Scheub 1985ReviewAfr - trad.ASR

A Review of African Oral Traditions and Literature
Author(s): Harold Scheub

Source: African Studies Review, Vol. 28, No. 2/3 (Jun. - Sep., 1985), pp. 1-72
Published by: African Studies Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/524603
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A REVIEWOF
AFRICAN ORAL TRADITIONS AND LITERATURE
Harold Scheub
There is an unbrokencontinuity in African verbal art forms, from interacting
oral genres to such literaryl productions as the novel and poetry. The strengthof
the oral tradition seems not to have abated; through three literary periods, a
reciprocallinkage has worked these media into a unique art form against which
potent influences from East and West have proved unequal. Vital to African
literature is the relationship between the oral and written word; in seemingly
insignificantinterstices have flourishedsuch shadowy literary figuresas Egyptian
scribes, Hausa and Swahili copyists and memorizers, and contemporarywriters
of popular novellas, all playing crucial transitional roles in their respective
literatures.The oral tale is not "the childhood of fiction" (Macculloch, 1905), but
the early literary traditions were beneficiariesof the oral genres, and there is no
doubt that the epic and its hero are the predecessorsof the African novel and its
central characters.
The African oral tradition distills the essences of human experiences,shaping
them into rememberable,readily retrievable images of broad applicability with
an extraordinarypotential for eliciting emotional responses. These are removed
from their historical contexts so that performers may recontextualize them in
artistic forms. The oral arts, containing this sensory residue of past cultural life
and the wisdom so engendered, constitute a medium for organizing,examining,
and interpreting an audience's experiences of the images of the present. The
tradition is a venerable one. "When those of us in my generation awakened to
earliest consciousness," says a contemporary Xhosa storyteller, "we were born
into a tradition that was already flourishing.,"2 A San performer expresses it
poetically: "A story is like the wind: it comes from a distant place, and we feel
Walter Benjamin, having read an African tale, commented, "This story from
it.'"3
ancient Egypt is still capable after thousands of years of arousing astonishment
and thoughtfulness.It resembles the seeds of grain which have lain for centuries
in the pyramids shut up air-tight and have retained their germinative power to
this day." A story, he concluded, "does not expend itself' the way information
does. "It preserves and concentrates its strength and is capable of releasing it
even after a long time" (Benjamin, 1973: 90). These images of the past, over the
years honed into motifs with the potential for metaphor, engage those of the
present, which have not yet received figurativesignificancethroughthe blending
process. Contemporary images are still mere information. "When the weather
African Studies Review, vol. 28, nos. 2/3, June/September 1985.
1
AFRICANSTUDIESREVIEW
gets a little warmer," the San storyteller goes on, "I sit in the sun, sitting and
listening to the stories that come from out there, stories that come from a
distance. Then I catch hold of a story that floats out from the distant
place-when the sun feels warm and when I feel that I must visit and talk with
my fellows."4 These oral performers, wrote the Xhosa novelist, A. C. Jordan
(1973: 3), "gave artistic utterance to their deepest thoughts and feelings about
those abstract and concrete things that came within their experience.... " The
San storytellerconcludes, "When I get home, I must first sit a little, cooling my
arms, letting the fatigue go out of them. I simply listen, watching for a story that
I want to hear." That story, he says, "is wont to float along to another place, our
names pass along to those people who do not see our bodies moving along here.
Our names are things that, floating, reach a different place. Mountains may lie
between two roads, but a man's name passes behind the backs of those
mountains, those names with which, returning,he moves along."'
One of the themes in African oral tradition has to do with a force that makes
kin of all living things: a splendid bird becomes identified with a badly deformed
child who is neglected by her own family. Throughthe patterningof images, the
storytellerreveals that in the realm of nature there is no distinction between the
perfection of the bird and the flawed child; they are equally sacred (Turnbull,
1959). The brief Mbuti tale shares the theme of the Nyanga epic of Mwindo
(Biebuyck and Mateene, 1969). Each has a point of referencein a remote time
when all was sublime. The origin of death (Abrahamsson,1951) meant the end
of this perfect time: now despair and pessimism began. It was the age of the
hero. Rites of passage became a means for recapturingthat period when all
things were blissfully related; the order of nature, echoing the harmonious era,
became the model for the ordering of the human world. The imaginative tale
carries these images and themes, dramatizationsof the rituals. The heroic epic is
the means of revealing the great shifts on a cultural level necessary to the
securing of that passage for a whole people. Because it is dependent on the same
metaphoricaltransformationas the tale, it is understandablyconstructedof tales
stitched together; to further link fiction and history, the epic images are laced
with those of heroic poetry. Central to these movements, if it is possible to
generalize about so diverse a set of traditions, is a hero who is a composite of all
elements of nature and society; these flow through him, he comes to represent
them in their interdependence-and always with a temporal reach, involving
past, present, and future.
The major oral genres-the riddle and lyric poem; the proverb;and the tale,
heroic poetry, and epic-are characterized by a metaphorical process, the
product of pattern and image; and, being prescriptive rather than descriptive,
they resolve themselves into models for human and culturalbehavior, falling into
a cyclical, not linear, mode. History, a part of heroic poetry and epic, appearsin
fragmentaryform.6
Broadly, oral history is more a comment than a record. It is a way of
observing a society that reveals the way the community feels about itself. It
preservesfor posterity important moments in a culturalmovement throughtime,
and it does this by means of images that are often found in imaginativetales and
poems. This is because those images embody aspects of tradition that can be
expressed in no other way. They are sometimes fantastic, often cyclical, always
mythic, and are found permanentlytrapped in the images of epic.7 Oral history
is not the aligning of images in linear modes, but the fragmentationof lineal
AFRICANORAL TRADITIONSAND LITERATURE
images and their recasting in new configurationsand contexts. (E. H. Gombrich

[1961: 319-20] relates how Constable was convinced that Albert Cuyp, in his
painting, Dordrechtin a Storm, "had made a valid discovery. He had examined
Cuyp's rendering of lightning and found it like nature. Not a transcript, of
course-who could describe a flash of lightning, and that in oil paint?-but a
configuration which, in the context, became the valid cryptogram for that
unpaintable glare." Oral history is "Not a transcript, of course," but a "valid
cryptogram"for human experience.)
The oral categories are interwoven;a common internal structurecharacterizes
them, each with a rhythmicalorderingof image and motif which controls the ties
between the art tradition and the real world. It is by means of this common
structure, it is because of the metaphor or its potential (the organizingfactor in
each of the genres), that vital links are establishedwith the visual arts, as well as
with dance, mime and music. Each of the forms in some way nourishes the
other. The lyric poet partakes of the riddler's art, the tale operates accordingto
the principles of the riddle and lyric, and the tale contains the germ of the
epic-in all cases, the metaphorical core controls expansion and development
into more complex forms.
African oral tradition is never simply a spoken art; it is an enactment, an
event, a ritual, a performance.8Patterningof imagery is the most visible artistic
activity, involving the blending of the contemporary world and the fanciful
fabrication of the tradition; the combining of the images and their
transformation into dramatic ritual is the result of metaphor.9"The deliberate
conjunction of disparateitems which we call metaphor,"writes a poet, "is not so
much a way of understanding the world but a perpetually exciting way of
recreating it from its own parts . 1.."10When the realms of art and reality are
brought into contact and that relationshipis caused by metaphor,the audience is
in the presence of myth. Metaphor takes an audience's routine experiences and,
in a performance,links them to ancient, often fantastic," images from the art
tradition. The combination renders contemporary experience comprehensible,
and roots the members of the audience in history. Metaphor implies
transformation,from one set of images to another, but without giving up any of
the original meanings or perceptions that an audience might have of them. This
process becomes mythic because of the changes involved. Real world images may
be cultural, historical, or personal; their blending with fantasy, the movement
from one state of being to another, is mythic, and is coupled with a re-enactment
that is ritualistic. The drama of performance is an effort to capture both the
ritual, the graphic images of transformation, and, more importantly, the fierce
focusing of venerable emotions on contemporary change. Myth is not a tale; it is
a process within a tale. It is related to stories of the gods because gods are
creators and are thus involved in primal transitions. The shifts wrought by the
gods have their parallels in those brought about by culture heroes, epic heroes,
even trickstersand tale characters.The audience may have moved from the place
of the gods, but the tales and the shifting states stay stable; we remain in the
presence of myth, which is always in transition. It is the dying and reborn god,
the hero transforming his society; it is the tale character shifting identities
through the dramatizationof a cultural rite of passage. Myth is a metaphor, and
because of that it is a narrative device, but it is more. Ancient motifs,
condensed, symbolic, heavy with emotional potential, are embedded in the
tradition; myth has the power to activate those motifs, to release and contain the
AFRICANSTUDIES REVIEW
intense feelings. Always in motion, myth is liberating, but its leap into the
unknown is, in the oral tradition, seldom open-ended. It insists upon a return to
origins, altered perhaps but ever cyclical, and for that reason it obviates history
while depending on history for its images.
The purpose of metaphor, at the core of the mythic process, is to harness the
emotions of the members of the audience, trapped as they are in images of past
and present, thereby divining paradoxesand resolvingconflicts, and to move that
audience into a new perception of reality. But metaphor is not always myth. The
riddle is a figurative form comparing "two otherwise unrelated things in a
metaphorical manner.""1In the comparison, the problem is fathomed, but
perhaps more important the attributes of each set are transferredto the other.
When the Lingala riddler utters this poser, "Mokonzi moko, akofandakase o kati
ya nzube" ("A chief who only sits among thorns"),the answer, "Lolemo" ("The
tongue") (P-D. Beuchat, 1957: 140), reveals a description not only of the tongue
but also of the chief. Because the riddle involves paradox as well as imagery, it
exercises both the intellect and the imagination of the audience: in its attempts
to find the answer, it becomes a part of the metaphorical transformation.The
delight in discovery characterizes the riddle, and prepares members of an
audience for the more complex coupling that occurs in the tale and epic, and
reflects the relations among images in lyric poetry. The riddle operates in two
modes, much as lyric and tale do; one is literal, the other figurative, with a
tension and an interaction between them.13 It is not that the literal mode acts as
a block or misleading clue to the audience,14 but that the literal level of
interpretation interacts vigorously and creatively with the figurative;that is the
full experience of the riddle. It is not simply a solution that is wanted, it is the
prismatic experience of figurative imagery placed against the literal. The Zulu
raconteurriddles, "Ngendishiyami egubuzekile"("A dish of mine that is turned
upside down"),'5 and the answer participates in the metaphor of poetry as the
solution is sought. "A stupid little fellow who drags his intestines," riddles the
Berberperformer,and again, "My little meadow which is not mown," and again,
"She gave four to the sky, she gave four to the earth, she gave four to her
mistress"'16: the play is between fantasy and reality, between the figurativeand
the literal. In the riddle, the audience's imagination, made active during
performance,is also made visible.
The riddle establishes a model for all oral art. The relationship between
images has at least the potential for metaphor and complexity. In the African
lyric,"7it is possible to see a set of riddles operatingas the separateimages in the
poem relate to one another metaphorically-and also, often, with paradox.
Andrew Welsh (1978: 58) notes, "The riddle is the root of the lyric element in
the sense that both the riddle maker and the lyric poet developed their respective
expressions through the same associations of picture and thought, the same
process of seeing, knowing, naming." The combination of figurative images
creates the final experience of the lyric poem. It is often more complex than the
riddle because it embraces a number of riddling connections, and a single riddle
relationship may become more complex when it is introduced into the context of
yet another, and so on as the riddling images of the poem interact. The poet
supplies a series of images that repeat aspects of a basic theme or examine an
emotion with intensity. Each metaphoricalset, in itself a riddle, acts as a kind of
clue, bringing the audience closer to an understandingof the poet's intent. "Mon
coeur est tout joyeux," in a Mbuti song, establishes a theme (Trilles, 1945: 228).
AFRICANORALTRADITIONS
ANDLITERATURE
It is repeated concretely and metaphorically,"Mon coeur s'envole en chantant";

then image follows image- "Sous les arbres de la foret,/Foret notre demeure et
notre mere"-as the poet contrasts herself with a bird, explaining the
significance of the place. In that homely image and its suggestion of childbirth,
the poet continues "Dans mon filet j'ai pris/Un petit, tout petit oiseau." That is
the significanceof "la forct, notre demeure et notre mere." The poet repeats the
image yet again, but with a thematic change: "Mon coeur est pris dans le
filet/Dans le filet avec l'oiseau," tying the separate image strands together. The
lyric poet repeats the image, establishes the boundaries of the varieties of
imagery that may be introduced into the poem, and creates the rhythm; these
assure that the different sets of images will be experiencedby the audience in a
similar way. In the Mbuti song, the singer unites the images of ensnared heart
and trapped bird; when we learn that the poem is performedby a woman while
giving birth, the images of joy, forest, and snaring achieve a metaphoricalunion,
and the lyrical riddling is at an end.
Myth is not a theology or body of dogma or a world-view;it is not so much a
story as that which moves the story, and we find it in incipient form in the
riddle, lyric, and proverb. In the latter, metaphor is achieved when a somewhat
hackneyed expression is brought into contact with reality. "Mlomo umoza upoke
nyama ku nkaramo?" asks the Tumbuka sage, "Can one mouth take meat from
a lion?"'8 and a contemporaryinstance of the uselessness of a minority opinion
is linked to the tradition. "Mahara mnboya,ukwiza sima yamara," says the
Tumbuka wise man, "Wisdom is like mushrooms that come in season when the
porridgeis finished"(Young, 1931: 344), and a modern experienceof the Sunday
norning quarterbacktouches the ancient lore of the culture. The proverb is a
metaphoricalrelationship,tying an old saying to a situation with which it may or
may not have a clearly perceived relationship, but that, with thought, reveals a
"valid cryptogram" for that real life experience. The proverb in this respect
behaves similarly to the way image operates in lyric poetry, in which diverse
images are brought into contact with one another. The audience knows what it
must do, and it works toward an understandingof the relationship:the proverb
form, and the audience's experiences with it, force a movement toward reason.
Proverbsare tired cliches only when viewed in isolation (in a book or collection,
for example), but when they are placed into realistic contexts, they become vital,
even dynamic. What gives them freshness is the experience to which they are
giving form. In the lyric, linkages must be understood within the poem before
they can be comprehendedin the realistic context. In the proverb,the only way
for the metaphor to be realized is by means of the instant connection between
the art form and reality. The proverb is similar to the riddle in the sense that
metaphor is intended, as the ancient truth of the culture touches contemporary
experience. More, perhaps, than the riddle, the proverb establishes ties with the
culture's sages; ancient wisdom is carried by the proverbial expression that
through constant use becomes easily remembered-and hackneyed, until given
new life. The proverb gives cultural and artistic form to present action. The
riddle does much the same thing when problem and solution are harmonized.
The Mende proverb, "Manuma gbii na kambei hu" ("There is no mercy in the
tomb") (Senior, 1947: 205), possesses an ambiguity that gives it the potential for
many uses; the equivocality is drastically narrowed and concentrated when
creatively applied.
The three independent genres interact primarily by means of their identical

metaphoricalconstruction. As oral forms become longer and more complex, it is
this same process that animates them, as if the riddle and lyric poem formed
their core with the proverb adding a somewhat didactic bridge between the
worlds of the real (i.e., the present) and the fantastic (i.e., the past).
The single most important characteristicof African oral performancesis the
patterningof images. Childrenlearn to organizelike images, establishinga model
for the comprehension of more sophisticated forms in which unlike images are
meant to be aligned. In the simple tale, patterns are built on the actions of a
single character, as fantasy and reality are linked in a linear movement from
conflict to resolution; at the same time, the metaphorical structure,not unlike
that which governs the movement in lyric poetry, controls the patterning,
providing the possibilities for complexity, for meaning, and for the revelation of
the mimetic relationship. That lyrical core assures that the potential for
expansion and development are not lost. Out of a triangularrelationship that
includes a central character, a helper, and a villain, the basic movement is
developed. The tale at this stage will not necessarily be metaphorical;it may
simply bring like image sets into contact with one another for no purpose other
than to move the tale effectively to its resolution. But the possibilities for
metaphorare a part of the form because of the existence of patterning.
Many tales have a built-in capacity for linkage to other tales; a number of
them, when placed in a narrative frame, produces a complex story. When two
tales or more are thus joined and the parts harmonized by the metaphorical
process, an epic matrix if not an epic is created (along, incidentally, with the
roots of the literary novel). It is at this stage that organizingactivities similar to
those found in the proverbassume importance.In the shortertales, a process like
that of the riddle and poem have been sufficient,but, as organizationand theme
become more involved, the metaphorical movement found in the proverb
becomes crucial because it supplies the structure necessary to carry a complex
theme. The proverb-typeactivity establishes the ties between past and present;
the type found in the riddle and lyric can then continue to supply the internal
ordering of the larger forms. And panegyric poetry contributes the ties with
history. When the number of tales develops to a complexity no longer
supportable by the simple structure of the story, and when that set of tales is
brought into a context that includes history and the hero, epic is the result.19
In non-narrative poetry, the lyric and panegyric, the only relationship
available to the bard is a metaphorical one; it binds images. In the tale,
metaphoricalunion is not necessary to the sense of the story. But when it does
occur, when both narrativeand metaphor are present, the tale assumes the form
of the lyric. In the trickster tale, for example, the relationship is between the
trickster and his dupe. There is seldom a helper. All is illusion as Trickster
creates a deceptive world to approximatethe real. This linkage between the real
world and an illusory realm contains the possibilities for a metaphorical
relationship, a set of worlds controlled and manipulated by the trickster. While
figurative movement is seldom a consideration in such trickster tales, its
structures are evident. In the elaborated tale, metaphor becomes dominant. In
fact, a reciprocal relationship exists: metaphor is a crucial compositional device
that holds such tales together, at the same time that the unified narratives
generate metaphor. In the Zulu tale, "Umxakaza-wakogingqwayo"(Callaway,
1868: 181-217), and the Lamba "Story of Mr. Lion-child and Mr. Cow-child"
AND LITERATURE
(Doke, 1927: 14-23), three distinct narrative sections can be identified, with a
model revealed in the opening part, repeated in stark, simple terms in the
second, then duplicated once again in a more complex fashion. In each case, the
purpose of the intervening section is to make unquestionably clear to the
audience the metaphor that the storytelleris creating. Once that has been done,
it is possible to move to the third part; the contours of the metaphor are not
apparent, a pattern has been created that will enable the members of the
audience to experience the final figurativeturn, the real point of the tale. These
are involved tales, with a large number of images requiringan active organizing
mechanism, yet the transformation process at the center is one with all such
movements in the African tradition. In a Kordofan tale, "The Monkey Girl"
(Frobenius, 1910), a less complicatednarrative,metaphoricalpossibilities exist in
the relations between father and son, and the performermakes plain the nature
of those ties by carefullylabelling the substanceof the four tasks in the final part.
The artist and the tradition have developed a number of such techniques to
assure that the poetic experience is not lost. As images multiply, the danger of
obscurity becomes manifest, so the design that reveals the crucial metaphorical
activity must be reinforced.
In heroic poetry, or panegyric,20 the relationship among images seems also
obscure at times. Some, in fact, refer to the images as mblanges,21so difficultis
it to discern their relationships.The images are indeed connected; a discourse is
initiated by the poet, and the panegyric assumes lyrical form. As in the lyric
poems, the rhythm of the poetic performance,its single subject, the thematically
designed boundaries, bind the diverse images. Of all African art forms, heroic
poetry is the closest to history in its choice of images. It frequentlyconcentrates
on historical figures. The creator of such poetry usually ignores repertories of
fantasy, selecting instead images of animals and land-forms to accompany the
many historical allusions. Panegyric poetry examines heroic aspects of
humans-positively, in the rush of pleasure in recountingthe affairs in the lives
of authentic culture heroes; negatively, in the comparison of the flawed
contemporaryleader with the great heroes of the past.22 While the raw material
of this poetry is by and large realistic, it is history made discontinuous, then
placed in novel frames. Within this new context, the hero is described, then
judged. It is in the measurementof the poem's subject against the ideals of the
society that the work has its metaphoricalpower. "While such poetry is not a
historical rendering, it nevertheless has no existence outside history. Images,
selected at least partially for their power to elicit strong feelings from an
audience, are first removed from their mainly historical contexts," as in the tales.
"Certain emotions associated with such subjects as heroism and the kingship are
intensified, and reordered. Because contemporary events are thus routinely
measured against cultural values, history is constantly being revived and revised.
The poems depend on this enhanced narrative, reproduced, atomized, and
redefined. It is a subjective accounting, but the poet, using all his magic to
convince his listeners otherwise, contains these as yet unchannelled bursts of
energy and gives history a new gloss.'"23
As with lyric poetry, panegyric builds on a diversity of images, tied to one
another in intricate ways. This developing web reveals the character of the
poem's subject, and at the center is the lyricism common to proverb and
riddle-a regularlyrepeated pattern with alterations.The poem may have varied
images, but the pattern organizes them. In many works, thematic parallelism,
dominating other devices, unifies the poem. In a Sotho heroic poem, Jonathane
Molapo's martial abilities are compared to violent natural images"Setsokotsane sa mara a Lejaha!" ("Whirlwind of the troops of Lejaha!").24 Into
this unifying, steadying matrix, the bard places images that have somewhat
ambiguous values, which adapt themselves fairly readily to whatever image
ke khahanyets'a Mokutu"
environment they happen to be in-"Seoehla
("Down-horned cow confronts Agitator") is an example, and "Nare ea habo
Mphaphathi" ("Buffalo of the Mphaphathi family"). These lines take on the
coloration of the dominant images around them and add to the illusion of unity.
In this poem, the violent natural images are preponderant and act as the binding
element, juxtaposing comparisons with deadly animals; both sets of imagery deal
with violence in combat:
Tgukuluea Mateketoaa Leribe,
Seoehla ke khahlanyets'aMokutu,
Setsokotsanesa mara a Lejaha!
Setsokotsanesa khothometsabatho,
Batho ba nkoa ke sekhoholasa marumo,
Sekhoholasa lehlabula,sefefo,
Sefako se marotholia thata-thata;
Ea n 'esalese etsa batho mofela
Ho ba isa Loting, bochabela!
Mohlankanaoa Linare, Lechokha,
Lechokhala khaola batho maratha;
Ea ba khaola matsekela Tjotjela,
Nare ea habo Mphaphathi.
Nare e hlabile naka ii chochile,
Ea hlaba li le litsenene,
Tgukuluea moshemane 'a Manka!
Holimo la bataola moreneng,
La otla, la kokotollamelora!
Ntga ngoana, motsoetse 'a lehlabula,
Mateketoaba ea fehla le Litjotjela,
Motsana,oona ba ea o chesa.
Rhinocerosof the Teketoa of Leribe,
Down-hornedcow confrontsAgitator,
Whirlwindof the troops of Lejaha!
Whirlwindthrew people down,
People seized by a torrentof spears,
A summerdownpour,a tempest,
Hail with granitestones;
Always causing people to perish,
Leadingthem to the Maloti, in the East!
Youth of the Buffalo,Pursuer,
The Pursuerchopped people to pieces,
The Fierce-starerchopped them into groups,
Buffaloof the Mphaphathifamily.
Sharp-hornedBuffalogored,
It gored with its javelin-like horns,
Rhinocerosof the boy of the Takers!
The heaven struckat the chiefs place,
It struck,raisingthe ashes!
Take out the child, Motherof summer,
ANDLITERATURE
arecausingwar,
TheTeketoaandFierce-starers
Theyareburningthislittlevillage.
Nature images are strong in the first half of the poem, to be complementedby
images about goring buffalo and chopping pursuerand fierce-starer.The strength
of the nature imagery reasserts itself in the end ("The heaven struck ...
"), and
the almost unrelieved imagery of violence is touched with tragic meaning in the
final line, "Motsana, oona ba ea o chesa."
With the rhythm of the poem, the internal sound harmonies, these parallel
images must be seen as major organizingfactors in panegyric.In a Swati poem,
the unifying image has to do with water-flowing spring,ford, lofty pool, the sea,
the labyrinthine sea-and this is coupled with a historic event that is at the
center of the poem, the movement of Swati soldiers across the seas during the
Second World War." What holds such poetry together is not the narrative of
history but metrical and sound patterning that complements a metaphorical
movement, the bringing of the subject of the poem into alignment with a series
of diverse images with certain common qualities that the bard examines and to
which the poem's subject is finally linked.
Fragmentedhistory is also frequentlya part of African epic which treats both
the acts of heroic characterswho existed in fact and those who are fictional. The
epics of Sunjata26and Mwindo27are respective examples. The effect is the same;
in all other respects, they are similar. It is not historical veracity in the linear
sense that determines epic, it is the insight into history and culture provided by
this confluence of oral genres. Now, within a pretext or setting that makes
possible the merging of various frequently unrelated tales, the metaphorical
apparatus,the controlling mechanism found in the riddle and lyric, the proverb,
and heroic poetry, coordinates this set of tales to form a largernarrative.All of
this centers on the characterof the hero, and a gradualrevelation of his frailty,
uncertainties, torments: he often dies, falls, or is deeply troubled, in the process
bringing the culture into a new dispensation often prefiguredin his resurrection
or coming into knowledge. The mythical transformationcaused by the creatorgods and culture heroes is reproducedprecisely in the acts and cyclical, tortured
movements of the hero.
While the tale is at the heart of epic, significantchanges occur. The epic is a
complex reshapingof the tale. Heroic poetry provides a grid, helping to organize
the narratives and narrative-fragmentsthat are transported into the epic
framework; it also supplies the specific historical and geographical data for
certain epics. What African epics owe to the tale tradition is not difficult to
discern. Less obvious is the role that heroic poetry plays in their construction.
The greater part of the Malagasy epic about Ibonia is composed of elaborate
praise-names(Becker, 1939: 58-59):
O,medalahy io zaza io, hoy Ranakombe.
Akorakoraylahy, akorakoraylahy, hoy
Ranakombe;fa ny anaran'io zanako io
hataokoImpandrafitrandriamanibola;
fa
izany no lahy sarotraamin' ny tany;
nampiadyombelahyarivo, himana ombelahy
zato indraymanezakaihany, taranak'
Impanarivo,zanak' Itsimanan-kely,
manamutrany an' olona, mangoronany
tsy an' ny tena; ny avy ao tsy azo alaina
10
hariharina,fa azon-dahyloza.
Quel terribleenfant que celui-ce,dit Ranakombe.
Poussez des acclamations,poussezdes
je donneraia cet enfant les nom
acclamations,;
d'Impandrafitrandriamanibola
(L'orfevre-de-dieux-d'argent);
viola un homme terriblesur la terre;
il fait combattremille taureaux,il en
mange cent d'un seul coup, il descend
d'mpanarivo (Le-Richard)fils d'Itsimanan-kely
(qui-n'a-pas-peu);
il enleve le bien d'autrui;il
rdflece qui ne lui appartientpas; et on ne
peut ramasserce qui provientde ses rapines,
car c'est entre les mains d'un hommefuneste.
Out of these praises grows a heroic cycle-Ibonia's miraculous bird, his namegiving, his movement to manhood, his taking of a wife from a deadly rival, his
strugglewith his cultural enemies, his death. Weaving throughthe entirety of the
actions of the epic is a panegyricpattern, providing the work'sprimarystructure.
Like the tales, this epic dramatizes rites of passage, birth, puberty, marriage,
death. Unlike the tale, Ibonia, in his struggles and the movement through the
dense forest of praise-names,moves beyond the routine activities of earth-bound
humans, and comes to stand for a fresh fulfillment of the rituals, especially of
marriage, so that in the end, before his death, he announces his testament
(Becker, 1939: 131):
Voalohanyindrindra:indronyfanamabadiana.
Na iza ho andriana,na iza ho
mpanjaka,na iza ho mpanapaka,na iza
ho mpiteny,aza mba misy manaha ny
fanambadian'olona;fa ny lalam-panambadiana
ka aza mba sarahina.
mahafatvy,
(Izany anatra izan'y,hono, no nahamafy
nyfanambadiana.)
Voicidonc les recommandationsqueje vous
laisse: Premierement,voici, le mariage. Que
nul, prince,roi, chef ou porte-parole,ne
delie les liens du mariage,car le chemin du
mariage engagejusqu'a la mort et qu'il n'y ait
pas de separation.(C'estce conseil, dit-on,
qui a renforceles bases du mariage.)
The epic of Ibonia thus comes to representa shift in view regardingtraditional

