The performance of the Konkomba folktale adheres to traditions and standards which may vary slightly from story teller to story teller but make the performances recognisable as belonging together. The Konkomba folktales are stories which blend the genres of prose, … Continue reading
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Introduction to Orality, Literacy and Performance
1
Orature is a living tradition precisely because orality, its base, is always at the cutting edge of the new and the experimental in word and experience.” (Ngugi wa Thiog’o. Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing. Columbia University Press, 2012, p.83.)
26th of Aprill, 2023
After our first session of getting to know each other, we finally dipped our toes into the topics orality, performance and literature.
Obviously, the first question that occurred was ‘What is orality?’. In order to answer this question, we put our focus on the African continent, specifically East Africa, Somalia. We learned that it is common and preferred in Somalia to distribute and share information orally, from person to person. People are more comfortable to hear information rather than reading it. This also has an effect on how they learn. A big part of the learning process happens through conversation and participation. This tradition of orality has often been falsely perceived as primitive by Western society. Luckily, this perception experiences a transformation as western scholars nowadays acknowledge the historical, cultural and social richness of orality and orature.
As we lay our focus on folktales in our seminar, we continued with discussing some aspects of storytelling. For instance, the fact that not every individual is skilled in telling stories, singing, playing the drums or dancing. This is why oftentimes more than one person is involved in telling and performing the story, which causes a uniqueness every time the story is told and performed. Hence, in contrast to literature it is bound to the present and can never truly be captured by written text only.
Finally, we touched upon Postcolonialism and the influence of Colonial languages on Indigenous languages. As many African societies did not have a significant literary tradition, many languages did / do not have their own script . Therefore, these languages currently use the Latin alphabet even though this oftentimes does not capture all qualities of the Indigenous language. Additionally, at present it is common that speakers are more proficient in the Colonial language than the Indigenous language.
As can be seen on this Moroccan sign, Colonial languages are predominant. But efforts to preserve Tamazight, a language indigenous to North Africa, with the help of the Tifinagh alphabet, are being made.
Preserving a language and stories ? This brings us back to the topic. Over the course of this semester, with the help of modern day technology, we will try to help preserve folktales from Ghana. I am looking forward to learn more about the Konkomba, an ethnic group in Ghana, and the technological methods we will use to secure their folktales.
Demarginalising Orature – Translating Minor Forms into the Digital Age (WiSe 22/23)
Introduction
In the winter term of 2022/23, I participated in the ‘Demarginalising Orature’ seminar, organised and held by Dr. Eva Ulrike Pirker, Tasun Tidorchibe and Jana Mankau. The seminar aims at “decolonizing knowledge and making knowledge (and primary materials) from a Global South context available in a responsible way” [1]. We, the participants, were “introduced to Ghana’s literary culture and multiethnic society; the problem of major and minor languages and forms of expression; orality, literacy and digital media cultures; power relations in the postcolony and [our] bearing on acts of cultural translation” [1]. In an attempt to help demarginalise orature, we worked on digitising a collection of Konkomba folktales by encoding them with TEI so they can later be transformed into HTML format and uploaded to the Centre for Translation Studies’ github. We also subtitled a number of folktale narrations so the respective videos could be published in the HHU Mediathek and be made available to a broader audience. These documents can also be used for research purposes. Thus, we are contributing to the preservation and demarginalisation of Konkomba oral traditions.
Orature and Orality
As mentioned above, the seminar aims at demarginalising orature; oral literature. According to Turin et al., orature “broadly includes ritual texts, curative chants, epic poems, folk tales, creation stories, songs, myths, spells, legends, proverbs, riddles, tongue-twisters, recitations and historical narratives” [2]. Orality, in contrast to literacy, is characterised by its “immediacy, ephemerality, unpredictability, flexibility” [3], it is communication by spoken word and it is dependent on the teller’s memory and “occasion-bound” [3]. Furthermore, it is quite difficult to assign any authorship to oral traditions, as, according to Bisilki, they are usually passed on from the older generations to the next [4] and regarded “as communal intellectual property” [2] by the respective communities.
In the past, orality has often been regarded as inferior to literacy. The roots of this assumption lie, amongst other things, in colonialism. Bandia writes that “[m]odernity has ascribed a stigma to the concept of orality which has become synonymous with ‘backward’ and ‘primitive’” [5]. Thiong’o points out that “[t]he hegemony of the written over the oral comes with the printing press, the dominance of capitalism, and colonization. This hegemony, or its perception, has roots in the rider-and-the-horse pairing of master and slave, or colonizer and colonized, a process in which the latter begins to be demonized as the possessor of deficiencies, including of languages” [6].
