Yoruba Proverb/"Rootless Tree"

[joe563]

I'm having to do this reading for my Anthro class and came across this Yoruba (West African Tribe) Proverb that made me think of "Rootless Tree"

"It will in no way hurt him if it falls upon him. A tree which fails to hold up a person when he leans against it will in no way hurt him if it falls upon him."
'The proverb would be most appropriate in a situation in which a person dismisses the possibility of another person's being able to do him harm.' - E. Ojo Arewa & Alan Dundes (Proverbs and the Ethnography of Speaking Folklore, UC-Berkeley)

take what u want from it, I just thought it was sort of interesting to think about.