Oral Literature in Africa (69 page)

(Jordan 1958: 103)

Song-riddles occur among the Makua (Harries 1942
a
), a form said to be unrecorded elsewhere in Africa (though see Raum 1940: 221 (Chaga); Ghilardi 1966: 183–5 (Kikuyu). These riddles (
ikano
) differ from ordinary ones in that they are in the form of action songs accompanying a dance and have a didactic purpose closely connected with initiation rituals. An expert improviser leads the singing, and the solution of some of the song-riddles are known only to him; it is forbidden for initiates who have learnt these riddles to tell them to the non-initiated. Many of these song-riddles include sexual references or allusions to the initiation rituals. In ‘The handle of the hoe is bent, let him be adze-ed—The seed of the baobab tree’, the seed is compared to a piece of wood which needs to be straightened so that a hoe can be fixed on (a baobab seed is cleft down the middle); the parallel is to a disobedient person who needs to be straightened by initiation rites (Harries 1942
a
: 33). In another, ‘A woman smoothly seducting (
ntiya ntiya
)
,
by the grinding, the grinding, the grinding’, the answer is ‘A helmeted shrike’;
ntiya
is an ideophone for the way in which the woman grinds seductively to attract the man she wants, and she is compared to the helmeted shrike which knows no fear of people (Harries 1942
a
: 36). A final example contains an instruction to initiates to avoid incest—’The sweet stalk of millet within the boundary however sweet I shan’t break it’, answered by ‘Blood relationship’ (Harries 1942
a
: 44).

Besides their occasional connections with songs, praise names, and proverbs, riddles also sometimes shade into other forms of oral literature. They have obvious connections with enigmas, puzzles, and dilemma stories and in some societies the same term refers to all of these. Among the Ila of Zambia, for instance, there is a series of enigmas with the same question,
‘You who are (or have grown) so clever!’, with a series of possible answers. The point is to be ‘a kind of catechism challenging the self-complacency of men who think they know everything’ (Smith and Dale ii, 1920: 330). This is brought out in the responses: ‘When the milk of your cows is put together you can’t tell which is which’, ‘You can’t tie water in a lump’, ‘Can you catch hold of a shadow?’, ‘Can you follow up a road to where it ends?’, ‘Can you put an ugly person back into the womb to be reborn handsome?’ (Smith and Dale ii, 1920: 330–1)
⁵
The Ila also have conundrums like, for instance, the puzzle about who should be the one left to perish of a man, his wife, and their two mothers when they reach a river across which only three can be ferried; each possible combination having been found unacceptable, the final answer is that they all had to sit on the bank and die together! (Smith and Dale ii, 1920: 332–3) Similar puzzles, as well as the longer dilemma stories, are widespread. Less common are the epigrams that occur among the Fulani as a form closely connected with both riddles and proverbs. They share the characteristics of grouping together a number of phenomena that have some basic similarity or illustrate some general principle in the same way as riddles. Thus in one example quoted by Arnott a list of similia is given preceded by a statement of the general principle linking them:

Three exist where three are not:

Commoner exists where there is no king, but a kingdom cannot exist where there are no commoners;

Grass exists where there is nothing that eats grass, but what eats grass cannot exist where no grass is;

Water exists where there is nothing that drinks water, but what drinks water cannot exist where no water is.

(Arnott 1957: 384)

Several other examples, including a threefold classificatory epigram, are quoted by Arnott, who points out their similarity in certain respects to both proverbs and riddles. They recall the striking Hausa saying classified as a riddle by Fletcher but with much in common with the Fulani epigrams: ‘Three things are like three things but for three things: Sleep is like death but for breathing; marriage is like slavery but for wifely respect; a guinea-fowl is like grey cloth but for being alive’ (Fletcher 1912: 51).
¹⁰

II

These longer and more complex forms are, however, relatively rare, and most of the remaining discussion about style and language will be concerned with the more common simple riddle where some analogy is drawn, usually of sound or sense, between a brief question and often briefer answer.

