658 EVENING DISCOURSE. 



experience drawn from life, or are expres=ions of approval or admiration or of dis- 

 approval or contempt. The exceedingly frequent use of proverbs in Morocco, as in 

 other countries with a Semitic culture, bears testimony to their great social adaptability. 

 The proverb is a spice by which anybody may add piquancy to his speech, it shortens 

 a discussion, it provides a neat argument which has the authority of custom aad 

 tradition, it is a dignified way of confessing an error or offering an apology, it makes a 

 reproof less offensive by making it less personal. One reason for the great popularity 

 that proverbs enjoy among the Moors is their desire to be poUte ; thus a proverb is 

 often an excellent substitiite for a direct refusal, which might seem inappropriate or 

 rude. It also stops a quarrel and makes those who were cursing each other a moment 

 before shake hands and smile. And it is used as a kind of 'ar, implying a conditional 

 curse, to compel a person who has suffered an insult to forgive the offender. Proverbs 

 are thus conducive to goodwill and peace. 



If proverbs are to be studied from the points of view I have advocated— without 

 any desire to prejudice other methods of study — it is, of course, necessary to know 

 their intrinsic meaning, and this imposes upon the collector a task which has seldom 

 been satisfactorily accomplished. Many proverbs are no doubt perfectly inteUigihle 

 without an explanation ; others are only apparently so, because they easily suggest 

 an interpretation which is not the correct one ; and others cannot even deceive us, 

 because they defy any attempt to unriddle their occult meaning. I cannot, therefore, 

 strongly enough insist on the necessity of recording the situations in which proverbs 

 are used, unless the collector has made sure that they have no other meaning but that 

 which they directly express. I was glad to find that Dr. Raymond Firth has Kkevrise 

 emphasised the duty of field-anthropologists to examine and record the attendant 

 circumstances of proverbs in his suggestive articles on ' Proverbs in Native Life, with 

 particular reference to those of the Maori,' published in two recent numbers of ' Folk- 

 Lore.' 



When we are sure of the intrinsic meaning of proverbs, and only then, we can 

 find a reasonable solution of a problem that has proved a constant stumbling-block 

 to collectors and compilers, namely, their classification. If proverbs are to be 

 treated as a source of information for the sociological or psychological study of a 

 people they cannot, as has usually been the case, be arranged simply in alphabetical 

 order by the first letters of the first word. They must be grouped according to the 

 subjects or situations on which they have a bearing, and be accompanied with all 

 explanations necessary for the right understanding of their import and implications. 

 Proverbs that are applicable in different situations may have to be repeated under 

 different headings ; but to judge by mj' own experience such repetitions need not 

 be very many. 



If due attention is bestowed upon the collection of proverbs, we may hope that the 

 scientific study of them %vill better than hitherto keep pace with the progress made 

 within other branches of folk-lore. 