rites of passage:the tale characterunquestioninglyundergoesthe rituals, the epic
hero alters them and gives their new forms permanence.
The epic of Sunjata also occurs within a network of praises; the work is
obviously tied to historical events, and heroic poetry is a critical part of the
narrative. The tale itself is simple and straightforward,with common motifs
from the oral tradition. The role of a woman is central, as an extension of the
hero who, as often happens, is somewhat passive. It is the combination of
Sunjata and his sister that creates the characterof the hero. Like Ibonia, Sunjata
goes through the various stages of life-miraculous birth, coming to manhood,
accomplishing impossible tasks that reveal him as a man destined for nobility,
11
the struggle with Sumanguru, the discovery of Sumanguru's secret and his
consequent destruction, the accession of Sunjata to leadership, and the story of
his companion Tira Makhang.
I taata; wo le ye a tinnajalolu karafo a ye
"Wolingwolingnding, MakharaMakhang
Konnate,Haimaru ning Yaamaru."
Wo soomo i naata a daani.
Feng te a bulu,
A taata nyankumomuta a ye a dii i la;
Wo le ye a tinnajalolu karafo a ye
"Nyankumolukhabala Simbon."
They went off; that is why the griots call him
"Bee, little bee, MakharaMakhang
Konnate, Haimaruand Yaamaru."
Next morningthey came and beggedfrom him.
He had nothing.
So he went and caughta cat and gave it to them;
That is why the griots call him
"Cats on the shoulderSimbong."
(Innes, 1974: 46-47)
The simple tale weaves through the historical fragments trapped in images and
given new context in the fictional activities. A strong sense of realism thus
invests the imaginary character and his actions, even though they are taken
directly from the imaginary tale tradition.
The Ozidi Saga, "told in seven nights to dance, music, mime and ritual"
(Ojobolo, 1977: ix), describes the miraculous birth of the son of a murdered
general, his development as a ward of his supernatural grandmother, and the
battles that he fights to regain his family's former greatness. He errs, however,
when he becomes overly enthusiastic in his quest, and he must be educated by
the divine Smallpox King, who purifies him. Again, the saga is developed within
a network of praises (Ojobolo, 1977: 104-5):
Agbodobo wonronronbera duo suoembo,
e, obulukubomQangose duo
yaii.
Bo paa, kene yankuu, ba suomumi eyQ
kpQ
fa kpofa.
Omu tuu mu wan tiri ma mu vuaanpaa,

owo wan odole oweibo,mamubose
tu-ma timi.
"Suomo,suomo, suomo!"
Egbelegbelebineowei:
"Eronronrin ronronron,ron ron ron
rin ronron."
SuQmQ,suomo ke suomo suomo e,
gbayebo,Ozidi ba ba akpoa
ba keme ke ke Ezon emine, ba omomo
soyem bera kpo nemi-a.
Melu melu melu melu melu.
pake aforebowuu.
AgboQdo
12
As his sword hurtleddazzling into his hand,
oh, both battle kilt and girtle mergedwith
his body,
And when he emerged,so awesome was he,
there was no place to go in.
And when he swept out into the open ground,
those his orderlies,the two of them, were at
his back (cheering):
"Surgein, surgein, surgein!"
And from the horn-blower:
"Eronronrin ronronron,ron ron ron
rin ronron."
That he should charge,chargein and charge,
yes, as the word was given, Ozidi no
longer knew that there could be anybody
in the world, in the world, in Ijo, seeking
a fightwith him.
All glaringand flaringwas he.
Wind from his sword streamedout.
She-Karisi Candi Rureke's version of The Mwindo Epic (Biebuyck, 1969) is

similar to Okabou Ojobolo's saga of Ozidi. The Nyanga epic takes the audience
through Mwindo's supernatural birth, his struggle with his father and his cultural
rebirth, his trip to the underworld where he has a series of confrontations with
his father's allies whom he destroys and then restores. After his reconciliation
with a subdued father, Mwindo destroys a dragon. This act brings upon him the
censure of the gods, who take him to heaven and teach him what a proper hero
is. Throughout the epic are the praises, often sung by Mwindo himself (Biebuyck
and Mateene, 1969: 65, 154):
UtutkoceMwindo
Mwindokdbutwva-kenda
Iyangura
Nibingutrdnge
muntse
Kabusdntadtukire
Mwfndo
LUttkoce
Na Mwindokdbu4twa-kenda.
You are impotent against Mwindo,
Mwindo is the Little-one-just-born-he-walked.
I am going to meet Iyangura[his aunt].
For Kabusa,shall I go out of the way?
You are helpless against Mwindo,
For Mwindo is the Little-one-just-born-he
walked.
The significance of the panegyric influence on the epic is two-fold. First, in
such works as the Sunjata epics in the Innes collection, data about geography and
history are injected into the narrative, tying the imaginative tales that compose
the epic to the real world, to historical place, event, and time. Second, the
emphasis on praise-names singles out the hero, his character, his ideals, his
struggles. This is not the case in the tale, where characters are not as important
as the actions they perform; indeed, they are often not even given names. The
stress in epic is on character, and the praise-names are evidence of this.
Epic thus has a grander sweep than either the tale or heroic poetry. It
enshrines the themes and emotional experiences of the tale on a broad scale; it
embodies the details and historical and cultural specificity of panegyric poetry.
ANDLITERATURE
13
The combination of tale patterns and poetic rhythms in the epic transfers the
images of those genres to historical figures and acts, endowing history with the
cultural symbolism of the imaginative tradition. Heroes, whether or not they
have existed in fact, become emblematic of change, and they are no less real for
that. Epic is refracted history, revealing in telescoped, intensified images
transitional periods in a culture's life. It is the shift from a Sumanguru, a
Shemwindo, a Mringwari,28 a Raivato, to a new society envisioned by and
imaged in Sunjata, Mwindo, Liongo, Ibonia, each of whom in some way typifies
a culturalethos. The epic carries with it images and experiencesof the past, what
the society has traditionally stood for, into the new world. The hero is a part of
both realms; he would not be able to take his people with him if he were not
identifiablya part of the culturalpast. But he has a vision of the new world. If he
dies in the process of realizing it, if his flaws are exposed, his vulnerability
exploited, that is a part of change; and the atmosphere of yearning, regret, and
loss are a part of the epic tradition, because it involves leaving a familiar world,
and a transition into an uncertain one. Epic embracesboth worlds. To make the
change, the hero moves to the boundaries of his community, necessarilyso; and
as he escorts his society into the new world, he becomes its original insider.
As the epic form is built on the tale, so the epic charactergrows out of the
tale characters. But the epic hero pulls at the sinews of the tale's cyclical
pattern-that is the result of the emphasis on realism; in the end, he remains
faithful to that periodicity. Still, the revolutionaryzeal of the hero, his insistent
posing on the borders of society, his vulnerability and mental struggles, his
agonizing battles with the traditions of his society and the teachings of the gods,
have emancipated him from the submissive tale character.The hero exists on
both the outside and inside of his society, as does another characterfrom the
oral tradition, the trickster, who pretends to be on the inside, but whose tricks
place him on the edge. He could not performhis tricks were he anywhereelse; he
needs dupes, and to dupe someone places him on the community's periphery.
The trickstermust be an insider to become an outsider;the hero is the opposite.
The true insider, however, is the tale character. The tale deals with cultural
activities and generally supports them; the epic allows anti-cultural actions
because of the move from a view of the culture as it is to the cultureas it will be;
the shift from the one to the other places emphasis on the individual within that
society who carries cultural and historical symbolism with him. Tales in their
thousands regularly affirm the culture; characters rhythmically, routinely, and
anonymously go through their rites of passage, helping others to do so, linking
present culture to the timeless age of the beginning, in the process assuring
cultural continuity. In the Chaga tale of "Mrile," for example, the role of the
individual is negated in favor of the survival of the culture(Raum, 1909).
With the trickster and hero, a shift in the organization of the triangular
pattern of the simple tale occurs. Of the elements composing this pattern-the
central character,the villain, and the helper-it is the latter, usually existing as a
separate character and frequently fantastic, who becomes the defining thematic
component in the more complex narratives. In some stories, there is often no
helper as a distinct character,yet his function remains crucial. In the trickster
character,it becomes wit, humor, a unique ability to counter odds. Tricksteris in
control, unlike the tale character who is often manipulated by external forces.
The change can similarly be seen in, for example, the heroic epic of Mwindo, in
which the hero's movements and the development of his character are
14
crystallizedin his aunt, Iyangura,and in his father, Shemwindo.29These external

charactershave become something more than simply a brother saving his sister
from ogres as in the tale. Now they define and shape the heroic character.The
principle of the helper remains stable, an external force assisting the central
characterin some way; it has moved to another level of complexity. The adapted
helper may be the adjunct of the epic's move to psychological realism, as
charactersin the epic come to be seen as manifestations of traits of the major
character.In the Mwindo epic, the hero moves between the extremes of his own
characteras he swings physically from Shemwindo to Iyangura.Thomas Mofolo
uses this device with extraordinaryeffect in Chaka (1925), in which the central
characterstrugglesbetween the Isanusi and Noliwa/Nandi parts of his nature.
In the tale, the helper is a separatebeing because the main charactermust not
possess fantastic abilities; it remains possible to place the tale characterin danger
by simply absenting the helper from the scene. In the epic, that helper becomes
merged in the person of the hero, and so loses its fantastic quality and takes on
human dimensions. Or the helper becomes a dramatized facet of the hero's
character. In either case, it is a move to realism. With the epic hero, the oral
tradition shifts from the tale character who represents a means for becoming
integrated with a society (we often stand on the brink of allegory in such
narratives) to the character who chooses to position himself apart from his
society (and here, we stand on the thresholdof the novel form).
The hero is a loner, he has a vision only partially shared by the rest of his
people. It is his task to use his special gifts to convince his fellows of the
correctness of that vision, and to effect a transformation-it might be a purely
martial conquest of a kingdom, as with Sunjata, or a more sublime transition to
a new sense of leadership, as in the epic of Mwindo, or the significant human
qualities that characterize a people, as with Liongo. Hero and Trickster share
these qualities: each is alone, each attempts to alter society. In tales that are not
epics but have epic possibilities, like the Nguni "Sikhuluma"saga30or the Chaga
"Mrile" tale, similar hero-helperthemes are generated.The central characterin
the tale, on the other hand, seldom stands alone, except during the brief period
that he is an outsider when, in isolation, he undergoesthe ritual initiation prior
to re-entryinto his community. This refocusingof attention from things done to
who does them is critical, not only to an understandingof the oral tradition and
its permutationsbut to a comprehensionof its ties with literature.
While Tricksterand Hero stand alone, each yearns to be an insider. But it is
not being on the inside that is important, it is becoming an insider. Being an
insider means accepting the society as it is. Becoming one means altering the
society to accommodatewhat an individual stands for, not the other way around.
The shift is revolutionary.Now the individual reshapes the world; he does not
accept it as it is, as the tale character invariably does.3' The trickster, culture
hero, and epic hero are in the process of redefining human society to
approximatetheir own needs and visions. While the tale character,in the act of
reshaping himself through the ritual to meet cultural requirements, links the
society to its past, the hero's vision and his strugglehave to do with the future.
(Not that the past is ever wholly neglected: it is always drawn into the present
and projectedinto the future.)
In the heroic epic, the etiological theme has to do with the birth of a society,
as it does, albeit whimsically, in the trickstertales. In that respect, the trickster's
illusions can be seen as the kernalsof the heroic act of creation. The culturehero
AND LITERATURE
15
always leaves a residue; in his trickster activities, he transforms the earth or

human society or the relations between humans and gods, between ruler and
ruled. The trickster also recreatesthe world, through illusion and deception. The
difference between the trickster and the culture hero lies here: the trickster's
creations are evanescent; they die as quickly as he obtains fulfillment of his
desires, though his dupe may never be the same. But the culture-hero'stricksterillusions are forever;they are the form of the mountains, the curbs on the rights
of kings; they are, in the Fon culture hero's case,32for example, the mediating of
gods and mortals. It is here, at the point at which the tricksterand culture hero
part, that the culture hero and epic hero merge. The latter, not a tricksterin the
same sense as the culture hero, is nevertheless cast in that role because his
actions too have a permanent cultural imprint. This is why it makes no
difference that Sunjata is a historical characterwhile Mwindo and Ibonia may
not be; the distinction has little relevance.
It turns out that the romantic investment in the individual is not a peculiarly
Western phenomenon, and is at the heart of the epic and the novel. It would not
be an easy matter to move from the oral tale to the literary novel, because, for
one thing, of the cyclical nature of the tale. But the shift from the oral epic to the
novel is accomplished because of the altered perception of the central character.
If the novel is predisposed to the actions and mental processes of a changing
individual locked in a struggle with his environment, then it has roots in the
epic. Although epic heroes will always contain qualities of tale characters,the
latter exist to fashion a model for human behavior. The trickster moves
decisively against that model, as does the epic hero. This breakingof a cyclical
pattern is what enables the trickster and hero to become outsiders, engaged in a
struggle against the norms of their societies, changing those standards in the
interest of immediate gratificationor for a noble vision. In this way, the epic
hero moves away from the tale charactertowards the historical figure.It is true
that, though he breaks out of the cycle of the tale, his actions remain so under
the influence of the tale tradition that he enters his own grand cycle. But the
break is the thing, for it allows the introduction of realism into the oral
narrative, making the transition to the novel possible. The hero's stand against
his society, his reshaping of the values of his community, and his historical
nature all argue for critical changes in the oral tradition. History and fiction have
come into a tentative union in the epic, making possible the birth of the novel.
One of the keys to understanding the antecedents of the African literary
tradition is to be found in that fecund period when writing is as oral as it is
literary. It is the time during which the scribe or copyist controls the written
word-and, to a certain extent, the oral. To attempt a literary theory33without
examining the roots of literature in the oral tradition is to begin in the middle.
To insist upon an insurmountablebarierbetween the two media-Albert B. Lord
writes, "The written technique ... is not compatiblewith the oral technique, and
the two could not possibly combine ... "34-is to deny an extraordinarily
fruitful interaction. To exclude the oral tradition from any influenceon literature
except for "residual oralism""5ignores this rich interplay and the fact that the
novel form, for example, is prefiguredin the oral epic. Lord (1960: 129) argues
that "Once the oral technique is lost, it is never regained,"and furtherthat "it is
not possible that [a person] be both an oral and a written poet at any given time
in his career," that "The two by their very nature are mutually exclusive." The
fact is that the oral technique is never really lost; the productsof the literarypoet
16
continue their indebtedness to the traditions of the oral bard. The eras when the
connections between the media are at their most vigorous are critical; the roles
of storytellerand bard in the oral tradition, and poet and novelist in the literary,
must be studied in concert with the work of scribe, memorizer,and reciter in the
transitionalperiod.
In ancient Egypt, the craft of the scribe was "the greatest of all the
professions"; it was said that "The scribe orders the destinies of everyone."36
During a time of limited literacy, pronounced during the first generations of
writing, the scribe was the mediator between the oral performer and his
audience; he wrote summaries of the tales and poems of the Egyptianartists, and
so perpetuatedtheir craft. He was frequently a disseminatorof oral materials,a
preserver; and a new form of mneumonics was developed. There was a
connection between the two media throughout the three thousand years of the
ancient Egyptian literary tradition. Scribes not only wrote down the oral
materials; they apparently felt free to rephrase, rearrangeand transpose, omit
sentences, add information, elaborate on advice, and generally shape the
imagery, sometimes even having an effect on the content-in other words, they
assumed the prerogativesof the oral artist. This seems evident in a comparison
of the four extant versions of "The Instructionof Ptahhotep,"a work of literary
art dating from the Old Kingdom (Lichtheim, 1973: 61-80).
With the advent of literature,the oral tradition did not die. The two media
continued their paralleldevelopment:both depended on a set of similar narrative
and poetic principles, and each proceeded to develop these within its own limits.
The media have similar origins and different formal conventions. While the one
is not easily transferredto the other, there is no unbridgeablegap between them
they constantly nourish each other. Artists became aware of the potentials for
transference,and proceeded to investigate and develop them. In its beginningsin
Egypt, literature sought to carry to a logical end the predisposition for
complexity that is a part of the oral tradition-it is what enables the riddle to
become lyric, the lyric to become heroic poetry, heroic poetry and the tale to
become epic. This impulse towards complexity (it would be called "stitching"in
the ancient Greek tradition, and the bard was Rhadsodos, "the stitcher of
songs"), a characteristicof the oral tradition, not only persists in literature,it is
what makes possible the writers' explorations of literary possibilities in the
materials they have inherited from the oral artists. Writersstruggledto make the
oral forms literary;they combined the genres that they inherited,they developed
the techniques and artistic devices that make expansion and complexity possible
in the oral tradition, and applied them to literature. Ultimately, literature
contributes its unique conventions to this process, but only as the writers escape
the influence of the scribes and copyists and respond to their own artistic
ingenuity and begin to explore the possibilities of the written ratherthan spoken
word. The epic hero in the oral tradition moves beyond the allegoricalcharacter
types of the tale and achieves realism and believability; elements important to
literaturecan be seen as derivatives and elaborationsof the oral tradition.
In the Egyptian literary tradition, Africa's first such tradition and among the
world's first,37the relationships between the oral traditions and written forms
become manifest. Wisdom literature,religious poetry and hymns, autobiography,
storytelling,heroic poetry were among the major categoriesof literaryexpression
in the Old Kingdom (2700 to 2300 B.C.); other forms included historical
inscriptions on stelae, temple walls, and tombstones; scientific writings, mainly
AND LITERATURE
17
mathematical and medical; and correspondenceand accounts. It is possible only