There are various approaches to the analysis of style and form in riddles. Those interested in ‘structural analysis’
¹¹
have pointed to certain basic elements in riddles and the way these are related to one another. In particular Georges and Dundes pick out the ‘descriptive element’ in the question, the ‘referent’ of which has to be guessed. Many riddles consist of more than one such descriptive element; for example, ‘It has a head / but can’t think—Match’ has two elements. These two, in turn, may be in opposition to each other (as in the common European type such as ‘What has legs / but cannot walk?—Chair’). Furthermore, the opening question may be either literal or metaphorical in terms of its solution. This becomes clear with some examples. A riddle like ‘I know something that sleeps all day and walks all night—A spider’ is to be counted as a literal form; whereas ‘Two rows of white horses on a red hill—Teeth’ is metaphorical in that the solution (teeth) and the subject of the descriptive element (horses) are different and are only analogous through a metaphor. Following this analysis one can thus distinguish between different types of riddles in terms of (i) oppositional / non-oppositional (further divided into three sub-types), and (2) literal / metaphorical.
¹²

This kind of analysis can be applied to African riddles. It seems in general that the typical European oppositional type is not nearly so common in Africa where, if we adopt these ‘structural’ terms, non-oppositional riddles are by far the most frequent.
¹³
A metaphorical rather than a literal emphasis too seems to be to the fore. However, when we reach this point we find we have to extend some of these structural elements, in the sense that, as
described earlier, analogies of sound, tone, or rhythm have also to be taken into account in many African riddles in addition to analogy in terms of content. This kind of generalized structural analysis, then, can be helpful up to a point in studying African riddles, but beyond that we have to turn to more detailed accounts.

When we come to the precise style in which riddles are expressed, it quickly becomes obvious that this tends to vary from culture to culture according to the favourite forms current at any particular time. Thus in parts of West Africa (e.g. Hausa, Fulani) reference to the number three is common in both proverbs and riddles; among the Makua many of the simple riddles open with ‘I went to my friend and …’, as in ‘I went to my friend and he gave me a black chain—(Black) driver ants’ (Harries 1942
b
: 279); the Kamba have a series opening ‘I was about to …’; the Zulu apparently like long riddles; while the Thonga make frequent use of the opening
tseke-tseke
(Lindblom iii, 1934: 26–7; Callaway 1868: 364–74; Junod and Jaques 1936).

However, in spite of this great variation in style, there are certain typical stylistic patterns that seem to have a very wide distribution. The initial statement which serves as the ‘question’ is sometimes preceded by some such phrase as ‘Guess what …’ or by some stereotyped formula introducing a whole session of riddling. Very often, however, the statement is not itself accompanied by any explicit indication that a solution has to be found. The answer is typically in the form of a single word, but longer phrases and sentences occur even in simple riddles. Among the Lamba, for instance, a characteristic reply is in the form of a question as in their version of a common Bantu riddle ‘That which has no ending—What of the path, who has ever come to the end of it?’
¹⁴

Within riddles themselves, there are also some typical patterns. The thing alluded to in the question is often referred to in terms of some other specific (and favourite) noun. This will be clear from some examples. Among the Tlokwa a common form of expression is in terms of cattle, so that the referent is veiled by being called ‘our cow’ or ‘cattle’: ‘Black cattle which stay in a forest—Lice’ and ‘My father’s cow is green outside and black inside—Reed’ (Nakene 1943: 136; 134) are only two of many examples.
¹⁵
The Ngala use ‘A chief
in a similar way (e.g. ‘Un chef avec des boutons sur tout le corps—L’ananas’) and the Bambara ask about ‘Ce petit homme’ (Comhaire-Sylvain 1949: 43; Travelé 1923: 50–3). Proper names of people, or sometimes of places, are not uncommon in this context, occurring, for example, among the Lyele of Upper Volta, the Yoruba of Nigeria, and the Shona of Southern Rhodesia where a question about ‘The thing of so-and-so’ is frequent (Fortune 1951: 32). The first person singular (pronoun or possessive) also constantly appears. Most common of all is the use of kinship terms in reference. ‘Father’ or ‘My father’ seems to be the most popular of all (occurring frequently in the riddles of peoples as far apart as, for example, the Limba, Lyele, and Yoruba of West Africa, the Fang of West Equatorial Africa, the Ngala of the Congo, and the Shona and Tlokwa of Central and southern Africa). Other kin, too, frequently appear—mother, children, grandfather, even affines—as in the Shona ‘Your staggering, Mr. Son-in-law, where did you drink beer?—The chameleon’ (Fortune 1951: 34).

