DASSIES OF THE SAME HILL

Some more animal proverbs, this time translated from Ndebele (a language of Southern Africa):

1 Baboons laugh at one another's foreheads.
2 The leopard licks all its spots, black and white.
3 The mamba is out grazing, so the weasel is happy.
4 You cannot go chasing after two gazelles.
5 He is a piece of firewood with a scorpion.
6 A rat is not to be put with pumpkin seeds.
7 The thing that belongs to someone else is the gravy of the jackal.
8 He is as wise as the locust of winter.
9 The little crab is like its mother.
10 The civet is caught even though the ropes have rotted.
11 The elephant is not burdened by its trunk.
12 A polecat is not to be skinned in public.
13 He was looked at by an ant-bear.*
14 He was struck by a dung beetle.*

*Said of someone suffering from stress or depression.

Source: Ndebele Proverbs (Mambo Press 1977)