Oral Literature in Africa (59 page)

(Herskovits 1960 (1946): 447–8)

Publications since the time of his remark give no cause to revise that general statement.

This lengthy discussion has been necessary because of the way it is presumed that myths
must
exist and play a part in African oral literature,
and the consequent inclusion in many collections of stories that are claimed to be myths. However, with a few exceptions there is an absence of any solid evidence for myth as a developed literary form in most areas of Africa. It is possible that further research, particularly into the local classifications and the contextual background of oral narratives, may reverse this conclusion. But from what has been published to date it seems clear that myth in the full sense of the term has not developed as a typical art form in African oral literature.

This discussion leads us on naturally to the question of legends and historical narratives generally in African oral literature. The two terms are really synonymous in their denotation, although ‘legends’ seems to have become the commoner term when describing
oral
historical narratives or, sometimes, those in whose truth the commentator himself has little faith. This general class of narratives covers those which are regarded locally as true, particularly by the narrator himself and his immediate audience, but differ from ‘myths’ in being set in a much less remote period when the world was much as it is today. They depict the deeds of human rather than supernatural heroes and deal with, or allude to, events such as migrations, wars, or the establishment of ruling dynasties.
⁴⁹

In discussing this group of narrations, some of the same points should be made as were made earlier about myths. The local classifications, for one thing, do not always coincide with our analytical distinction between historical and fictional narratives. Again, the degree of ‘belief’ in a particular narrative is one of the hardest of things to assess. Even in a familiar society this is notoriously difficult—but it is even more difficult in unfamiliar cultures; it is made more difficult still in that investigators have taken very little interest in this question.
⁵⁰
It is clear that the recorded words by themselves or the mere description of the deeds of various human heroes often give us no inkling about the authority or lack of authority locally
attached to these descriptions. Questions about the context, circumstances, purpose, and personnel involved, all of which could throw more light on the problem of credence, are usually all ignored. Finally, one must repeat the point already made that well-known and agreed beliefs need not necessarily find their expression in narrative or literary form at all. Genealogies, origins, lines of succession, the famous deeds of past rulers—all these can be known and recognized in a society without necessarily being found in any literary genre. Or, if they do find literary expression, this may take the common African form of panegyric poetry rather than prose narrative.

It has been necessary to sound this note of caution because of the facile assumptions on which so many collections and references in this field are based. We are not infrequently given examples of ‘legends’ in published collections without any evidence about whether the narratives are regarded as true in any sense.
⁵¹
Sometimes even the minimum formal requirements for classifying a tale as a ‘legend’ are lacking.
⁵²
Again, it is too often assumed that any knowledge of the past must always find expression in literary form. The result is that the content of ‘oral traditions’ is constantly referred to, without evidence, as being expressed in sustained literary form, or such traditions are elicited and recorded by the historian or anthropologist in narrative form without any consideration for whether this is an indigenous type of formulation, and, if so, in what contexts and forms it spontaneously appears. We are, in short, so often given either just the narrative with no reference to its context, or else just a reference to the context and content without any indication of how far this knowledge is crystallized in narrative form, that one is sometimes tempted to wonder whether historical narrative is in fact anything like as important as is usually assumed as a form of oral literature in the non-Islamic areas of Africa.

This said, we can go on to consider the real instances of legends and historical narratives (or, at least, the clear elements of this form that appear in association with other literary genres). There seems generally to be far
more literary interest in historical narrative—in the deeds of historical heroes in the not so remote past—than in myths (in the sense of the actions of deities in the furthest past or of cosmological speculations).

It is particularly in the areas deeply influenced by Arabic cultural traditions that historical narrative seems to emerge most clearly as a sharply differentiated and distinctive art form, sometimes even referred to by a term derived from the Arabic.
⁵³
But in other areas too more serious narrations concerned with historical events may be distinguished as a separate literary form.

Thus we have the Yoruba
iton
(or
itan
), which refers mainly to historical narratives and seems to include both creation stories (which are sometimes classed as ‘myths’) and conquest legends about how Oduduwa, the legendary ancestor of the Yoruba, and his descendants spread out through the various contemporary kingdoms, towns, and lineages of the Yoruba.
⁵⁴
These histories, it appears, were told among those most closely concerned—the people of the particular town or lineage—and were not presented in as formalized or detailed a form as the corresponding praise poems (Lloyd 1955). But they do seem to have had a fairly clear literary framework, which is exploited by the fashion for published Yoruba histories of towns in written form.

Strong historical traditions that are expressed in narrative form are also of marked importance among many of the inter-lacustrine Bantu kingdoms of East Africa. Again, this tradition has flowered recently with many versions of such historical chronicles now appearing in vernacular written forms.
⁵⁵

The narratives of the Congolese Nkundo about the life and exploits of their national hero, Lianja, are remarkable for their length and detail.
⁵⁶
In fact, the sustained forms in which these Nkundo narrations have been published probably give a misleading impression: collectors have pieced together many different tales to make up one written ‘epic’ account, and it is highly doubtful whether in fact these tales were really narrated and
conceived as part of one vast design. The degree of belief involved is also not very clear. Still, there are indications that these narrations were fairly frequent and that the occasions on which they were told were dramatic ones, the main narrator being helped by a chorus. The narrative relates the deeds of Lianja’s parents, his mother’s pregnancy, and the birth of the hero and his sister Nsongo, Lianja’s battles with his father’s murderer, his wanderings in search of a place for his people and his settlement of them there (a section very subject to variation and endless, often fantastic elaboration), and, finally, his ascent into the sky. A brief extract can illustrate the type of narration involved:

Un jour, au temps de Wai, sa femme, Boluka devient enceinte … Et voilà que la grossesse de Boluka dépasse le terme: accoucher, elle ne le peut; grossir, elle ne le fait; elle reste comme avant. Les gens ne font que se moquer d’elle.

