Oral Literature in Africa (79 page)

In these masquerades there are comments and accompanying songs. The subject-matter a covers diversity of social experience; though it is ostensibly concerned with the activities of water spirits, in fact it clearly reflects the everyday life of Kalabari town and village, portrayed in a realistic manner:

Perhaps the commonest theme is that of the ferocious male warrior, laying about him with matchet or spear, his violence set off by the plump, comely, slow-moving figure of his wife. This pair is portrayed by some of the most widely distributed masquerades such as
Agiri, Egbelegebe, Egbekoro,
and
Seki
. Then there is the dignified, opulent ‘house head’ portrayed by masquerades like
Gbassa
and
Alagba
. Or the massive, stolid character portrayed by the maskers of
Otobo
—a water spirit who is thought of as part man, part hippopotamus, and who is addressed in song as ‘Beast who holds up even the flowing tide’. By way of contrast, there is the cunning, amoral hypocrite portrayed by
Ikaki
—’Tortoise’. Or the sexy, good-for-nothing aristocrat
Igbo
, of whom they sing: ‘His father’ sent him to market to buy yams; but instead he bought woman’s vagina. O!
Igbo
, son of a chief! O!
Igbo
, son of a chief!’ Or again, there is the native doctor
Ngbula
, grunting around with grim concentration in search of bad medicines and evil spirits: suspicious like all of his profession that people are talking ill of him, and breaking off from time to time to make ferocious charges at his supposed detractors among the
Ekine
members. Female water spirits, too, sometimes take the central place in a masquerade. Notable among these is
Igoni
; a garrulous, self-pitying old widow who alternately bemoans her own and everyone else’s troubles

(Horton 1963: 97).

But in spite of the existence of such plots and of some linguistic content in songs and comment, this aspect of Ekine masquerading is only of secondary importance. It is worth quoting Horton at some length on this point, for he makes absolutely clear that it is the dancing and the drumming rather than the linguistic element which is the important part of these dramatic performances:

Diverse as they are … the verbalized themes of the masquerade are never very elaborate. All that can be said about the characters portrayed in a particular play takes no more than a sentence or two. And the plots of the Egbert tableaux are sketchy in the extreme—especially if one compares them with the rich narrative which the Kalabari weave about the water spirits in other contexts. There is, in fact, a good reason for this sketchiness and
brevity. For
the masquerade is not intended as the enactment of verbal narrative
. Its dominant symbols are those of rhythmic gesture, dictated by the drum; and in so far as its verbal commentaries have a use, it is one of directing attention to the broad area in which the meaning of the dance gestures lies.
Words here provide no more than a bare, crude outline of meaning, and it is left to the language of the dance to fill in the detail which makes the masquerade rich and satisfying to its audience
[my italics].

If an
Ekine
member is asked how he recognizes a particular play, he does not start to talk about the character portrayed or about the plot of the
Egberi
. He starts by imitating the rhythm of its drums; and perhaps, if there are no women about, by dancing a few of its characteristic steps. By this, he is able to convey the distinctive features of the play: for every masquerade has its own characteristic set of drum-rhythms, beaten on a characteristic combination of drums ….

The value which
Ekine
sets on the dancer’s attunement to the drum does much to explain why its members consider possession by the masquerade spirits to be the crowning achievement of the expert performer. In Kalabari thought, all symbols of the gods are instinct with their presence. Now the drum-rhythms of each masquerade are symbols of its spirit ‘owner’, and as such they too are vehicles of his presence. So, saying that the spirit ‘owner’ has taken charge of the dancer’s body is a natural way of describing the ideal state of attunement in which the drum-rhythms seem to have taken over the man’s movements from his conscious will and thought. That these are indeed two ways of describing the same experience is suggested by the reply of a gifted dancer whom I asked what it was like to become possessed during the dance. As he put it: ‘One plays until, as it were, the drum pushes one around’

(Horton 1963: 98–9).

Besides verbalized content and rhythm, a third element in these Kalabari masquerades consists of the costumes, of which the most distinctive part is the headpiece, sometimes including a wooden mask. This mask is regarded as distinct from the rest of the costume and is the ‘name’ of the masquerade, so that even when it is not in fact visible to the spectators it still plays a part. But even the masks have only a secondary role compared to the dancing. ‘The real core of the masquerade lies in the dance and … by and large other elements are only considered important in so far as they contribute to it’ (Horton 1963: 100).