But oral traditions have a long and rich history and are an integral part of many communities’ cultures all over the world. As Turin et al. point out, “oral literature such as narrative and song often serve as important cultural resources that retain and reinforce cultural values and group identity” [2]. This is the case for Konkomba folktales as well. Folktales (called itiin in Likpakpaln, the language of the Konkomba people) can have various purposes, depending on the context in which they are told, by or to whom they are told, what the folktale is about etc. They often contain moral lessons or offer explanations for why things are the way they are. But what applies to all folktales is that they are “sources of indigenous knowledge” [7].
To give an example, one of the folktales discussed in the seminar is called “Why he Wasp has a tiny Waist”. This particular folktale was told by Waja Ngalbu in Chamba, Ghana. To quote the introduction of the folktale: “The following story relates how the wasp’s self-exile from his community eventually deformed him. It presents the wasp as a loner who refuses to participate in communal activities and thus incurs the wrath of his kith and kin. The story, grounded in the communal spirit of Konkomba funerals (particularly the kinachuŋ cultural dance), celebrates teamwork and depicts the centrality of communal living among Konkombas. The storyteller makes this clear at the outset of his narrative when he commences his tale with its moral lesson before relating the tale itself” [8]. So the folktale features an animal character (the Wasp, called ulangben in Likpakpaln) that interacts with human characters, as many Konkomba folktales do. According to Thiong’o, “in the narratives of orature, humans, birds, animals, and plants interact freely, often change into each others’ forms, and share language” [6]. The folktale gives an explanation to a real phenomenon (wasps have tiny waists) and it contains a moral lesson: the folktale highlights the importance of a communal spirit within the community. In Konkomba culture, it is important to attend communal activities like funerals or participate in farm work or other activities such as shelling maize. A folktale therefore transports values and elements of the respective culture, which, again, highlights the fact that oral traditions are an important source of indigenous knowledge and “essential vehicles for transmitting language and culture” [7].
The Konkomba People and Language
I have already touched on some aspects of Konkomba life, values and traditions, now I would like to give some more background information. The Konkomba people live in the area of the “Oti valley in the northern section of the Ghana-Togo border” [9] (see map below). It is estimated that there are a little over 1,2 million Konkomba people in total, about 112,000 of whom are living in the Togo area [7]. According to Kachim, it is widely agreed upon that the Konkomba are “one of the aboriginal groups of northern Ghana” [9].
When discussing Konkomba history, it is important to mention the aspect of colonisation. The Konkomba people were affected by this through imperialist Germany’s rule between 1884 and 1914. This is when they occupied Togo (and also Cameroon, Tanzania and Namibia). Eventually, “the German colonial empire was taken over by the French and the British” [10]. But the German rulers were met with resistance, also by Konkombas, for example “[o]n 14 May 1895, a German troop stationed at Katchamba, and led by the German von Carnap-Quernheimb, was violently attacked by Konkomba warriors armed with poisoned arrows” [11].
The Konkomba society is patrilineal, so the male offspring will inherit, a Konkomba community is also structured politically – there are “chiefs, elders, clan heads, family heads” [7] and the Konkomba believe in “God, lesser gods, ancestors, satan, evil spirits, reincarnation, etc.” [7]. Their primary occupations are farming and trading, which is why sometimes, during folktale telling sessions, farming related activities are done simultaneously (like shelling maize etc., an example of this can be seen and heard in this video).
Further information regarding Likpakpaln can be extracted from the image below:
Final remarks
Participating in the “Demarginalising Orature” seminar was a very enriching experience. Not only did I gain skills in the fields of coding and video editing, I was also able to broaden my horizon by learning about the Konkomba society and language. As folktales are a source of indigenous knowledge, it is very important to preserve them. But this has to happen in a responsible and sensitive way (keeping in mind the colonial history and marginalisation). We have to remember that this is not our knowledge, so we have to give visibility to the original owners / holders of the knowledge (this is why, for example, the narrators of the folktales are always mentioned in the XML / PDF files and videos). Visibility is very important in the field of translation as well. That is why a foreignising mode of translation was used by Tasun Tidorchibe to translate the folktales from Likpakpaln into English. Here, you can see how some words in the text are untranslated. They are also listed at the bottom of the file in a glossary which gives explanations to the Likpakpaln terms. In this way, the source culture and language are not entirely “covered up”, but they are still visible to the reader.
