Tydskrif vir letterkunde

Transitions, transformations, and translocations of African oral literature in the 21st century

Tobias Otieno Odongo — 2024-01-04

No abstract

Invention of boundaries and identity issues in the story of an anti-colonial war

Cécile Leguy — 2024-01-04

To what extent do verbal arts contribute to the imposition of worldviews, and indeed to the redrawing of boundaries? I chose to address this question through a performance recital to commemorate a historical event, recorded during a festival organized by a ultural association with the aim of defending the Bwa minority in Mali. The event took place in San in December 2001 and was intended to prepare for the centenary of what is commonly known as the “Bwa revolt”, a resistance movement that took place during the First World War. The study of the recital invites one to question the part of identity reconstruction expressed in this commemoration of the revolt. In this article I argue that the vision of the revolt’s history such as it is proposed in this performance has the effect of inventing boundaries, even though it is a call to integrate into a larger whole. It highlights what can be understood as a paradoxical injunction. Indeed, the public is called to ‘be part of’ a country, while claiming as specific to the Bwa of Mali an event that belongs to the history of a whole region not only populated by the Bwa, and that goes far beyond the borders of what Mali is today. In this performance, one thus witnesses an ethnicization that is built on a rewriting of history, an ethnicization that is also remarkable in the comments exchanged on the commemoration of the revolt on social networks. This article is organized into three points. Firstly, the context of this anti-colonial war and the way it is claimed here as part of the construction of Bwa identity are explored from the very first words. Next, it is shown that the ethnicization manifested in this performance has long-standing political and scientific foundations. Finally, this paradoxical injunction addressed to Malian Bwa to be part of the nation while focusing on their own identity is discussed in a context where identity claims are reinforced by the importance taken by social networks on the internet.

Folklore genre designation among the Manden peoples

Olga Zavyalova — 2024-01-04

In this article I deal with the problem of division into genres and genre designation in the oral tradition of the Bamana, Maninka, and Dyula. These people belong to the Manden or Mandinka, Mandingo peoples (Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso). For comparison, the names of similar genres among the Dogon are also given, as the Dogon consider themselves a Manden people, even though their languages do not belong to the Mandé language family. Both expeditionary materials and written sources were used. Almost all the words related to genre formation were recorded, and a description f the genres themselves was given. It was interesting to understand what features are important for choosing genres for Manden peoples. Due to cultural characteristics and historical development, the generally accepted division into genres is not entirely suitable for the Manden peoples and forms a “Procrustean bed” for their subdivision. First of all, the degree of ‘seriousness’ of the genre is important, that is, its significance for tradition: ‘true’ texts are opposed to fictional ones. The degree of rituality of the folklore text is also significant. Restrictions on the performance of texts are associated with the ability to control the occult power of nyama energy. An important role in this is played by the presence of the griot tradition. Also, a formal feature plays a role in defining various folklore genres.

Performance in propitiatory reconciliation among the Nandi community

Anthony Kipkoech Biwott — 2024-01-04

Propitiation is part of what it means to be human. Traditionally, propitiation has been studied from a broad sociocultural perspective with little consideration of the performance processes at play. Among the Nandi community in Kenya, propitiatory offering reconciliation forms the core of restoration of inter-communities relationships. It defines and enriches their culture, but what is propitiatory offering reconciliation? How is it performed? Are there any steps followed in its execution? Is there a specific place of performance? In this article we provide a framework to understand the Nandi propitiatory reconciliation through a literary perspective. We expound on the steps followed: investigation, interrogation, and cleansing, and the three features of performance: that is, place of performance, actions and signs, formulaic expression, costumes, and audience. The data collection took place in Kabiyet and Kipkaren Wards in Nandi county and was collected through participatory observation, interviews, and questionnaires. The sample population was 30 adults between the ages of 45–90 years who were selected using purposive and snowball sampling techniques. The data collected on performance in propitiatory reconciliation rites was analysed by use of functionalism theory as expounded by Foley. We found that the stages of propitiatory reconciliation must be religiously adhered to for its effectiveness and that the success of its performance heavily depends on the participation of its performers and audience. This article also brings out performance in form of particular acts, singing, and chanting.

Masking death: Covid-19 inspired humour in the everyday orality of a Luo community in Kenya

Rose Akinyi Opondo — 2024-01-04

Death, especially death which comes through disease, is often a hard subject that the human mind wishes to bury deep in the unconscious. The lack of ease with impending death eventually finds expression in everyday discourse. In this paper I look at performance of Covid-19 discourse through humour in a short episode of everyday orality of a Luo community in Uyoma, Siaya, in Kenya. The performance of the everyday language is textualized to display the aesthetics of contextual language through coinage, jokes, and puns, which manifest as humorous responses to an otherwise dire situation. From the feminising of the disease as Acory Nyar China, literally translated as “the petite Cory from China”, to the symbolic naming of aspects of the Covid-19 protocols and verbal jokes about the same, there is an inherent, deliberate attempt to literally laugh in the face of death. The identified aspects of language are treated as metaphorical masks, even as the mask as an object also becomes a metaphor. I employ discourse analysis, which treats language as living social phenomena capable of change, growth, expansion, and adaptation for contextual spatial and temporal expressions.

