A Critical APproach to the study of oral narratives

OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY, ILE-IFE. DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH. Oral Literature LIT 603 A CRITICAL APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF ORAL NARRATIVES IBIYEMI AYODELE MURITALA ARP16/17/H/0447 2017 A Critical Approach to the Study of Oral Narratives A narrative is a story or prosaic account of people, events and places that may either be fictional or factual. Oral narratives therefore would be verbal renditions of people, events and places that may be fictional or factual. Some scholars refer to oral narratives as prose narratives, this is because of the prosaic nature of many narratives. However, this does not cater for some categories of narratives like tales sung to music. Certain narratives like Mau Mau Guerilla War songs are told entirely in song voice (Okpewho 163). Oral Narratives are more than just oral renditions of a people’s history, it is the totality of their ethno history. Perhaps this is why the study of Oral Narratives was started by anthropologists who were primarily interested in the cultures of people. Oral narratives are synonymous to folktales, which are stories told by the common people. These stories are passed down from one generation to the other through words of mouth and they are often called folk narratives or folk stories. Folktales come in different varieties and they are also culture specific. Each culture defines their own corpus. Popular instances of folktales in the Yoruba culture include: riddles (alo-apamo), jokes (efe), wise sayings and maxims (oro), proverbs (owe) folktales (aalo), Ifa corpus (odu-Ifa), hunters’ chants (ijala ode), bridal chants (ekun-iyawo), praise songs/names (Oriki), poetry (ewi) and others (Olarinmoye 138). In recent times, narratives have been expanded to include stories told in novels, short stories, poetic and prose epic narratives. This adoption of oral techniques in African novels has been referred to as ‘written oral literature’ by Abiola Irele. The advent of technology has also given rise to narratives in interviews, oral memoirs and chronicles. However, there were unfounded prejudices about folktales as stories of the uneducated, irrational and unimaginative dwellers of rural communities (Okpewho 163). The term, oral narratives is preferable because it places less emphasis on the people who produce the tales. Thus, this gives it a universal approach. Folktales reveal the very core of every society. They expose their backgrounds, history, cultural practices and belief systems. Oral narratives as a genre of oral Literature is fluid and controversial. It has generated several scholarly studies but unlike written literature, it remains uniquely undefined in terms of theory and classification. Perhaps this is because of its nature as a genre that is culture specific. It is noteworthy to comment on the many schools of thought that concentrate on the study of oral narratives. This is because it is the branch of oral literature that has received the widest attention in terms of collection and study (Okpewho 164). Evolutionists, influenced by the evolution theory of Sir Charles Darwin have approached the study from the viewpoint of the evolution theory. In their opinion, stories from every culture have evolved but they all have common denominators to show the evolution of all humans and the specific influences of their survivals. Difussionists believe that stories take the shape they take as a result of contacts between several cultures and similarities in these tales are results of diffusion of cultures. The Psychoanalysis theory, as propounded by Sigmund Freud examines the mental background of human activities. Freud draws heavily from some classic Greek stories like Sophocle’s Oedipus Rex. This school of thought treats oral narratives by examining the mental influences of the societies that produced such narratives. Other approaches like Functionalism, Formalism, Structuralism and Feminist Criticism also create lenses with which oral narratives can be examined. Folktales are universal objects, only the stories are culture specific. In certain situations, folktales have mixed with one another. The study of folktales has gone through several stages and many critical opinions have acknowledge the role of intertextuality in the study. Notable among these works is The European Folktale: Form and Nature, by Max Luthi. He stated that the study is an attempt to: describe and explain the literary properties of folktales and provides with an insight to the function and significance of folktale genres, which has enabled the researcher to continue explorations into the social function of the traditional folktales in the present day context. In his contention, the function of folktales can be understood only by the joint effort of several disciplines – the research of the folklorist, the psychologist, the student of comparative religion and mythology, the sociologist and the literary scholars as well. Categorization The issue of categorizing oral narratives has attracted diverse opinions. Unlike the categorization of Ruth Finnegan (77) which divided oral narratives into drama, prose, poetry and short forms. Okpewho (181) classifies them into four. The first category is on the basis of the protagonists in the tales. This