I can wholeheartedly recommend this seminar to any of my fellow students interested in doing something useful and meaningful.
Sources:
[1] Demarginalising orature – Translating minor forms into the digital age. (n.d.). https://lsf.hhu.de/qisserver/rds?state=verpublish&status=init&vmfile=no&publishid=234298&moduleCall=webInfo&publishConfFile=webInfo&publishSubDir=veranstaltung
[2] Turin, M., Wheeler, C., & Wilkinson, E. (2013). Oral Literature in the Digital Age: Archiving Orality and Connecting with Communities. Open Book Publishers, xiiii, xix, xix-xx. https://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0032
[3] Tidorchibe, T. (n.d.). Introduction to orality and literacy, 12. https://uni-duesseldorf.sciebo.de/apps/onlyoffice/600532749?filePath=%2FDemarginalising%20Orature%20-%20Course%20-%20Winter%202022%2FPresentations%2FDemarginalising%20orature_introductory%20session2.pptx
[4] Bisilki, K. A. (n.d.): Folktales And Gender Among The Bikpakpaam ‘Konkomba’ Of Ghana, 349.
[5] Bandia, P. (2018). Orality and Translation. Routledge, 108-109.
[6] Thiong’o, N. w. (2012). The Oral Narrative and the Writing Master. Orature, Orality, and Cyborality. In Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing. Columbia University Press, 64, 76.
[7] Tidorchibe, T. (n.d.). Folktales as expressive tools for language and culture: the Konkomba context, 7, 12. https://uni-duesseldorf.sciebo.de/apps/onlyoffice/602811744?filePath=%2FDemarginalising%20Orature%20-%20Course%20-%20Winter%202022%2FPresentations%2FFolktales%20as%20expressive%20tools%20for%20language%20and%20culture_by%20Tasun%20Tidorchibe.pptx
[8] Ngalbu, W. / Centre for Translation Studies. (2020). Why The Wasp Has A Tiny Waist, 1. https://github.com/CentreforTranslationStudies/KONKOMBA/blob/main/Why%20the%20Wasp%20has%20a%20tiny%20waist%20Juli%202022.pdf
[9] Kachim, J. U. (2019). View of Origin, migration and settlement history of the Konkomba of Northern Ghana, ca. 1400-1800, 133. https://journal.ucc.edu.gh/index.php/ajacc/article/view/850/428 p. 133
[10] Blackshire-Belay, C. A. (1992). German Imperialism in Africa The Distorted Images of Cameroon, Namibia, Tanzania, and Togo. Journal of Black Studies, 23(2), 236. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/002193479202300207?casa_token=RNGLUXDq7awAAAAA:Z32APCcmpqVVQzBgWW82t0gqUQPQaNhPS849YfPoJSi5X-QON_rlcetEAkNQOnswybPaJoNdZwKbPA
[11] Müller, B. (2022). The ›Mystery‹ of the Konkomba’s Severed Thumbs: Historical Fact, Colonial Rumour or Legend of the Defeated?. Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften Dezember 2021, 15(2), 96. doi:10.14361/zfk-2021-150208
Figure 1: Tidorchibe, T. (n.d.). Introduction to orality and literacy. https://uni-duesseldorf.sciebo.de/apps/onlyoffice/600532749?filePath=%2FDemarginalising%20Orature%20-%20Course%20-%20Winter%202022%2FPresentations%2FDemarginalising%20orature_introductory%20session2.pptx
Figure 2: Tidorchibe, T. (n.d.). Introduction to orality and literacy. https://uni-duesseldorf.sciebo.de/apps/onlyoffice/600532749?filePath=%2FDemarginalising%20Orature%20-%20Course%20-%20Winter%202022%2FPresentations%2FDemarginalising%20orature_introductory%20session2.pptx
Figure 3: https://www.101lasttribes.com/tribes/konkomba.html
Figure 4: Tidorchibe, T. (n.d.). Folktales as expressive mediums for language and culture: the Konkomba context. https://uni-duesseldorf.sciebo.de/apps/onlyoffice/602811744?filePath=%2FDemarginalising%20Orature%20-%20Course%20-%20Winter%202022%2FPresentations%2FFolktales%20as%20expressive%20tools%20for%20language%20and%20culture_by%20Tasun%20Tidorchibe.pptx
Guest Lecture on The Sɩsaala Dirge by Dr. Confidence Gbolo Sanka
Introduction
Last week we listened to a lecture about Ghanaian funerals by Dr. Sanka. The lecture was mainly focused on the nature and qualities of the Sɩsaala dirges as well as answering what exactly makes them literary.
