Only a male elephant can save another one from a pit.

Only a male elephant can save another one from a pit.

In central Africa, specifically in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), we find many big wild elephants. Being a hunting society, the Lega Ethnic Group community can easily kill other animals by trapping or shooting them with arrows or spears. That, however, was not possible when killing elephants. They therefore had to dig deep pits to trap them. When a young or female elephant got trapped, all the others could come to rescue the victim. But when it happened to a male elephant, only the males could rescue it because of their size and strength.


In Lega community, men were perceived to be strong in body and that is why they are the ones who were circumcised who when hunting for food and defended the community in times of war – tasks that require lots of strength. In Lega land the women focused on maternity, household duties and other domestic tasks. Applied to human and social behavior, this proverb illustrates how in Africa different activities are handled by different people in the community. Differentiation of roles brings more productivity and effectiveness in the local community. In most circumstances certain affairs especially activities requiring strength can best be handled by men.


Ignorance is bliss.

This statement means that when we are ignorant about a thing or a matter, we do not have any worry about the problems of it and so ignorance gives us perfect happiness or bliss. This is a well known and often used proverb. This proverb instructs us not to think seriously about the past events and not to intensively look on the future events but to concentrate on the present endeavor. So that we can keep ourselves ignorant of worries. Hence we can lead a carefree life.


Animals are ignorant of everything. They do not have any worry regarding past or the future and hence they do not have any problem as human beings have. Even in Bible there is a saying…look at the birds they do not have to harvest or do not have to fill up their granaries. But one or the other problem always worries us - the human beings. We make our lives miserable by our knowledge, our memory and our thinking power and hence we are grief-stricken. But animals are ignorant. They are free from such worries and hence we say that ignorance is bliss.