to speculate about the full richness of the Egyptianliterarytradition on the basis
of what has survived in papyri, tombs, and stelae, but it is clear from the
writings that the literarytradition was alreadywell advanced.
Basic to all Egyptian literature is the story, "the love of tales and ... the
manner of telling them . . ." Bernard Lewis writes (1948: 1). "In the developing
pattern of the Egyptian story," he goes on, "drawn on the broader canvas of
Egyptian history, we can trace the variation and the enrichment of a few basic
themes." The strength of the Egyptianstoryteller'sart not only had a significant
impact on the early literature,it continued undiminished in its power when that
tradition gave place to a new one in the modern era. "Severalcivilizations have
risen, flourished,and fallen in the valley of the Nile," notes Lewis, "each with its
own religion, language, culture, institutions and style of life. Yet beneath them
all a certain basic unity persisted."
The wisdom genre emerged during the Old Kingdom, and remaineda popular
art form throughout the ancient period. It was represented chiefly by the
"Instruction,"shoyet, obviously born in the oral tradition, a series of maxims or
proverbs passed on to a son by a man of wisdom, instructinghim in the art of
living. The earliest known author is Imhotep, an advisor to King Djoser in the
Third Dynasty (c. 2650 B.C.). Prince Hardjedef,a son of Cheops, was a moralist
of some literary fame; fragments of his "Instruction"have survived. Already
during this period, certain changes were taking place in the transcriptionof the
oral tradition. "The Instruction of Ptahhotep,"written by a vizier who lived at
the end of the Fifth Dynasty (c. 2350 B.C.), when wisdom literaturewas already
a highly developed art form (Ptahhotep quotes the maxims of his predecessors),
is an example of such change. Ptahhotep's "Instruction"contains thirty-seven
maxims. It is a series of proverbs, developed mainly in units of four, with such
recurrent themes as generosity and justice. What is significant is the use of a
frame, or pretext, as a prologue and epilogue, holding the set of proverbs
together. This may appear relatively unimportant, but it is crucial: it provides
the mechanism for taking the forms from the oral tradition and working them
into longer, potentially more complex (in a literarysense) forms. This movement
towards more involved works, thanks to the frame or setting, is an early sign of
literary development; even though the literary artist inherited an oral tradition
that encouraged such combinations, he had now found a useful and artistic
means of doing so.
Writers of the Old Kingdom seem to have been predominantlymembers of
the Pharoah's entourages,38and their works were heavily didactic. The Pyramid
Texts (Mercer, 1952) are, many of them, redolent of the oral tradition. The text
of the Wenis (Unas) autobiography,39for example, follows the form of much of
African heroic poetry, containing simple repetition, parallelism, and more
complex forms of patterning.It is obviously an early piece of written poetry, and
its structure is close to that of Hima (Morris, 1964), Yoruba (Babalola, 1966),
and Zulu (Cope, 1968) heroic poems (Faulkner, 1924: 98):
It is Weniswhoeatsmenandliveson gods,
Lordof porters,whodespatchesmessages.
It is "Grasper-of-Horns"
whois in Kehau
who lassoes them for Wenis,
It is the serpent"He-whose-head-is-raised"
who watches them for him and who drives
18
them to him.
It is "The-Wanderer-who-slaughters-the-Lords"
who stranglesthem for Wenis,
He cuts off their intestines for him,
He is the messengerwhom he sends to punish ...
The poem is a series of praise-names, sometimes developed, forming the portrait

of a leader. It comes from the pyramid of Wenis (Unas), and is a part of the
Pyramid Texts, the poetry of which, R. O. Faulkner (1924: 101) notes, moves
from straightforward repetition ("He has come to thee his father,/He has come to
thee, O RO./He has come to thee his father,/He has come to thee, O Ndi./He has
come to thee his father,/He has come to thee, O Pndn . . . ") to more involved
patterns ("Hail, mighty of magic! Hail, Serpent!/Cause thou the terror of Wenis
to be like thy terror;/Cause thou the fear of Wenis to be like the fear of
thee;/Cause thou the cry of Wenis to be like thy cry . . . ") and variants on
refrains ("The reed rafts of the sky are placed for Re;/I, Re, cross on them to the
horizon with Horus of the Horizon./The reed rafts of the sky are placed for this
Pepi;/He crosses on them to the horizon with Horus of the Horizon./The reed
rafts of the sky are placed for Horus of the Horizon . . . "). An even more
complex stage can be found in the Wenis hymn, in which, Faulkner (1924: 101)
notes, "the actual repetition is confined to the initial word, the parallelism being
maintained by similarity of idea and by the grammatical structure." The uses of
parallelism can be seen in another hymn from the Pyramid Age (Faulkner, 1924:
102):
The fire is laid, the fire shines;
The incense is laid on the fire, the incense shines.
The perfumecomes to Wenis, O incense;
The perfumeof Wenis comes to thee, O incense.
Your perfumecomes to Wenis, O gods;
The perfumeof Wenis comes to you, O gods.
Wenis is with you, O gods;
Ye are with Wenis, O gods.
Wenis loves you, O gods;
Love him, O gods.
At this early stage, if these poems are an accurate indication, and judging what
we can from the contemporary heroic poetry traditions elsewhere in Africa, we
might conclude that this kind of poetry represents no development of the form as
it exists in the oral traditon; rather, it is a transcription of the oral performance.
This seems not to be uncommon in this period during which the two media coexist, when either reportage or imitation of the oral tradition is the rule, the
copyist or scribe being the dominant literary person; the creative artist remains,
by and large, in the oral realm, working with the tools of that highly evolved art
form.
In the early years of the Egyptian literary tradition, it is possible to see
tentative moves from the mere copying of the oral tradition to attempts to give a
number of otherwise separate, individual pieces of a genre unity and form.
Wisdom literature brings together a number of proverbs under a single rubric,
tying them with themes and giving them frames. The early autobiographies,
those of Weni and Harkhuf (both of the Sixth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom), are
really praise poems developed at some length. Weni's autobiography is especially
carefully and self-conciously developed, with the patterning convention from the
AND LITERATURE
19
oral tradition; the recurrentstructuralpatterns have to do with the relationship

between Weni and the pharaoh. The theme, "I was excellent in his majesty's
heart; I was rooted in his majesty'sheart;his majesty'sheart was filled with me,"
becomes the pattern: "his majesty made me a sole companion and overseer of
the royal tenants," "his majesty made me go in to hear [the secret charge in the
royal harem against Queen Weretyamtes]alone," "His majesty sent me at the
head of this army ... ," "His majesty sent me to lead this army five times ...
,"
and then the refrain, "I was worthy in his majesty's heart, because I was rooted
in his majesty's heart, because his majesty'sheart was filled with me," and a new
series is developed, "His majesty sent me to Ibhat to bring the sarcophagus
..""His majesty sent me to Hatnub to bring a great altar of alabaster ... ,"
"His majesty sent me to dig five canals in Upper Egypt ..." (Lichtheim, 1973:
18-23). In each of the sections, intersected by the praises or the "His majesty
..." refrain, the writer creates an autobiographicalrecord. "The Autobiography
of Harkhuf" (Lichtheim, 1973: 23-27) has the same formula and refrain, "His
"His majesty sent me a
majesty ... sent me together with my family ...,"
"Then his majesty sent me a third time ... ," with each
second time ...,"
segment elaborated. It is means of autobiographical writing,40 but it is
constructedlike a heroic poem, and in fact is in the end a praise poem similar to
Wenis' hymn. This also representsa development of the oral poem, a prose piece
of writing with poetic structure,but we have alreadyseen this in the oral epic.
The full development of Egyptian literature seems to have been reached
during a difficult and sorrowful period, that which separates the Old from the
Middle Kingdoms, in the famous Twelfth Dynasty (1991-1786 B.C.). "It is the
writings of this age that were read in the schools five hundred years later,"
observes Adolf Erman (1966: lii-liii), "and from their languageand style no one
dared venture to deviate." It was a terrible period of change; the Memphrite
state of the Old Kingdom had collapsed, and civil war, starvation, and chaos
were the result. The social equilibrium of the Old Kingdom was replaced by
rampant conflicts that were reflected in literature. Literary genres multiplied,
moving beyond but retaining wisdom literature, the hymns, and the
autobiographiesof the previous period. Political and social creeds emerged,along
with philosophical discussions in dialogue form, complaints and critiques, royal
testaments, and prophecies.The tone of these literaryworks echoed the period: it
was predominantly somber. Ipuwer, a chief singer, created "Admonitions of an
Egyptian Sage," in which he sadly described anarchy in the land (Lichtheim,
1973: 149-63). The theme of reversal of material fortunes developed, became
popular, and remained so for a long time. Literary art during this period was
characterizedby verbal eloquence, rich imagery, new forms of repetition; it was
an oratorical art, clearly tied to the oral tradition, but the verbal usages were
becoming more literary. At the end of this period, "Complaintsof the Peasants"
(Erman, 1966: 116-31) (c. 2070 B.C.) was written. This work was noteworthyfor
its skillful combination of narrative segments and monologues (Posener, 1971:
229), representing yet another complicating of the oral tradition. The
"complaint" was a frameworkfor nine petitions in which an oppressed person
agonized about honesty and equality. Like wisdom literature, this genre was a
device for unifying diverse material.
During the period of the Middle Kingdom (2050 to 2775 B.C.), the state
again grew strong, and literature flourished. Texts were written, instructing
officials in the administrationof the new bureaucracy;these remained in use for
20
some one thousand years. Satires were composed; compositions with a political
theme, initiated during the anguish of the First IntermediatePeriod following the
downfall of the Old Kingdom, developed into literature of propaganda("The
Prophecies of Neferti," for example, at the beginning of the Middle Kingdom,
supported the cause of a usurper, Amenemhet I [Lichtheim, 1973: 139-45]). A
"literature of pessimism" that grew out of the preceding period was still
common, but the literature also reflected the hope of a coming golden age. The
prophetic genre was popular, and messianic literature, which had come into
being earlier, developed. And wisdom literaturecontinued its long life.
During this period, literaturewas controlled;the state mobilized the resources
of literatureto establish itself. It was a period of peaceful organization,and the
literaturewas devoted to extolling the virtues of the monarchyand helping it to
consolidate its achievements. Poets lauded the king, a scholar named Kheti wrote
"The Satire of Occupations" which glorified the monarch. It was during this
period that the Egyptian language reached its perfection. Several imaginative
works produced at this time, including "The Story of Sinuhe" (Simpson, 1972:
57-74) and "The Story of the Eloquent Peasant" (Simpson, 1972: 31-49), are
among the finest that Egypt has produced.
"The Story of Sinuhe" was apparentlycreated by artists with strong positive
feelings about the monarchy. It is autobiographical,related to inscriptionsin the
tombs and to the motifs of the oral tradition. It is short by modern standards,
"but Egyptianliterarytexts are never long and rarelyamount to more than about
twenty of our pages" (Posener, 1971: 232). (MargaretAlice Murray[1949: 212]
has suggested that they were "merely notes for the guidance of a professional
storyteller who, like the bard of our own early history, travelled about the
country and made his living by narrating interesting or amusing stories to an
illiterate audience. For such a man, especially for a beginner, notes would be
useful, if not essential. The story could be lengthened or abridged at will,
conversations would be interpolated where necessary, and the tale enlivened by
appropriate gestures.") Yet it is generally considered a "novel," an adventure
story with considerable psychological insight. It is a "hymn to the glory of the
Pharaoh" (Posener, 1971: 232-33): the literature of propaganda,derived from
the oral praise poem and given impetus by the times, is an integral part of it.
The combination of the oral storytelling tradition, the heroic poetry tradition,
and the autobiographyof the Old Kingdom produced this first novel in Egyptian
literature. In the autobiographies of Weni and Harkhuf, autobiography and
praise poetry were early merged. There is a qualitative difference in "The Story
of Sinuhe." It represents a conjunction of autobiography, tale, wisdom
instruction, and praise poetry, and is part of the logical process of combining
going on during the entire period of ancient Egyptian literatureand encouraged
by like tendencies built into the oral tradition.
"The Story of Sinuhe" praises the role of the king, especially his clemency; it
stresses the superiority of the Egyptians over the Asiatics (Montet, 1964: 21113). But the praise of the king might be related to the fact that this document is
also a cleverly contrived means whereby the author ingratiatedhimself with the
king. It is the story of a man who leaves home out of fear of the sovereignwhom
he served, thrives in a foreign land because he has intimidated his hosts with
praise poems about the strength of his king, destroys a gargantuanenemy, then
in his old age yearns for his Egyptian home, and the king of his praise poem
becomes a praiseworthyking in real life (he grants Sinuhe permission to return).
AND LITERATURE
21
The tale is built on a venerablemotif, the weak overcomingthe strong:the clever

Sinuhe wins the favor of his Asian hosts, then does the same with his Egyptian
sovereign. It also traces a common oral odyssey-a movement away from home,
an initiation in an alien and menacing place, and a triumphantreturn.41
The art of storytellingwas a major force in Egyptianliteraturefrom the time
of Ramses II to the new Kingdom (Montet, 1964: 219). Erman (1894: 372),
noting that fairy tales always delighted Egyptian audiences, adds that the charm
of "The Story of Sinuhe" lay "rather in the elegance of its languagethan in its
contents merely; the long letters and speeches, which continually interruptedthe
narrative ... were evidently the chief value of the book." Another critic
(Murray, 1949: 212) observes, "The early stories are more in the nature of fairy
tales in which magic plays a largepart, but the story of Sinuhe is the precursorof
the modern novel ...
" William A. Ward argues that it is not simply that it tells
a story of high adventure;there is something more, "a sombre recital of events

which could happen in real life," and this is a key deviation from the world of
the oral tale. Ward adds, "the historical backgrundin which [Sinuhe] moves is
genuine"; "the hero may be fictitious but the world in which he lived and the
great figures of the period are reproduced accurately."'42 The author used the
loyalist and propaganda literary themes of the period for his own satirical
purposes, and created a novel that is a compound of realism and ancient
imaginative motif. "The Story of Sinuhe" is the oral epic translated to the
written word.
A tale from the same period, "The Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor"
(Simpson, 1972: 50-56) is an adventureon the Red Sea, narratedby a sailor.43It
dates from the nineteenth century B.C., and is marked by stylistic qualities
common to popular oral and written tales, most notably repetition and a stark,
straightforwardmanner. A brief narrative forms its setting, a framework in
which the speaker addresses himself to a prince. The form, made famous by the
Thousand and One Nights collection,44was perfected by the Egyptians;45tales
were bound tightly together, the narrative forming the pretext. "Here," Peet
(1931: 28) notes, "we have passed the age of simple story-telling,as the existence
of a setting itself sufficies to show." This frameworkmakes possible a form that
encompasses numerous tale and tale fragments,and encouragesthe inclusion of
realistic details and a concentrationon the psychologyof individual characters,46
a quality of the African oral epic that has become a preoccupationwith Egyptian
prose writers.
The Second Intermediate Period (1775 to 1575 B.C.), during which the
Middle Kingdom came to an end and Egypt was invaded by Hyksos armies,
produced little distinguished literature. The classical age had ended. The New
Kingdom (1575 to 1085 B.C.) was the period of empire. During this era, a new
literary genre appeared, the love poem. When it appears in papyri, it is already
well developed, with its own system of conventions, suggesting that it has
predecessorsin literature but also that it has its roots deeply embedded in oral
lyric poetry, which it strongly resembles. Compare, for example, this Egyptian
love poem with the Mbuti poem (pages 4-5), especially its organization and
parallelingof images:
Thevoiceof the goosecriesout,
as he'strappedby thebait.
Yourlove restrainsme,
so thatI can'treleaseit.
22
I'lltakemy nets,
butwhatshallI sayto Mother,
to whomI go everyday
ladendownwithbirds?
I set no traptodayyourlovecapturedme.47
The poems were written to be orally performedat banquets, perhapswith mime
and musical accomplishment. They also had a wide readership,revealing again
an art form that moved easily between the two media, with the scribe mediating
them.
In the EighteenthDynasty, a linguistic and literaryrevolution occurred.Poets
began to ignore the classical language in which literaturehad traditionallybeen
composed, and they began to write in the colloquial languageof the time. During
the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties, the literary tradition moved in new
directions, written in what was called "New Egyptian."Soon, Erman (1966: liv)
notes, "the same striving after refinementof expression, which characterizedthe
older literature,is active in it also." This literaturecontinued to flourish for five
centuries. A major literary achievement of the New Kingdom was the story of
"Anupu and Bata,'"48which combines in a single story two narrativesof different
provenance: the rejected lover motif (later to appear in Greek oral tradition in
the Phaedra and Hippolytus tale, in the Hebrew tradition as the story of Joseph
and Potiphar's wife), and "a basic tenet of Egyptian theology, that of the selfcreating demiurge" (Posener, 1971: 239). The first part of the tale is set in a
realistic environment, the second part in a supernatural atmosphere. "More
important than the mythological connection," Lichtheim (1976: 203) argues, "is
the depiction of human characters,relationships, and feelings in a narrationof
sustained force." The formal connection is Bata and his brother, who appear
throughout; the linking theme is the dual relationship between Bata and a
woman. The tale is complex, and the two parts respond to each other in much
the same way that segments of oral tales parallelone another.
Later in this period, at the end of the Ramessid era (c. 1075 B.C.), "The
Report of Wenamtin"(Lichtheim, 1976: 224-30) appeared.It is the record of a
mission, a literary elaboration of a genuine report, the story of a Theban envoy
who goes to Byblos to purchase wood for the sacred boat of Amon. It is, as
Posener (1971: 244) suggests, "a sort of minor Odyssey, without the marvellous
element ." Lichtheim (1976: 224) writes, "What Sinuhe is for the Middle
... Wenamun is for the New Kingdom:a literaryculmination."She adds,
Kingdom,
stands on the threshold of the first millennium B.C., a millennium in
"Wenamtin
which the modern world began, a world shaped by men and women who were
the likes of ourselves."
sent to get timber for the boat of Amun, King
Wenamtn,
of Gods, is robbed. When
he attempts to get his money back, he is told by the
Prince of Byblos to leave his harbor. Wenamin has a confrontation with the
prince: the conversation is recorded in the tale as a stormy one, and ironic, until
the prince learns that Wenamun is carryingwith him an image of Amon called
Amun-of-the-Road. The nobleman becomes frightened (cf. "The Story of
Sinuhe") when Wenamun threatens him with this, and the prince releases him.
Then Wenamuinis stopped by ships belongingto those from whom he had earlier
taken money, insisting that he would keep it until his own had been found. The
prince allows Wenamun to leave the port, then allows the other ships to give
chase. Wenamun meets the Queen of Cyprus,and here the papyrusbreaksoff.
23
It is an important piece of literature. "It stands out in worth against the

background of the simple folktales of the New Kingdom," argues Peet (1931:
49-50), "just as Sinuhe in the Middle Kingdom stands out against the
Shipwrecked Sailor." He concludes, "Here is a story which has almost all the
characteristics of great literature, and yet there is no striving after effect. A
wonderful
picture
. .
of the decline
and fall of the Egyptian empire,
impregnatedwith a pathetic belief in the power of Amun to save as of old." At

the basis of the story is the folktale, the same journeying motif that organizes
images in the Odyssey, but the chief interest is not the travelling or the struggle
with the enemy fleet. It is Wenamun's conflict with the Prince of Byblos. The
oral tale fades into the backgroundas the psychologicalsparringbetween the two
becomes the story's centerpiece. There is an interactionbetween "The Report of
Wenamun" and "The Story of Sinuhe": in the latter, the struggle is between
Sinuhe and his sovereign;in this case, it is between Wenamunand an alien ruler.
The interest in both includes the folktale motif, but the significantconcern is the
realistic confrontation, the psychological probing, the irony and suggestion of
satire. The literaryartist continues to experimentwith the inherited oral forms.49
During the Late Dynastic Period (1085 to 330 B.C.), Egyptwas dominated by
other forces-Libyans, Ethiopians, Assyrians, Persians-and after 330 B.C., it
was ruled by the Greeks and Romans. During the Greek period, a new literature
known as the Demotic appeared. The novel and wisdom literatureremained as
popular as ever, and there were also didactic pieces, religiousworks, and an epic,
"The Cycle of Petubastis" (Posener, 1971: 252). Among the finest works of
Demotic literature are "The Stories of Setne Khamwas" (Lichtheim, 1980: 125-
51). Some time later, when large numbersof Egyptiansconvertedto Christianity,

a Coptic literature developed,50largely church oriented, with translations of
religious texts. Egyptian literature never lost its contact with the tale-telling
elements of the oral tradition duringthese momentous times; they put their mark
on this literatureas well. Consider, for example, the tale of the Coptic saints who
visit heaven and hell-conversing with mummies in tombs (Lewis, 1948: 6, 93).
An unbroken continuity exists in Egyptian literature, from earliest times to
the present. If it took different guises, fell under varied influences, and was
expressed in diverse languagesover a five thousand year period, the strength of
the oral substratum and the related force of the ancient literary tradition
persisted and formed a uniquely Egyptianliterature.The oral tradition cannot be
separatedfrom the literary;it was not simply that there was a period of "spoken
literature" or "literary oral tradition" in which the scribe was the dominant
figure, but that there was and remained a routine nourishing of the literary
tradition by the oral, and it is likely that the reverse was true. It was the linkage
between the epic and the tale/heroic poem that made it possible, ultimately, for
the Egyptian novel to evolve. This was accompanied by the development of

another oral genre into literature:the oral proverb became wisdom literature.In
both categories, the initial stages of transition were fairly straightforward;the
oral traditions, because of their natural tendency towards complexity, were
organized into larger groups, then given frameworks and the illusion of unity.
This is already evident in the oldest extant instructions;it occurredtoo in "The

Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor," the earliest known literary papyrus. The
creative atmospherewas by then present for a new, more subtle development, a
prose form that allowed greater emphasis on realism, that in its descriptiveness
and linearity extended and even broke with aspects of the tale form. Scribes had
24
much to do with the development of the narrative art, taking the materials
created by the oral musicians, bards, and storytellers, and transposingthem to
literature. First as memorizers and copyists, later as artists, who but the scribes
would be sufficientlyacquainted with the conventions of both the oral tradition
and literature to see the possibilities of the novel in the oral tale and epic? By
then at ease in both media, they began to write psychological studies, working
within the oral-literarynetwork that had become the laboratory of their craft.
The novel and wisdom literature are, arguably, Egypt's major contributions to
world literature.Wenamun said of Egypt,"It is from her that wisdom came forth
to reach the land in which I dwell," and the Bible speaks of "All the wisdom of
the Egyptians""5:the Egyptians had something else to teach us, that it may be
necesary to rethink conventional wisdom about the relationship between oral
tradition and the written word, that they may not after all be separatemedia
The Arabic tradition, in which adab refers to both the oral and written word,
may provide another clue to this critical relatonship: it makes no distinction
between them. The verbal expression is the key; the vehicle for communication
may be secondary. The vigor and vividness of the Arabic literary traditions are
reflections of the oral, with its jazala, the strength and forthrightness of its
expression, its clarity and eloquence.52 If the Egyptian oral/literaryachievement
was a somewhat localized if highly influentialmovement, the next such tradition,
that of Islam, touched a greater portion of the continent. But Egypt, with its
artistic combination of the oral and literary, provided the essential touchstones
for the continued development of Africa's verbal traditions. There was sufficient
homogeneity in the oral panegyricand lyric tradition to consider it a monolithic
art with regional variations. These genres shared many characteristicswith their
Arabic counterparts, and to understand the Africanization of Islam, we must
begin in Arabia. Two characteristics of the Arabic oral-literarytradition are
significant here: first, there are the close ties between the oral and written word;
second, the mode of preservation, in the institution of the rawf, or memorizer,
assuredthat the two media co-existed for a lengthy period.
The Arab invasion of Egypt in A.D. 641 brought to Africa yet another new
language, religion, and culture. Islam and the Arabic language spread rapidly,
and Egypt remained an important center of Muslim culture until the early
sixteenth century. "But this Arabo-Islamiccivilisation was not brought[to Egypt]
ready made by the invaders from the Arabian wilderness,"writes Lewis (1948:
8). "Ratherdid it grow during the early centuries of Arab rule, incorporatingand
redirectingmany streams of culture from earlier sources... " It broughtwith it
a potent poetic art form, with deep roots in a pre-Islamic
oral tradition.
Hamilton Gibb (1926: 13) tells of bards "all over northern Arabia, reciting
complex odes, qasfdas, in which a series of themes are elaborated with
unsurpassed vigor, vividness of imagination, and precision of imagery, in an
infinitely rich and highly articulated language... " The ode was lyrical and
panegyric, and revealed the life of the nomad, who sang in the poetry of his
loved ones and described in exalted terms his favored horse or camel." "[I]t is a
poetry," Theodor Noldeke (quoted in Lyall, 1930: xviii) observed, "which makes
it its main business to depict life and nature as they are, with little addition of
phantasy." In fact, Lyall (1930: xxxiv) argues, it "is most truly their history."
Abdullah ibn al-cAbbassees it as "the public register of the Arab people: by its
means genealogies are remembered, and glorious deeds handed down to
posterity" (Lyall, 1930: xv). The bard in Arabia was as respected a figure as in
ANDLITERATURE
25
African societies: "the profession of the poet," Lyall (1930: xvii) goes on, "was a
defence to the honour of them all, a weapon to ward off insult from their good
names... ."
The custom of writing verse began at the end of the first century after the
Flight. Because of the fear that much of what the great poets created,the classics
of Arabic poetry, might be lost, the figure of the rawf came into being. This
reciter, or memorizer,was the person who committed the poet's work to memory
(Gandz, 1939: 171). Many people sang the verses of the poets, but the rctawwas
specificallygiven the task of rememberingthe poetry as the artist composed it. It
was his profession to accompany the poet, to memorize the images as the artist
composed them, to recite the poems, to provide them with historical and cultural
frameworks, to explain obscurities and to supply exegeses. "Upon request,"
writes Salomon Gandz (1939: 172), "the rawi would have to give informationas
to the origin of qasfda, the occasion at which it was composed and the person or
events alluded to. In later times the rawf became also the secretary."
Hammad al-Rawiya was one of the most accomplished ruwah."3He once
boasted to the caliph, Walid ibn Yazid, "I can recite for you, for each letter of
the alphabet, one hundred long poems rhymingin that letter, without taking into
count the short pieces, and all that composed exclusively by poets who lived
before the promulgation of Islamism." He proceeded to recite 2,900 qasfda by
poets who had flourished before Muhammad. The power the ruwah had is
glimpsed in the way they were frequentlyattacked. "Hammad,"a contemporary,
Mufaddal al-Dabbi, said of him, "is a man skilled in the languageand poesy of
the Arabs and in the styles and ideas of the poets"; but he was nevertheless
concerned:"he is always making verses in imitation of some one and introducing
them into genuine compositions by the same author, so that the copy passes
everywhere for part of the original, and cannot be distinguished from it except
by critical scholars-and where are such to be found?"54As was the case with
the scribe of ancient Egypt, the rcaw did not apparentlyview the poetic word as
inviolate; it could be manipulated, altered, and rearranged as oral images
generallyare. The conventions of the oral tradition triumphed.
The models for the poetry of Islam had been set in pre-Islamictimes. The
oral forms proved themselves accommodating and adaptable not only to the
requirements of Islam but also to disorienting shifts in locale. The poetry
embraced a wide range of experiences and polarities, from "the spirit of
bedouinism," the nomadic idealism and romanticism, to urban life that
developed with the coming of the cAbbasids and Persians. "A dichotomy of
aesthetic evaluation," writes cAbdullah al-Tayyib (1983: 36), "derived from the
inherent contrasts within the Arabic soul, bedevilled the notions and concepts of
poetic excellence... ." This debate continues to modern times: "the quarrel
between partisans of innovation and adherents of tradition is only one aspect of
this" (cAbdullah al-Tayyib, 1983: 36). (It can be seen today in the struggle
occurring, for example, within the Swahili literary tradition, between the
wanajadi, or traditionalists,and the wanamapokeo,or reformists.[Mulokoziand
Kahigi, 1979: 1]) Islam carried this internal artistic polarity with it as it began its
crusade. Its ability from the beginning to adapt to and cradle these extremes
testifies to its flexibility, and explains much about its relationshipto African oral
art forms.
The literature of the faith is rooted in the Arabic oral tradition: "whether
sacred or secular," writes Michael Zwettler (1978: 4), "the works-particularly
26
the poetical works-that have given rise to a textual tradition seem invariablyto
have existed in some sort of oral form prior to being set down." The
transformationof a number of pre-Islamicmeters used in popularoral poetry to
the literaryqasda55 suggests a significantlinkage between oral and written forms
in Arabic. In fact, the continuity between the two media is unbroken. Islam
became a part of a poetic tradition: it was one more experience that the poetry
enveloped and expressed. It was not so much the poetry that changed as the
means of preservingand studying it.
Now Islam began its journey, and the inherent adaptabilityof the oral/literary
tradition enabled it to adjust to the various cultures with which it came into
contact. The experience of Islam with the Arabic oral materialsbecame a model
for its sometimes troubled ties with African verbal forms, and the disruptionwas
as minimal, poetically speaking, as it had been at home. "Occupationfollowed
conquest," writes Lyall (1930: xxxiv), "and ... the Arabic languageassimilated
itself to the speech of the conquered",and so did its art. "The poetic literature"
that evolved from the traditions of the ancients "was inspired by study and
reflection, not for the most part on Arab soil .. ." (Lyall, 1930: xxxv). Because of
the ties with the oral tradition, the flexibility they occasioned, and the means of
preserving the poetry (assuring, as it did, the continued co-existence of the
media), Islam did not impose itself on the indigenous forms so much as blend
with them-it had done so in its own history, and it found the African forms
similar to its own and quite as flexible.
Islam early showed its artistic ability to adapt to African art. In Egypt, the
ancient literary tradition continued to be a rich reservoir of narrative material,
and, as Lewis (1948: 9) has pointed out, "EgyptianArabic historiansand authors
began to regale their readers with a series of strange tales and miraculous
narratives of a mythical past ." So historical and legendary Islamic figures
...
as the epic process of the oral tradition
began to take on an Egyptiancoloration,
found yet another unique form of expression. "With the spread of the Arabic
language and background among the masses, a vast semi-popular literature
appeared,in which the history and legends of Arabiaand Islam were worked into
connected romances in interspersed prose and verse, suitable for public
recitation" (Lewis, 1948: 9-10). The stories of cAntarare examples.
Arabs and Islam moved to al-Maghrib,and in the ninth century A.D., they
made contact with the West African empire of Ghana, and Tuareg Berbers
brought Islam there. From 1056 to 1147, the Berber al-Murabitun from
Mauritaniaoverran Morocco, and brought Spain under their control. They came
to dominate the remainder of northern Africa, and continued to make
penetrations into western Africa, beginning with the movement of Abu Bakr ibn
cUmar, who was responsible for the fall of the empire of Ghana in 1076. After
the Berbersadopted Islam and accepted Arab domination, they came to form the
major part of the force that moved into Spain under the Berberleader, Tariq ibn
Ziyad. Much of the migration to the Iberian peninsula was Berber, and Spain
was considered a dependency of the emir of North Africa. EarlyArabic poetry in
this region was lyrical and panegyric,following eastern and African patterns and
traditions. Its themes had to do with martial exploits, and praise of rulers and
heroes.6 Tariq ibn Ziyad, the conqueror of Spain, was also its first poet in
Arabic; his work showed both Berber and Islamic/Arabic influences, as the
blending process continued to meld diverse cultural forms and outlooks. The
Arabian verse forms seemed readily moldable to Berber poetry, and African
27
experiences dominated the imagery. The Tunisian poet, Ibn Hani' al-Andalusi,
born about 932, wrote much poetry, "and were it not," wrote ibn Khallikan
"that he carries his eulogisms to an excess bordering on impiety, the diwan of
his verses would be one of the finest which exists (Nykl, 1946: 28). He is
considered the finest Islamic poet produced in al-Maghrib;his poetry consists
chiefly of panegyrics of Fatimid Caliph al-Mucizz (Abu Tamin ibn Ismacil),
conqueror of Egypt and founder of the University of al-Azhar."He is the cause
of the world, for him it was created,/-Some kind of cause there is for all
things!-/From the pure water of divine inspiration, which is the froth/Of the
source of his well-and he is the cure!" (Nykl, 1946: 29). The praise poetry
tradition of Africa, still vigorous among the Berbers to this day, here mingles
with the qastda of the Arabic tradition-two panegyrictraditions merging with
African imageryand Islamic didacticism.
Other early Berber poets included al-Bulluiti,Mundhir ibn Sacid (born 886
A.D.) and Ibn Hazm. In the second half of the eleventh century, the distnctly
Berber elements in Islamic/Arabic poetry began to become merged with the
imagery of Spain and formal characteristics of Europe and the East. This is
suggested in the poetry of the finest Arab-Andalusianpoet of this period, alMuctamidcala-llahi.After the fall of the "kings of the taifas," the classical poetic
tradition went into a decline.
The experience of Egypt and al-Maghrib with Islamic/Arabic poetry was
duplicated elsewhere in Africa. In West Africa, it was during the rule of Sunjata
of the Mali empire (1230-1255) that Islamic poetry flourished.The tradition was
further encouraged by Sunjata's successor, Musa (1312-1335), who founded
Timbuktu as a center of Islamic learning.It would reach the peak of its influence
in the sixteenth century;a number of notable Soninke, Fulani, and Berberpoets
were associated with it. Later, the jihad of CUthman dan Fodio (1754-1817) led
to a spread of Islam in the Hausa states, and Islamic verse forms joined with the
indigenous court praise singing.57 Mervyn Hiskett (1975: 1) notes that the two
cultures "existed side by side, sometimes merging, but often confronting one
another, to produce what has been described as 'mixed Islam'. . . ." He argues,
"But the Hausas have always had a thriving unwritten indigenous literature,
much of which is also in verse .... It cannot be ignored in studying the genesis
and development of written Islamic vernacular verse because, to an important

extent, this arose as an expression of protest against some aspects of the oral,
indigenous form. Thus knowledge of the one is necessary for understandingof
the other." But Hiskett (1975: 1) also insists that "Hausa literate verse-that is,
written as opposed to purely oral verse-was wholly Islamic, both in content and
in purpose ...,"
that it "continued to be largely modelled on classical Arabic
prototypes." While it is true that the themes of the poems are Islamic, it may
also be true that, with a classical Arabic form as malleableas the qasida and the
equally flexible Hausa panegyricand lyric traditions, the two forms blended with
comparativeease.
The indigenous Hausa kircar verse form came, with the jihad, under the
influence of Islamic literary conventions. Arabic verse was being composed by
Hausa in the seventeenth century, and the activity quickened in the eighteenth.
It was apparent during this period that members of the Hausa Muslim
community began to compose verse in Hausa to counter the popular indigenous
song tradition. It is said that they refused to use Hausa traditional verse forms,
that they simply translated Arabic images into Hausa. It was, Hiskett writes, "a
28
genre of Hausa verse literature which, in its content and in the labels used to
describe it, was dependent upon a pre-existing Arabic literary tradition."'8 He
argues that in certain genres, especially legal works and panegyric, the poetry
strayed little from the Arabic tradition, but in such poetry as that having to do
with death and resurrection, "composers seem to allow themselves a looser reign
and quite often avail themselves of imagery drawn from the Hausa environment
in order to paint their pictures of the lurid torments of Hell and the fleshly joys
of Paradise.""59
While Hiskett seems to argue that there is a great if not an unbridgeable gap
between Arabic and Hausa poetic forms, a comparison of lyric and panegyric
poetry from the two traditions suggests that there are areas in which a ready
accommodation might have been made, with Islamic themes made compatible
with Hausa forms and images-a process identical to that which occurred in
Arabia. Hausa poetry shares with Arabic poetry panegyric and lyric traditions;
these are so similar that if there were an attempted imposition of the latter on
the former, it cannot have created serious artistic dislocations. The organization
of images to support a theme is common enough in both traditions. These are
Arabic and Hausa examples of lyric poetry built on the theme of death. A preIslamic poet in Arabia composed these images:
Be still then, and face the onset of Death, high-hearted,
for none upon Earthshall win to abide for ever.
No raimentof praise the cloak of old age and weakness:
none such for the cowardwho bows like a reed in tempest.
The pathwayof Death is set for all men to travel:
the Crierof Death proclaimsthroughthe Earthhis empire.
Who dies not when young and sound dies old and weary,
cut off in his length of days from all love and kindness;
And what for a man is left of delight in living,
past use, flungaway, a worthlessand worn-outchattel?"6
A verse on the same theme was created by Ibn cAbd Rabbihi, an Andalusian
court poet. It was his last poem:
I became weak;the constant flow of Time,
Its borroweddays and nights have used me up:
How am I not to feel weak at seventy
and ten, with two more years gone by?
Why enquire about my illness, friends?
You see yourselvesbefore you what it is!6'
And this is an excerpt from a Hausa wa'azi verse by cAbdullah ibn Muhammad,
the youngerbrotherof cUthmandan Fodio:
Everythingof his has passed away,

All the heirs now drink the soup.
When the day of your death comes,
You will forget son and grandchild,
That wealth you have hidden away,
Will not ransomyou, you hear?
Those who nurse the sick are frightened,
Not one has any power to help,
They just sit there staring,
The master of the house lies prostrateon his bed .. .62
29
There are metrical differences in these poems; and when one considers lyricism
in the oral tradition and that in the written, other differences can be seen, chiefly
having to do with metrical count and, in literary verse, a diminishing use of
formulas.63 But the similarities are considerable, most significantly the gathering
of like images and, by means of poetic devices common to both lyric traditions,
their bonding in the service of a single theme. Lyric poetry is a mode that makes
convenient the importation of a belief like Islam: it conforms readily to the
indigenous poetic tradition.64
The Arabic oral tradition also shares a panegyric form with Africa. "She is
like a male ostrich," chants the Arabic poet, cAlqama, as he compares his camel
to an ostrich in the al-Mufaddaliyat, "With legs coloured and scanty down on
his fore wing-feathers." There follows a series of like praises: "A fleet runner is
he ... Small is his head, set on a slender neck ...," etc.65 This praise tradition
is very close to that of the Hausa. Hiskett (1975: 2) writes, "Praise-singing in the
courts of kings is an old-established convention in the western Sudan," and he
isolates two kinds of Hausa praise forms, the kirari, short praise-epithets, and
longer praise songs called yabo or wakar yabo which often contain kirart. He
gives an example of a praise song for an official of the court of Mohmman na
Zaki (1618-1623) (Hiskett, 1975: 3):
Male elephant-lord of the town,
Abdulla,like a bull hippopotamus,
Forgerof chains and arrowsfor the foreigner,
Forgerof chains and adzes for the foreigner.
And this, from a song for Galadima Dauda (c. 1450) (Hiskett, 1975: 3):
Championof the axes of the south,
Championof the young men of the south,
Harbingerof wealth, Galadima.
G. C. B. Gidley (1975: 110) provides contemporary examples of this art form,
showing that it remains a vital one:
Male porcupine,you cannot be ridden bare back, there must be a saddle!
A great man's residenceis one thing, where a mere youth lives is another,
You pestle, anyone who swallowsyou will certainlyspend the night upright!
Male porcupine,you cannot be riddenbare back!
A bullet is the remedy for the ambusher!
His equal knows him, and not just casually,
Look out, callow youth! Make way for an elephant!
Abu 'l-Tayib Ahmad ibn al-Husain al-Mutanabbi (1967: 68-69), an Arabic poet
born in al-Kufa in 915 A.D., wrote a panegyric to Saif al-Dauda,
commemorating the building of Mar'ash in 952 A.D.:
For a good reason the caliph has made him ready againstthe
enemy and named him the SharpSword,to the exclusionof all
others;
the spear-headshave not dispersedfrom him out of compassion,
neither have the foemen quit Syria out of love for him,
ratherthere banished them from him dishonourably,one
honouredin praise,who was never reviled nor ever reviled others
and an army which rips throughevery mountainas thoughit were
a violent wind confrontinga tenderbranch.
It is as thoughthe stars of night feared his raid, so they stretched
30
againstit veils consistingof his dust.
Whoeverelse gratifiedby his rule baseness and unbelief,this is he
whogratifiesvirtureandthe Lord.
Comparisons-bull hippopotamus, axes of the south, male porcpine, violent

wind confronting a tender branch-and their inter-relationshipscomprise the
panegyric traditions of the two peoples, and the traditions are so alike as to be
identical. It seems not even to be a question of the one influencing or being
imposed upon the other: it seems to have been a simple shift of theme, from the
pre-Islamicworld view to the Islamic. The form remained stable, as did many of
the images and metaphors.
The Hausa "Song of Bagauda" (Hiskett, 1964, 1965) is an example of the
blending of various Hausa indigenous forms-the panegyric,in the listing of the
Hausa kings and their accomplishments;the lyrical, in the developing imagery
that establishes moods and elicits emotions; and a didactic strain to which the
first two categoriesare regularlystitched. This is not alien to the stitching devices
found in the African oral forms. It may well be the strongly Islamic didactic
element (as, in other African societies, it will later be the Christian)that is the
major Arabic contributionto the poetry;the remainder,including the supposedly
imported qasfda form, may be largely Hausa. Consideringthe flexibility of the
qasfda, that it has an "epic quality," that it is sometimes polemical, sometimes
rhetorical,that it contains wisdom literature,that it is both lyrical and panegyric,
that it "really stands in a class of its own," as CAbdullahal-Tayyib (1983: 42)
points out, it should not be surprisingthat it readily adapted to Hausa poetry.
That artistic tonicity is precisely the point: it made it possible for the ode to
adapt itself to a variety of cultures and verse forms, includingthe Hausa. "There
seem to have been many patterns to the qasfda in its earliest history, of which
one finally became supreme and generallyfollowed. Of these early patterns some
survived as rare or specialized forms" (cAbdullahal-TAyyib, 1983: 42). These
include the lament, the commendatory poem, the panegyric,the lampoon, selfpraise, elegy, aphorisms,and descriptions(cAbdullahal-Tayyib, 1983: 42). For all
the suggestions to the contrary, the Hausa and Arabic lyrical and panegyric
traditions seem very similar, and it is likely that the African oral tradition
absorbed the new faith without a major shift in its artistic forms. Al-Musayyah,
in the al-Mufaddaliyat, speaks of a panegyric he is composing: "I shall surely
bring as an offering, on the wings of the winds, an ode of mine that shall pass
into every land, until it reaches al-Qa'qa./It shall come down to the wateringplaces ever as something fresh and new, and it shall be quoted as a proverb
among men, and sung by the singers." Another poet, Mazarrid, also in the alMufaddaliyat, "I warrantto him with whom I contend that my words shall be so
striking that the night-traveller shall sing them as he fares along, and the
caravansbe urged forwardby them on the road;/Wellrememberedare they, cast
forth with multitudes to bear them abroad: their sound is gone forth in full
sunshine into every land;/They are repeated again and again, and only increase
in brillancy, when the diligent lips of men test my verse by repetition."66Any
Hausa marokf, praise-singer, would have understood and appreciated those
words.
A similar flexibility existed among the Swahili. "The metre of the Hamziya,"
writes Jan Knappert of an important work, "is the same as that of Liongo's
famous eulogy in praise of himself .
. . ,
which was composed in the same
century. Liongo's poem may have been composed as much as half a century
earlier, even though liguistically the Hamziya is considerablymore archaic. All
31
Liongo's songs have come down to us as oral traditions, since they do not belong
to the written tradition of Islamic literature" (Knappert, 1979: 104). Liongo
Fumo, a Swahili heroic figure, was a poet who composed in the oral tradition.
"Liongo's Song" is a praise poem of the African classical variety (Knappert,
1979: 93.):
I am a young lion, I have instilled the wish to die in my heart;
I fear nothingbut disgrace,if my enemies see my back.
I am a young eagle, soaringup, soon out of sight;
I am a terrorfor the birds, I seize them in flight.
I am like the buzzardwhen I fly up in the sky,
devouringyoung meat, just like the lion, the king of beasts.
The Hamziya ws originally an Arabic "panegyric epic" composed by an Arab
poet, Muhammad ibn Sacid al-Busiry of Egypt (b. 1213 A.D.); that work was recreated in Swahili in the early eighteenth century by the Swahili poet, Aidarus
ibn Athman of Pate. "The original Arabic poem, composed obviously under the
impact of strong religious emotions, was a glowing narrative on the life and
history of the Prophet Muhammad, which was couched with all the eloquence
and rhetorical mastery which the poet could master" (Mkelle, 1976: 71). Like
"Liongo's Song," the Harnziya is a panegyric (Knappert, 1968: 60-61.):
How can any of the prophetsclimb like you did
to heaven with which no heaven vies?
They are not your equals;elevation held back
the lights of sublimity(from) in your midst, where there is greatness.
They have levelled your qualities with (those of other) people
like water that (tries) to comparewith the stars.
Be thou a lamp of virtue and divine favour,
all lights emanate from thy good light.
The re-creation and translation of the literary panegyric is within the same
Swahili tradition that produced Liongo's oral poetry. In this case, it has a similar
metrical organization, with the didactic addition that weaves through the
imagery as it does in much Islamic poetry. As in Hausa literature, the major
contribution of Islam is not imagery and metrics so much as the heavy homiletic
element; perhaps because it is the most visible characteristic, it is the one
observers have a tendency to remember, and with which the poetry subsequently
becomes typed.
"Praise be to my bow, made of the twig of the roo tree," sings Liongo in a
non-Islamic praise poem.67 "Thou are the powerful one, who causeth death and
resurrection," wrote the nineteenth century Swahili poet, Shehe Muhiuddini. His
poem was a combination of supplication ("Send us rain, take away from us thirst
and sun!") and panegyric ("thou are the Merciful, the Compassionate, there is no
doubt for Thee").68 The Swahili Islamic prayer occurs within a familiar oral
panegyric context. A linkage exists between Liongo's song, which contains a
series of self-praises, and the "Prayer for Rain" of Shehe Muhiuddini, in which
religious pleas occur in a praise poem dedicated to God. There is little difference
between the two in imagery and structure. The combination of epic, lyric, and
panegyric made the Swahili oral tradition attractive and useful to the Muslim,
for it provided the vehicle for the faith, when appropriately laced with didactic
comment.
As in the Egyptian and Arabic oral/literary traditions, Islam in Africa was
maintained in both modes, and there seems to have been a lengthy period during
32
which they co-existed. Hiskett (1975: 18) writes, "Because the reformerswere
literates, and because the religious nature of their poetry made it worthy, in their
eyes, of preserving, they wrote it down in manuscript, using the Arabic script.
They then began to circulate these manusripts among fellow-scholars up and
down Hausaland so that they, in turn could recite the poetry to the illiterate
peasants and nomads whom they wished to influence.... It was this innovation
of the reformers that created a written literature." cAbdullahibn Muhammad
(1963: 6) at an early age, became a copyist, and worked for his brother, the
Shehu cUthman. cAbdallahibn Muhammadwrote, "it was rarelythat a book on
the science of the Unity reached our country and I knew it, and did not copy it
down for him." cAbdallah's book, Tazyfn al-Waraqat, includes, in his words,
"proverbs, wisdom, injunctions, battles, panegyrics, congratulations, elegies,
boasting and other things. .. ." He tells of how he had earlier composed verses
but then abandoned them, "neglected and forgotten, not recording them nor
informing any one of them because of my knowledge that there was no benefit
from them, for the most part, as regards religion, and because of my lack of
knowledge of Arabic and of prosody." But in fact his poetry existed in both oral
form (preservedby the memorizers,and therefore retrievablewhen he set about
to compile his anthology) and written, the latter with commentaries. He was
convinced that his work, deeply rooted in the oral tradition, would be "laughable
to literary men." But its acceptance by the literati, and the fact that it had now
passed back into the oral tradition, not only reveals the acknowledgementof the
oral characterof the literatureby the scholars, it suggest the close ties between
the two modes. cAbdallah(CAbdallahibn Muhmmad, 1963: 84-85, 101) tells of
how, when a poem he had written reached the Culamd',al-Mustafaread it to the
community, then "tucked up his sleeves, and composed quintains on the
message, mixing them like water and wine. .. ."
In Swahili, too, the role of the copyist was central during the period of
creative interaction between the two traditions. Lyndon Harries (1962: 5)
commented, "the poet almost invariably employed a copyist or a narratorwho
memorized the poem and later wrote it down. He did not copy the poem in the
sense of making an exact reproductionof what the poet had alreadywritten."He
added, "It became a convention for any heroic poem to include a section at the
beginning of the poem in which the narrator gives instructions to his
scribes... ."
What happened among the Hausa and Swahili was occurring elsewhere in
Africa-among the Fulani, in northern Ghana among the Gonja, in Senegal
among the Tokolor and Wolof, in Malagasy and Somalia. Islamic literaturedid
not long remain alien to the African artistic experience; it quickly became
assimilated into existent poetic traditions, because of the presence in Africa of
like forms, but for other reasons as well. The activity of the years during which
the two media were productively linked assured that the indigenous oral
tradition became fully integrated into the developing literary tradition. The oral
mode became the core of the literature:written works were built around if they
did not actually imitate or grow out of the oral tradition. Had there been a direct
imposition of foreign written forms on African arts, an artificial hybrid would
have been the result-short-lived, because it probably would have had no
audience. As long as literature remained merely a record of the oral tradition,
there was no conflict. It was when written materials evolved into an art form
that complex interaction between the two modes occurred, because such
AND LITERATURE
33
performance aesthetics as relations between audience and performer became

