Editor's Column

With this issue Oral Tradition, founded in 1986 at the University of Missouri, reaches a milestone: the conclusion of its twenty-fifth year of publication. The raw numbers are significant–more than 500 articles comprising more than 11,000 pages treating close to 100 different oral traditions worldwide from ancient to modern times. But two other measurements are perhaps just as telling. Since 2006, when the journal first became available online, open-access, and free-of-charge (with all review procedures intact and in force), our constituency has increased from a maximum of 1200 paper subscriptions to an annual readership of over 20,000 from 216 countries and territories internationally. Just as importantly, we now receive submissions for possible publication from a much wider range of colleagues studying a much more diverse group of traditions from more markedly varied theoretical perspectives. In addition, many articles now feature audio, video, photographic, and other support in the form of eCompanions, thus providing multimedia experiences of performers, performances, audiences, and the like. In this way the electronic medium has liberated the understanding of oral traditions from what can be contained in a text, just as it has radically democratized access and contribution. In short, by taking advantage of the natural homology between humankind's first and most recent communications technologies, an OT-IT homology explored in the Pathways Project, the journal is well placed to continue its growth as a comparative, interdisciplinary forum for scholars and students around the world.

Earlier this year, on February 10th, the Center for Studies in Oral Tradition celebrated its own quarter-century anniversary with several memorable events. Chief among them was the donation of the personal libraries of Albert Bates Lord and Mary Louise Lord to the CSOT and the University of Missouri. We are enormously grateful to Nathan and Mark Lord and their families for this remarkable act of generosity, and are excited to be able to offer this unique resource to visiting scholars and students as well as our own campus community. To mark the donation of the library, the College of Arts and Science at the university has created the Lord Fellowship, which will provide a stipend for visiting researchers who wish to use the collection and other resources of the CSOT. The inaugural recipient is Agniezska Matkowska of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. As another aspect of the February commemoration, Mark Bender of Ohio State University delivered the 25th Lord and Parry Lecture, entitled "Butterflies and Dragon-Eagles: Processing Epics from Southwest China," which will be published in Oral Tradition next year.

On the same evening of February 10th we also announced the launch of a new initiative patterned after the online migration of the journal: the International Society for Studies in Oral Tradition . The purpose of this Internet-based association is to further the original and continuing mission of the CSOT as a whole–to facilitate the study of oral traditions by promoting and facilitating exchange among all constituencies. With the electronic platform and a variety of virtual tools in place, we will support such activities as individual, person-to-person contacts; group discussions over topics of mutual interest; eSeminars and eConferences; and an eArchive for the deposit of primary and secondary materials. Membership in the ISSOT is free and open to all, and we have built a system that optimizes access while protecting identity through gatekeeping. We hope that the Society will contribute to enhanced democratization of work in our shared field, a goal that harmonizes with the core nature of our joint inquiry.

Finally, a few words about the present issue of the journal, which is perhaps the most ambitious and diverse in OT's history and in that respect a harbinger of contents to come. Kiri Miller opens the forum with an ethnographic exploration of sacred harp memorial lessons, a tradition native to the American South, made richer and more immediate by the author's dual, insider/outsider perspective as both a participant and an ethnomusicologist. Next, Adélékè Adék probes the nature and function of orality and literacy in Ifá divination stories from Nigeria, with special attention to the...