Horton concludes that despite certain functions of
Ekine
activity (its significance as a status symbol or organ of government) the essential values ‘can only be called aesthetic’ (Horton 1963: 111). Why then, if the masquerade is first and foremost an art, does it retain close associations with religion? Horton argues that reacting to a human performance as a work of art seems to involve
two main factors: first, an ability to exchange practical workaday reactions to the subject-matter for some sort of attitude of contemplation—’an eye which is engaged yet somehow aloof’ (Horton 1963: 103); and secondly, a suspension of personal reactions to the actor as a known individual in favour of a concentration on his role in the performance. Now in modern Western theatre and ballet these requirements are usually fulfilled without much difficulty. The theme of play or ballet is often removed from the first-hand experience of the audience; so too are the actors, so that the problem of suspending personal reactions to them as individuals does not arise. But in a small-scale homogeneous society like that of the Kalabari the situation is very different:

In the first place, the greater uniformity of social experience means that the audience will have had first-hand exposure to the subject-matter of almost any dramatic performance. In their case, the subject-matter is always near the bone. Secondly the performers are always personally known to most of their audience.

(Horton 1963: 104)

The Kalabari solution to these difficulties can be found in the religious context of the masquerades. First, by associating the plays with water spirits, the Kalabari can, in a complex way, disentangle them from the too human and personal context. Furthermore the actors’ water spirit disguise makes it relatively easy for the spectators to concentrate on the play itself, on the roles rather than the individuals. This also helps to explain the prohibitions laid on women in connection with
Ekine
activity (as well as with West African masquerades elsewhere). It is not that they are forbidden all knowledge of the masquerades: indeed, they are its principal spectators. What they are forbidden is to know of or suggest any connection between masquerades and an individual player. In Kalabari masquerades the masks, the costume, the religious associations and prohibitions all serve to bring about the ‘psychical distance’ essential in dramatic art.

This discussion of West African masquerades tends to one main conclusion. That is, that though these performances possess certain of the elements we associate with drama, the emphasis is very different from that of most modern European drama. Even where there are some linguistic content and plot, these always seem secondary to drumming and its essential counterpart, dancing. As Horton suggests it seems that ‘at least in certain areas of West Africa, the dance overshadows sculpture, painting, architecture, and literature as the leading traditional art’ (Horton 1963: 112).
¹¹

V

How far can the discussion in this chapter be said to be relevant for the study of African oral literature? With a few possible exceptions, there is no tradition in Africa of artistic performances including all the elements that might be demanded in a strict definition of drama—or at least not with the emphases to which we are accustomed. We can go further and add that what dramatic or quasi-dramatic performances can be discovered never seem to involve tragedy in the normal sense. The events and characters are depicted as comedy, and treated more or less realistically, even cynically. Though costumes and masks are sometimes important, there is no evidence of specialized scenery or of buildings or sites specifically designed for theatrical performances. The players are sometimes skilled experts or belong to artistic associations such as the Ekine Society, but there is no tradition of professional actors. The audience, finally, is sometimes a ‘pure’ audience in the sense that it appreciates without itself taking part directly; but, with the significance of the dance and the absence of the ‘proscenium barrier’, there is often a tendency to greater audience participation than is typical of most recent Western drama.

We can also make other negative points. Little direct light is thrown on the question of the origin of drama by a study of African dramatic forms—except possibly in the vague sense that it might be said to enlarge our general view of the possibilities of drama, or of certain elements in drama. Similarly it adds little support to the kind of interpretation of drama which relies on the idea of tragic archetypes and of rituals ultimately referable to
The Golden Bough
.

However, one positive point does emerge. Though different elements of drama are stressed in different African cultures, one theme that seems to run through almost all these African performances is the overriding significance of music and dance and the secondary importance of the spoken word. Even in the Mande comedies, which at first sight seem most to resemble the more verbalized type of European drama, the stress laid on words seems to vary: what is constant is the emphasis on dance, song, and mime. Further research obviously needs to be done on this. But it does appear that, at least in West Africa (the area that provides the
most highly developed dramatic forms), we would be mistaken to look only at the verbal content in any discussion of drama and miss the rich traditions in music and dance which form essential elements in dramatic performances.
¹²
Though there may be no ‘plays’ in quite the Western sense, these indigenous artistic forms nevertheless possess some of the elements we associate with drama. They present a dramatic representation of life in a detached and yet somehow more direct and active way than can be conveyed through descriptive words alone, and in this way provide a complement to the various forms of oral literature already described.