significantconcerns.
The only way Islamic (and, in later years, Christian)literaturecould flourish
in Africa was on terms established by African art forms, and these were, as they
had been in Arabia, oral. Islamic scholars may at times have been less than
appreciative of the indigenous art forms, but this seemed to be for their subject
matter rather than their poetics; and in the end, those scholars were not
above-surely they realized the futility of doing anything else-adopting the
African oral forms to communicate their images. It was a matter, first, of
accepting those forms and altering them but little (and this includes the qasrda
which bore signal similarities to African poetry), other than provide an overlay
of Islamic teaching in the form of didactic commentary.Nor was this alien to the
African oral experience: consider the combination of the narrative elements of
the tale and the didactic characteristcsof oral poetry in the epic. The second step
was more complex; it involved a substitution of the central mythic imagery-the
Islamic for the traditional African faiths. The mythic transformational
mechanism would remain stable, but the images that it manipulated would
change. This delicate task was perhaps not as difficult as might be supposed,
because a characteristicof the oral tradition is its ready ability to incorporate
oral materials from other cultures into its own forms, so long as there are
sufficientattachmentpoints.
In Egypt, the early Islamic period was dominated by a popular literature in
which Arabic and Islamic materials were integratedinto native Egyptianimages
and forms. A similar combining occurred among the Hausa and Swahili. Islam
moved into the African artistic consciousness under the cover, as it were, of this
major modal shift. It took advantage of the move from the oral to the literary
mode, as Christianity would later attempt to do. The transitional period
facilitated the coupling of the traditions, allowing the mixing of the two media
that occurs during any oral-literarytransitional period, and, since the Islamic
forces had initiated the translation of the languageto writing, they were able to
exercise a certain amount of artistic control during that time. But that
intervening period would not have been possible without the strong and
ultimately dominant nexus of the indigenous oral tradition, and the range of
copyists and memorizers.
The possibility of disorientation was reduced by the blending of the
traditions. This was one of the important contributions of those opaque people
in the middle, the copyists and memorizers, the writers of popular fictions who
owed as much to orality as to literacy. All had similar functions; all were
responsible in some way for preservingthe oral tradition in written form, first as
a record, later as the heart of their new literary genres. In contemporaryAfrica,
the oral tradition retains its vitality and indeed its form through the popular
literature of the market place and major urban concentrations,written down by
modern counterpartsof scribes and ruwah who take liberties with the original
materials much as their predecessorsdid, yet generally remainingfaithful to the
oral performance.Some served their apprenticeshipsas translatorsof works into
African languages; others were antiquarians and collected oral tradition; most
continued to live and write under the vibrant influence of a living oral tradition.
All were learningthe craft of literature.
Early writers in the contemporaryperiod were often a combination of copyist
and oral storyteller,and nowhere is this more evident than in the populargenre,
34
shorter works and novellas in African and European languages, often heavily
didactic, with images that are almost invariably extreme. The robust interaction
between the profoundly rooted oral tradition and the burgeoning literary
tradition of the moment has echoes of ancient Egypt.During the last half century
or so, there has been an extraordinaryartistic dialogue between these media, and
if the present use of such literarygenres as the novel was triggeredby the western
schooling of Africans, the forms were at once placed into African oral and not
western literary contexts. In any case, the novel, a literary form indigenous to
Africa, has continued to exist in potential form in the epic.
It took little to effect the transformationof the oral form into the literary.
Some authors-as in Egypt,Arabia, and Islamic Africa-simply imitated the oral
tradition, and continue to do so. Western readers became excited when Amos
Tutuola's works (1952), imitative of African oral tales, began to appear,believing
that these representedauthentic developments of the classical African tradition.
Others wrote in the same genre-Daniel Orowole Fdigunwa(1950), Violet Dube
(1935), Samuel E. Krune Mqhayi (1942), and Mario Antonio (1966). These
writers have been among the contemporarycopyists, scribes, ruwah. But their
works are little more than exotic culs-de-sac, efforts to transposeoral works into
literary forms, yet lacking organic development and growth. They are not rooted
in the oral tradition so much as reflective of that tradition. In the rich Xhosa
literary tradition, there were antiquarians who, beginning in the nineteenth
century, and for a variety of reasons, collected materials from the African oral
tradition and recast, retold, or simply transcribed them. It was left to other
writers to attempt to develop a literary style and mode that would artistically
respond to and tap these works. It was not simply a matter of writing the tale
down, or retelling the narrative in literature.The early Egyptian scribes and the
traditional Arabian ruwah did that, but they then proceeded to explore the
possibilities of the literary form itself. There is during such a period, and it may
well go on indefinitely in any literary tradition, a routine interplaybetween the
two media-and for the imitators, that interaction has largelybeen absent.
African literaturehas from the beginningbeen involved in a complex dialogue
with the oral tradition, thematically as well as formally. As in the Egyptianand
Islamic cases, during the early stages of the modern literary tradition, the oral
influence dominates; literary artists depend on both universal oral motifs and
purely African images. Some works of popular literaturecan be seen as a set of
instructions for coping with the realities of a literary world, but couched in the
manner and style of the oral tradition: How to WriteAll Kinds of Letters and
Compositions, compiled by Many Authors (n.d.), for example, and The Way and
How to ConductMeetings, by K. C. Eze (n.d.) have the same impact as oral tales
that depend on the exchange of letters for their effect.69In Mabel the Sweet
Honey that PouredAway, by A. Onwudiwe (pseud, Speedy Eric) (n.d.) and Miller
Albert's Rosemary and the Taxi Driver (1960), images have the oral qualities of
extreme emotion (one critic thought that these works "are close to pornography,
although the writers still persist in their moral preoccupation"[Dathorne, 1975:
170]); and because it is essentially a private literary activity, as opposed to oral
performance which is public, lascivious scenes are among the vivid images.
Indications of ties with the oral tradition are everywhereto be found. The use of
typographical signs suggests an experimentation with the possibilities of the
written form, an effort to convert typographyto graphic image, as if the writer
were seeking to duplicate gesture-a heart with an arrowthroughit in Mabel the
ANDLITERATURE
35
Sweet Honey that Poured Away, a heart with two swords piercing it, the use of
capital lettered instructions to the reader (Onwudiwe, n.d.: 20, 43-44): "WE
SHALL SEE WHAT MABEL DID IN HER OWN CASE, READ ON, DEAR."
Most characteristics of popular literature recall the oral tradition and reveal
writers'bold attempts to transposeit to writing. The world of Mabel, the carefree
prostitute who moves rapidly to her destruction,occurs in a culturalcontext that
discouragessuch activity, so that there is a moral conflict reminiscentof the oral
tale. The story is heavy-handedly didactic, containing sexual imagery, with a
frameworkof insistent morality to cushion it and gives its use legitimacy (there
is something to be learned in this plethora of risque images after all), and a brash
touch of irony. The tale of Mabel is a written version of one of the most
venerable of African oral tales, the good girl/bad girl narrative,in which a good
girl establishes a model, to be followed by a bad sister who does all those things
in a negative way. In Onwudiwe's story, the reader is given the story of the bad
girl; the part detailing the activities of the good girl is not provided-that is
supplied by the moralizing indulged in by the author. Patterning is simple,
straightforward,and useful: a series of events that repeats and deepens the single
thematic concern. That basic pattern is reinforced by the homilies-Africa's
proverb and panegyric traditions made manifest, and already fully rehearsedin
the oral epic. Complex interactions occur within the literary tradition, between,
for example Cyprian Ekwensi'sJagua Nana (1961) and Mabel the Sweet Honey
that Poured Away, and simultaneously in these cases between the oral and
written media.
There are times in the popular literature when the written word will
seemingly not contain the oral; the literary language is simply broken apart as
highly emotional images are evoked. Miller O. Albert's Saturday Night
Disappointment (n.d.) is an example; it is necessary to follow the movement of
the tale by means of the colorful, emotional networkcreatedby the images rather
than by the linear use of language that one anticipates in most literary works.
This is "spoken literature," elements of an oral tradition transported to the
written form in an extraordinaryway, with many of the oral aspects intact
(unlike Tutuola's works, in which the original oral tale has lost most of its
orality, so that the reader becomes despairingly conscious of repetition, for
example). The vitality, the vivid imagery, stark dialogue, and outrageous
didacticism reconstitute the oral performancein a bizarre way in much popular
literature.Of course, the oral performanceis not itself being transposed:the body
of the performer is not there, the voice, music, dance, the relations between
audience and artist are lacking. But the writers of such literaturebrazenly work
their ways to the emotional core of the oral performance;they understandthe
way images are patterned, they grasp the significance of the motif and its
organizing capacities. Cyprian Ekwensi's People of the City (1954) and Jagua
Nana (her portrait is among the finest in popular literature) are at their best
when they are most oral, but Ekwensi is unable to sustain this, and his works
suffer as literature. The Egyptian author of "The Story of Sinuhe" knew what
could be done with the oral tradition, because he doubtless underwenta lengthy
period of conditioning and discipline as a scribe, during which he probably
learned much about the conventions of the two media in which he was working.
Certainly the writers of popular literature understandbetter than the imitators
the art of emotional elicitation and its formalizing;they instinctively know the
differencebetween mimicry and organic growth. It is a craft that Guybon Sinxo70
36
explored in the Xhosa popular literature tradition, and A. C. Jordan (1940), 0.

K. Matsepe,71 and R. R. R. Dhlomo72built on that kind of writing, exploring
new relationships not only between the oral and written materials, but between
the written and the written-i.e., a creative dialogue was establishedbetween the
writers of popular fiction and those who wished to create a more serious form of
literature. The threads that connect these three categories of artistic activity are
many, they are reciprocal,and they are essentially African. Writersin Africa owe
much to the oral tradition and to those authors who have occupied the space
between the two traditions, in the area of creative interaction.
Later, the literary language becomes a set of graphic signs, but during the
early stages of this fruitful relationship, the literary is still very much an oral
language, one of printed sounds; the signs are simply transferredto the page. In
Egypt and Arabia, the oral artist worked closely with a copyist, and when the two
became one, it was inevitable that artistic possibilities in the written mode would
become evident. Elsewherein Africa, where the languageswere first written down
by aliens, this process was telescoped. Some of the first writers in these
literatures were, in effect, their own copyists: they were oral performers in
literature. This will explain the style of much of the popular literatureand such
novellas as Walin Katsina Alhaji Bello's Gandoki (1934) and Omenuko (1935),
by the Igbo writer, Pita Nwana, with their clear echoes of the oral. Later,Chinua
Achebe, an Igbo using English as his literary language, enters a dialogue with
Nwana's work, which is in turn a dramatization of an actual life.73 A tangled
relationship is thus initiated between history and literature,with Nwana's work,
midway between the historical figureand Achebe's fictional character,occupying
a curiously fertile intervening stage-it is a hybrid stage in the tradition of the
raw[ and scribe. These oral, historical, and literary ties are characteristic of
African literature. The interaction between oral and literary is frequently
distorted but that link is seldom absent.74
Two contemporary written narratives reveal very different paths to that
connection. Njogu Gitene's Kiuyu story, Mami hingurira (1970), a twelve-page
piece, is patterned on an oral tale. The title suggest the origins of the story:
"Mother, open for me," a common motif, a song sung to would-be rescuers
("Mother, open the door for me./I have come with honey ... ," is this tale's
variation on the motif). The oral story is placed into an urban frameworkand is
given a widely used African literarytheme, that of the innocent abroad, the rural
person who goes to the city and is corrupted; the central character moves
between the polarities of evil urban and benevolent country influences. Images
are vivid-there is a pursuit by the police and a confrontationwith police dogs,
and there is a scene in which the central characteris rejected by his parents for
his criminal activities-the door is not open to him.
The Swahili writer, Shaaban Robert, authored a number of novels that were
taken almost directly from the oral tradition.75 His Adili na Nduguze,Adili and
His Brothers (1952) is an example. The story is largely told by means of a
flashback. It contains a prologue and an epilogue; the frame is composed of a
discussion between Adili and a king, with Adili explaining why he whips two
monkeys every night. The tale ends with the king's intervention on behalf of the
monkeys, who are really Adili's transformedbrothers. The flashback,meant to
explain why they were changed into creatures,is a series of tales from the oral
repertoire,held togetherby Adili and his quest for a wife. Adili na Nduguze is in
certain respects similar to early Egyptian literature, the product of a period
AND LITERATURE
37
during which oral traditions and the written word co-exist. As in Egypt, an
incipient novel can be found in a combination of tales with a pretext or setting.
The tales themselves are based on familiar oral motifs, with the journeying and
Adili's regularreferralto the monkeys for corroborationof his story acting as the
chief linking devices.
The two stories seem similar: each is based on the oral tradition, each
incorporates a number of folklore motifs. But there are differences, and these
have to do with the relationship between oral tradition and the written word.
Such Egyptian stories as "The Autobiography of Weni" and "The Story of
Sinuhe" also contain oral motifs; they representa literaryculmination of aspects
of orality, with devices enabling them to integrate a variety of materials into a
single work. And they are keyed to the real, immediate world. In the oral
tradition, too, tales are always linked to reality. Shaaban Robert's story lacks
immediacy; it is a museum piece, a frozen retelling of an ancient tale. Robert is
one with Tutuola and the other literaryimitators of the oral, simply recastingthe
latter to the former. It is a record, not an organic development. In the much
shorter Kikuyu story, the oral motifs are placed within a context of and animate
real life events and concerns; they do not simply recall unattached oral story
material. Gitene retains the mythic mechanics as well as the motifs, and he ties
these to the contemporary world. His tale thus has a sense of realism, with
realistic images dominant, pointing to a major storytelling development, in
which oral motifs and mythic-metaphoricaltransformationdevices continue to
exert an influence on a modern form with contemporarythemes, settings, and
characters. The oral motif and mythic apparatus remain at the center of taletelling even in the most sophisticated novels. While the Robert story contains
motifs, the mythic device remains for the most part moribund.
Stephen Andrea Mpashi's Bemba story, CekesoniAingila Ubusoja (1950), is
another oral tale given literary form. It involves the movement of an unlikely
hero who undergoesa series of adventuresthat become a dramatizationof a rite
of passage. Cekesoni begins as a wastrel. He leaves home, and has adventuresin
the army. Along the way, he goes through changes, a kind of puberty ritual. He
initially debases himself, is dissolute and lecherous;he goes to Kenya, Somalia,
Ethiopia; on a second tour of duty, he goes to East Africa and Malagasy. And
during a final tour, he journeys to Egypt and Israel. In the end, he returns to
Lusaka,the typical journeying hero of the oral tradition, where he is demobilized
and begins his readjustmentto rurallife.
At the same time that writers like Mpashi and Gitene were experimenting
with the literary form, similar work was going on in the field of drama where the
linkages with the oral were quite as evident. Much published drama in Africa
seems to have been composed as a direct response to the influence of the oral
tradition, and it had a significantrole to play in the media transitionalperiod. It
was not, it appears,meant to be acted; it is simply a convenient path to the oral,
with briefly stated directions and a concentrationon concrete action.76It was not
so much drama as a dramatic means of realizing certain oral storytellingqualities
in literature.The exploration of those aspects of the oral tradition most relevant
to a literary form of drama-the ritual and its re-enactment characteristicof
certain of the classical forms-would have to await bolder experimentation.For
now, the activities of the dramatists largely paralleled those of the novelists, as
drama became another means of telling a story,in print while retaining as many
of the conventions of the oral tradition as possible. Marcus A. P. Ngani's
38
Umkhonto KaTshiwo (n.d.) is an example, as are Joseph Sebata Tsephe's Ha

Dinyamatsane (n.d.) and D. B. Z. Ntuli's Indandathoyesethembiso(1971).
The substantive experimentationcentered on the novel, and similar problems
were being wrestled with throughout Africa during this transitional period.
Fantasy, reality, and Islam combine in Bello's Gandoki. Like CekesoniAingila
Ubusoja, this is a story based on the hero myth. Gandoki. a product of Islamic
history and the folk tradition ("The two jinn were still inside me . . . "), derives
almost all of its adventure imagery from the oral performer. The central
character leaves home, has a series of adventures (each with folkloric motifs),
overcomes his enemies, and returns home a hero. The separate tales that make
up the work are held together by a frame quest for the enemy, Goringo. And the
pre-Islamic oral elements are overlaid by Islamic didacticism: as Gandoki
overwhelms his enemies, he converts them to the faith. Echoes of the ancient
Egyptian and the early Islamic traditions are evident in the writer's stitching
activities in this written narrative.
Samuel Yosia Ntara's Nyanja novella, Nthondo (1933), is the Christian
counterpart of Gandoki. There are lengthy discussions of Nyanja custom
(encouraged, perhaps, by the fact that the novel was entered in a contest
conducted by the British government),but through this emerges a pattern taken
from oral tale-telling; it is similar to that found in Gandoki, CekesoniAingila
Ubusoja, and Mabel the Sweet Honey that PouredAway. Nthondo, a youth who
is a thief and a murderer,goes on long journeys, creates scandals, is jailed-and
remains unrepentant. He continues to steal, and is disliked by his own people.
Another pattern sheathes the first, a series of dreams that becomes the didactic
element similar to that found in Mabel the Sweet Honey that PouredAway; it is
also an orally derived device, which enables images to comment on images.
These dreams, alike in their themes if varied in imagery,indicate the way to the
ultimate Christian message. The motif of the outsider who moves to the inside
organizes much of the imageryof the tale, along with the heroicjourney in which
a vulnerable central character fails and falls, then returns, is embraced by his
people, and becomes a great leader.
Nwana's Omenuko is based on a historical character,Chief IgwegbeOdum.77
"This book," writes A. E. Afigbo (1966: 222), "perhapsso far and from a literary
point of view, one of the greatest achievements in the [Igbo] language,is from
the historian's point of view a great failure. Though not initially conceived as a
fiction, it has been dismissed as such by nearly all who have read it." Nwana's
Omenuko makes an egregiouserror at the beginning;he betrays his own people,
selling some of them into slavery to keep himself solvent (he has just lost his
goods in a river). For this, he becomes an outcast, fleeing with his brothersand
sisters into exile. During his period of banishment, he thrives, comports himself
with distinction, even heroically, and struggles with rival chiefs who fear and
therefore despise him. They try to reduce his power by manipulating the
European district commissioner. Finally Omenuko repatriatesthe slaves, and is
readmitted to his own home, something of a hero. The structureof the story is
taken from the oral tradition, centeringon a person who, because of a flaw in his
character, absents himself from home, and while in exile undergoes a change.
The historical characterhas thus been fictionalizedby means of one of the most
durable of oral models. Afigbo argues that Nwana's Omenuko is nothing like the
historical character, yet even the Chief Igwegbe that he describes fits basically
into the oral pattern.
ANDLITERATURE
39
Chinua Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart,78 though much longer and
somewhat more intricate than Omenuko, follows the same model. Achebe'swork
interacts with Nwana's. Like Omenuko, Okonkwo goes into exile for a crime
against his people, and there he prepares himself for his return. To this extent,
Achebe's hero follows the oral movement much as Nwana's central character
does. But Okonkwo's re-emergenceis not that of the returned hero, because a
historical event has intervened, and the purposefulinterruptionof an Omenukolike myth is the point of the novel. The order and balance of the oral tradition,
pronounced in Nwana's tale, are impossible in Achebe's. It is not only history
that makes this so, it is also the continued development of the novel form with
greater concentration on realism and psychologythan on the harmonious cycles
of the oral tradition. Achebe's is a novel worked within an African context; its
full power cannot be felt outside an Igbo environment and its predecessorsin
literaryand oral storytelling.
Chiquinho (1947), a Portuguese-languagenovel by Baltasar Lopes, falls into
precisely the same pattern as Omenuko, Nthondo, and Cekesoni Aingila
Ubusoja: Chiquinho leaves his childhood home, goes to Sao Vicente to get an
education, then returns to his home. The three parts of the novel parallel the
familiar movement in the oral tradition. The central character leaves the
familiar-and, here, idealized-home, journeys to an alien place where an
education or initiation occurs, then returns a changed person prepared to
participate gloriously in the activities of his community. Lopes almost cynically
reduces this romantic tale tradition to grim realism. The experience in Sao
Vicente means alienation for Chiquinho, estrangement,unemployment.And his
return to his home means a return to a world of poverty, suffering, and
starvation. In the first part of the novel, the childhood world is lovingly
described, even romanticized, and it is contrasted with the Sao Vicente world
with its poverty and separation (described not sentimentallybut in stark detail).
But there is also irony here, as the first world is revealed in the second. This does
not become clear until the third part of the story, when Chiquinho goes back to
the first world; rather than rediscoverthe world of his childhood, he finds that it
is identical to Sao Vicente. The idealisticallyblurredrealm of the child has been
brutally clarified-the child has come of age. Reality and fantasy co-exist in this
novel, the fantastic details limning the world of the child. And the device of
parallelism characteristicof the oral tradition is effectively applied. The hero's
separation, initiation, and return are angrily developed: return is far from
triumphant. Instead, the world away from home, where initiation takes place,
becomes an awful mirror-imageof the world he left. That is the realistic vision
of the novel. The oral tradition has contributed theme and form; what Lopes
does is to make crucial alterations in each, much as Achebe does in Things Fall
Apart, as he moves from the romantic tale to the realistic novel. Open-endedness
has replaceda cyclical ordering.
The oral tradition provides much of the historical detail for Thomas Mofolo's
Chaka (1925), a novel about the Zulu king. This may obscure the fact that
Mofolo also depends on the oral tradition for the formal structureof his work
(written in Southern Sotho). Mofolo borrows a technique from African oral
historians: he blends reality and fantasy to reveal a historical truth. Isanusi and
his associates form the world of fantasy, and become a chief means wherebythe
characterof Shaka and his actions are commented upon, in much the same way
that the second part of Lopes' novel becomes a commentaryon the first. Chaka
40
is, like Chiquinho, a contemporary version of the heroic legend; and like
Achebe's novel, it has a realistic and modern development that breaks with the
romanticism and the circular ordering of the oral tradition. The hero does not
come full circle; rather,there is an impediment to the mythical realizationof the
rite of passage. The possibilities built into the characterof the outsider epic hero
are here developed. Like Okonkwo, Shaka becomes a victim of his needs and the
world he has conceived. The oral tale provides the formal aspects of this story
and some of its character-types.But the ending is a development of literature.
What has occurredis a shift, prefiguredin the oral epic, in the way the storyteller
views reality. That major change does not, however, emancipate the literary
artists from their continuing dependence on the African oral tradition in the
themes and form of their work, even though cast in a contemporarycontext and
moving perforce toward realism. The oral heroic pattern is used perversely in
Chaka, with the parallelingof Isanusi and the king. The novel provides dramatic
testimony about the way characterrelationships found in the oral tradition can
be transformed in literature to realism; here, they become useful means for
psychologicalrevelation, as Isanusi becomes the concrete embodiment of what is
transpiring in Shaka's mind. Two oral forms (the hero journey, and the
dovetailing of tale parts to comment on one another) are used by Mofolo for
strictly literarypurposes:realism in characterportrayaland action.
In A. C. Jordan's Ingqumbo Yeminyanya (The Wrath of the Ancestors)
(1940), a Xhosa novel, the hero is confronted with a choice-the present,
represented by the European schools, and the past, symbolized by the
traditionalist, Jongilanga.Zwelinzima attempts to mediate the two, but he fails.
In his attempts can be found the germs of future success;it is not, Jordanargues,
a question of one or the other, present or past, it is a question rather of the
blending of the two, something that Okonkwo cannot learn, something that
Omenuko knows and exploits. As with Shaka, Zwelinzima contains the polarities
within himself, and, like Shaka and Okonkwo, he is a contemporaryAfrican
hero, torn by the past and the future. Like the epic hero, he must lead his people.
Some of the heroes in modern Africa novels (Okonkwoof the Igbo, Shaka of the
Zulu, Zwelinzima of the Xhosa) fail because of an essential flaw: they cannot, as
Mwindo and Sunjatado, make the great change.This is their agony, their private
grief and public shame, and they move rashly in one direction or another,unable
to bridge two worlds. This realistic appraisal of events and the tragedy of
subsequent action occur in literary works that represent the fruit of the oral
artists' experimentationwith tale and epic.
It is in Ousmane Sembene's Les bouts de bois de Dieu (1960) that the hero
succeeds, because temporal blending is effectively achieved; here, the themes and
forms of the oral and literary traditions are most eloquently harmonized, as the
hero becomes representative of a past that does find productive links with the
present and future. An object, not a character,becomes crucial to this transition;
the locomotive, by itself, is neutral and passive. It is the use that the African
people, galvanized by Bakayoko, choose to make of it that is the key. The hero
encourages his people, up and down the railway line, breaking down ruinous
cultural barriers among Africans and between Africans and Europeans.He sets
out to shape a future with the past fully in hand. Sembene consciously tempers
the role of the hero, preferringto see Bakayokoas symbolic of a strugglingpeople
caught between the polarities that bring down Okonkwo, Shaka, and Zwelinzima.
It is not simply Bakayoko, but a group of characters-Fa Keita, Ad'jibid'ji,
AND LITERATURE
41
Maimouna, Penda-that comprise the hero in this work.