What is a Sɩsaala Dirge?
The Sɩsaala dirge is a versified expression of grief specific to the Sɩsaala people and is usually performed during funerals after adults have passed away. Dirges are commonly performed by a group of people, who are singing along while playing instruments, and are often led by a poet-cantor. However, it is not uncommon to hear someone practising the songs of a Sɩsaala dirge by themselves, as it is expected by every member of the community to know and be able to sing these songs.
Types of Dirges
The dirges can be divided into three structural types. The first consists of a song that commonly contains only one or two lines that are repeated several times. The second type includes a song and one or several appellations, which are only performed by poet-cantors. The last structural type consists of appellations, an anecdote and a song and is always performed by a professional poet-cantor.
Furthermore, the dirges can also be categorised according to the age of the deceased. If this person was between the ages of fifteen and sixty, the dirge will be a mourning funeral. When the deceased person was older, the dirge will be a celebration of life and the audience will wear white instead of black, which is worn for the mourning dirge. If, however, a child died, no dirge will be held. This is because the people attending the dirge will be too distraught and mournful to perform the necessary songs. The poet-cantor will also be unable to distract the mourners from their grief, as the death of a young person is not an occasion to celebrate anything.
Dirges in Africa vs. the West
Dirges can be found in many cultures all over the world. The Sɩsaala dirge specifically shares some similarities with Western funerals. Both are performed in similar situations and their forms are alike as well. Additionally, the type of language they use is the same because it mainly uses culturally specific imagery. However, there are a few notable differences. Some of them are the manner of creation and the delivery, as well as the involvement of the audience, the question of authorship of the songs and the use of body language. An example of these differences is the fact that the audience can join in with additional songs and narratives during the dirge in Africa, while this would not be tolerated in the West. Another example would be that in Africa, rather expressive body language is used during narrations; this is not the case in Western cultures.
Features and Functions
Many stylistic devices are used during Sɩsaala dirges such as repetition, use of tone, ideophones and parallelism. These features are especially prominent in the songs that are performed. The performances during the dirges function as a tool to install values into people and, generally, propagate communal values. This is usually done by the poet-cantor. The performances act as a medium for mourning the dead and are a source of inspiration for written literature, society as a whole and individuals. In addition, the dirges function as a reservoir of historical knowledge and a platform for social commentary. However, the features and functions often vary between the different Ghanaian dirges because every ethnic group’s traditions evolved differently.
The Dirge as a Literary Piece
Dirges can be seen as literary pieces because they contain elements of prose, such as the short narration performed by a poet-cantor, elements of drama are involved, as well as ideophones, similes, rhetorical questions and a simple but interesting plot. Additionally, they contain elements of dramas in the way the narration is structured similarly to Greek dramas. Moreover, impersonations and representations of occurrences from tales can be seen being performed by actors. Lastly, Sɩsaala dirges also show elements of poetry in the repetition of lines and the stylistic devices typically used in the performances.
Today
Sɩsaala dirges are not performed as often anymore as they were in the past. This is caused in part by a lack of interest in tradition shown by the younger generation as well as a rise in other religious beliefs. If someone is, for example, a Christian or Muslim, they often do not perform the dirge as their ancestors did because it goes against their beliefs. The result of this is that the performance of dirges is steadily declining. Another factor is that art, such as a poet-cantor’s performance, is sometimes seen as something only done by lazy people who do not want to work in the fields. Furthermore, there has been a disintegration of traditional extended family values and an absence of internal structures that can lead to the failure of organising a dirge. All of these aspects lead to increased ignorance about Ghanaian culture which also increases the previous factors.
Aesthetics of Konkomba folktales
The issue of library catalogues and classification
We started the session by discussing this question: In which category can we sort Konkomba folktales? We watched a video of one such folktale. The storyteller uses gestures, imitates sounds, sings alone and with the audience, and uses intonation to create drama. So, which category fits the Konkomba folktale? Prose, drama, or poetry? Konkomba folktales display elements of all these categories. Hence, we need a new classification: oral narratives, or oral fiction.
We students also learned that the ways in which libraries catalogue works is restricting: As far as folktales are concerned, there is no authorship. Instead, the folktales are communal knowledge. The storyteller is a vessel to deliver that communal knowledge. However, as current-day library cataloguing requires an author, the project Demarginalising Orature uses three words to fill in the information – Konkomba Oral Tradition.
