All Things Kenyan

Meru Proverbs of Kenya

An old he-goat does not sneeze for nothing.

Bartered grains do not fill up the granary.

He has danced topsy-turvy (upside down).

He has extracted the bat’s teeth.

He has inserted a finger into the anus of the monster.

He has rubbed shoulders against a baobab tree.

He is under a leaking tree.

He would get hold of a red-hot iron brand (gikama) just after it has left the fire.

I shall come for the cows after the donkeys have grown horns.

It is a pot laughing at the potsherd.

It is halving one’s body (legs) into two like a hyena.

It is no use to lull a child with a hungry look.

It is to shave the leopard’s mane.

I shall come for the cows after the donkeys have grown horns.

It’s like removing a hyena from a pit.

Let it be a bite of a cockroach and fly with the wind.

One (a bird) that spends the night on a fig-tree does not know that the other that passes the night on “Muga” (a thorny cactus tree) is being pricked.

Return before you go further, Nturutimi returned after it had reached Mciru.

Should I follow this route with some clay soil or that one with ochre.

The cattle belong to us right from the beginning.

The naanga flies with the wind.

The strength of a hero does not center on his buttocks.

The vultures would not land at the village in which there is a wise old man.

When he hangs himself down like a bat, he definitely knows how he would float through the air.