history of Africa. Oral Literatures Oral literatures have flourished in Africa for many centuries and take a variety of forms including, in addition to the folk tales found in this lesson, myths, epics, funeral dirges, praise poems, and proverbs. Myths, according to Oyekan Owomoyela, usually explain the interrelationships of all things that exist, and provide for the group and its members a necessary sense of their place in relation to their environment and the forces that order events on earth (2). Epics are elaborate literary forms, usually performed only by experts on special occasions. They often recount the heroic exploits of ancestors. Examples of epics include the Mwindo epic and the epic of Sundjiata. Versions of both of these epics have been transcribed and published in book form and may be available through public or university libraries. Dirges, chanted during funeral ceremonies, lament the departed, praise his/her memory, and ask for his/her protection. Praise poems are epithets called out in reference to an object (a person, a town, an animal, a disease, and so on) in celebration of its outstanding qualities and achievements (Owomoyela 14). Praise poems have a variety of applications and functions. Professional groups often create poems exclusive to them. Prominent chiefs might appoint a professional performer to compile their praise poems and perform them on special occasions. Professional performers of praise poems might also travel from place to place and perform for families or individuals for alms or a small fee. The following is quoted from a praise poem to Shaka, the Zulu warrior and king: Shaka went and erected temporary huts Between the Nsuze and the Thukela, In the country of Nyanya son of Manzawane; He ate up Mantondo son of Tazi, He felt him tasteless and spat him out, He devoured Sihayo. He who came dancing on the hillside of the Phuthiles, And he overcame Msikazi among the Ndimoshes. He met a long line of hah-de-dahs [ibis birds] When he was going to destroy the foolish Pondos; Shaka did not raid herds of cattle, He raided herds of buck. (qtd. in Owomoyela 15) Most well known of the African oral forms is probably the proverb, a short witty or ironic statement, metaphorical in its formulation, that aims to communicate a response to a particular situation, to offer advice, or to be persuasive. The proverb is often employed as a rhetorical device, presenting its speaker as the holder of cultural knowledge or authority. Yet, as much as the proverb looks back to an African culture as its origin and source of authority, it creates that African culture each time it is spoken and used to make sense of immediate problems and occasions. One final point: oral literary forms must not be conceptualized as simply pre-colonial, ancient, or traditional. Oral literary forms, such as folktales and praise-songs, flourish in contemporary Africa. For example, performances of oral tales are featured on radio, television, and in films. Oral literatures are performed and created by women and men, and many African written literary expressions incorporate the forms and tropes of oral literatures. Literacy in Africa A discussion of written African literatures raises a number of complicated and complex problems and questions that only can be briefly sketched out here. The first problem concerns the small readership for African literatures in Africa. Over 50% of Africas population is illiterate, and hence many Africans cannot access written literatures. The scarcity of books available, the cost of those books, and the scarcity of publishing houses in Africa exacerbate this already critical situation. Despite this, publishing houses do exist in Africa, and in countries such as Ghana and Zimbabwe, African publishers have produced and sold many impressive works by African authors, many of which are written in African languages. Many of the works identified by teachers and researchers in North America and Europe as African literature, Chinua AchebesThings Fall Apart, for example, are texts published by presses outside of Africa. Some of these works are not even available to African readers. Likewise, what an American teacher might recognize as an African novel might be very different from the locally produced, popular novels that are sold to and read exclusively by people living in Africa. Scholars have identified three waves of literacy in Africa. The first occurred in Ethiopia where written works have been discovered that appeared before the earliest literatures in the Celtic and Germanic languages of Western Europe (Gerard 47). The second wave of literacy moved across Africa with the spread of Islam. Soon after the emergence of Islam in the seventh century, its believers established themselves in North Africa through a series of jihads, or holy wars. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Islam was carried into the kingdom of Ghana. The religion continued to move eastward through the nineteenth century (Owomoyela 23). Remnants of narrative poetry in Swahili have been recovered from as early as the eighteenth century. The poems, in epic form, describe the life of Mohammed and his exploits against Christians. In West Africa, manuscripts in Arabic verse have been dated to the fourteenth century. Several literatures, known as ajami, written in the Arabic script for non-Arabic languages have been discovered from the eighteenth century. The literatures were written in Fulani (West Africa), Hausa (northern Nigeria), and Wolof (Senegal). The encounter with Europe through trade relationships, missionary activities, and colonialism propelled the third wave of literacy in Africa. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, literary activity in the British colonies was conducted almost entirely in vernacular languages. Missionaries found it more useful to translate the Bible into local languages than to teach English to large numbers of Africans. This resulted in the production of hymns, morality tales, and other literatures in African languages concerned with propagating Christian values and morals. The first of these Christian-inspired African writings emerged in South Africa (Owomoyela 28). Thomas Mofolo studied theology at the Bible School of the Paris Evangelical Mission at Morija (in present-day Lesotho). He worked as a teacher and clerk and was a proofreader for the Morija Printing Press. The Press published his novel, Moeti Oa Bochabella (The Traveler of the East) as a serial in the newspaper Leselinyana in 1906. The novel reveals the influence of Bunyans Pilgrims Progress, and tells the story of Fekesi, who, tired of all of the sinfulness he sees around him, tries to find a perfect kingdom to the East. West African writers, such as Chief Fagunwa who wrote in Yoruba, produced similar works in African languages. Writers also recorded proverbs, praise-poems, and other pieces of oral literature during this period.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Feb 2014 10:26:32 +0000
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