African novelists have been experimentingwith the cyclical concepts of time
embedded in the oral tradition-Ngugi wa Thiong'o's A Grain of Wheat (1967)
and Wole Soyinka's The Interpreters (1965) are examples. Kateb Yacine, in
Nedjma (1956), uses the cyclical configuration of imagery to construct his
complex work. The confusing relations among the various charactersmove into
focus and out, as the novelist works the temporal and organizationalelements of
his narrative,parallelingimages, contrastingand obscuring,until the characterof
Nedjma is revealed, along with the four men who are attracted to her. This
complex use of time is also important in al-Tayyib Salih's Mawsim al-Hijra ila
al-Shamal, Season of Migration to the North.79 The polarities are north and
south, and the African hero is torn between them. In this case, the hero turns
tables and history against Europe.As in Nedjma, the author of Mawsim al-Hijra
ild al-Shamal provides the mirrors characteristicof the Arabic literary tradition
and of the Arabic and African oral traditions. In England there is a graveyard
which is a re-creationof a mythical Africa; it is Mustafa's bedroom, and means
death to the women he brings there. In Sudan there is a graveyard,the mementos
of the life Mustafa spent in England. On either side is death. Al-Tayyib Salih
uses the characterof Wad Rayyes for similar reasons:Mustafa sketches him eight
times. Why, the narratorof the novel wonders, this interest in Wad Rayyes? Is
he a mirror image of Mustafa, in his destructiveness and sentiments? As alTayyib Salih enters a splendidly ironic dialogue with Joseph Conrad-Mustafa
and Kurtz, the narrator and Marlow-similar questions about the relationship
between narratorand the subject of his tale recur.
At the center of the African novel, as of the epic, is the hero, caught between
past and future, forced to make decisions fateful to himself and, frequently, to
his community as well. Inaction is not possible; a movement from one state to
another is urgently called for. That transformation is the metaphorical and
mythic core of the storytelling tradition; it grows out of a complex of images,
forms, and themes, organized as fragmentsof history are recombinedand, in the
process, tied to the ancient tradition of the people. The process is poetic
performance,and what makes the transformationpossible is myth: it partakesof
ancient images, it generatesmotion.
The African literary tradition has thus moved through various stages as
writers have attempted to develop a theory of mimesis that denies neither past
tradition nor present reality. This has meant that the oral experiencehas retained
its hold on the creative imagination. It becomes obvious in all of Africa'sliterary
traditions, in the activities of the scribes and their counterparts,as the writers
either imitate the oral tradition or use that tradition as a means for exploring
contemporaryreality in literary form. Other writers then build on these popular
early works, but although they move another step from the oral structural
characteristics,they remain dependent on the oral motifs and transformational
devices. In the work of Onwudiwe, Mpashi, and Gitene is a suggestionof themes
and forms more fully developed in the novels of Achebe, Jordan, Lopes and
Mofolo. This has to do with the plight of the modern hero and his options, his
agony, his internal struggle.As the authors probe the hero's psyche, they deviate
from the basic movements of the oral tradition, and the cyclical romanticismof
the ancient works is replaced by a realistic open-endedness. Integral to these
formal considerations are the themes, linking past and present, rural and urban,
the traditional and the modern. These contemporaryactivities have their genesis
42
in the oral tradition: there has been a continuum in the African oral/literary
tradition, from the tale, to the epic, to popular writing, to the major literary
works.
The contemporaryAfrican literary tradition is sometimes confused with that
of the West. It is not clear why this should be so. (Western literary critics have
been slow to discover the oral roots of their literature,preferringto view the oral
and literary as separate and largely unbridgeabletraditions. Homer and Dickens
are storytellers,but the orality of Dickens' literature has not been satisfactorily
tested.) The idea persists that African writing is derivative of Europeantradition.
Writing of Jordan'sIngqumbo Yeminyanya, D. D. T. Jabavu (1943: 24) said "as
we know the author's acquaintancewith Dickens, Jane Austen, and so forth we
can with confidence ascribe to him the influence of Englishliteratureat its best."
The confusion is a result of colonialism.
One of the legacies of the West's presence in Africa has been the confusion of
that mythic linkage throughthe substitution of a Western image of the continent
and its people. That conception, centuries old, is apparentlycomplex because it
has run such a tortuous course through history. It has its origins in the earliest
ideas that Europe had of Africa, and has evolved into a set of images vital to the
West, finding form in the violence of Robert Ruark (1955) and the subtleties of
such South African liberal writers as Nadine Gordimer(1981) and J. M. Coetzee
(1981, 1983), coloring its litertureand shaping its perception.
That image was crudely drawn, then savagely honed to vivid caricature in
European literature. From the earliest times, in the writings of Herodotus, for
then Luiz Vaz de Cam6es
example, and Diodorus Siculus and St. Hippolytus,8so
and writers of the colonial period like Julien Viaud (Pseud., Pierre Loti),
Rudyard Kipling, and Gustav Frenssen, and such contemporary writers as
Graham Greene and Saul Bellow,81 contributions have regularlybeen made to
the development and reinforcement of the image of Africa. The picture of the
barbarianas painted by medieval Europe had to do with anyone not Greek or
Roman, and later in the Middle Ages came to include Moslems, the Berbersof
North Africa, and the Tartars. But as Africa impinged itslf on Europe's
consciousness, attitudes towards blacks, having deep roots in Europeanculture,
were tied to images of the barbarians,and a mythically potent perception was
born. In the nineteenth century, the image received a romantic patina, as the
concept of the noble savage attractedartists and others seduced by its simplicity
and primitiveness. Early travel accounts, missionary records, the writings of
administratorsoften affirmedthe concept. Ethnographicand historical works of
the nineteenth century, when colonialism was in full blossom, created the
prototypes for twentieth century attitudes. The Afrikaansliterarytradition of the
Boer nation, for example, was built on the Western mythus. If Edgar Rice
Burrough'sTarzan novels were the most obvious manifestations of the image,
Joseph Conrad and Raymond Roussel provided its more subdued and surreal
renderings.
As it became fully linked to motifs in the western tradition, the image tied
black people and culture to a stereotype that has been of such utility to whites
that they have been loath to release it; it transcends the Africa of reality,
controlling notions in a thoroughlydebased way. The twentieth century took its
measure of the crude myth, then, with liberalism ascendant after the two world
wars, the image and attendant lexicon of racism were altered to reflect the new
sensibilities. But, though frosted with the rhetoric of the mid-twentieth century,
AND LITERATURE
43
the ancient archetype persists. Had there been no Africa, Europe would have
invented one: "Well," Bellow writes in Hendersonthe Rain King (1959), "maybe
every guy has his own Africa"; and Thomas Browne, in Religio Medici (1953):
"We carry with us the wonders we seek without us: there is all Africa and her
prodigies in us." And Valery Larbaud (1951: Vol.IV, 109-10) "Quand nous
voudrons, nous rentrerons aux forets vierges./Le desert, la prairie, les Andes
colossaux,/Le Nil blanc, Teheran, Timor, les Mers du Sud,/Et toute la surface
planetaire sont a nous, quand nous voudrons!/... /Pour moi,/L'Europe est
comme une seule grande ville .. ." Images of terra incognita were so beguiling
and writers so eager to satisfy the longings fed by the myth that every new
discovery simply strengthenedits hold.
In literature, Africa frequently became Europe's other side, Europe's dark
side. There was this about the African: he embodied the greatest fears of the
whites. In John Buchan's Prester John, Wardlaw (1910: 96) expresses the
nightmare: if the Africans "ever combined they could keep it as secret as the
grave. My houseboy might be in the rising, and I would never suspect it till one
fine morning he cut my throat." When Africa was not simply the image of the
primitive and the barbaric,it became the brooding metaphor.The fears were one
side of the burden the Africans were caused to bear; the other side belonged to
the liberals. Isak Dinesen (1937: 17-18), for example:"The discovery of the dark
races was to me a magnificentenlargementof all my world." She consideredthat
person "with an ear for music" who "happenedto hear music for the first time
when he was alreadygrown up," and she likened this to her African experiences:
"After I had met with the Natives, I set out the routine of my daily life to the
Orchestra."Alan Paton created Kumalo in Cry, the Beloved Country (1948), and
revealed a vital figment of the liberal imagination, as the flat characterbecame a
symbol, embodying the pained conscience of the white liberal. Paton's celebrated
work is only the most famous in a venerable tradition of western novels about
Africa written from African points of view. It is one of the world's most durable
minstrel shows, whites in black-face creating for the West a picture of the
Europeans'Africa. It is only a somewhat bizarre development of the travellers'
accounts of their wanderingson the continent.82
Nineteenth century writers attempted to become a part of the black world the
better to communicate that exotic realm to a Europe and America seemingly
insatiable in their desire for such works. Anna Howarthcame to South Africa for
her health, and wrote Jan: An Afrikander(1897). She developed a characterof
mixed blood, a Jekyll and Hyde figure-now Jan Vermaak,now the eminent Sir
John Fairbank(who would have suspected?)-to enable her to move comfortably
from the one race to the other. The tragedyin the novel, and its attractivenessto
the West, grows out of the ambiguity: in one charactercould be found the two
polar elements that make up the dream-worldof Europe.
Robert Ruark had a literary dialogue with John Buchan, CamaraLaye (1954)
with Pierre Loti. The latter, in his Le Roman d'un Spahi, bathes in African
symbolism. An African context and a strong sense of the primeval suffuse the
book. During the rainy season, all is lush and fertile, and in this world Jean has
his sexual awakening (Loti, 1881: 94, 105-06): "Anamalis fobil!" becomes a
refrain:"Anamalisfobil!-hurlaient les Griotsenfrappantsur leur tam-tam-l'oeil
enflammi, les muscles tendus, le torse ruisselant de sueur.. " And a beautiful
African woman, Fatougaye, "Melange de jeuneille, d'enfant et de diablotin noir,
tris bizarrepetite personne!"seduces him, possesses the bewilderedinnocent. She
44
is black, he is white, and the novel develops the familiar stereotypesof good and
bad according to the racial polarities. "Et tout le monde repetaiten frappant des
mains, avec frenesie: Anamalis fobil!-Anamalis fobil! ... la traduction en
brtlerait ces pages ... Anamalis fobil! les premiers mots, la dominante et le
refrain d'un chant endiable, ivre d'ardeuret de licence,-le chant des bamboulas
du printemps! ." Africa thus takes on symbolic connotations:"Anamalisfobil!
... effrene,-de s?ve noire surchauffeeau soleil et d'hysturietorride
hurlementde disir
... alleluia d'amour negre, hymne de seduction chante aussi par la nature,par
l'air, par la terre,par les plantes, par les parfums!"
J. M. Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer have a dialogue with James Dorant
Ensor, who in the nineteenth century wrote a pair of books in which a European
takes on the role of the black: "Nature,"says Sitongo, "has stamped my features
with such indelible traces of my origin, that in this, the land of my birth, where
such distinctions are common enough, they would have proved an almost
insurmountablebarrier to materially advancing my prosperity,or, at all events,
most effectually have prevented me enjoying any other society than that of
gentlemen of a similar complexion to myself' (Ensor, 1884: 3). In the work of
Joyce Cary, Graham Greene, Joseph Conrad, and others who have their
European and American cultures as foundations and contexts from which to
view Africa, the continent becomes a symbol for a yearningwithin humans and a
fear-a longing for something elemental, a fear of the unknown. But in South
Africa, where the tradition has seen novels in which masqueradingis a fairly
common characteristic,the tradition begins to change. The role-playingremains
at the heart of the non-African literary tradition in that area, the white writer
moving into the black character,with the ambiguityof the so-called "coloreds"a
useful symbol, but the two contemporarynovelists view the reversal in a new
way. No longer is it engaged in for voyeuristic purposes. Now, the Africans are
positioned to overthrow white domination, and white literature, duly reflecting
white sensibilities, reflectsthe inevitability. The reversaltradition takes an ironic
turn, as we see the bewildered white writers attempting to come to terms with
history. In Gordimer'sJuly's People and Coetzee's Life and Times of Michael K,
a hopeless sense of alienation emerges, as the historic alienation of the blacks
becomes that of the whites. The masks will not come off, the minstrel show has,
in a surrealisticway, become reality. In the nineteenth century, whites sought to
see the world through black eyes for the delight of European audiences; now,
Europeansin South Africa see the world throughblack eyes, and find themselves.
The Europeanfear of Africa, and the role-reversalinitially indulged in for freakshow purposes, have returned to bedevil contemporary European writers and
their audiences.
The African writer and critic stand between the two great images, that which
animates African oral tradition and literature,and the competing myth from the
West. In time, the latter will almost certainly diminish in importance83; it is
significant in contemporaryAfrican writing because the historical experiencesof
slavery and colonialism have brought the western image to the center of African
thought about its past and its place in the world. But the treatment of the
conflict in fiction and poetry does not mean that African writers have become
disoriented and requiredirections to the ancient artistic traditions.
The reason for any misunderstandingsmay not be so much the failures of the
writers as of the critics. For one thing, there has been an unfortunate set of
conclusions among those who have studied the relationship between oral
AND LITERATURE
45
tradition and the written word; these minimize the connections and make
insurmountablethe gap, so that it often appears that there are no links at all.
This is perhaps one of the most ruinous misconceptions afflictingthe criticism of
literature.It makes possible remarkablearguments-that, for example, the novel
form is, in any society, isolated from the oral. To argue that there is no
substantive transitional literature, no period during which the oral and written
work are richly interacting,is to ignore the scribe, the raw[, the writer of popular
fiction. The assumption that the novel form evolved in the West and was
transportedto the rest of the world is as blind as it is arrogant,especially when
one considers that the novel was vibrant some three or four thousand years
before workers went to factories in Europe. Scholars have perceived a need to
distinguish these linkages,but the need once stated is ignored.One critic (Moore,
1980: 7) comments, "The problems of establishinga vital connection between a
rich and ancient oral tradition, expressed in languageswhich have special tonic
and sonic qualities of their own, and the activity of writing for the page in the
new languages of colonialism, are complex and daunting enough." Some years
earlier, the same critic (Moore, 1962: viii-ix) argued, "The opening shots in the
campaign to create a new African literature were fired, not by Africans, but by
black writers from the Caribbean,"adding, "This literary movement began in
Cuba as long ago as 1927 ." In the event, it is as if there were no past.
...
The compartmentalizationof oral tradition and the written word is only the
most dramatic, and injurious, of the many separate categories in which literary
and oral scholars work, and this not only in Africa. But in Africa, the problems
seem most manifest-and grievous, for they have led to misconceptions about
the verbal arts. The potentially most fruitful scholarlywork will surely be in the
relationship between oral and written materials; it has scarcely been touched.
Another problem has been evident for years. Alan Merriam(1982: 2, 6-7) wrote
of "The problem of the divisions between studies conducted by social scientists
and those framed by humanists," and concluded that "if there is a neglect in
Africa studies ...
it is the almost total neglect of the humanities." The challenge
as he saw it was "the humanities and the social sciences in African studies and
the bridges which must be built between them . .."
Social scientists and
humanists have become "they" and "them" working in shielded surroundings,

