Source: African Native Literature, or: Proverbs, Tales, Fables, and Historical Fragments in the Kanuri or Bornu Language by S. W. Koelle, 1854. Online at the Internet Archive. The book includes the Kanuri text plus the English translation.
You can find out more about the Kanuri people of Sierra Leone at Wikipedia.
Below are the proverbs I chose from this book; when I've rephrased, I've included the book's version in parentheses. If there is no version in parentheses, that means I didn't make any changes. You can see the whole slideshow here: African Proverbs.
Even a bird with a long neck can't see the future; God alone sees it.
(As to what is future, even a bird with a long neck cannot see it, but God only.)
Those whose meat is raw approach the fire.
(He draws near to the fire whose meat is raw.)
Wisdom is not in the eye, but in the head.
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