Aspects of Poetic Balance and Cohesion in Hausa Proverbs

A significant number of Hausa proverbs, though not all, demonstrate bipartite structure. This study, which is an expansion of my earlier analysis (1999), outlines some important additional tendencies related to the features. Sections of Hausa proverbs closely interact with each other through varied types of correspondence of identical elements across sections. This interaction eventually produces inter-section balance and/or cohesion, which underlies the poetic organization of many Hausa proverb texts. There are two basic assumptions that initiated this study. The first is that Hausa proverbs, as is often the case with many other African oral traditions, are highly abundant in poetic elements. The second is that these elements can be identified and described in a systematic literary manner.