categorization distinguishes animal tales from human tales and fairy tales. This categorization has its own problems, in the case of a tale which deals with two or more types of protagonists, this classification becomes problematic. A valid example is the story of the tortoise among the Yorubas which shows the tortoise and the wise medicine man, gods and supernatural beings have also been recorded to have relations with human beings in many tales. The second way of categorizing these tales is on the purpose of narration. While many narratives have didactic purposes, some also have spiritual purposes. The Iyere Ifa of the Yorubas are divination tales and they have no entertainment purpose. A spiritual tale is distinct from a tale told for entertainment purposes. A third method of classifying these tales is on thematic basis. This has to do with the characteristic quality of the tales. For example, a trickster tale has to do with cunny characters who deceive others while a dilemma tale deals with characters who find themselves in a crisis of decision. Historical tales are accounts of the history of a person or a people. The last category in the Okpewho structure is according to the context or occasion. It is common to hear of moonlight tales as stories told while a family or a group is relaxing at night. In the Yoruba culture, divination tales are told during spiritual consultations and they are not idle speeches. They rely on the power of sympathetic magic for efficacy. Despite the many attempts by scholars to avoid what has often been referred to as hegemonic categorizations, Western terms myth, legend, folk tale, ballad, epic, legend, praise poetry, creation stories, fable, witticism, proverb, explanatory tale, aetiological tale and dirge have been used to explain these narratives. The most common types of narratives are the myths and the epics. These two oral narratives are particularly problematic in their composition and performance as many scholars like Ruth Finnegan and Sir Maurice Bowra says that there is no epic in Africa but Okpewho, refuting this view in his seminal book, The Epic in Africa: Toward a Poetics of the Oral Performance disagrees with this view. He gathers several representative African tales and compared them with some non-African tales. Epics like the Mwindo, Izibongo, Ozidi, Sundiata, and Shaka were compiled by Okpewho to show the dynamic nature and multifarious nature of these tales. Also, Finnegan, despite her extensive research on African Oral Narrative believes that myths do not exist in Africa. However, Bascom gives an apt summary of myths in the following excerpt: Myths are prose narratives which, in the society in which they are told are considered to be truthful accounts of what happened in the remote past. They are accepted on faith; they are taught to be believed; and they can be cited as authority in answer to ignorance, doubt, or disbelief. Myths are the embodiment of dogma; they are usually sacred; and they are often associated with theology and ritual. Their main characters are . . . animals, deities, or culture heroes, whose actions are set in an earlier world, when the earth was different from what it is today, or in another world such as the sky or underworld . . . (Bascom 1965b: 4)42 However, Finnegan bases her assumption on the foregoing and opines that: …it seems evident that myths in the strict sense are by no means common in African oral literature. This is in spite of the narratives presented as myths in many popular collections. It is true that many of these have an aetiological element, refer to supernatural beings, or are concerned with events set in some remote time in the past. But they do not necessarily possess the other attributes of ‘myths’—their authoritative nature and the way in which they are accepted as serious and truthful accounts. " This simplistic account does not cover several other myths which are for instruction, guidance and are based on history. Also, it is impossible to study African Oral Narratives without studying the mythical and mystical elements in them. This opinion of Finnegan is contestable because it does not cater for local sensibilities. Occasions Performances are unique in the study of Oral Narratives and the content is often judged as more important than even the occasion. However, text and context are inseparable as a good understanding of the context is needed to understand the text. In the festival songs by many African tribes, the performer and the audience belong to a homogenous group most of the time. Explaining the importance of context in Oral Narratives, Malinowski opines that: We must also bear in mind the sociological context of private ownership, the sociable function and the cultural role of amusing fiction. All these elements are equally relevant; all must be studied as well as the text. The stories live in native life and not on paper, and when a scholar jots them down without being able to evoke the atmosphere in which they flourish, he has given us but a mutilated bit of reality. (Malinowski, 1926, 24) As noted earlier, occasions are often unplanned and spontaneous, especially in the situation of moonlight tales and stories told for entertainment. The specificity of occasions can also be seen in the divination tales which are largely connected to individual spiritual cultures. Compositions Composition has to do