Proverb #12

‘‘Isi kote ebu, ọ gbaa ya.’’

This proverb is fairly standard across Igbo land and there  is no gain-saying the fact of awareness of the proverb. So, let's not beat around the bush; we have wasps about. The proverb incorporates a dire prophecy about consequences."If you brush the hornet's nest with your head, you will be stung; simple as." - Old society worked by boundaries, norms and customs and everyone was expected to know them, market days were market days and festival days were festival days. The kola was universal and if you didn't do any work then you endured your empty barns and the tongue-lashing of your wives, and quiet disdain from kit and kin. And the crested dibia might sound this warning during the morning's divination.'Isi kote ebu ... '

The literalistic act did happen often enough too, the novice hunter or an inexperienced gatherer of firewood would  disturb the wasps' or hornets' nest and reap a remonstration of welts, swellings and yelps. 
The headline has left the confines of this particular writing system and was rendered in web fonts provided by The Google Webfonts initiative. This one, Boogaloo, is beautiful to this beholder - credit to Google and to the designer. If I were a writer of Ibo comics, I would use Boogaloo as my headline font. It doesn't exactly slant like Comic Sans but it strikes me in the same way. We found ourselves returning time and again to Boogaloo for headlining our proverbs. The picture of the honests' nest was culled from growsonyou.com. 

Contributed By Kelechi Una Isiodu, Umunjam, Mbieri.
[Variants Posted x 2]
By Obioma Ofoegbu, Igboukwu, Anambara State: Isi kotara ebu, ka ebu na-agba.
By Dubem Okoye, SA: Isi kote ebu, ebu agaa ya

for iFaT at ifont@groups.facebook.com

© ifont 2011, as it appears here.

---