Footnotes

1
   e.g. F. M. Cornford,
The Origin of Attic Comedy
, and A. H. Krappe,
The Science of Folklore
, which both adopt this line, have each appeared in new paperback editions in the 1960s.

2
   The plays of certain of the Mande-speaking peoples of West Africa, discussed later, are one possible exception.

3
   See Ch. 13.

4
   Cf. especially installation rites and annual ceremonies to do with kingship, such as those described, for instance, in Kuper (1947: Ch. 13) for the Swazi aspect of dramatization and symbolism in ritual (and the various interpretations of this) is too large to enter on here and is not, in any case, directly relevant to a treatment of literature.

5
   Puppet shows in Bornu are said to have begun in the mid-nineteenth century according to Ellison (1935: 91)

6
   Ivory Coast ‘animal ballets’ are even more burlesque and include more clowning and miming and less linguistic content (Prouteaux 1929).

7
   The plots and tone of some of the Northern Nigerian puppet shows have something in common with these plays and possibly indicate a wider incidence than as yet appears.

8
   On these comedies see also Meillassoux 1964. For the way in which some modern skits in Mali owe much to traditional dramatic forms, see Hopkins 1965.

9
   Jones 1945. I draw very heavily on this article here; also on Boston 1960, and Horton 1963. See also Messenger 1962; Horton 1966, 1967; and Jones 1934.

10
  Horton 1963; cf. also 1966; 1967. There is not, unfortunately, space to do justice to the subtlety of his discussion.

11
  For further references to ‘drama’ in Africa see the bibliographies in Shore 1962: 50–3 and Traoré 1958. There is a detailed and sympathetic account of Ijebu (Yoruba) masquerades in Ogunba 1967. See also the briefer report in Clark and Gibbs 1967, especially Chaps. 1, 2, and Bibliography.

12
  Traditions exploited in modern literature by, for instance, the ‘Yoruba folk operas’ described by Beier 1954, and the musical and balletic emphases in productions by recent West African playwrights.

Conclusion

Several points emerge from this examination of oral literature in Africa.

The first is an obvious one. This is the relevance of African oral literature for comparative literature in the wide sense. The study of the kinds of instances and genres touched on in this account can enlarge both our literary experience and our concept of ‘literature’ altogether. It can also throw light on some recent literary experiments (jazz poetry, for instance) as well as on the oral background to literature even in literate cultures. Its significance, in other words, is by no means confined to those with a special interest in the continent of Africa.

The kind of conclusions I myself would draw about the nature of this African literature would be, first of all, to repeat the obvious point of its variety. Not only is generalization difficult, but many of the general conclusions that have been stated to date turn out to be based on relatively little evidence. It now seems obvious, for example, that simple generalizations about the collective nature of art in non-literate cultures cannot hold good in face of the evidence about the creative activity of the individual poet or story-teller, and that the process of artistic composition even in non-literate societies turns out to be more complex than often imagined. Again—and this is perhaps more controversial—I would hold that there is less support than might be expected from the African material for the mythopoeic or archetypal interpretation of literature, or the idea that African literature is all marked by ‘dark mysticism’ or similar catchwords. Finally, the fashionable ‘structural’ approach of Levi-Strauss and his followers has not seemed a fruitful one for any detailed study of actual oral genres in Africa in their own context. This type of elegant but at times rather farfetched analysis turns out, in my opinion, to be less illuminating in the face of the facts than a less ambitious analysis of the obvious meaning and context of actual instances.

Some of these conclusions are no doubt controversial. But the main point that I want to insist on here is that such questions are relevant ones for the study of literature, and ones on which the African material can throw light. It should no longer be acceptable to discuss such problems in the abstract without reference to the actual facts of African literary expression. African oral literature, in short, is part of the literature of the world and should be considered significant as such.

The second main point may not be so obvious. This is the relevance of African oral literature for sociological analysis. It has been well said that a society cannot be fully understood without its songs. But this has sometimes, it seems, been forgotten by the sociologists.
¹
In particular, those who have concerned themselves with the sociology of foreign and of so-called ‘primitive’ societies have too often neglected to take any serious interest in their literary forms.