Un jour Boluka prend des calebasses et va puiser de l’eau au ruisseau. Pendant qu’elle y va elle ne cesse de pleurer:

Et pendant qu’elle puise comme ça de l’eau au ruisseau elle entend comme si un homme bougeait dans les herbes. Elle s’effraie et dit: ‘Qui est là?’ Elle voit une vieille femme. La vieille dit: ‘Ne fuis pas. Car je viens chez toi parce que tu pleures sur ta grossesse et que tu n’accouches pas. Viens que je te touche au ventre.’ Boluka s’approche d’elle; la femme touche son ventre et un oeuf est la, comme un oeuf de perroquet. La vieille dit: Boluka, regarde, ta grossesse c’était cet ceuf. Donne-le moi, que je le garde pour toi, et demain matin apporte-moi à manger.’ Boluka lui donne l’oeuf.

Le lendemain Boluka prépare des vivres, les prend et vient à la place convenue: elle voit la vieille arriver avec un très bel enfant, Elle dit: Boluka, voici ton enfant.’ Boluka le prend et lui donne le sein. La vieille dit: ‘Donne-moi l’enfant, cherche ton manioc et pars.’ Quand la mère a sorti le manioc de l’eau, elle dit: ‘Donne-moi l’enfant.’ La vieille: ‘Non, non, l’enfant doit rester; toi, retourne et viens encore ici demain avec vivres.’

Boluka retourne, prépare des vivres et les porte à l’enfant et à la vieille, là-bas au ruisseau. L’enfant qui n’était qu’un nourrisson hier est devenu un grand garcon. (Boelaert 1949: 9–10)

Finally, one must mention the clear historical interest that has evidently characterized many of the legends and narratives of kingdoms of the Western Sudan. Here there is a tradition of Arabic culture and of written historical chronicles in either Arabic or local languages—a tradition that has affected
oral literary forms.
⁵⁷
The examples given so far have mainly been drawn from the powerful kingdoms of traditional Africa. This is no coincidence. It is evident that it is in these kingdoms in particular that there are manifest political advantages in propagating certain historical interpretations of the past whether in the form of ‘myths’ or of ‘legends’. Narratives purporting to recount, for instance, how the ancestors of the present ruling houses first came to the area as saviours, or first settlers, or even victorious conquerors (all common themes) provide a justification for the continued position and power of these houses in the present. The ‘mythical charter’ thus given by the stories can be an important support for the existing distribution of political power, and it is not surprising that in these conditions there is a marked emphasis on history.
⁵⁸
(However, even here, panegyric poetry seems often in fact to have surpassed prose history in both literary specialism and political propaganda (see Ch. 5, also Whiteley 1964: 7)).

In the uncentralized societies of Africa, even if historical narratives are less conspicuous they certainly exist. Even in egalitarian communities it is common for various families and villages to have stories about their origins and ancestors, and sometimes these are expressed in narrative form. Among the Lugbara of Uganda, for instance, historical narratives (termed ‘myths’ by Middleton) justify not the position of ruling houses but present-day social relationships between families and groups (Middleton 1954). Sometimes such historical tales are told not so much for their sanctioning effect as for their sheer entertainment value.

All in all there certainly are instances of historical narratives that play a more significant part in African literature than do the ‘myths’ we explored earlier. But when we look closely at the evidence we have to admit the surprising fact that it hardly sustains the generally accepted view of the great importance of this form as a specialized literary type in non-Islamic Africa. In many cases these narratives appear only as elements in other narrations, or they appear as elicited or pieced-together recordings by foreign collectors rather than as spontaneous art forms. Altogether much more research needs to be done on the indigenous contexts, tone, and classifications of ‘historical narratives’ before we can make assertions about them.

III

So far we have been considering the conclusions that, with all their problems and uncertainties, we can still make from the many published collections of African narratives—about their distribution, subject-matter, and, to some extent, literary types. This final section will, in contrast, be devoted to a brief consideration of questions that so far have been hardly explored in published sources.

The first point is an obvious one. In the case of
oral
literature the actual occasions, performers, and purpose of the narrations are obviously of vital importance. As far as the occasions go, we do know a certain amount. It has been made clear in many publications that a very common context for telling stories is in the evening when the day’s work is over. In some cases, this general pattern is even expressed as a definite rule. Some imagined sanction is suggested to frighten those tempted to break it—like the Zulu or Transvaal Ndebele threat that anyone who tells stories in the day-time will grow horns, or the parallel assertion among the Kamba that their cattle would perish if tales were told in the day.
⁵⁹
In other cases the limitation to the evening hours seems to be made merely from convenience, not compulsion. In certain circumstances stories are also told during the day—for instance, when people have to spend long hours on long-drawn-out but not very exacting tasks like herding, mending fishing-nets, or guarding crops from birds and animals.

The normal pattern seems to be for a number of relatively short, self-contained stories to be told during an evening story-telling session. But there are also occasional instances of serial stories. We hear of Mende ‘endless stories’ (Innes 1964: 16–17) or the Kalabari practice of carrying on with the ‘same’ story—albeit one without a very tight plot or over-all view—night after night, often stopping at an exciting point (Horton, personal communication).

Occasionally we hear of story-telling sessions of a highly specialized kind like the Tuareg evening parties, presided over by some woman famous for her wit, in which story-telling, music, and cultivated conversation all play their part in creating popular and highly valued occasions (Chadwicks iii 1940: 666). Most are less formal, however. They are very frequently started off by the asking of riddles, usually by children. As the evening wears
on these are followed by stories delivered with more art and, relatively, more seriousness. Finally people lose interest or are too sleepy to continue. However, not very many detailed accounts have been produced about these and other occasions for story-telling.