African Oral and Written Traditions
- LAST REVIEWED: 09 August 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 25 October 2012
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846733-0037
- LAST REVIEWED: 09 August 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 25 October 2012
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846733-0037
Introduction
It is the task of the storyteller, in both the oral and written traditions of Africa, to forge the fantasy images of the past into masks of the realistic images of the present, enabling the performer to pitch the present to the past, to visualize the present within a context of and therefore in terms of the past. Flowing through this potent emotional grid is a variety of ideas that have the look of antiquity and ancestral sanction. Story occurs under the mesmerizing influence of performance, the body of the performer, the music of her voice, the complex relationship between her and her audience; it is a world unto itself, whole, with its own set of laws. That oral concept of performance finds its parallels in written traditions. Unlike images are juxtaposed, and then the storyteller reveals, to the delight and instruction of the members of the audience, the linkages between them that render them homologous. In this way, the past and the present are blended: ideas are thereby generated, forming our conception of the present. Performance gives the images their context and assures the audience a ritual experience that bridges past and present, and shapes contemporary life. It was the situation one thousand years ago; so it shall be one thousand years hence. Storytellers are the repositories of the memories of the people. The oral traditions of African societies were thriving for centuries before the introduction of literary traditions. These latter, though often influenced by Europe and Asia, nevertheless occur within the context of the oral traditions.
The Oral Performance in Africa
Storytellers in the African oral tradition do what storytellers in all cultures and in all times have done: they entertain the members of the audiences. In the process of doing so, they distill the essences of human experiences, shaping them into memorable, easily retrievable images of broad applicability with an extraordinary potential for eliciting emotional responses. Entertainment thus becomes a multidimensioned experience. Images of contemporary life are removed from their historical contexts so that performers may, with all of the artistic and mnemonic devices at their disposal, reorganize them in artistic forms. The oral arts, containing this sensory residue of past cultural life and the wisdom so engendered, constitute a medium for organizing, examining, and interpreting an audience’s experiences of those images of the present. The tradition is a venerable one: a Xhosa storyteller said, “When those of us in my generation awakened to earliest consciousness, we were born into a tradition that was already flourishing” (Nongenile Masithathu Zenani, comment to author, 1975). Much of the oral tradition of African cultures has been lost, and as African languages are in the process of dying each year, the traditions are gone forever. But some collections of these traditions exist, of which the finest are included in this section.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Achebe, Chinua
- Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
- Africa in the Cold War
- African Masculinities
- African Refugees
- African Socialism
- Africans in the Atlantic World
- Aid and Economic Development
- Alcohol
- Algeria
- Angola
- Arab Spring
- Arabic Language and Literature
- Archaeology and the Study of Africa
- Archaeology of Central Africa
- Archaeology of Eastern Africa
- Archaeology of Southern Africa
- Archaeology of West Africa
- Architecture
- Art, Art History, and the Study of Africa
- Arts of Central Africa
- Arts of Western Africa
- Asante and the Akan and Mossi States
- Bantu Expansion
- Benin (Dahomey)
- Boer War
- Botswana (Bechuanaland)
- Brink, André
- British Colonial Rule in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Burkina Faso (Upper Volta)
- Burundi
- Cameroon
- Cape Verde
- Central African Republic
- Children and Childhood
- China in Africa
- Christianity, African
- Cinema and Television
- Cocoa
- Coetzee, J.M.
- Colonial Rule, Belgian
- Colonial Rule, French
- Colonial Rule, German
- Colonial Rule, Italian
- Colonial Rule, Portuguese
- Communism, Marxist-Leninism, and Socialism in Africa
- Comoro Islands
- Conflict Management and Resolution
- Congo, Republic of (Congo Brazzaville)
- Congo River Basin States
- Congo Wars
- Conservation and Wildlife
- Crime and the Law in Colonial Africa
- Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire)
- Development of Early Farming and Pastoralism
- Diaspora, Kongo Atlantic
- Disease and African Society
- Djibouti
- Dyula
- Early States And State Formation In Africa
- Early States of the Western Sudan
- Eastern Africa and the South Asian Diaspora
- Economic Anthropology
- Economic History
- Economy, Informal
- Education
- Education and the Study of Africa
- Egypt
- Egypt, Ancient
- Environment
- Environmental History
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Ethiopia
- Ethnicity and Politics
- Europe and Africa, Medieval
- Family Planning
- Famine
- Farah, Nuruddin
- Feminism
- Food and Food Production
- Fugard, Athol
- Fulani
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Genocide in Rwanda
- Geography and the Study of Africa
- Ghana
- Gikuyu (Kikuyu) People of Kenya
- Globalization
- Gordimer, Nadine
- Great Lakes States of Eastern Africa, The
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Hausa
- Hausa Language and Literature
- Health, Medicine, and the Study of Africa
- Historiography and Methods of African History
- History and the Study of Africa
- Horn of Africa and South Asia
- Igbo
- Ijo/Niger Delta
- Image of Africa, The
- Indian Ocean and Middle Eastern Slave Trades
- Indian Ocean Trade
- Invention of Tradition
- Iron Working and the Iron Age in Africa
- Islam in Africa
- Islamic Politics
- Kenya
- Kongo and the Coastal States of West Central Africa
- Language and the Study of Africa
- Law and the Study of Sub-Saharan Africa
- Law, Islamic
- Lesotho
- LGBTI Minorities and Queer Politics in Eastern and Souther...
- Liberia
- Libya
- Literature and the Study of Africa
- Lord's Resistance Army
- Maasai and Maa-Speaking Peoples of East Africa, The
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Mali
- Mande
- Mau Mau
- Mauritania
- Media and Journalism
- Military History
- Modern African Literature in European Languages
- Morocco
- Mozambique
- Music, Dance, and the Study of Africa
- Music, Traditional
- Nairobi
- Namibia
- Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Nollywood
- North Africa from 600 to 1800
- North Africa to 600
- Northeastern African States, c. 1000 BCE-1800 CE
- Obama and Kenya
- Oman, the Gulf, and East Africa
- Oral and Written Traditions, African
- Oromo
- Ousmane Sembène
- Pastoralism
- Police and Policing
- Political Science and the Study of Africa
- Political Systems, Precolonial
- Popular Culture and the Study of Africa
- Popular Music
- Population and Demography
- Postcolonial Sub-Saharan African Politics
- Religion and Politics in Contemporary Africa
- Rwanda
- Senegal
- Sexualities in Africa
- Seychelles, The
- Siwa Oasis
- Slave Trade, Atlantic
- Slavery in Africa
- São Tomé and Príncipe
- Social and Cultural Anthropology and the Study of Africa
- Somalia
- South Africa Post c. 1850
- Southern Africa to c. 1850
- Soyinka, Wole
- Spanish Colonial Rule
- Sport
- States of the Zimbabwe Plateau and Zambezi Valley
- Sudan and South Sudan
- Swahili City-States of the East African Coast
- Swahili Language and Literature
- Tanzania (Tanganyika and Zanzibar)
- Togo
- Tourism
- Trade
- Traditional Religion, African
- Transportation
- Trans-Saharan Trade
- Tunisia
- Uganda
- Urbanism and Urbanization
- Wars and Warlords
- Western Sahara
- White Settlers in East Africa
- Women and African History
- Women and Colonialism
- Women and Politics
- Women and Slavery
- Women, Gender and the Study of Africa
- Women in 19th-Century West Africa
- Yoruba Diaspora
- Yoruba Language and Literature
- Yoruba States, Benin, and Dahomey
- Youth
- Zambia