not understand, or does not care that he has been shamed and repeats the (his) bad conduct. The excrement of a gecko is partly white as if it had eaten lime. When it falls on people from below the thatch, they are angry, but the gecko doesn’t care and does just the same thing again whenever it pleases
13. Perhaps that great tree will fall now, felled by me. A threat of an inferior against a superior.
14. That Mongolian tree is peg-laddered by me for taking its damar gum. Said by a man who has bespoken a woman’s hand.
15. A single buffalo brought mud, and all the people of the village were smeared. A single person does something wrong, and the whole village gets a bad name.
16. Rice wrapped in a packet (put up ready for eating) is thrown down from the knees, and what is not wrapped is searched for. A person who does not know when he is well oft rejecting an easy living and searching for one which is much more difficult.
17. If a fowl’s feathers are torn, they will sprout afresh after a time. If near relations quarrel, after a time, they will make it up again.
18. The sun has a halo now. Said of a girl detected in flagrant with a man. The halo” is the man on top of her.
19. Why has the sun a different brilliance now? Of a woman who is pregnant but has no husband
20. Our cat died today, bitten by somebody else’s dog. Said by a person who has had something stolen by an occupant of another family room in the house.
21.A boat is worn out, and the landing place has gone stinking of a man who has come to hate his wife and intends to divorce her.
22. He went hunting and got a wild pig. Said sarcastically by a man whose enemy has met with a misfortune with he went to look for trouble and now he’s found it.
23. The flower is burst into the hair (head), but the source of it is fouled with excrement, of a man who loves his wife but hates his mother-in-law.
24. Come let us eat, and eat this flesh of his. Said to his friends by a man who has an enemy,
25. Like a withered shoot dropped on by rain. Of a man who has recovered from illness or a poor man who has become well-to-do. “Coming out like a snail after rain”.
From
Ivor H.N. Evans Some Dusun Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings Sarawak Museum Journal, July 1955
BorneoHistory.net
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