Oral performance as substitute for ritual: Ekutet, a Teso exhumation ceremony

Joseph Mzee Muleka — 2024-01-04

Among the Teso of Western Kenya, Ekutet (the exhumation ceremony) has for centuries been practised to treat physical, mental, and/or emotional problems. A family’s, or the community’s, persistent misfortunes such as frequent deaths, illnesses, accidents, or nexplained feuds and such other grief causing occurrences may be attributed to an unhappy dead member of the family or community. To correct the situation and bring life back to normal, the unhappy dead member’s bones are exhumed, either for reburial or display in a sacred place. Notably, the ritual is performed to the accompaniment of oral performances, rendered as narrations, incantations, swearing, prayer chants, and occasional re-enactments of attendant dramatic anecdotes. This article is written against the backdrop of the realisation that the Ekutet ritual itself appears to be diminishing, which then raises a pertinent question: What replaces, or has replaced, the role that this highly psychological ritual has usually played in the lives of the Teso people? I interviewed members of the community, while analysing the oral performances incorporated in this socio-cultural cum spiritual endeavour. Due to the fact that the actual ritual has become quite rare, people apparently try to keep it alive by revisiting the memory of the ritual, which they do through re-enactments and mock exhumations. This then also draws attention to the role of memory, narration, and re-enactment in either the resuscitation of, or the reliving of, diminishing ritual practices.

A feminist analysis of ‘Dhako en …’ (A woman is …) proverbs among the Luo community of Kenya

Daniel Otieno Otieno — 2024-01-04

Postcolonial feminism conceptualises the female body as volatile to theorise the inherent vibrant activities of (re)identification of the self from the social masculine inscriptions. In addition to that, the female body is also understood as a subject of conquest in a political struggle to emancipate the self from the instigators of its suppression. Given this, the female body is highly political and attempts to emancipate itself from oppressive patriarchal hegemony. In spite of these efforts by feminist scholars to proclaim the inevitable transfiguration of the female body, and to elucidate a transformation towards autonomy of self, discourse in emerging oral tradition and emerging genres of oral literature in contemporary African societies derail the quest for recreation of an ‘envisioned woman’. In this study I analyse ‘Dhako en’ (a woman is) proverbs among the Luo community of Kenya, and investigate their dominant role in the objectification of the female body in contemporary society. These proverbs were collected from Facebook, and then analysed through a deconstructionist approach and postcolonial feminist theory of sexualised objectification. At the superficial level, ‘Dhako en’ proverbs are supposed to entertain by creating comic relief. I argue that the signified is a woman relegated to a mere object of misappropriation, and that the signifiers embody sexual connotations in the pretext of artful use of words verbally. I conclude that these proverbs become existential threats to the ‘transfiguration’ process of the female body and continue to ‘other’ the image of the woman, complicating the overall feminist struggle.

Gender and power as negotiated in Bukusu circumcision ceremonies

Scholastica Nabututu Wabende — 2024-01-04

Recent studies on language and gender that focus on songs and beer drinking sessions within the context of the Bukusu circumcision ceremony have shown that language is gendered and that it espouses male gender. Against this backdrop, in this study we aim to denaturalise this view by focussing on conversations within the circumcision ceremony. By using theoretical and methodological principles from critical discourse and conversation analysis in particular, we argue that, by using linguistic strategies, traditional gender roles are not only discursively highlighted but they are also negotiated and even resisted. This study falls within recent discussions in critical discourse analysis that have shown that language masks asymmetrical power relations on the one hand, and within postcolonial studies that have shown that gender discourses can reflect collisions between differing points of views on the other hand. The data used in this study is four audio recordings of conversations that took place alongside the main ceremony. This data has been analysed at the level of content and prosodic organisation to identify discursive practices that reveal the negotiation and contestation of gender roles. The study contributes to recent discussions in critical discourse analysis by exposing gender asymmetries and contestations that lie behind ‘taken-for-granted’ realities, with specific examples from the postcolonial context of the Bukusu circumcision ceremony.

Orality in Yorùbá films: A study of selected films of Akínwùmí Iṣọ̀la

Abidemi Olusola Bolarinwa — 2024-01-04

Despite technological innovations, orality still forms one of the aesthetic elements in the new media such as home video films as a result of the unending interface between orality and the literacy tradition. Using intertextuality as an approach, in this article I examine orality in selected films of Akínwùmí Ìṣọ̀lá, with a view to showing how he uses verbal arts as a powerful tool for the transmission of cultural values. The selected films are Saworoidẹ (1999), Agogo Èèwọ̀ (2002) and Ẹfúnṣetán Aníwúrà (2005). The films were selected based on their preponderant featuring of oral narratives. My findings reveal that folktales, legends, songs, Ifá corpus, drumbeats, incantations, and panegyric are the Yorùbá oral genres that Akínwùmí Ìṣọ̀lá incorporates into his films. One can infer from Ìṣọ̀lá’s films that there is an overlap between his oral culture and his creative work because culture is the active force that energises and drives the creative work. I conclude that Ìṣọ̀lá uses his creative ingenuity to re-awake and preserve Yorùbá oral tradition in his films, which points to the fact that oral literature has a continued vitality for contemporary society.

