African Folktales
Page 5
Aesthetic canons of pleasure among the Fang, then, dictate the dramatizing of opposition without the attempting of resolution. Specific oppositions often relate to concepts of maleness and femaleness, especially those visible in the interlocking relationships between hot (male), and cold (female), day and sun (male), night and moon (female), sky (male), earth (female), bones, sinews, and brains (male), flesh, blood, and internal organs (female), and so on. Thus a world of reference is created in which the basic stuff of life is constantly available as a means of demonstrating vitality-in-opposition.
The Fang illustrate perfectly my point that in Black Africa, the community celebrates its sense of groupness by coordinating energies in performance, a creative enterprise that embodies binary oppositions in a complexly integrated traditional form, transforming them into complementarities. Group focus is achieved through the practice of group involvement or interlock; performer and audience are not separable in the way they are in stage shows, for instance. The energetic demonstration of community will be valued by any group, but especially by those which, like so many in Africa, conceive of life as a reservoir of vital spirit, and of the demonstration of that spirit as the basis of continuity in community life.
Within such a system of presentation and celebration, the individual who sets himself apart from the group does so less to demonstrate his individual talents than to set up a dynamic opposition. The individual and the group thicken the texture of the performance by establishing interlocking voices (whether it be in storytelling, drumming, singing, dancing, or orating). The more interlock, the greater the complexity of the entire event, of course, and the more vitality the community feels is being channeled through them. Thus, there is a high value placed on what Robert Farris Thompson has called “apart playing”; “each [performer] … intent upon the production of his own contribution to the polymetric whole.” It is in this metrical dimension of performance, the pulses flowing through the group, that “apartness” is most clearly called into play,13 and we see it to its greatest effect in the displays requiring a special kind of virtuosity; a great performer is judged not only by his ability to control his medium, but also by his ability to engage the participation of the other performers and the audience. Out of the turbulence, the master brings order, teaches value, but also provokes and excites, playing competing rhythms that ultimately convey a message of community of interest and cooperative motives.14
A singer-response dialogue establishes a sense of mutual supportiveness between a single performer and the rest of the group. Complementarity is the key to ordering the chaotic; its value becomes clear in those African groups that discuss performances in terms of the importance of “cool”—“an ancient indigenous ideal: patience and collectedness of mind.”15 As one might suppose, from such a perspective both noise and complexity are conceived of as hot, as is any outrageous behavior on the part of the performers or the characters they play or describe. But all these fit the pattern of complementarity. The master singer, dancer, or drummer will draw everyone’s attention and channel all the contending voices into a response to his or her forceful initiative. Or to put it in West African aesthetic terminology, he will, through the imposition of a cool elegance and verve, provide a sublime balance to the hot environment by drawing upon the hot element within the performance itself.
IV
Storytelling is of a piece with these other African performance traditions based on the principles of opposition, overlap, apart-playing, and interlock, inasmuch as it shares the aesthetic. But in one important respect, the telling of tales differs from all the others, for its primary medium is the word. It is valuable to understand not only how stories enter into village life, but what such storytelling traditions have in common, albeit in characteristically African fashion, with other oral cultures.
“Traditional,” or “oral” culture, refers to the sharing of an expressive body of knowledge and values. Such traditional pieces of knowledge are passed on primarily by observation, common experience, and explicit word-of-mouth transmission. To a certain extent, a group will define itself by the traditional performance forms and the items it shares. When I argue, then, that village Africa has maintained an emphatically oral orientation, I mean that because, ideally, everyone knows all the stories, they may be drawn upon through allusion in any kind of interaction. In the Western world, when we explain a person’s behavior as “just sour grapes,” or say that someone is “being a dog in a manger,” “playing Good Samaritan,” or “crying wolf,” we may or may not know that there is an ancient fable or parable that lies behind the phrase. If we do, we have probably gotten that information through having encountered the work from which it comes. Nevertheless, our use of allusion is similar to that of an oral culture, for whether or not we know the story in detail, we can still sense its presence behind the saying.
Similarly, such sayings as “fish or cut bait” or “caught between a rock and a hard place” are self-conscious folksy phrases that imply that there is a story even if there isn’t. But obviously, these enter our lives much less frequently than correlative expressions in orally oriented cultures, and convey considerably less power to those who use them as clichés and their users as “corny.”
