Oral Literature in Africa (16 page)

The instances so far are unmistakable cases of direct Arabic influences. Certain other examples are not so clear, though Arabic influence seems likely. In the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia and Somali, etc.) rhyme is a frequent prosodic principle (sometimes in combination with other features), to such an extent that Greenberg speaks of this region as the ‘East African rhyming area’ (Greenberg 1960: 937ff.). In various ways, this use of rhyme is exploited in—to give just a few instances—early Ge’ez verse (classical Ethiopic), the Amharic royal songs, Galla strophic poetry, and Tigre verse. A few indications of possible Arabic influence can also be detected among the Muslim Nubians of the Nile Valley and the Berbers (particularly the Tuareg) where, again, rhyme is used (De Foucauld i, 1925: xiii). As Greenberg sums it up:

The outstanding impression in the historic dimensions is the vast reach of certain, and in many cases highly probable, Arabic influence in the northern part of Africa—an influence well documented for many other aspects of the culture of the area

(Greenberg 1960: 947).
¹⁷

For the forms of African prosody which cannot be thus traced to ultimate Arabic influence, the picture is much less clear—indeed little work has been done on this. It seems that rhyme and regular metre are uncommon or non-existent. Sometimes alliteration seems to be a marked feature. There are, for example, the very rigid rules of alliteration in Somali poetry in which each line in the whole poem must contain a word beginning with the same sound (Greenberg 1960: 928–9; Andrzejewski and Lewis 1964: 42–3). There is also the much less formalized alliteration arising from parallelism in Southern Bantu praise poetry (see above, also Ch. 5). As mentioned earlier, tone is also sometimes a formal characteristic of some African poetry, though its analysis has not as yet proceeded very far. In Nkundo poetry, on the other hand, tone seems to be of less significance, if we accept Boelaert’s contention that stress (
accent dynamique
) is the basic characteristic of the prosodic system (Boelaert, 1952). The same point might be made about the dynamic stress in Southern Bantu praise poems (Ch. 5) and in Ankole recitations (Morris 1964: 32ff.). In other cases again, it seems that either the musical setting or such features as repetition, linking, or parallelism perform certain of the functions we normally associate with metre or rhyme. But the whole question is a difficult one, and there seem to be many cases when, either out of ignorance or from the nature of the material, the observer finds it difficult to isolate any clear prosodic system in what he calls ‘poetry’. Thus in Southern Bantu literature, to quote Lestrade again:

The distinction between prose and verse is a small one … the border-line between them is extremely difficult to ascertain and define, while the verse-technique, in so far as verse can be separated from prose, is extremely free and unmechanical. Broadly speaking, it may be said that the difference between prose and verse in Bantu literature is one of spirit rather than of form, and that such formal distinction as there is one of degree of use rather than of quality of formal elements. Prose tends to be less emotionally charged, less moving in content and full-throated in expression than verse; and also—but only in the second place—less formal in structure, less rhythmical in movement, less metrically balanced

(Lestrade 1937: 306).

The analysis of indigenous African prosody is thus clearly by no means a simple matter, and apart from the work of musicologists on the rhythm of fully musical forms (on which see Ch. 9 below), relatively little study has apparently yet been made of this aspect of African literature.
¹⁸

This brings us to the final point—the significance of music. Clearly this is not a feature of
all
African literary forms. It occurs seldom in what is normally classified as ‘prose’—stories, narrations, riddles, proverbs, or oratory (except for songs within stories, see Chs. 9 and 13).. In ‘poetry’ it is more common. In fact the occurrence of music or of a sung mode of expression has sometimes been taken as one of the main differentiating marks between prose and verse. Even here, however, there is a wide range of possibilities. On the one hand, in much panegyric and some religious verse the verbal element is markedly predominant over the musical, and such forms are, at most, delivered in a kind of recitative or intoned form. Then there are other types in which the music is progressively more important, until we reach the extreme choric form (often with leader and chorus) instrumental accompaniment and even dance, like the ‘symphonic poems’ of the Chopi (Tracey 1948
a
). In such cases the music, however closely intertwined with the words, may come to dominate them and we can no longer assume that, as seems so often to be taken for granted in Western culture, verbally expressed literature can be taken as self-evidently the ‘top art’. In some cases, indeed, it is clear that musical expression (or even sometimes the dance) may be the object of greater interest, critical appreciation, and specialized performance. This is a central question in any assessment of the position of oral literature within a particular cultural tradition, for even in less extreme cases the musical aspect may still be a very important one. Though it may appear secondary to one basically interested in literature, it is clearly something which cannot be ignored, above all in lyric forms.

