Introduction to African Oral Literature and Performance (review)

This volume is basically a primer on the study of African oral literary genres, an expansion of two earlier volumes by the same authors: a volume on oral narrative performance (1991) and a volume on oral poetry performance (1994). The book is addressed to secondary- and university-level students and instructors, with specific suggestions for teaching the material interspersed throughout, including exercises at the end of each section.

The current volume updates the bibliography of the earlier works and augments the original examples and explanations. The book is divided into two parts, based on the two earlier studies: the first focuses on narrative or prose genres, the second on poetic forms. After an introductory chapter, section 1 includes three chapters, "The Sources and Origins of African Oral Literature and Performance," "Fieldwork Practice and Research Methodology in Oral Literature and Performance," and "Archetypes." The next five chapters focus on specific genres: myths, legends, folktales, proverbs, and riddles and jokes. The final chapter of the section is titled "Stylistics and the Performance of Oral Narratives." Section 2 explores religious poetry, incantatory poetry, salutations or praise poetry, funeral poetry, occupational or heroic poetry, and topical, lullaby, and occasional poetry. The book ends with a brief concluding chapter.

Each chapter includes at least one set of suggested exercises to emphasize the ideas previously presented. Most chapters also end with lists of further reading as well as references. The chapters on genres generally begin with definitions of terms and a discussion of the functions of the specific verbal art forms. Genres are examined in the form of examples, sometimes taken from the authors' fieldwork; original African language texts are often included with the English translations.

Although this is a well-intentioned attempt at a detailed study guide, a number of weaknesses remain. The first can be laid at the feet of the publisher and editors, in the form of typographical errors, awkward phrasing, and inconsistencies in footnoting and formatting. The authors have not been well served by the press.

Another problem is that often, in a kind of metonymical manner, the study refers to African oral literature when it really refers to Nigerian (or at best West African) verbal arts; easily 90 percent of the examples given are from Nigeria or its neighbors. This leads to another concern, relating to the section titled "The Sources and Origins of African Oral Literature and Performance," wherein much attention is given to what is called "The Nature of the African Universe," focusing on subheadings such as "The Supreme Being," "Gods and Goddesses," "Ancestors," "Man," and "Other Elements of Nature." Most of the descriptions here would easily fit Yoruba cosmology; the others relate to the mythical/religious models of a number of other Nigerian and West African societies. However, as one moves east, south, and north of this region, cosmologies can become very different from this model. Most Bantu-speaking groups, for example, aren't too big on specific gods and goddesses. Their mythologies are not squarely parallel to what is described in this chapter and what is then used to inform most of the other chapters of the book. Such implicit claims for universality lead the study toward a rather shaky essentialism, which skews many of the observations and assertions that follow. While the methodology section is mostly geared for African students, providing detailed advice on the approaches to be taken to local artists, there are broader studies that include field methods suitable for a wider readership, such as Okpewho's African Oral Literature: Backgrounds, Character, and Continuity (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1992).

On the positive side, the second section on poetry is often very effective, with some marvelous observations that are grounded in inventive close readings of the form and aesthetics of oral poetry, with assertions such as "The rhythm of creative thinking, the rhythm of aesthetic beauty of the product and their cultural functionalism are all basic to the...