The language of riddles is sometimes said to be archaic and certainly often contains apparently meaningless words. Puns and word play are not a significant aspect, but appear occasionally, for instance in Yoruba riddles (Bascom 1949: 5). As will already be obvious from examples cited, the language of riddles is also marked by a frequent use of reduplication, ideophones, and diminutives (occasionally augmentatives) that take the form either of special prefixes, as in Nyanja, or of separate adjectives conveying the idea of small-ness, usually applied to the main noun in the question.
¹⁶

In general form riddles seem to represent a relatively fixed type of oral literature. Their stereotyped brevity offers little opportunity for variation or elaboration and there is little if any stress on performance. The creative aspect may in any case be limited, in that simple riddles are so often the domain of children. However, occasional variant forms have been recorded between which individuals can choose,
¹⁷
and several authorities mention the fact that new riddles are constantly being made, presumably within the general and particular stereotypes just discussed (see eg Schapera 1932: 217; Smith and Dale ii, 1920: 324; Bascom 1949: 5).

In content, riddles can include just about every sphere of natural and human life, and vary according to the preoccupations and customs of
the society in which they are told. An understanding of the point of a riddle thus often depends on a knowledge of the ways of a particular society. The Nuer riddle, for instance, ‘Guess what big man it is near whom they have the wedding talk but he never makes a remark—It is a barn’ is explained by the fact that among the Nuer, wedding negotiations commonly take place near a barn (Huffman 1931: 105). Some of the stock comparisons suggested in the questions have already been mentioned—’my father’, ‘our cow’, etc.—and the answers, according to which collections of riddles are often classified, range from the human body, tools and implements, and domestic life, to examples from the animal and vegetable world, crops, and natural phenomena like the moon or stars. Many riddles give vivid visual impressions, particularly those about the natural world, which often indicate close observation. The Nyanja, for instance, have a riddle about the fly, ‘The chief from the north when walking says, where I came from is good, where I go to is good’—because the house-fly’s habit of rubbing its front and back legs together alternatively suggests to the Nyanja a feeling of satisfaction (Gray 1939: 263). The Kgatla riddle ‘Tell me: a green cow which bears white calves—It is the mimosa tree’ gives a vivid picture of the white thorns on the green tree, while a Thonga riddle compares the wild apricot’s root to ‘A red copper bangle’ (Schapera 1932: 220; Junod 1938: 40). There is evidence of more imaginative observation in the Makua riddle about the moon—’A very beautiful thing which (if you) say to it, Come on, something inside it refuses’ (Harries 1942
b
: 276).

There are some stock subjects that occur widely whatever the other variations. One of the most common is that of the various staple crops—maize, millet, yams, etc.—in different parts of the continent. Another is that of the sexual and obscene references which are so common in riddles that Doke, in his general description of Bantu riddles, can say that many of them ‘take the place of the lewd joke of other communities’ (Doke 1947: 118). Many examples could be cited of this. The erotic Ibibio riddles have already been mentioned (Simmons 1956). The Lamba too have many obscene riddles, while the Shona specialize in riddles characterized by their suggestiveness but to which the real answers are always in fact innocent (Fortune 1951: 31). Others are more outspoken, like the Bambara ‘Ce petit homme se mit en colère, dansa longuement jusqu’à en vomir; lorsqu’il eut vomi, il mourut—Le membre viril’ (Travélé 1923: 53). Besides such stock topics, certain riddles with the same content but different forms sometimes have a wide circulation.
Among the Bantu, for instance, Doke notices the very frequent occurrence, in various versions, of a riddle about an egg (‘A house without any door’.) and about hair, e.g. ‘I sowed my big field and reaped it, and my hand was not full’ (Doke 1947: 118).

III

The occasions for the asking of simple riddles are strikingly similar throughout Africa. There are two main situations in which they occur. Riddle-asking is often a prelude to the telling of stories, typically by children in the evening before the rather more serious narrations commence; sometimes, as among the Fang, riddles are asked between stories, partly to allow the professional story-tellers some respite in their lengthy narrations (Tardy 1933: 282; 294). The other very common occasion is a game of riddling, usually among children; this is conducted according to special rules and formulas and is often highly competitive. Again it takes place most typically in the evening.
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