"they" considering the cultural and historical implications, "them,"
concentratingon the artistic. They have not yet been bonded; when they are, we
may expect major revisions of currentthought on oral history and art.
In the oral traditions, categories abound-tale, epic, heroic poem, riddle,
proverb-and analysts have steadily missed their interconnections because of
this. The division is also present in literature."Africanlanguageliteratures,"the
least studied of all of Africa's verbal arts, are taken as individual literatures,
regionally and linguistically demarcated; their inter-relationships are seldom
glimpsed, not to mention their ties with the oral tradition and with "European
languageliteratures."Those latter have themselves been atomized, into "African
literaturein English,""in French,"and "in Portuguese."This fragmentationhas
become sanctified in universities where the separate literaturesare taught in the
relevant departments,so that there is not a chance that they will be seen as part
of a monolithic African tradition. Moreover, the Sahara Desert contnues to act
as a barrier, so that the oral and written arts of the north are only infrequently
tied to those of the south.
46
The current state of the art, then, finds an oral tradition and a literature
dissected into a number of sacred turfs, each generating and garrisoned by a
body of scholars. One of the most dramatic conclusions that these fissures have
led to is the extraordinaryone that African literature had its beginnings in the
1950s. One critic wrote that "the vast bulk of modern African literature
coincides with the dissolution of the British empire in Africa." It is a matter of
little wonder, therefore, that scholars have looked to Europe for the mainsprings
of the contemporaryAfrican novel, poem, and drama. It is only when one sees
the continuum of the continent's verbal arts, when one grasps that the supposed
wall between oral tradition and the written word is more apparent than real,
when one discovers the ancient roots of the novel and the creative
experimentationwith poetry, that one becomes aware of the richness of this art
tradition.
"The storyteller," wrote Walter Benjamin (1973: 87), "takes what he tells
from experience-his own or that reported by others. And he in turn makes it
the experience of those who are listening to the tale." History is constantly made
theatrical; it is dissected, its images wrenched from normal environments and
placed within new, frequently fabulous contexts. The poet establishes a
predictablerhythm in his line, and succeedinglines are measuredagainst it. The
audience is thereby led to a new experience compounded of familiar images.
That experience has warmth because it is constructed of images reflecting the
known world; it has depth because, partakingof imagery passed on through an
ancient tradition, it redefinesthose familiar images. The combination is myth; it
has no existence outside the poem, but it shapes our perception of everything
that we experience outside the poem. Songs, Plato wrote, "are really 'charms'for
the soul. They are in fact deadly serious devices for producingconcord"between
reason and emotion (1975: 95) and, one might add, between history and poetry.
The realistic images connect the poetic performanceto the culture, but these are
selective, and they are altered, reshaped. The performance is not simply a
reflection of that culture; it is the essence of an experience of history and art.
The work of art bridges the generations. Humanity, wrote C. S. Lewis (1938: 1),
"does not pass through phases as a train passes through stations: being alive, it
has the privileges of always moving yet never leaving anythingbehind."
The figure of an oral poet, robed magnificentlyin a mantle fashioned of the
skins of wild animals, moving about in a splendor of gesture and dance, his
speech made fanciful by rhetoricalflourishesand poetic nuance, suggestshistory
made myth. "Aesthetic form," Herbert Marcuse (1972: 81) wrote, "means the
total of qualities (harmony, rhythm, contrast) which make an oeuvre a selfcontained whole, with a structureand order of its own (the style). By virtue of
these qualities the work of art transforms the order prevailing in reality. This
transformationis 'illusion,' but an illusion which gives the contents representeda
meaning and a function differentfrom those they have in the prevailinguniverse
of discourse. Words, sounds, images, from another dimension 'bracket' and
invalidate the right of the established reality for the sake of a reconciliation still
to come." African oral and literary works have had as their central aims the
work of transformingthe order prevailing in reality. The oral and literary are a
part of a single unbrokentradition;there are many echoes, strains, and dialogues
connecting contemporarywriters to the creators of "The Story of Sinuhe" and
"The Report of Wenamiin," to the Berber poets of al-Maghriband the Hausa
praise-singers,the Swahili epic performers,the storytellersof ancient Zimbabwe.
47
We critics have been effective in analyzing details of this great tradition, but we
have consistently failed to see it in its fullness.
NOTES
* Primaryworks will be reviewed in this essay; secondaryworks will be briefly surveyed in
the notes.
1. For purposes of this paper, "literature"will be defined, as in the Oxford English
Dictionary, as a "body of writings,"and "literary"as "Pertainingto books and written
compositions."
2. From an interview in my collection.
3. These are the words of //kabbo, quoted in Bleek and Lloyd (1911: 300-1). (The
quotation is translatedthere as follows: "//kabbo explains that a story is 'like the wind,
it comes from a far-offquarter,and we feel it.' ")
4. //kabbo, quoted in Bleek and Lloyd (1911: 300-1). (I have taken the liberty of
polishing the translation.)
5. //kabbo, quoted in Bleek and Lloyd (1911: 302-3). (Again, I have polished the
translation.)
6. For analyses of the linearity of African oral history, see Vansina (1961), and the work
of two of his students, Henige (1974, 1982) and Miller (1980). Otherswho have written
on this subject include de Certeau (1975), Seldon and Pappworth (1983), and
Thompson (1978). Journals specializing in the subject include Oral History, Oral
History Review and Newsletter,Journal of the Canadian OralHistoryAssociation, and
History in A4frica.
7. ArchibaldMacLeish,(1964: 16-17) tells of how a poem details "a relationshipof man
and the world," how poetry is "somethingwhich traffics in some way between world
and man. But in what way? Lu Chi tells us. The poet is one who 'traps Heaven and
Earthin the cage of form.'"
8. The literature on verbal performanceremains thin, although there has recently been
considerableinterest in the subject. Fine (1984) summarizesthe field. Tedlock (1972,
1983) has attemptedto discover typographicalequivalencesfor aspectsof performance;
Hymes (1981) has done the same. Seitel (1980) applied Tedlock's approaches to
African oral tales, and Rothenberg(1968) recastpoems from a variety of cultureswith
a similar approach.Alcheringa is a journal dedicated to attempts to transcribeoral
performance, with phonograph discs and typographical equivalencies. See also:
Bauman (1977); Blacking and W. Kealiinohomoku(1979), especially part four, "Case
Studies in Music and Folklore from Asia and CentralEurope"(141-201), and Kubik,
"Pattern Perception and Recognition in African Music" (221-49); Cordwell (1979),
especially chaptersby Joshi and Borgatti.
9. Researchon metaphorhas been rich and adventurous.For a bibliographyof work on
the subject before 1971, see Shibbles(1971). Among the importantworks on metaphor
are Wheelwright(1962), Turbayne(1970), Black (1962), and Ricoeur (1975). In 1978,
CriticalInquiry devoted a volume to metaphor;the essays were subsequentlypublished
(Sacks, 1979). The journal Poetics Today devoted an issue to metaphor(1983: 4/2).
10. Dickey (1968). "It is a way," he goes on (1968: 2), "of causing the items of the real
world to act upon each other, to recombine, to suffer and learn from the mysterious
value systems, or value-making systems, of the individual, both in his socially
conditioned and in his inmost, wild, and untutoredmind."
11. Five recent and useful works on fantasy: Jackson (1981), Todorov (1970), Rabkin
(1976), C. Schlobin (1982), and Apter (1982). There are two helpful bibliographies:
Schlobin (1979) and Tymn, et al., (1979).
12. Bryant (1984: 13). Of particularinterest here is Welsh (1978). For other generalworks
on the riddle, see Taylor (1951), Sutton-Smith (1976), Scott (1969), Georges and
Dundes (1963), Hamnett (1967), and the studies of K6ngas Maranda(1971a, 1971b,
1971c, and 1976). Works specifically on the African riddle include Harries (1971),
48
Gowlett (1975, 1979), and Kallen and Eastman (1979). See also: Bascom (1949),
Blacking (1961), Bynon (1966), Haring (1974), Layton (1976), Messenger(1960). The
riddle is a much studied genre;it is possible to mention only a representativesampling
of studies. Green and Pepicello (1978, 1979, 1980, 1984) have written a series of
articles on the subject.
13. Taylor (1943: 130) concludes, "a true riddle consists of two descriptionsof an object,
one figurativeand one literal, and confuses the hearer who endeavors to identify an
object describedin conflictingways."
14. Petsch (1899) quoted in Georgesand Dundes (1963).
15. Hadebe (1968: 33). The answeris: Isibhakabhaka,the sky.
16. Bynon (1966-1967: 170-71). Answers:needle and thread,pubic hair, a cow.
17. There are some useful collections of African oral lyric poetry, but much of it is in
translationonly. See, for example, Trask(1966) and Doob (1966). For a more complete
bibliography,see Scheub (1977).
18. Young (1931: 345). Here is a samplingof proverbresearch:Arewa(1970), Dundes and
Arewa (1964), and Seitel (1969). See also: de Caro and McNeil (1970), Fischer and
Yoshida (1968), and McKnight (1968). For a bibliographyof collections of African
proverbs,see Scheub (1977).
19. Attitudes of collectors of African oral narrativeshave not been studied, but they must
have had an impact on the methods adopted in makingthe collections. One thinks, for
example, of the missionary, G. Reginald Veel, working for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Kokstad in South Africa;he "omitted from the stories parts which would be
offensive according to our standards,but are allowable as a matter of course among
primitive folk" (1930: 103-4). George McCall Theal, the South African historian,had
a unique method of collection: "Most of [the tales] have been obtained from at least
ten or twelve individuals residing in differentparts of the country, and they have all
undergone a thorough revision by a circle of natives." Considering the apparent
looseness of his transcriptionof the texts, his attitude seems important:"Most Kaffir
tales are destitute of moral teaching from our point of view." And when a commoner
woman in a tales marries a prince, he reveals his Victorian hauteur: "What
recommendation,"he wonders, "has the girl in this story to the favor of the young
chief?" (1882: vii-ix, 204). Dorothea Bleek, in a volume of tales collected by her
father, W. H. I. Bleek, and her aunt, Lucy C. Lloyd, notes that "Some [tales] I have
shortened by leaving out wearisome repetition . . ." (1923: v), not realizingthat by so
doing she was tamperingwith the very heart of the San stories. Henry Callawaydid
what he could with collection techniques of the mid-nineteenth century, and if his
method destroyed the spontaneity of the tale and robbed it of its audience, it was
nevertheless an exacting technique, and the result is a selection of tales that is
exceptional, including narrativesperformedby the redoubtableLydia umkaSethemba,
whose "Umxakaza-wakogingqwayo"
remains one of the finest African tales recorded
(1868: 181-217). But Callawaywas also a child of his times: "In reflectingon the tales
of the Zulus the brief has been irresistiblyfixed upon my mind," he wrote, "that they
point out very clearly that the Zulus are a degeneratedpeople;that they are not now in
the condition intellectually or physically in which they were during 'the legendproducing period' of their existence; but have sunk from a higher state" (1868, from
the "Preface," unpaged). Callaway was caught in the currents of nineteenth century
Europeanfolklore ideology regardingthe myth-producingera and the remnanttheories
of Edward Burnett Tylor (1871) and Max Muller (1868, 1870, 1875), the latter of
whom was incredulous:"the mere fact that the Zulus possess nurserytales is curious,
because nurserytales ... generallypoint back to a distant civilization, or at least to a
long-continued national growth (1868: II, 212). Callaway was himself wary; Muiller
quotes him as saying, "It has been no easy matter to drag out the ... tales; and it is
evident that many of them are but fragmentsof some more perfect narration"(1868:
II, 214). Callaway'scomments are only the most dramaticevidence of the environment
under which African tales were gathered in the nineteenth century. In 1861, at the
49
request of George Grey, then Cape Governor, Bleek wrote to missionariesin southern
Africa, asking them to make collections of oral materials. In a letter to Charles
Brownlee, Secretary of Native Affairs, he wrote in 1875, "if we look around us in
South Africa to see what has thus been done to preservethe original mental products
of its highly interesting indigenous races, how little do we find accomplished?"He
urged that "the collection of the folk-lore of the nations among whom they [the
missionaries] are respectivelyliving ... must be undertakenat once, or it will be too
late, if we want to retain picturesof the native mind in its national originality"(1875:
2).
Leo Frobenius went to Africa twelve times between 1904 and 1935, and he
collected, among other materials,oral narrativesfrom a range of societies throughout
the continent. Many of these tales were publishedin Das SchwarzeDekameron (1910),
and, between 1921 and 1928, he produced twelve volumes of African oral narratives,
translatedinto German,includingDamonen des Sudan (1924), Dichten und Denkenim
Sudan (1925), Dicht-kunstder Kassaiden (1928), Die AtlantischeGOtterlehre(1926),
Erzdhlungen aus dem West-Sudan (1922), Mdrchen aus Kordofan (1923),
Spielmannsgeschichtender Sahal (1921). Frobenius was a leader of the "HistoricalCultural School"of Europeanfolklore methodology, with Friedrich Ratzel, a German
geographerand ethnographer(he attemptedto apply biological laws to social relations,
explainingevery phenomenonby the "innate"capacitiesof the race);Fritz Graebner,a
German ethnographerand the head of the historical-culturalschool; and Wilhelm
Schmidt, an Austrian ethnographerand linguist (Cocchiara, 1952, 1971). Frobenius
was one of the originatorsof Kulturkreis,regardingculture as an individual organism
that develops accordingto its own biological laws;people, he believed, are not creators,
only bearers of culture, which develops independentlyof them (Cocchiara,1981: 617,
645). Frobenius occupies a unique place in African intellectualhistory;L6opoldS6dar
Senghor (1973: vii-xiii) has observed, "no one did more than Frobenius to reveal
Africa to the world and the Africans to themselves." He goes on, "I had started to
attend courses at the Paris Institute of Ethnology and at the Practical School of
Advanced Studies. So I was intellectually on familiar terms with the greatest
Africanists and above all the ethnologists and linguists. But suddenly, like a
thunderclap-Frobenius! All the history and pre-historyof Africa were illuminated,to
their very depths. And we still carrythat mark of the master in our minds and spirits,
like a form of tattooing carried out in the initiation ceremonies in the sacred grove."
He adds, "Leo Frobenius was the one, above all others, who shed light for us on
concepts such as emotion, art, myth, Eurafrica," and concludes, "Frobeniushelped us
to leave the ghetto of the first phase of Negritude, with which we had been all too
content.... I have been saying it for decades: the independence of the mind is an
indispensable condition of all other independence. And it was Leo Frobenius who
helped us to achieve it." S. A. Akintoye (1979: 158), Director of the Institute of
African Studies of the University of Ife, in a speech in 1975 agreedwith Senghor:"it
was to Leo Frobeniusthat we owe the first truthfulreportingof this [Ife] civilisation to
the world at large."
The early collections of oral narrativeswere often means to aid in the study and
learning of African languages.In the years before 1870, most of the collectors were
missionaries: Bleek, Thomas J. Bowen, Callaway, Gottlieb Christaller,Karl Hugo
Hahn, Hans Nikolaus Rijs, J. B. Schlegel, Christian Friedrich Schlenker,and Jakob
FriedrichSchon. SigismundWilhelm Koelle (1854), a Germanmissionaryand linguist,
published a collection of Kanuri tales, suggesting that the volume (1854: vi)
"introduces the reader, to some extent, into the inward world of Negro mind and
Negro thoughts, and this is a circumstanceof paramountimportance,as long as there
are any who either flatly negative the question, or, at least, consider it still open,
'whether the Negroes are a genuine portion of mankind or not."' In South Africa,
writers such as Azariele Sekese (1893) became antiquarians,and made collections of
narratives. These were to culminate in such anthologies as those of Z. D. Mangoaela
50
(1921), Henry Masila Ndawo (1920), Garvey Nkonki (n.d.), and C. L. Sibusiso
Nyembezi (1958).
In 1896, August Seidel's Geschichtenund Lieder der Afrikanerwas published. He
wrote (1896: 1), "Ein wilderAfrikaner!Ein SchwarzesTier!Er sollte denken!Er sollte
fuhlen! Seinge phantasie sich als schopferischerweisen! Ya, mehr noch, et sollte Sinn
und Ferstandnishabenfar poetische Formen,far Rythmus und Reim! Es scheint ganz
underkbar,und doch ist es so."
The French were also avid and systematic collectors. Rene Basset (he published a
number of Arabic tales, for example, in "Contes et legendes arabes," Revue des
traditionspopulaires, from 1888 to 1919), EugeneCasalis (1841), and Blaise Cendrars
(1920) were among them. Earlier,Henri Gr6goirepublisheda volume in which, among
other subjects, he wrote of griots (1808: 185-86): "Les negres ont les leurs nommes
griots qui vont ausssi chez les rois faire ce qu'onfait dans toutes les cours, louer et
mentir avec esprit. Leurs femms, les griots, font d peu pres le metier des almees en
Egypte, des bayaderesdan lInde: C'est un trait de conformitede plus avec les femmes
voyageuesesdes troubadours,mais ces trouveres,ces Minnsinger,ces minstrelsfurent les
devanciersde Malherbe, Corneille,Racine, Shakespeare,Pope, Gesne, Klopstock,etc."
EdouardJacottet published two excellent collections of Sotho oral tales (1895, 1908a).
In 1908, he published an English translation of Sotho narratives, The Treasuryof
Basuto Lore: "I have taken greatcare,"he wrote (1908b: xxii), "to reproduce[the tales]
exactly in the form they were dictated to me...." L'Abbe Boilat producedEsquisses
collections of tales appearedin Les
senegalaises (1853), and L. J. B. Bbrenger-Fbraud's
peupladesde la Senegambie (1885) and Receuil de ContesPopulairesde la Senegambie
(1885), with a comment on "L'originedes Laobes et des Griots." In 1882, J. Riviere
produced Receuil de Contes Populaires de la Kabylie du Djurdjura,containing tales
collected among the Kabyle. Another missionary who collected tales was Heli
Chatelain;he worked in Angola mong the Ovimbundu.His Folk-Talesof Angola was
published in 1894. Much later, his Contospopularesde Angola (1894) was printed. "In
Africa," he wrote, "where there are no facilities for intimacy with the natives, and
where there is no written literature,the only way to get at the character,the moral and
intellectualmake-up,of the races and tribes, is to make a thoroughstudy of their social
and religious institutions, and of their unwritten,oral literature,that is of their folklore" (1894: 16). The important storyteller in his collection is Jelemia dia Sabatelu,
whose "Sudika-Mbambi"(Chatelain, 1964: 85-97) is among the finest tales in the
volume.
Henri Junod's Les chantes et les contes des Ba-Ronga de la baie de Delagoa was
published in 1897: "C'est la le plaisir litterairedes peuplesprimitifs,leur thedtreet leur
livre, et les Ba-Ronga non seulement sont sensibles d ce divertissementintellectuel:ils
l'aiment avec passion ...," he wrote. Fang tales were collected by Henri Trilles (1898).
"Cefolklore," he observed, "s'est meme conservedans chaque tribuavec une netteteet
une precision qui s?raient de natured surprendreceux qui ignorentavec quelleforce et
quelle persistancese perpetuentdans le peuple, et surtoutdans les peuplesprimitifs, les
Iegendesdes Areux, les Iegendescontees le soir'aux petits enfants attentifspar les vieux
grand'peres'a la tote chauve!Les fees et les ogres du pays noir sont aussi immortelsque
les ogres et les fees du pa'ysblanc!"(1909: 945-46).
But in France, it was Francois-VictorEquilbecqwho was consideredthe pioneer of
researchinto African oral traditions. "Un administrateuraujourd'huioublie va etablir
un bilan et une synth'se, definir une veritablemethodologiede la litteratureorale,"
writes Cornevin (1976: 58). Equilbecq travelled in Senegal, Guinea, Zaire, Mali,
collecting oral materials. His publications include Contes populaires d'Afrique
occidentale (1972) and a three-volumework, Essai sur la litteraturemerveilleusedes
Noirs, suivi de contes indigenes de I'OuestAfricainfrancais (1913-1916). "[I] definit
une veritablemethodologiede la collecte et proposeune classificationsur laquelle nous
reviendronsplus loin. Certains auteurs avaient certes ddjaetudih les traditionsorales
africaines. Mais aucun n'avait eu une vision d'ensemble aussi remarquable des
51
problemes"(Cornevin, 1976: 62).

In more recent times, French scholars have continued the work of collecting
African oral materials, and have maintained the high standards set by their earlier
counterparts.Deborah Lifschitz and Genevieve Calame-Griauledid work among the
Dogon. Lifschitz'sfindingswere publishedin Revuede Folklorefrancaise et de Folklore
colonial (1936, 1938); Calame-Griaule'sEthnologie et langage: la parole chez les
Dogons (1965) is, in part, a study of Dogon myth. Calame-Griaulewas a member of
the Association des Classiquesafricaines,establishedin 1963 by Pierre-FrancisLacroix
and Eric de Dampierre. Its publishing arm is Classiques africaines, first under the
imprint of Julliard,later of ArmandColin, and consistentlythe most reliableand most
effective producerof African oral texts (and, in certain cases, phonographicdiscs that
accompany the texts). The series began in 1963 with Poetes Nzakara, edited by de
Dampierre. Among the publications in this series are Pierre-FrancisLacroix, ed.,
Podsiepeule de l'Adamawa(1965); Alff IbrahimSow, ed., La Femme, la Vache,la Foi;
Ecrivains et po'tes du Fouta-Djalon (1966); and Christiane Seydou, ed., La geste de
Ham-Bodedioou Hama le Rouge (1976).
There were also collections from Zaire, Rwanda, and Burundi. J.-M. Jadot,
president of the Association des tcrivains et Artistes coloniaux en Belgique, was an
early collector (1959), along with C. Joset and L. Lejeune,and Olivier de Bouveignes
(1935), who commented on oral materials from Zaire: "Leur sensibilite est
extremementvive, elle les guide plus souventque la raison et le jugement, mais elle les
sert bien souventpour en faire des po'tes, d'unefraiche et vivanteoriginalite.... ." The
Mus&eroyal de l'Afriquecentrale,Tervuren,dedicated itself to the preservationof the
oral arts of centralAfrica, and COPAMIwas createdin 1935 for this purpose.In 1952,
the Centrede recherchesde l'Institutpour la recherchescientifiqueen Afriquecentrale
was formed;scholarsassociatedwith this organizationinclude Th. Kamanziand Andre
Coupez, who edited Recits historiquesrwanda (1962). Other members include A. E.
Meeuseen and Jan Vansina (then Chef du Centre d'Astrida, Vansina produced La
ldgendedu passe, Traditionsorales du Burundi [1972]).
In 1964, the United Nations decided to preparea General History of Africa. As a
part of this project, preliminary meetings were held in Abidjan, Niamey, and
Ouagadougou,and, in 1968, a Centre regional de documentation pour la tradition
orale (C.R.D.T.O.) was established in Niamey. This center was to carry out regional
researchon oral traditions, and it would work primarily in Cameroun,Chad, Benin,
Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Upper Volta, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania,Niger,
Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. A liaison bulletin is published, research
fellowships are awarded to the national institutes of the member states, individual
research workers are assisted, technical training courses are organized, and items
receive large distribution in Africa and elsewhere in Langues africaines and Cultures
africaines series. Dooulde Laye discusses "problkmatiqueet methodologiedes sources
de l'histoireafricaine" in La traditionorale (1972). Among other excellentpublications
of this Centre are Katsina, TraditionsHistoriquesdes Katsinaawaaapr's la Jihad, by
Issaka Danjoussou (n.d.); Histoire du Dawra, by MakadaIbira de Kantche(1970); and
Receuil des Traditions Orales des Mandinques de Gambie et de Cassamance, by
Cissoko and Kaoussou Samou (1974).
S&k6n?-Mody
Schools of analysis have been equally active if not as successful.Worksof synthesis
have been attemptedby Ruth Finnegan(1970) and Isidore Okpewho(1979, 1983). The
structuralist method has not been very effective in the analysis of African oral
narrative. Sunday Anozie has made a number of interesting efforts (see his
"Structuralismin Poetry and Methodology,"for example [1972]), and Luc de Heusch
is now in the process of making a study, structuralistin orientation,of centralAfrican
oral tradition, Mythes et rites bantous. Two volumes have been completed (1972,
1982). (For Vansina's tempered assessment,see "Is EleganceProof? Structuralismand
African History" [1983].) In its analytical approach,the work is clearly derivative of
Claude Levi-Strauss'sfour volume study, Mythologiques(1964, 1966, 1968, 1971). A
52
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
French group composed of Genevieve Calame-Griaule, Veronika Gor6g-Karady,
Suzanne Plaitel, Diana Rey-Hulman,and ChristianeSeydou has formed the Research
Group on Oral Literatureof the French Centre national de la recherchescientifique.
Membersof the group "drawmeaning by connectingthe interpretationof tale variants
to relevant sociocultural and psychomentalconditions." This essentially structuralistoriented ensemble has been the focus of considerableinterest in the United States (see
Journal of Folklore Research, 20, 2/3 [1983], 145-246, and Research in African
Literatures, 15 [1984], 161-288; the quotation is from the Journal of Folklore
Research, p. 147; see also Cahiers dEtudes Africaines, 8, 30 [1968]). Tale type and
motif indexing have been engaged in by Erastus Ojo Arewa (1966), Hortense Esther
Braden (1926), Kenneth W. Clarke (1958), and Winifred Lambrecht (1967). Some
scholars have been more adventurous.In See So That We May See (1980), a volume
containing Haya narratives,Peter Seitel adapts the method's of Dennis Tedlock (1972,
1983) to African materials. Donald Cosentino juggles intellectualsystem with artistic
considerationsin DefiantMaids and StubbornFarmers (1982), and DeborahFoster has
effectively demonstrateda useful means of expressinggesturein her analysesof Swahili
oral performance(1984). Rober Cancel has experimentedwith videotapes of Tabwa
oral narrativepresentation.
Two of the more helpful articles on heroic poetry are Mafeje (1967) and M. G. Smith
(1957). See also: Morris (1964), Babalola (1966), Bokako (1938), Vilakazi (1945),
Mangoaela (1921), Schapera (1965), Rubusana (1911), Rycroft (1962), Lekgothoane
(1938), Moloto (1970), Fuze (1922), Sekese (1893), Nyembezi (1948), Stuart (1924a,
1924b, 1925, 1926, 1929), Gunner(1976, 1979, 1982), and Kunene (1971).
Damane and Sanders (1974). Some of the poems in the collection of Z. D. Mangoaela
(1921), say these editors (1974: 38), "may fairly be describedas melanges in which the
narrative element has almost disappeared,and in which it is often impossible to see
any connecting link between one stanza and the next. When a chiefs lithoko consists
of several such melanges one can only assume that each poem was recorded on a
separateoccasion, for it is difficultto see why a continuousrecitationshould have been
divided up in such a way."
The latter is most evident in the contemporarySouth African panegyrictradition. See
Mafeje(1967).
Scheub, "OralPoetry and History,"forthcomingin New LiteraryHistory.
Mangoaela(1921: 117). My translation.
From a poem in my collection.
Innes (1974). See also Niane (1960). Daniel P. Biebuyck's work and that of Isidore
Okpewho (1979) are in the forefront of studies of the African epic. The study of epic
generally,African and non-African,is surprisinglylacking in boldness, consideringthe
enormous amount of epic material available for analysis. See Biebuyck'sintroductions
to The Mwindo Epic (1969) and Hero and Chief (1978b), and his essay, "The African
Heroic Epic" (1978b). Okpewho'sstudy is placed largelywithin a Westernframework
as far as methodology is concerned. See also: Becker (1939), Ojobolo (1977), Camara
(1974). See also: Johnson (1980), and Bird (1972).
She-KarisiCandi Rureke(in Biebuyck, 1969). Most referencesin this paper are to this
first published version of the epic. See also: Biebuyck (1978: 6), which contains three
additional versions of the epic, plus summariesand fragments.Biebuyck,in this latter
work, notes, "The Nyanga epics contain few direct historicalstatements,but indirectly,
and in symbolic form, they tell much about Nyanga history" (p. 41). He adds, "The
early hero-chiefs,Mwindo and Kabutwakenda,are listed neither among the primordial
ancestors of the Nyanga nor among the immediate ancestors of the chiefs. . ... The
closest historical reference to the Mwindo figure . . . a personage who holds the
position of commander in chief of the army and whose title is Muhindo (Hunde
pronunciation of Mwindo). No such title exists among the Nyanga, and we can only
speculate as to whetheror not the Nyanga might originallyhave celebratedthe feats of
such a warriorlord in the epics" (p. 43).
53
28. The Liongo epic exists in published form in fragments,and there are various sources
containing them. See, for example, Steere (1870: 438-69), Werner (1933: 145-54),
Harries(1962: 146 et seq.), and Knappert(1979: 66-101).
29. These comments refer to the She-KarisjCandi Rurekeversion of the Mwindo epic (i.e.,
the first publishedversion, Biebuyck[1969]).
30. See, for example, "Usikulumi-kathlokothloko"and "Uzembeni; or, Usikulumi's
Courtship"(Callaway,1868: 41-54); and Zenani (1972).
31. At the same time, the epic hero is based on the tale character:it is the characterswho
surroundhim, and their functions, their ties with him, that change.
32. See the Legbatales in Herskovitsand Herskovits(1958: 123-69).
33. See, for example, Terry Eagleton'srecent Literary Theory;An Introduction(1983), in
which almost no attention is paid to the oral tradition (with the exception of a passing
referenceto Vladimir Propp'sMorphologyof the Folktale [1968] on page 104).
34. Lord (1960: 129). See: Benson (1966) for a discussion of scribes who compose "for an
audience of readers." See also: Curschmann(1967) for a discussion of "transitional
texts";and Zwettler(1978) for an analysisof Arabicoral forms.
35. Ong (1982). See also: Bekker-Nielson,et al. (1977), Gandz (1939), Ong (1967, 1971),
Peabody (1975), Rao (1982), Stock (1983), Yates (1966), and Goody (1968, 1977).
36. Quoted in White (1963: 151). There is a considerableliteratureon this subject. Most
useful and accessible is the three volume work of Lichtheim (1973, 1976, 1980). Also
of interest are Simpson (1972), Frankfort,et al. (1954), Glanville (1942), W. S. Smith
(1958), Wilson (1951a, 1951b), Rundle Clark (1959), Breasted (1912), Budge (1895,
1904). See also: Barucq and Daumas (1980), Breasted (1906), Bresciani (1969),
Brunner (1966), Brunner-Traut(1963), Burkard(1977), Culley (1976), Diop (1967),
Erman(1923), Fox (1985), Guglielmi (1973), B. Lewis (1948), Maspero(1967), Pirenne
(1961, 1962, 1963), Posener (1971), Pritchard(1955), and Rollig (1978).
37. Modern literaturein the West covers a period of approximatelysix hundredyears;Old
Testament literature,the composition of all of it, falls within a thousand year period,
in the last millennium B.C.; the literaturesof Egypt and Babyloncover three thousand
years, of which two thousand fall before the beginningsof the Old Testament. (Peet,
1931: 11.)
38. Posener (1959: 225-27). See also White (1963).
39. Faulkner(1924). See also Lichtheim(1973: 36-38).
40. Tomb autobiographiesare the first form of prose literature in the Egyptian literary
tradition-the firstform, that is, that has survived.
41. The story was composed not long after 2000 B.C., and was still popular five hundred
years later. Alan Henderson Gardiner praised the work: "this story is one of those
world-masterpiecesof literary skill which stand out for all time as the expression of
some side of universal human experience of feeling .... [F]or us too the Story of
Sinuhe is, and must remain, a classic. It is a classic because it marksa definite stage in
the history of the world's literature; and . . . because it displays with inimitable
directness the mixed naivete and subtlety of the old Egyptiancharacter,its directness
of vision, its pomposity, its reverenceand its humour .. ." (from Notes on the Story of
Sinuhe [Paris, 1916: 164-65], quoted in Peet; 1931: 34-35). Peet (1931: 35) called it
"the most Egyptianof all the stories," noting that "the story is a psychologicalstudy."
42. Ward (1965: 111-12). Ward argues that the tale of Sinuhe is "At the summit of
Egyptian story-telling ... which for excitement, adventure, human interest and
composition is paralleledby no other Egyptianwork. It truly deserves a place among
the 'greatbooks' of world literature."
43. The tale is similar to the sailor tale of the Thousandand One Nights.
44. See Gerhardt(1963). See also Abbott (1949) and Macdonald(1924).
45. In fact, the Thousandand One Nights owes much to the Egyptian oral and literary
traditions. "The Merchant Ali from Cairo," "Ala ed-Din," or "Aladdin et la lampe
merveilleuse,"which many thought the collector, Antoine Galland, had made up, and
which was to become one of the most populartales in the world, is of Egyptianorigin,
54
AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW
as are "Jaudarand His Brothers"and "Ma'rufthe Cobbler"(Gerhardt,1963: 318-37).