with the process of artistic creation of a narrative. Most African Oral Narratives are spontaneous and they are products of societies. Leopold Sedar Senghor, one of the founding fathers of Modern African Literature has this to say about African Oral narratives: “The traditional African narrative is woven out of everyday events. It is a question neither of anecdotes nor of things taken from life. All the events become images, and so acquire paradigmatic value and point beyond the moment.” (Quoted in Jahn 211) Beyond the weaving of narratives from everyday events, the literary qualities are also important. The role of exaggeration and fantasy must be mentioned. These devices help to create the proper imagery needed for the stories to achieve a certain level of literariness and elevate it beyond ordinary everyday speech. There is the example by Gordon Innes, as quoted by Finnegan of the girl who got pregnant and her tummy grew bigger than the whole of Sierra Leone and Great Britain put together. Finnegan also notes the many stock characters of different ethnic groups. These characters provide basis for the many storytellers to draw from based on the attributes, as described in their names: We often hear of the actions of a jealous husband, a boaster, a skilful hunter, an absurdly, stupid person, a despised youngster making good, a wise old woman, an oppressive ruler, twins, good and bad daughters, or young lovers. The basic human dilemmas implied by so many of these figures have clearly brought inspiration to hundreds of story-tellers practicing their otherwise diverse skills throughout the continent." (Finnegan 351) Some tales are adapted from other cultures. In the Limba culture of Sierra Leone, Ruth Finnegan (313) records the story of Adaamu and Ifu, an adaptation of the biblical Adam and Eve story. The story has specific local elements infused into it to domesticate it. Also, several characters in Oral Narratives are archetypal. The tortoise, hare, spider, ant, elephant are common in oral narratives. There is often the villain in animal tales, many times a large animal who commits an error of judgment or character and is outwitted by a small animal. Many African oral tales have plot structures that guide their compositions and the often uniform structure lead credence to the theory of diffusionists who believe that tales mix with contact among societies. Tales like creation stories are owned by communities and they are also explanatory in nature. Composition is purposeful and there is always a reason for a narrative. It can be to explain a cultural practice, narrate history or settle a dispute. Periods are often marked with names of monarchs in the Yoruba Culture, a popular Yoruba social narration periodises economic activities into the reign of monarchs... laye olugbon, mo g’eborun meje... (During the reign of Olugbon, I cut seven neckwrappers…) From the history of literature, the original composer of a tale is often unknown. While written genres such as drama can be identified with artists such as Sophocles or Shakespeare, oral literature forms do not have identifiable personalities behind them, who would otherwise form part of the canonicity of definition of oral literature. According to Oludare Olajubu, ‘a good performance is judged solely by the quality of the artist’s voice, his control of language, the correct content of his chants, and the length of his repertoire.’(676) Performances also influence the production of tales as oral artists modify tales to suit each performance. A song that relies on fast rhythm and dances might not be suitable for a funeral. It is easy to assume that the Oral Artist is just reciting or chanting a material that was passed down to him but Oral narratives are live performances, each composition is different from the other. Olajubu further says that the Yoruba Verbal Art is a dynamic art. He says that ‘it is fashionable to regard verbal artists as mere transmitters of old traditional recitations; but there is only one thing that is old and traditional in Yoruba verbal art, and that is its oralness.’ In the same essay, he also notes that “each artist is free to rearrange and manipulate the content of the subject matter of his genre of oral literature to the full benefit of his art and his audience. But he must never distort or amend the basic facts contained in the content.” Also, Oral narratives are flexible in nature. A single text can function in several narrative forms. A text can be sung, recited, narrated or chanted. Performance Performances are important in Oral Narratives. The primacy of performance has been reiterated by an American Anthropologist, Jean Herkovitz. He states that: The oral stories when recited gives it certain values that the written story can never achieve– just as certain features of the written story are necessarily absent in the oral tale. These nuances can only be recorded by a phonograph– pauses in speech, interjections, intonation, stress or by the motion picture– gesture, facial expression and the like.