As in the case of the more purely linguistic basis, I will not keep drawing attention to the significance of music for every single relevant form (some further points are made on this subject in Ch. 9. But to allow ourselves to forget the importance music may assume in certain cases of African poetry is to minimize the intricacy and full aesthetic appeal of these instances of oral literature.

IV

Before proceeding to the main part of the book, there are a few general points to make about presentation and the nature of the literature involved.

First, there is the question of the categories I have used to present the material. An immediate problem is how to differentiate between ‘prose’ and ‘poetry’. Though some cases seem to fall clearly under one or the other
heading, the distinction between the two is not always self-evident. I have in fact begged the question by making a firm division between the parts devoted to ‘prose’ and to ‘poetry’ respectively. This however has been done more for convenience than in an attempt to make a definite typology. The kinds of factors which it has seemed helpful to consider include: musical setting (most sung forms can reasonably be regarded as poetry); the intensity and emotion of expression; sometimes (but not always) rhythm, and tonal or syllabic rhyme (the latter infrequent except under Arabic influence); special vocabulary, style, or syntactical forms; local evaluation and degree of specialism (more marked with poetry than with prose); and, finally, the native classifications themselves. Such factors give some kind of indication of the form involved, though none is either necessary or sufficient. At best they are only a matter of degree and in many cases can provide no rigid distinctions (e.g. from Portuguese Africa, South West Africa, or the Central African republics). There is clearly a large amount of overlap, like the introduction of songs into stories (in some cases so marked that the ‘story’ becomes swamped in the singing) or the ‘poetic’ form of proverbs which are nevertheless usually classified as prose. But this kind of overlap and lack of clear differentiation need not worry us too much (unless, that is, our main preoccupation is the building of typologies), particularly when we recall the recent blurring of the traditional prose/verse distinctions in more familiar literatures.

One obvious way to present the evidence might have seemed to be by geographical area, describing the different oral forms characteristic of different regions or peoples. But there are serious difficulties about such an approach. One is its tendency to become a mere catalogue—and a repetitive one at that, since such forms as stories, proverbs or work songs are very wide-spread, and perhaps universal. A more serious obstacle is the fact that so far there has only been the most haphazard sampling of the apparently huge oral literary resources of the continent. The selection has all too often depended not only on geographical accessibility and historical accident, but also on the preconceptions of the observer or the ease of recording, rather than on the evaluation of the people involved. Hence we have a vast number of proverbs, riddles, and stories but relative neglect of poetry or oratory. Only the literature of very few peoples has ever been at all adequately covered, (among them perhaps some of the southern Bantu languages Swahili, Fulani, Hausa, Dogon and some of the Kwa groups of the west African coast; but even in these cases there has not been systematic or rigorous covering) and for some whole areas little serious work appears
to be available (e.g. from Portuguese Africa, South West Africa, or the Central African republics). It is thus extremely difficult to draw any well-founded conclusion about the different forms recognized by a people at a given time. Since a clear distinction between prose and poetry seems to be associated with writing (and more particularly with printing), it is not surprising that the difference is somewhat blurred in non-literate cultures.
¹⁹
One can make a few broad generalizations: the significance of Arab-influenced forms in the north and east in such languages as Fulani, Hausa, or Swahili; the importance of elaborate panegyric among the Southern in contrast to some of the Central Bantu; the spread of drum literature over the tropical forest areas of West and West Central Africa (including the Congo); and the probability (yet to be fully explored) that some languages and cultures are more interested in certain forms of artistic expression than are others (e.g it has been observed (Horton, personal communication) that Yoruba seems to be an intensely ‘verbal’ culture with particular emphasis on poetry as against, say, Ibo or Kalahari where the main stress is rather on drama (including drumming and dancing) and perhaps oratory (see also Babalola’s comment on (1966: v) on the Yoruba ‘tonal, metaphor-saturated language which in its ordinary prose form is never far from music in the aural impression it gives and which has produced an extensive variety of spoken art’). But beyond this one can give little of an over-all picture. In this unsystematically covered field the
argumentum ex silentio
is not a good one and at present there is not enough evidence for a geographical approach.