This aspect is so important that I want to expand on it a little. Traditional African societies have by and large normally been grouped into the general category of ‘primitive’. And one of the most important differentiating characteristics of this category is normally taken to be the fact of being ‘non-literate’; another is of being ‘simple’. People have found it only too easy to slip from this into the assumption that ‘non-literate’ involved something like our concept of ‘illiterate’ (i.e. someone who in a
literate
community may be regarded as having failed to master the ways of that particular culture),
²
and, further, that ‘simple’ implied simple intellectually or artistically as well as simple in technology. Neither of these assumptions is in fact logically or empirically defensible. In particular, there is nothing necessarily ‘backward’ about a poet in a culture which does not use the written word choosing to express his literary ability through the rich oral medium at his disposal. Furthermore—and this is the pertinent point in this context—it should now be clear from the descriptions and examples given in this book that being non-literate or technologically simple does not mean that such societies are lacking in elaborate artistic forms, in literature, in complex symbolism, in scope for the individual to express his own artistry and insights, or in an awareness of the depths and subtleties of the world and of human life. As a Kongo proverb expresses it: ‘The human heart is not a bag into which one can plunge one’s hand’ (Van Wing 1930: 401). This becomes evident with even a cursory study of oral literature. But it is a facet that is almost always overlooked when people speak of the ‘non-literate’ and ‘simple’ societies of traditional Africa.

This oral literature, furthermore, needs to be taken seriously in its own right. Explaining oral literature away by reference to social or even ‘symbolic’ function is to miss much of its actual detailed significance, and is as much of a disservice to the sociologist as to the literary critic. The relationship between literature and society is too complex and various to be reduced to such generalized explanations. Even for a sociological analysis literature must be considered first in its own terms before an accurate assessment can be made of its role in society. And if some still prefer not to speak of ‘literature’ here, it must at least be admitted that whatever the actual term used there exists a complex oral art in African cultures and that this must be taken seriously into account in any balanced assessment of African societies.

This is a point I want to emphasize. The fact of the existence of this oral art—this literature as I would call it—is something which both throws light on the nature of African societies and also helps to undermine the old view of the quality of non-literate societies generally. It is not something peripheral, but basic to their life and thought. It is something, in short, which, too often forgotten, must be taken into full account by the sociologist in his approach to these societies.

This leads on to one final point. It might be supposed that such literature is dying out with the impact of literate, wealthier, and reputedly more ‘progressive’ cultures. This is not necessarily so at all. Some genres, it is true, are receding; but others—political songs, new versions of dance songs, new religious lyrics—are increasing in importance. Oral literature, in fact, plays its part in developing, not just traditional, Africa.

Figure 26. Dancing in Freetown – continuing site of oral literature and its practitioners, 1964 (photo David Murray).

It is frequently assumed that the only and the natural direction of development for ‘undeveloped’ countries like Africa must be towards greater reliance on the written word. This assumption, however, may not be justified. People have spoken of the ‘revolution’ in communications in Western countries in the last few decades which involves a change to a much greater dependence on auditory forms (the radio in particular) at the expense of the visual (the written word). This greater reliance on auditory forms is something which would not seem at all strange to those brought up in the traditions of
spoken
literature characteristic of Africa. Indeed this reliance on the spoken word—and thus on oral forms of expression—may well increase rather than decrease in Africa in the future. This is not unlikely to follow increasing European influence, both in its general turning towards non-written forms and in some of the particular literary experiments with oral or semi-oral forms. This tendency towards oral forms may also be intensified as the transistor radio spreads still further. Already there is evidence from all over the continent of the radio being used as the vehicle of oral literary forms—the
mvet
songs over Yaounde radio, for example, or the Somali
balwo,
ideal material for broadcasting; and though a medium involving a mass rather than a face-to-face audience must necessarily lead to some changes in the traditional nature of oral art, it is yet clearly related to it. It may be, then, that increasing dependence on the written word may not necessarily be the obvious line of development in the Africa of the future.

Whatever our guess for the future, however, it is clear that oral literature—whether addressed to small family groups, an emir’s court, political rallies, or radio listeners—is not just something of the past. It is relevant for the contemporary analysis of African society and not just for those interested in ‘traditional culture’ or antiquarian researches.

African oral literature, then, is of interest not only for students of literature, but also for sociologists and all those with an interest in African society, past or present. The final note must be, however, to point to the great need for further research into this subject: the present book can provide only an introduction.

Footnotes

1
   A term in which I include social anthropologists.

2
   A point well made by Andrzejewski 1965: 96.