(Herksovit, 1974, 276) Ruth Finnegan, also establishing the primacy of performance comments that: full appreciation must depend on an analysis not only of the verbal interplay and overtones in the piece, its stylistic structure and content, but also of the various detailed devices which the performer has at his disposal to convey his product to the audience (Finnegan 13). Orality is closely linked to the performative action. However, performances are also defined by situations, as stated earlier. Oral Narratives do not exist in a vacuum, tales are told for specific reasons and even spontaneous stories have reasons they are narrated. The role played by the audience as a participant in a performance can also not be overemphasized. Many Oral Narratives rely on the audience as respondents. The performance of oral literature is also dependent on the paralinguistic features of language. These elements are in most cases on the spur of the moment improvisations, such that their definition cannot be created as they are not premeditated by the performer. A sob, a wailing or audience vocalization of a performance are an integral part of a dirge, yet one cannot say with any degree of certainty that they must be there in every dirge. It is even possible that in some cases, a dirge might be performed in a solemn atmosphere devoid of public display of emotions. The performer decides how the text is perceived. He has the liberty to change forms. He can infuse element of chant in songs. He decides the tempo based on the occasion. The role of the performer is often downplayed because the said material is not his primary creation. However, this is incorrect as the performer adds his own experiences and influences. This is why stories often have different versions. Patronage is also key to performance. The presence of the patron influences the nature and content of the performance. Okpewho (25) has categorised patronage into two main subheads; private and public. He goes further to highlight a category he calls semi-private. Private Patrons are kings and their bards are not allowed to perform for others. Semi Private patrons are distinguished individuals in the community. The public patronage caters for what will be called freelance artists in the modern day, the artists perform for any member of the community who is able and willing to pay. Functions The function of Oral Narratives are numerous. Perhaps this is the aspect of Oral narratives which has attracted the most critical attention. Oral narratives are valid forms of entertainment and a means of escape from everyday stress. Beyond entertainment, folktales function in different ways in the society. William Bascom has corroborated this by saying that: ...folklore cannot be dismissed simply as a form of amusement. Amusement is, obviously, one of the functions of folklore, and an important one; but even this statement cannot be accepted today as a complete answer, for it is apparent that beneath a great deal of humour lies a deeper meaning. The same is true for the concepts of fantasy and creative imagination. The fact that storyteller in some societies is expected to modify a familiar tale by introducing new elements or giving a novel twist to the plot is in itself of basic importance to the study of dynamics and the aesthetics of folklore, but one may ask why the teller chooses to introduce specific elements and twists. (Bascom, 1981, 55) They are also used to create awareness in the society. Stories and narratives can further be used by the authorities to validate cultural practices and help communities stay connected to the conventions that established such communities. Bode Agbaje (2002) has explored Proverbs as a strategy to resolve conflict in the Yoruba Society. Olutoyin Jegede(2005), having examined the court narratives of the Yoruba and Benin kingdoms have explained that they are meant to announce visitors and eulogise the kings, reminding them of the heroic deeds of their ancestors. In the Opinion of Bolanle Awe (1974), the Yoruba Oriki is an example of Historical Data, she groups Oriki into three categories. Oriki Ilu which is the praise poetry of towns show the history of particular towns while Oriki Orile shows the history of lineages. It tells the story of an individual whose admirable qualities are supposed to typify the qualities of the lineage while Oriki Inagije are stories of individual legends who have qualities that mark them out for distinction. Abatan O. L. (2011) has also showed that Oral Narratives are valid materials for pedagogy. He opines that “Education steeped in the cultural heritage of the people, especially in folktales, could go a long way to ensure the attainment of national literacy objectives. By making these references, they provide their audience with Oral Information bringing their Cultural heritage once more into the limelight. Oral Narratives can also function as means of entrenching peace among communities, Tanure Ojaide, in his study of the Udje Songs of the Urhobo notes that: It began sometimes in the mid nineteenth century after the abolition of slavery and the relatively peaceful times allowed the extraordinary poetic performance competition among different communities. The songs grew from a tradition of warfare in the battle analogies of composition and performance. It became an artistic replacement of intra-ethnic warfare, since the fiercely adversarial pairing of communities made those involved in the tradition to spend their energy artistically rather than in bloody combats. (2009) Fiction has also shown that oral narratives are effective means of culture preservation. Chinua Achebe, in Anthills of the Savannah explains that: It is only the story that