There are also drawbacks to the type of presentation I have adopted, i.e. grouping the material according to broad literary genres. A ‘religious song’, for instance, or a ‘praise poem’ may be very different in form, in relationship to other genres, or even in function in different areas, and an over-rigid insistence on the categories I am using could be misleading. Suffice it to say that the chapter headings I use here seem satisfactory enough for a brief introductory survey and have arisen fairly naturally from the material at present available; but that they are likely to prove inadequate for future detailed research. In fact local classifications of poetry in particular would seem normally to be far more complex than the handful of categories I employ.

This leads on to a further point. To read about, say, the hunting songs of the Ambo, Christian lyrics of the Fante, proverbs of the Jabo, or stories of the
Limba may give the impression that each of these are the most valued or even the only forms of oral art in the society concerned. In fact all the available evidence suggests that this would be misleading. In general terms, poetry seems to be more highly valued and specialized than prose—the opposite of the impression given in many of the numerous collections of African stories. It is also common for many different literary genres to be recognized in any one society. Among Akan-speaking peoples of Ghana, for instance, a large number of different poetic forms have been distinguished by Nketia (in his classic article in
Black Orpheus
3, 1958 (Nketia 1958
b
)). In terms of the mode of delivery, there are four broad classes of Akan poetry, each including many different types in detail: (1) spoken poetry, which covers many of the poems to do with chiefship, like the praises delivered at state functions; (2) recitative poetry half spoken, half sung, like funeral dirges, elegies by court musicians, and hunters’ poetry; (3) lyric (i.e. sung) poetry, a large category comprising many different types of song each with its own conventions—among them songs of insult, heroic songs, sung interludes in stories, maiden songs, love songs, songs of prayer, exhilaration and incitement, cradle songs, and warrior songs; and finally (4) poetry expressed through the medium of horns or drums, in lyric, eulogistic, or proverbial vein. These instances, furthermore, are only selective (and cover only poetry, not prose), and many others could have been added in a more comprehensive catalogue (see for instance the sung forms mentioned in Nketia 1962: Chs. 2, 3, 1963
a
). A similar account could be given of Yoruba literature from Western Nigeria. In prose there are stories of various kinds, riddles, proverbs, and praise appellations. In poetry, the variety can be sufficiently illustrated by merely listing some of the vernacular terms that describe different verse forms;
esa, ewi, ijala, rara, ofo, ogede, oriki, ogbere, ege, arofo, odu ifa
(see Babalola 1966: vi; Lasebikan 1956: 46, 48; Gbadamosi and Beier 1959)). Poetic forms have probably been studied in more detail in West African languages than elsewhere, and it is possible that some of these languages may be particularly rich in poetic forms. There is no reason, however, to suppose that this kind of poetic diversity is without parallels in other parts of the continent. We hear, for instance, of many different forms among the Ngoni of Malawi, Ila and Tonga of Zambia, Luba of the Congo, Rwanda of Ruanda, Somali of North-East Africa, and many others. And further research will without doubt reveal similar instances throughout the continent.

This kind of literary complexity can be assumed to lie behind many of the actual examples which are mentioned in this volume (Read 1937; Jones 1943; Kalanda 1959: 77–9; Burton 1943; Kagame 1947, 1951
b
, etc.;
Andrzejewski and Lewis 1964) practically all accounts to date give only a tiny selection from the manifold literary genres of any one society. The present exceedingly simple impression of African literature can be seen to rest more on lack of research than on lack of actual material. A real understanding of the oral literature of any single African people will only be possible with further detailed research and collection. More information is required not only of actual texts but also of the nature and interrelationships of all their literary genres: their conventional forms, content, occasions, exponents, and expected audience.