Oral Tradition

_____________________________________________________________ Volume 9 March 1994 Number 1 _____________________________________________________________ Editor Editorial Assistants John Miles Foley Cathe Green Lewis Dave Henderson Catherine S. Quick Slavica Publishers, Inc. For a complete catalog of books from Slavica, with prices and ordering information, write to: Slavica Publishers, Inc. P.O. Box 14388 Columbus, Ohio 43214 ISSN: 0883-5365 Each contribution copyright © 1994 by its author. All rights reserved. The editor and the publisher assume no responsibility for statements of fact or opinion by the authors. Oral Tradition seeks to provide a comparative and interdisciplinary focus for studies in oral literature and related fields by publishing research and scholarship on the creation, transmission, and interpretation of all forms of oral traditional expression. As well as essays treating certifiably oral traditions, OT presents investigations of the relationships between oral and written traditions, as well as brief accounts of important fieldwork, a Symposium section (in which scholars may reply at some length to prior essays), review articles, occasional transcriptions and translations of oral texts, a digest of work in progress, and a regular column for notices of conferences and other matters of interest. In addition, occasional issues will include an ongoing annotated bibliography of relevant research and the annual Albert Lord and Milman Parry Lectures on Oral Tradition. OT welcomes contributions on all oral literatures, on all literatures directly influenced by oral traditions, and on non-literary oral traditions. Submissions must follow the list-of- reference format (style sheet available on request) and must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope for return or for mailing of proofs; all quotations of primary materials must be made in the original language(s) with following English translations. Authors should submit two copies of all manuscripts. Most contributions will be reviewed by at least one specialist reader and one member of the editorial board before a final decision is reached. Review essays, announcements, and contributions to the Symposium section will be evaluated by the editor in consultation with the board. Oral Tradition appears twice per year, in March and October. Annual subscription charges are $18 for individuals and $35 for libraries and other institutions. All manuscripts, books for review, items for the bibliography updates, and editorial correspondence, as well as subscriptions and related inquiries should be addressed to the editor, John Miles Foley, Center for Studies in Oral Tradition, 301 Read Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211. Printed in the United States of America. EDITORIAL BOARD Patricia Arant Ruth Finnegan Brown University Open University Russian African, South Pacific Samuel Armistead Donald K. Fry University of California/Davis Poynter Institute Hispanic, comparative Old English Ilhan Bașgöz Lee Haring Indiana University Brooklyn College, CUNY Turkish African Richard Bauman Joseph Harris Indiana University Harvard University Folklore Old Norse Franz H. Bäuml Melissa Heckler Univ. of Cal./Los Angeles New York Storytelling Center Middle High German Storytelling Roderick Beaton Dell Hymes King’s College, London University of Virginia Modern Greek Native American, Linguistics Dan Ben-Amos Elizabeth Jeffreys University of Pennsylvania University of Sydney Folklore Byzantine Greek Daniel Biebuyck Michael Jeffreys University of Delaware University of Sydney African Byzantine Greek Robert P. Creed Minna Skafte Jensen Univ. of Mass./Amherst Odense University Old English, comparative Ancient Greek, Latin Robert Culley Werner Kelber McGill University Rice University Biblical Studies Biblical Studies Joseph J. Duggan Robert Kellogg Univ. of Cal./Berkeley University of Virginia French, Spanish, comparative Old Germanic, comparative Alan Dundes Victor Mair Univ. of Cal./Berkeley University of Pennsylvania Folklore Chinese Mark W. Edwards Nada Milošević-Djordjević Stanford University University of Belgrade Ancient Greek South Slavic EDITORIAL BOARD Stephen Mitchell Burton Raffel Harvard University Univ. of Southwestern Scandinavian Louisiana Translation Michael Nagler Alain Renoir Univ. of Cal./Berkeley Univ. of Cal./Berkeley Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, (Emeritus) comparative Old Germanic, Old French, comparative Gregory Nagy Bruce A. Rosenberg Harvard University Brown University Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, Folk narrative, Medieval comparative literature Joseph Falaky Nagy Joel Sherzer Univ. of Cal./Los Angeles University of Texas/Austin Old Irish Native American, Anthropology Jacob Neusner Dennis Tedlock Brown University