can continue beyond the war and the warrior. It is the story that outlives the sound of war-drums and the exploits of brave fighters. It is the story that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence. The story is our escort; without it, we are blind. Does the blind man own his escort? No, neither do we own the story; rather it is the story that owns us and directs us. (1988) The didactic purpose of oral narratives has been explored in several essays but Oluwole and Adesina Coker explains that: For the Yoruba, culture is the unwritten constitution of the society. It is a guide to morality, a determiner of ethics and a paradigm of inter-personal relationships Yoruba tradition is essentially oral-driven. Folklore bellies the knowledge production process of the people. Indigenous epistemology is a bye-product of its oral tradition. Knowledge is as such, a communal heritage passed through word of mouth across generations. (4) The Place of Oral narratives in the Modern Society Oral Narratives are living entities, they survive with human beings and civilizations. The verbal means by which they are produced and disseminated is the same way they are transmitted from one generation to another. It is only in recent decades that these stories have been written down to be preserved. This recording of tales often fails to capture the many features of the tales in the recording. Today, science and technology have adopted this tradition and thereby increasing the speed of transmission. The tales, which form a large part of oral tradition, are getting transmitted and being popularized in cinema, episodic serials and animation films. Thus a new dimension is added to the tale telling tradition i.e. transmission through audiovisual media. According to Finnegan, the characters in African tales are adaptable and modernity leads to a more dynamic approach to these stories. She remarks that: "All these tricksters, however, are adaptable. They are able to turn any situation, old or new, to their advantage. The tortoise now aspires to white collar status in Southern Nigeria and attends adult education classes, (Berry 1961: 14) while the spider Ananse referees football matches among the Ashanti in Ghana. (Nketia 1958d: 21)". Recent research has shown that oral narratives are not things forgotten but living art which has found its way into the modern corpus of literature and culture. Many aetiological tales exist also in modern forms. Chinua Achebe seems to have perfected the art as his corpus is replete in many historical and aetiological tales. The Mosquito myth in Things fall Apart is an example. He also rewrote a mythological story and named it How the Leopard got its Claw to reflect realities of the time when he wrote. Nowadays, Oral narratives have transformed into various aspects of popular literature and popular culture. The electronic media influences oral literature, providing data for it and eventually proliferating it. Oral Narratives have manifested in several forms like the video films, radio and soap operas. Yoruba oral narratives have often been reenacted on television and film. These new broadcast media also compete oral live performances as people pay more attention to them than to verbal narratives nowadays. Asides the many presence of Oral Narratives in New Media and Popular Arts, it has also found its way into written literature. Many dramatic performances are musicals. Abiola Irele, explaining the phenomenon of Oral Narratives in the novel form coined the phrase ‘written oral literature.’(Irele 8) Conclusion Oral Narratives are critical to the study of Oral Literature and with the trends of Modernity and the Print Culture, Oral narratives are experiencing radical changes in terms of production and performance. Old forms are transforming with several other cultural elements to embrace modernity. Modern adaptations of native forms also show the development of narratives. Okot P’ Bitek’s Songs of Lawino is based on ancient Gikuyu traditional Songs. The Fuji, Juju, Sakara and Apala Music genres can be described as off-springs of ancient forms. There is no single approach to the study that is more viable than the other. Also, there is no single classification style that is more viable than the other. Scholars have only tried to approach the study from their own personal perspectives. A holistic approach would be recommended because it covers for the multifarious nature of Oral Narratives. Because narratives rely on performance, a focus on performance will also make approaching narratives easier and more sustainable. Oral Narratives remain valid but the advent of technology and modernity has affected folktales. Despite this challenge, technology has also helped in the preservation and propagation of some of these narratives. Some folktales have been codified so as to make them accessible to a larger number of people and some have also been adapted into new media forms like movies, novels and the cinema, Works Cited Abatan, O.L. “The Folklorist as Teacher: Towards the Use of Story Telling Pedagogy.” Journal of Communication. vol. 2, no. 2, 2011, pp. 125-130. Achebe, Chinua. Anthills of the Savannah. William Heinemann Limited. 1988. Adeeko, Adeleke. “Oral poetry and Hegemony: Yoruba Oriki” Journal of Dialectical Anthropology. vol 26, 2001, pp. 181-192. 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