Variations in the application of the components of the oral performance to Yoruba chants

Gboyega Kolawole — 2024-01-04

It is common knowledge in oral literature that every oral form is naturally performed. The components of the oral performance are, namely, the text, the oral artist, the audience, music, and histrionics. Though these components apply to the performance of all oral forms, whether narrative or poetic, they are employed in diverse manners in consonance with the nature of the oral form being actualized. This is called the context of performance. The aim of this article is to do an inquiry into the contextual varying of the use of the components of the oral performance among oral traditional forms with emphasis on Yoruba oral traditional chants. My objectives are to verify how the nature of each chant dictates the degree to which the components can be applied to it in context. In other words, the prominence or unimportance of any component of the oral performance in each poetic form is determined by the rules surrounding the actualization of the subgenre. This survey is delimited to the Yoruba oral poetic forms classified as chants. The first is the context-restricted group that limits the use of the components of the oral performance by its own rules, thus making any deviation a taboo. The second group comprises forms that were originally context-bound but have begun to acquire secular features thus deemphasizing their invocatory worth and metamorphosing into entertainment subgenres. The third is the class of poetic forms that were originally secular. They have not only remained so, but have also absorbed the many influences of modernity. The data for analysis constitutes 13 oral forms which have been transcribed and translated from Yoruba to English. (Yoruba is one of the indigenous languages or mother tongues of Nigeria.) The oral performance theory which enumerates the variables listed above and functionalism which reveals the essence of the contextual applications of those components are handy for the theoretical framework and grounding of this article. Further, the oral-formulaic theory will be applied to chants in the first group above because their potency is tied to their formulaic structure.

The state of Hausa children’s folktales and play-songs in Gombe, Nigeria

Bilkisu Abubakar Arabi — 2024-01-04

In this paper I investigate the state of Hausa children’s folktales and play-songs in Gombe, Nigeria to ascertain whether they (folktales and play-songs of children) are still alive and active in this culturally important town in northern Nigeria. My specific objectives are to examine how much parents and their children know of Hausa children’s folktales and play-songs and argue that folktales and play-songs are to some extent infused with modern technologies because of globalisation and that mass media has taken over the dissemination of such cultures. To achieve this aim, I employ questionnaires as the instrument of data collection. The subjects for the research are 150 parents and their school-going and out-of-school children aged 20-above and 0–10 respectively. Arguing that globalisation impacts the oral transmission of cultural knowledge more than ever, I adopt technauriture and cultauriture as the theoretical models. Analysis of the data reveals a more than 90% awareness of folktales and play-songs from all respondents. However, some school-going children prefer to watch such oral traditions via satellite rather than listening to a narration as it enhances their language development and nurtures and preserves culture using the paradigm of technology with audio-visual media. The out-of-school children, on the other hand, listen to the narration but are not captivated by it because it only uses the oral means of dissemination. They prefer to watch television and play video games as this educates and entertains using technology, orality, and visuals.

Gospel Àpàlà music in African Christian worship: Thematic and stylistic analysis

Esther Titilayo Òjo — 2024-01-04

Music is an indispensable tool of cultural transmission. Considering the vast nature of oral traditions, of which indigenous music is encapsulated, many studies on Nigerian indigenous music have concentrated on Jùjú, Ìjálá, Dadakúàdà, Ẹ̀sà, and Àpàlà. However, much research still needs to be done on Gospel Àpàlà, a variant of Traditional Àpàlà which was popularised by Hárúnà Ìshọ̀lá and Àyìnlá Ọmọwúrà, noted for its highly proverbial folklore, blended with percussive instruments of which dùndún drum and ṣẹ̀kẹ̀rẹ̀ play leading roles to give aesthetic appeal. In this research, therefore, I investigate and document Gospel Àpàlà as it translates from traditional Àpàlà into praise and worship of God, in order to identify and describe its unique style and communicative functions, especially in these changing times of modernisation and globalisation. Drawing on systemic functional linguistics and sociology of literature, in this article I provide an analysis and interpretation of six Àpàlà Gospel songs from three Àpàlà Gospel artistes: Ṣadé Ọ̀ṣọbà, Yọ̀mí Ọlábísí, and Boiz Ọlọ́run. I portray the relevance of Àpàlà music both in Christian worship and events and gathering. Themes in Àpàlà Gospel include praises, thanksgiving and adoration to God, salvation/acknowledging Jesus, God’s greatness and miracles, forgiveness, unity, holiness, heaven, love among brethren, commitment, and dedication to God’s work. My findings reveal, among others, that Gospel Àpàlà music encapsulates indigenous knowledge contained in oral literature. I identify stylistic devices such as repetition, rhetorical question, personification, loan words, code-mixing/code-switching, and proverbs which garnish the metamorphosed music and conclude that Àpàlà has metamorphosed from traditional Àpàlà into Gospel Christian worship.