Not so the controllers of proverbs and other teaching devices in traditional cultures, for there respect and honor are accorded to those who possess the techniques of conveying wisdom and knowledge. This power is revealed most fully in the ability to be eloquent, and to contend with others in displaying control of the “old words.” This adherence to tradition in performance preserves a richness of cultural reference through which a sense of life’s continuity is maintained even in the midst of adversity. “The word” endures as a way of keeping order, and maintains its promise of inspiration and illumination. The describing of such oral-aural phenomena has become problematic because of the mystique created around traditional peoples by cultural commentators as diverse as Marshal McLuhan, Carlos Castaneda, Norman O. Brown, Alvin Toffler, and Ivan Illich.16
If we clear off this Western cultural baggage, we can make certain valuable observations about oral cultures—in their proper context. For example, there is one respect in which oral recitation does create a promise knitting together all of the diverse elements of life, namely, in the magical system that governs the naming of things. This basic mystery, devised by the gods at the invention of language, is at the center of life—not only social life, but the roots of life. As the Dogon sage, Ogotomêlli, revealed it: Water and words came together at the birth of the world, Nummo the prime mover placed fibers of water and words over his mother’s genitalia, thus “clothing” the world by giving it its first way of speaking—a simple but beautiful language. Speech itself is good, for its function was to bring order and agreement.
… Nevertheless from the start it let loose disorder. This was because Jackal, the deluded and deceitful son of God, desired to possess speech, and laid hands on the fibres in which language was embodied, that is, on his mother’s skirt. His mother, the earth, resisted this incestuous action … [but] in the end she had to admit defeat.… The act … endowed Jackal with the gift of speech so that ever afterwards he was able to reveal … the designs of God.17
Thus, speech, from the beginning, is an agency of both order and disorder: a vehicle through which power is expressed and homage is paid; and a way, through curses, spells, lies, and arguments, of causing divisiveness, witchcraft, and death. To be human is to control words and to pursue eloquence. To tell stories is to enter into the constant recreation of the world, of community, of mankind. But as the duplicity of Jackal warns us, speech can reside with the deceivers; indeed, among many African peoples, because stories are lies, they are considered to “belong” to such tricksters. Since the community can’t prevent tales from being invented, its attention is shifted to maintaining—or attempting to maintain—control over them, as in the tales of the talking skull and the old man who would not eat dog.
Nowhere is the do
uble character of words more apparent than in the widely told tale of how the message of death came to people in garbled form. Commonly, it is the Moon that attempted to send word to the people that even in apparent death, life will be maintained: “As I die and, dying live, so also shall you die and dying live.” But Trickster talked the Moon into letting him carry the word instead, and he told the people, “Like as I die, and dying perish, so shall you die, and come to an end.” For this, the moon split Hare, the Trickster’s, lip, but the message remains garbled.18
The Ikoi of Nigeria tell an elaborate tale in which Trickster actually “owns” all the stories and looses them upon the world. Originally, it was Mouse, it seems, who was the inventor and the holder of all stories, for Mouse is the all-witnessing visitor of human households, looking into the affairs of man whether rich or poor. Tales become her children, and she wove a story-child for each tale, giving each story-child a different colored gown so that she might better tell them from each other. They were hers and hers alone, because to let them be seen was to reveal the doings of humans to each other, and we all know to what condition such information leads.
Unfortunately, the protection it was assumed the ownership of stories provided, was built on the belief that within the village friendship and cooperation ruled. Sheep and Leopard were special friends and each had a child. Sad to report, famine fell on the land, and they were forced to make a pact to kill their children and feed them to each other in order to get by. Sheep contrived a trick, however, and arranged things so that her child was spared. In fact, by dint of her cleverness, she was able to do this year after year, always finding a substitute food to serve up to Leopard. Of course, eventually, Leopard discovered Sheep’s duplicity, and she had to run away from the village. During her flight she met up with many people, whom she was also able to gull. But in time, thugs caught up with her, and she was cornered in the house of a woman of another place. In a frenzy, she got too close to Mouse’s dwelling and fell against the door, at which point all of Mouse’s children escaped into the world.19
Throughout Africa, there are stories that “belong to” animals like Mouse, some creature who intrudes into the human community, but continues to live in a wild state. It is Hare and Spider and Jackal and the many other small and clever creatures living near man in the nooks and crannies and on the borders, who are the carriers of such tales. Living in the in-between places, they share in both the power of nature and the products of culture, but they obey neither the rules of man nor the laws of nature. Thus, these animals thrive not only on upsetting rules and boundaries, but also on attacking the family, friendships, and all the ways in which people have learned to live in harmony. The stories in the fourth chapter of this work are about the doings of such creatures, and are especially characteristic of African tales. To understand them, one must remember that the strangely chaotic motives that drive these tricksters are the ones that elicit gales of laughter when they are dramatized.
Trickster is the figure who most fully illustrates how not to act within society. But whereas his activities comment implicitly on improper behavior and do it within a fictional form, gossip comments more explicitly and is based on stories purported to be true. In the village environment, gossip is needed to provide everyone with a kind of social map of the terrain. Moreover, it is a way—important in such small communities—for people to keep a check on each other’s activities as part of a self-protection system. At the same time, however, gossip can be very dangerous, because it judges character and makes personal references, which can easily lead to upset and misunderstanding. Therefore, the more impersonal kinds of stories assume great importance in defusing possible contention, because they comment on human behavior in the less personal, the more universal manner.
