Wisdom of the Day

[marcusmarcusrc]

The Monkey may rub up against the anthill, but that does not make it an antelope.

(paraphrased from an Asante saying)

Comments

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

And now we know why we're not all part of hte great Asante empire. That's incoherent even by my standards.

[desireearmfeldt]

I think the way it was phrased in the exhibit made it more clear that the act of rubbing against an anthill does not *turn* the monkey into an antelope, but the metaphor is still a bit opaque. :)

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

I believe the meaning was something along the lines of "you can imitate the chief, but that doesn't _make_ you the chief".

My next question is, are antelopes known for rubbing up against anthills?

[desireearmfeldt]

Or do "antelope" and "anthill" sound alike in Asante, or something?

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

I also note that Antelope and Anthill both start with "Ant" in English... if they also have similar sounds in Asante too, that would make me wonder if there is a reason that the two words are related. Like, for example, maybe "antelope" means "loping animal that rubs up against ant-hills".

Though that seems unlikely. The best google gets me for etymology is that the word descends from "antholops" in greek, which looks like "flower-eye" and nothing to do with ants.