Who tells the story?
The shortest answer may be everyone. Let us go into a bit more detail. Our lecturers taught us that a storyteller does not need to have a specific age or gender. Anyone may tell a story – and, importantly, the audience is a crucial part of the telling. They chip in with parts that the storyteller has forgotten, give answers, ask questions, and join the storyteller in singing. Generally, storytelling is voluntary but there is also competitive storytelling, in which groups battle over which group has the best storytellers. The telling of folktales is a communal activity where communal knowledge is shared.
When do storytelling sessions take place?
We learned that storytelling sessions usually take place in the evenings. In fact, stories must not be told during daytime. Why? The easiest answer is superstition. Especially children are often warned not to tell stories at daytime. However, there may be some more practical reasons. For instance, people should not become too distracted from day-to-day activities which must be carried out during daytime. Moreover, children may discuss the previous night’s storytelling session during the daytime.
How are the storytelling sessions structured?
The beginning of each storytelling session begins with a rhyme called tiin kulb or tiin kolb, depending on the dialect/regiolect. The rhyme consists of questions and answers. Storyteller and audience perform the rhyme together. The rhyme metaphorically explains what storytelling is. It also reminds the community that the stories should be fun. The rhyme is only performed in the beginning of the session but not in-between the individual tales.
After the rhyme, the storyteller who has initiated the rhyme starts telling a folktale. There are four types of commencing the story: Storytellers may dive directly into the story, ask permission from the audience, declare their intent to tell a story, or they may ask a question that creates suspense for the story to follow. After the first storyteller has finished, the next storyteller may voluntarily come forward and commence once again with one of the four opening techniques. There is no formal way of ending a storytelling session – the session ends whenever interest in the session ceases.
What are the folktales about?
Storytelling sessions are often funny – laughter, after all, is therapeutic. Yet, community members also use storytelling sessions to communicate wishes for change with the community. Women may re-tell stories, pushing for societal change by changing some aspects of the story. For instance, a woman may become a chief in their re-telling of a story, or a story may implicitly suggest that monogamy may be better than polygamy. This works as people have a right to change the stories to match their personal condition. Because the characters in the folktales are usually animals, it is a discreet way of pushing for change.
Takeaways
Both the discussion on the classification of Konkomba folktales and the introduction to the aesthetics of Konkomba folktales were incredibly interesting. The discussion demonstrated that library cataloguing must change to accommodate more literary forms. I find particularly interesting that the folktales can also be a way of communicating wishes for change.
Folktales: On the Preservation of Culture and Language
In our last session in the course “Demarginalising Orature – Translating minor forms into the digital age” we talked a lot about culture and language, their relation to folktales, and also how important folktales are in order to preserve them. Almost every folktale comes from an oral source, having been passed down through generations by word of mouth, and carries a lot of cultural meaning and importance for the communities that they are told in. They are also region-specific or community-specific, varying between various languages and dialects that therefore also hold cultural meaning.
By passing on folktales, whether in the written or oral form, the cultures and languages they derive from are preserved. We were shown a map of the world, its languages, and how many were believed to go extinct soon.
As the map shows, almost half of the languages from today – spanning all continents – might go extinct soon, and one way of documenting them for the future is by preserving them through the documentation of folktales. Folktales are a source of indigenous knowledge and hence transmit the culture and language of a community. This is, because folktales include lessons about moral and values, often very specific to the culture they are deriving from. The example we had for this in class was a Konkomba folktale called ‘Why the Wasp Has a Tiny Waist’. It is a folktale that gives lessons about communal activities and the cultural traditions after someone, especially an in-law, has died in the Konkomba community. Without the knowledge of the culture a listener might not fully understand the folktale and its moral and values, but by telling it this aspect of the culture is preserved.
And language, of course, is also a part of culture. But when it comes to languages that are not institutionalized, the best way to make it accessible, visible and preserve it is by translating it into an institutionalized language. But for the original language to still be preserved and made visible – because by hearing a folktale the listener also gets a feeling about the language – to foreignize the translation and thereby giving visibility to the original language and culture is the best way of doing so.
Hence, folktales encompass cultures and languages and by documenting and preserving them, their cultures and language will be accessible for forever. A difficulty in trying to preserve languages and cultures is, that there needs to be someone to go to these regions, record these folktales, translate them, and preserve them in some way. This project on Konkomba folktales is a step in this direction, but there are so many regions, as shown in the map, that it will need a lot of dedication from many different people for this preservation to happen on a broader scale.