Tales within an oral world, then, are ways of “going round for long,” using speech for purposes of making indirect personal arguments in socially restricted situations. They are more powerful for this indirectness. They argue by analogy, not only with regard to how people should and should not act to be useful members of society, community, and family, but also in regard to how such actions give meaning and power to the very being of all within the community. This indirect approach brings together the African love of proverbs and stories—both forms, though succinct, take the long way around problems. Both suggest in an open-ended manner how people should behave in certain situations. Each of these suggestions partakes of the argumentative nature of talk, for each proverb or story is not only itself open to discussion, but may, at any time, be countered by another proverb or story with a contrary message.
Because proverbs and stories are indirect and impersonal means of engaging in deep discussion, their use is considered good manners. When Americans say, “You know what they say,” before using an old adage, we are employing the same kind of indirection, for “they” are the forefathers, the wise ones of the past whose accumulated experience has been embodied in memorable sayings. If we don’t use such proverbs much anymore, it is not just that nowadays we don’t look to our ancestors to solve our problems. Much more relevant is the fact that, for the most part, we no longer live in the kind of close communities in which our manners constantly have to be minded. In addition, because we have come to value peer friendships more than family relationships, and it is with friends that we most want to discuss ourselves and our feelings, we now prefer a more direct approach to one another. Among traditional peoples, feelings are guarded more closely. The asking of direct questions, especially of a personal sort, is likely to be misconstrued, because that which is not immediately apparent is meant to be hidden. Discretion is highly valued, not only as a way to keep down the talk, but also as a way to maintain the essential power of words. For as “The Talking Skull” reminds us, ill-considered talk can often lead to trouble and can even dissipate the vitality of the group. A Mandingo saying, commenting on this situation and the importance of verbal economy, puts it this way: “One contributes to the power of the fetish by leaving it in the bag.” The curative powers of a fetish are enhanced by keeping it hidden; so, too, with words and their power.
Interestingly, such concealed power may also be associated with storytelling, for stories are often told only at night, the guarded and secret time. The Mandingo peoples possess a category of words with special powers, kuma, those words uttered only at night in the telling of myths, legends, and tales. They are embodiments of disguised knowledge, enabling individuals within the group to reveal their feelings by virtue of indirection, without risking dissipation of vital spirit.20
To mention huma is to begin to recognize not only the relationship between word power and mystery, but to understand the power often contained within the expressive system of a culture. Here the African record is an especially rich one. Many investigators have pointed to native systems of exegesis—that is, open and subtle analysis of the kinds of talk available in a speech-community. This is what Griaule documents, in fact, in his Conversations with Ogôtomelli, referred to above. Though this book is unique for the depth and intensity of its reporting on a single tribal philosopher, a number of other workers in the field have explored such native systems more generally, especially the categories of tale.
Of these systems, none is more complex, nor more fascinating, than that reported by Deirdre LaPin of the Yoruba. This populous and culturally important group is actually a nation within a nation, with important “colonies” in Haiti, Brazil, Cuba, and Trinidad. An ancient city society, it has one of the most fully documented expressive cultures in the Old World. A true ceremonial state, it constantly celebrates its vision of life through an elaborate set of performance forms and events. In Yoruba culture, distinctions are made between a number of different kinds of storytelling: ìtàn, a straightforward and direct story; àló, stories told in indirect terms, replete with analogy and metaphor; owe, stories told to explain the force of a proverb; and arò, formulaic tales (like “The House that Jack Built”), or one of many other tightly structured
narrative techniques. But none of these names is used to mean the stories alone. Arò may refer to any of a number of tightly structured poetic forms, owe to the proverbs, as well as the stories that explain them, àló to a song that alludes to a story. Ìtàn is also a term referring to the recounting of any past event performed without singing, such as the deeds of great men, stories of families and lineages, battles, even personal anecdotes. Each story type is performed for a different kind of audience. Yet, virtually the same story told in the form of ìtàn, may emerge as àló or arò. Moreover, it may be alluded to in riddle or proverb form, in an ijálá, (hunter’s praise-poem to an orisha god), or in odù Ifá, or cowryshell divination, as people’s fortunes are being read.21
V
I have given Yoruba terms in detail here, not only to show one kind of classification system, but also because this is an especially subtle tradition. However, the Yoruba differ from many of the other cultures in which these stories live because they are not only a village people, but have built large urban centers as well. Even in the city environment, they maintain their range of oral tradition, including the various kinds of storytelling.
This brings up the very important question of what happens to expressive performance as Africans become urbanized and “modernized”? The written record is inconclusive, but extremely suggestive. Storytelling (and traditions of performance in general), evidently does not disappear under such conditions, but is changed, turned into an evenings entertainment away from job and domicile.