46. Ward (1965: 105). In this story, Ward observes, "lie many basic emotions of ordinary
people-fear of the unknown,sympathyfor another'sproblems,the securityof a home
and the heartache that follows its loss. There are pathos and despair, there is hope.
There is humour as well. ... Above all, there is deep understandingof people in
trouble."
47. Michael Fox kindly allowed me to read the text of his forthcoming book in proofs
(1985). This translationis from that volume.
48. Also called "The Tale of the Two Brothers,"in Simpson (1972: 92-107).
49. Another hybrid form developed during this period, indicatingthat the oral and literary
flexibility continued to attractwriters,was an "Instruction"by Amennakhte,a form of
literaryhistory that recallsthe greatwritersof formertimes.
50. By the fifth century A.D., the Coptic languagehad replacedDemotic and become the
national cultural languageof Egypt, under Roman rule and under the Byzantine rule
that followed it. Earlier, in the first half of the fourth century A.D., King Azana of
Ethiopia (320-340) converted to Christianity,and in the fifth century, the Ethiopian
church embraced the monophysite doctrine, which became the central tenet of the
Coptic Church, and which was revealed in the written arts, expressed in Ge'ez, the
officiallanguageof Ethiopia. See Gerard(1971: 271-76; 1981: 7-23).
51. I Kings 4:30 to 5:10.
52. Al-Tayyib(1983: 36). It is difficultto provide an adequate survey of the great amount
of material on Arabic and Islamic literature.See: CAbdallahibn Muhammad(1963),
Deeb (1979), Ahlwardt (1856), Arberry (1957), Bivar and Hiskett (1962), Blachare
(1952-1966), Castro (1954), Gibb (1926), Gidley (1975), Hillelson (1920), Hiskett
(1964, 1965, 1969, 1975), Kezilahabi (1973), Knappert (1967, 1968, 1969, 1971,
1979), Lyall (1914a, 1914b, 1917-18, 1930), Mkelle (1976), Mulokozi (1975),
Nicholson (1907), Noldeke (1864), Nykl (1946), Palmer (1967), Prietz (1931), Sayyid
Andallah bin Ali bin Nasir (1972), Skinner (1977), von Grunebaum(1953, especially
chapter eight: "Self-Expression:Literatureand History"; 1955, especially chapter five:
"The Spirit of Islam as Shown in Its Literature,"),and Whiteley (1969). See also:
Cowell (1976), Arberry(1967), and Zwettler(1978).
53. ruwah is the pluralof rawf.
54. Lyall (1930: xv). The stories of scribes with remarkableabilities of memory and
recitation are known in a numberof societies. Among the Telegu in India, accordingto
V. NarayanaRao (in a paper presentedat the conference,"In Searchof Terminology,"
Central Institute of Indian Languages,Mysore, 1982, and in private communications),
"The poet who is dictating still works in conditions similar to the oral singer. He has
to compose as he utters the poem. He does not have the benefit of thinking with the
aid of pen and paper." The poet, says Rao, "said" his poem to the scribe, "who was
the specialist in writing on palm leaf. Not all people who read could write." Rao tells
the story of the scribe (vrayasakadu),"a specially trained person about whom many
stories are told in Telegu. Legends have it that Ganapati, the elephant god, was the
scribe of Vyasa, the legendaryauthor of Mahabharata.Gurunatha,another legendary
scribe, wrote while the poet, Tikkanna,dictated. The poet made a vow that he would
not keep the scribe waiting; he would not fumble for a word; if, for any reason, he
fumbled he would cut his own tongue out. A difficultsituation came up, and the poet
did fumble, saying, 'Emi ceptudunu Gurunatha,' 'I don't know what to say,
Gurunatha,' and he promptly proceeded to cut off his tongue. But Gurunatha,the
scribe, wrote that line down, 'Emi ceptudunuGurunatha,'and it fitted very well into
the verse and the context, and he said that it was perfect. It meant, 'What can I say,
Lord of the Kuru family?' It turned out that the poet's words of apology to the scribe
metricallyand semanticallyfit the poem that he was creating:the flow is as important
as anything else in the oral tradition, and the point of the legend was that the literary
tradition was here obeying the conventions established by the oral tradition and
adaptingto them." (Tikkannawas the first Telegu poet to breakwith the oral tradition.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
55
He was a famed literary poet, and did not follow the standards set up by the oral
tradition. Becauseof this, he was not acceptedby many audiences.Rao thinks that this
legend was developed to make Tikkannaacceptableto the largeaudiencesthat retained
the conventions of the oral tradition.)
See Zwettler(1978: 75-76), for a discussion of the rajaz meter.
For a discussion and analysis of Arabicpoetryof this period, see Nykl (1946).
See Hiskett (1975: 1-11) for a brief discussion of the oral verse tradition among the
Hausa. See also Gidley (1975) and, especially,M. G. Smith (1957).
See Hiskett (1975: 12-20).
See Hiskett (1975: 21-26).
Katari, son of al-Fujacahof Mazin, in Lyall (1930: 17).
Ibn CAbd Rabbihi, in Nykl (1946: 42). See Cowell (1976) for a detailed study of this
poet's work.
In Hiskett (1975: 29-30). Comparethese poems, in turn, with this non-Islamicpoem
by a Xhosa, MagagamelaKoko, from South Africa:
The story is painful:
to begin by being wealthy,
wealthy in one's youth,
and then, when you are grey,
as old as I,
to be shorn,
to have one's feathersshorn,
You recall,then, what once you were,
you look at yourself,
and see that you had been eight
and now, suddenly,you are seven.
And you're unable to understand
what it means on this earth.
It is painful
to start life with wealth,
then, when physical strengthebbs,
to lose everything:
strengthleaves you,
your stock diminishes,
you wonder who will care for you.
(From my collection.)
63. See Monroe (1972) and Zwettler(1978).
64. Examples of Hausa lyric poetry can be found in Prietze (1931). Here is an example,
with Englishtranslationby Neil Skinner:
Ke yarinya an kire ki!
Kadan na ga idonki,
Ba ni hankalina,
In rika rawanjiki,
In rika tunaninki
Ina sonki, ba ki sona.
Ubankiya hana ni.
Sai naje wurinsarki.
Ni yanzu za ni hau in tafi yalki,
In mutu saboda ke.
Hey, girl, listen!
When I see your face,
I lose control of my senses,
I trembleand tremble
56
And think and think of you.

I love you but you do not love me.
Your fatherdenies you to me.
I must go to the sarki.
Now I must go off to war,
To die because of you.
For contemporaryliterarylyrics, see, for example,Sa'id (1982).
65. ii, p. 335; quoted in and tr., Lyall (1917-1918: 370).
66. Quoted in Lyall (1917-1918: 372), from the
ii, 31, and ii, 61.
67. Liongo Fumo, "The Bow Song,"in Knappert
al-Mufadd.aliyat,
(1979: 75).
68. Shehe Muhiuddini,"Prayerfor Rain," in Knappert(1979: 199).
69. In a key scene in a Xhosa tale, for example, a destructive father sends a maliciously
worded letter to his daughter at the same time that the daughter'sin-laws send a
misleadingletter to their son who is workingin a distant town. (My collection.)
70. See, for example, Sinxo's uNomsa (1922), Umfundisi waseMthuqwasi(1927), and
Umzali Wolahleko(1939).
71. For example:Tihelang Gape (1974a), TgaKa Mafuri (1974b), and Letgofalela(1972).
72. Dhlomo has written a series of historical novels, including uShaka (1937), uMpande
kaSenzangakhona(1938), and uCetshwayo(1952).
73. Afigbo(1966). See also Ezuma(1965).
74. Various movements, literary and political, have developed for this purpose, including
negritude. This is a sampling of the broad range of works on negritude: Cornevin
(1976), Chevrier(1984), Bd (1973), Markovitz (1969), Arnold (1981), Adotevi (1972),
Aguessy (1971), Bastide (1961), Blair (1976), Damas (1965), Diakhat&(1965), G&rard
(1964), Irele (1964, 1965), Kesteloot (1963), Melone (1962), Jean-Paul Sartre in
Senghor (1948), Simon (1963), Kesteloot and Kotchy (1973), Hale (1974), and C&saire
(1971). The writings of LUopold S6dar Senghor are central to the literature of
negritude; these include Poemes (1964), and a number of articles on the subject (see
the bibliographyin Markovitz, 1969: 262-71).
75. See, for example:Kusadikikanchi iliyo angani (1951).
76. This is not the case with all African drama, of course. See, for example, Iyi-Eweka
(1979), Beik (1984). See also Toye (1976), Etherton(1982), Banhamand Wake (1976),
Cornevin (1970), Gibbs (1980), Jones (1976), Ogunba and Irele (1978), Osofisan
(1973), Traor&(1958), and Schipper(1982).
77. See also Mazi Mbonu Ojike, My Africa, and The OriginalHistoryof Arondizuogufrom
1635-1960, both cited in Afigbo(1966: 222, 223).
78. For anotherview of the relationshipbetweenthe two novels, see Emenyonu(1978).
79. Salih (1969). The critical and analyticalmaterialon Africanliteratureis vast, and it is
possible only to indicate its rangehere. A numberof journals are devoted to a study of
African literary works, most significantlyPresenceAfricaine and Research in African
Literatures; these two, and, for the time of its run, Presence Francophone,are the
journals of record for the field. Other journals: Abbia, Africa (Lisboa), African
LiteratureAssociationNewsletter,L'AfriqueLitteraireet Artisique,Afro-AsianTheatre
Newsletter, Ba Shiru, Black Orpheus, Books for Africa, The Classic, The Conch,
Drum, Ghala, Izwi, Jewel of Africa, Journal of CommonwealthLiterature,Journalof
the New African Literature, Kiabara, Kiswahili, Limi, Mazwazo, New African, The
New Classic, New Writing from Zambia, Odi, Odu, Oduma, Okike, Okyeame,
Sketsh, Staffrider,Studies in Black Literature, Transition.(A numberof these journals
have suspendedpublication.)Journalsin which occasional articleson Africanliterature
and oral tradition have appearedinclude: Africa (London),AfricanAffairs Quarterly,
African Forum, African Statesman, African Studies Review, Africa Quarterly,Africa
Quarterly,AfricaReport, Afrika und Ubersee,L'AfriqueActuelle, Afriscope,Ambiguous
Africa/Afrique,Black Images, Black World, Books Abroad/WorldLiterature Today,
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Busara, Cahiers Cisairiens,
Cahier d'EtudesAfricaines, CaribbeanQuarterly,Colloquesur I'ArtN~gre, East Africa
80.
81.
82.
83.
57
Journal, East West Review, Freedomways, Ghana Cultural Review, Index on

Censorship,Insight (Lagos), Jeune Afrique, Journal of AmericanFolklore, Journal of
ModernAfricanStudies, Kano Studies, Kunapipi,Lotus, New Africa, Nimrod, Nigeria
Magazine, Nigerian Opinion, Phylon, UgandaJournal, WestAfrica.
There are many studies of African literature. Some of the French works have
already been mentioned (see note 74). Some of the most provocative writing on
African literature has been by the creative writers themselves, especially Chinua
Achebe (Morning Yet on Creation Day, for example [1975]), Wole Soyinka (Myth,
Literatureand the African World [1976]), and Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Writersin Politics
[1981]). Some contemporary critics have developed political positions on literary
topics, most notably Chinweizu, Onwuchekwa Jemie, and Ihechukwe Madubuike
(Towardsthe Decolonizationof AfricanLiterature, Vol. 1, AfricanFiction and Poetry
and Their Critics [1983]), but most criticism and analysis follows the pattern
established by Gerald Moore (in Seven African Writers [1962]) and Judith Illsley
Gleason (This Africa;Novels by West Africans in English and French [1965]), which
emphasizes summaries of novels, followed by theme analyses which are usually
political or cultural. A sampling follows: Beier (1967), Burness (n.d.), Cartey (1969),
Cook (1977), Dathorne (1975), Gakwandi (1977), Irele (1981), Jahn (1968),
JanMohamed (1983), King (1971), Larson (1972), Lawson (1982), Lindfors (1976),
Mutiso (1974), Ngara (1982), Nyamndi (1982), Obiechina (1973, 1975), Ogungbesan
(1979), Olney (1973), E. Palmer (1979), Peters (1978), Pieterse and Munro (1969),
Ramsaran (1965), Roscoe (1971), Shelton (1968), Taiwo (1967), Wauthier (1964),
Wren (1980), and Wright (1973). Of the many theses and dissertations on African
literature,there are these: Graham-White(1969), Soile (1972), and Umeasiegbu(1975).
The novel has been studied more completely than other literary forms. Egudu has
written on poetry (1977, 1978). See also Goodwin (1982). Portuguese-language
literature has been studied by C&sar(1967), Burness (1977, 1981), Hamilton (1975),
Ervedosa (1963), Moser (169), Andrade (1962), and others. A number of interviews
with African authors have been published, including Killam (1973) and Pieterse and
Duerden (1972). Bibliographicalworks have appeared,most notably Jahn (1965) and
subsequent revisions. Other bibliographical materials include Zell, et al. (1983),
Lindfors(1979), and Kom (1983).
For works analyzing European perceptions of Africa, see Curtin (1964), Fairchild
(1961), Friedman(1981), Gilman (1982), Hammond and Jablow(1970), Milbury-Steen
(1981), Raskin (1971), Rose (1976), Sandison (1967), Said (1978); Schneider (1982),
Snowden (1983), Street (1975), Tokson (1982), and Allen (1979).
The list is lengthy, and also includes Evelyn Waugh, John Updike, Simenon, Joyce
Cary, and William Boyd.
(1983).
There was a period of one hundred years during which Hispanic writers in the
Americas were slavishly dependent on Europeanand North Americanliterarymodels.
It was only when these writers became reassured about their own cultural and
historical pasts that the literary "boom" being celebrated today was possible. The
movement of influence has been reversed: North American literature, grown
increasingly insular, narrow, intellectually labored and imaginatively vacuous, has
much to learn from the originalityand emotional breadthof Latin Americanliterature.
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A Review of African Oral Traditions and Literature

Author(s): Harold Scheub

AFRICANORAL TRADITIONSAND LITERATURE

images and their recasting in new configurationsand contexts. (E. H. Gombrich

It is repeated concretely and metaphorically,"Mon coeur s'envole en chantant";

The three independent genres interact primarily by means of their identical

The epic of Ibonia thus comes to representa shift in view regardingtraditional

AFRICANORAL TRADITIONSAND LITERATURE

Omu tuu mu wan tiri ma mu vuaanpaa,

She-Karisi Candi Rureke's version of The Mwindo Epic (Biebuyck, 1969) is

crystallizedin his aunt, Iyangura,and in his father, Shemwindo.29These external

always leaves a residue; in his trickster activities, he transforms the earth or

mathematical and medical; and correspondenceand accounts. It is possible only

The poem is a series of praise-names, sometimes developed, forming the portrait

oral tradition; the recurrentstructuralpatterns have to do with the relationship

The tale is built on a venerablemotif, the weak overcomingthe strong:the clever

" William A. Ward argues that it is not simply that it tells

a story of high adventure;there is something more, "a sombre recital of events

AFRICANORAL TRADITIONSAND LITERATURE

It is an important piece of literature. "It stands out in worth against the

and fall of the Egyptian empire,

impregnatedwith a pathetic belief in the power of Amun to save as of old." At

51). Some time later, when large numbersof Egyptiansconvertedto Christianity,

the Egyptian novel to evolve. This was accompanied by the development of

This is already evident in the oldest extant instructions;it occurredtoo in "The

AFRICANORAL TRADITIONSAND LITERATURE

and development of written Islamic vernacular verse because, to an important

that it "continued to be largely modelled on classical Arabic

the youngerbrotherof cUthmandan Fodio:

Everythingof his has passed away,

AFRICANORAL TRADITIONSAND LITERATURE

againstit veils consistingof his dust.

Whoeverelse gratifiedby his rule baseness and unbelief,this is he

Comparisons-bull hippopotamus, axes of the south, male porcpine, violent

which was composed in the same

AFRICANORAL TRADITIONSAND LITERATURE

performance aesthetics as relations between audience and performer became

explored in the Xhosa popular literature tradition, and A. C. Jordan (1940), 0.

Umkhonto KaTshiwo (n.d.) is an example, as are Joseph Sebata Tsephe's Ha

Maimouna, Penda-that comprise the hero in this work.

Africa studies ...

it is the almost total neglect of the humanities." The challenge

Social scientists and

humanists have become "they" and "them" working in shielded surroundings,

AFRICANORAL TRADITIONSAND LITERATURE

AFRICANORAL TRADITIONSAND LITERATURE

AFRICAN ORAL TRADITIONS AND LITERATURE

problemes"(Cornevin, 1976: 62).

AFRICANORAL TRADITIONSAND LITERATURE

AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW

as are "Jaudarand His Brothers"and "Ma'rufthe Cobbler"(Gerhardt,1963: 318-37).

AFRICANORAL TRADITIONSAND LITERATURE

And think and think of you.

AFRICAN ORAL TRADITIONS AND LITERATURE

Journal, East West Review, Freedomways, Ghana Cultural Review, Index on

Abu Deeb, K. 1979. Al-Jurjant'sTheoryof Poetic Imagery. Warminister,Wilts.: Aris and

AFRICANORAL TRADITIONSAND LITERATURE

Browne,Thomas. 1953. Religio Medici. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press.

AFRICANORAL TRADITIONSAND LITERATURE