SUNY/Buffalo Hebrew, Biblical Studies Native American Felix J. Oinas J. Barre Toelken Indiana University Utah State University Finnish, Russian Folklore, Native American Isidore Okpewho Ronald J. Turner University of Ibadan Univ. of Missouri/Columbia African, Ancient Greek Storytelling Walter J. Ong Ruth Webber St. Louis University (Emeritus) University of Chicago Hermeneutics of orality and (Emerita) literacy Spanish, comparative Svetozar Petrović Michael Zwettler University of Novi Sad Ohio State University South Slavic, Critical theory Arabic African Oral Traditions Contents Lee Haring Introduction: The Search for Grounds in African Oral Tradition ...3 Sory Camara Field of Life, Sowing of Speech, Harvest of Acts ...........................23 Veronika Görög-Karady Social Speech and Speech of the Imagination: Female Identity and Ambivalence in Bambara-Malinké Oral Literature ................60 Daniel K. Avorgbedor Freedom to Sing, License to Insult: The Influence of Haló Performance on Social Violence Among the Anlo Ewe.................. 83 Sa’idu Babura Ahmed and Graham Furniss Pattern, Interaction, and the Non-Dialogic in Performance by Hausa Rap Artists ....................................................................113 Chukwuma Azuonye Oral Literary Criticism and the Performance of the Igbo Epic ...136 Rüdiger Schott On the Sense and Nonsense of Performance Studies Concerning Oral Literature of the Bulsa in Northern Ghana .........................162 Zainab Mohamed Jama Silent Voices: The Role of Somali Women’s Poetry in Social and Political Life ...............................................................185 K. E. Agovi Women’s Discourse on Social Change in Nzema (Ghanaian) Maiden Songs ...............................................................................203 Rachel I. Fretz Through Ambiguous Tales: Women’s Voices in Chokwe Storytelling .....................................................................230 About the Authors ...................................................................................251 Oral Tradition 9/1 (1994): 3-22 Introduction: The Search for Grounds in African Oral Tradition Lee Haring The critic J. Hillis Miller has written of the “terror or dread readers may experience when they confront a text which seems irreducibly strange, inexplicable, perhaps even mad” (1985:20). Literary study in the 1980s, he writes, is beset by profound disagreements over whether the “ground” of literature is to be found in social forces, metaphysical presuppositions, individual psychology, or language itself. For the future of criticism, he counsels “slow reading,” uncovering assumptions, and continuing interrogation of “the very idea of the ground.” Since the West began confronting the irreducibly strange yet compelling power of the word in African verbal art (Calame-Griaule 1963, Peek 1981), terror and dread have never been far from the surface. A classic means of addressing one’s terror is mimesis, as my undergraduate aesthetics professor told us: imitation for the sake of mastery springs from a compulsion to order. In the light of Michael Taussig’s recent book (1993) exploring the complicated relations of mimesis and alterity, mimesis can be seen to underlie all nine articles in this special issue. All in their various ways attempt to create a correspondence between the artistic human communication of African peoples and a written representation, which may be a set of propositions and correlates, a translation and summary, or an analysis that will imitate and celebrate African oral traditions while making them reasonable and explicable. The issue opens a perspective on contemporary folkloristic issues; this introduction interrogates the ground for scholarly and critical mimesis, assuming that oral and written literature both grow in such a ground. In a recent textbook surveying the genres and literary features of African oral literature (Okpewho 1992), one looks in vain for any questioning of why anything should be called literature to begin with. “One can always inscribe in literature,” Jacques Derrida has said, “something 4 LEE HARING which was not originally destined to be literary, given the conventional and intentional space which institutes and thus constitutes the text.” This inscribing has certainly occurred in the mere transcription and translation of African oral traditions, as well as in the reclassifying of oral histories, genealogies, and personal experience narratives as legends (Okpewho 1992:183-203). Contributors to this issue give new data about how African artists frame some utterances into performances—how they “entextualize.” “But if one can re-read everything as literature,” Derrida continues, “some textual events lend themselves to this better than others, their potentialities are richer

Load more