African Folktales
Page 6
Many of the same stories are still told, it would seem, but are now performed by professional or semiprofessional entertainers, and in situations in which the performers do not know the members of the audience in the same intimate way. Thus, the local references used in the village context, and immediately understood by all, are lost. Likewise, a specific person’s style can no longer be parodied and must be replaced by a stock character, a more generalized “type,” whose traits are immediately recognizable (“the government official,” “the priest,” and so on). The greatest change arises in the techniques the performer uses to assert and maintain mastery. For in these urban contexts, he must not only have the loudest voice and the broadest imitational abilities, he must also be able to dazzle the audience with his control of language. This leads to the development of what Donald Cosentino calls the “Baroque Style of Narration”22—one in which elaboration and ornamentation come to the center of the storytelling art. The teller justifies the attentions paid him by spinning out the stories at ever greater length, introducing constantly more elaborate detail, and using increasingly more sophisticated instrumental accompaniment.
Though Consentino—and Dan Ben-Amos23—describe a recent development, there is little doubt that such a professionalizing process has been going on for some time, whenever large market towns arise. Take, for example, the case of the griot entertainer in the Senegambian region, paralleled by the maroki (beggars), among the Hausa of Nigeria. Both are reknowned for their abilities to praise-sing and to curse, to carry stories about, and to perform them exquisitely. For this, however, they are made outcasts, people of the road and the marketplace, using their art as a way of getting by. These, as it were, African meistersingers and troubadours, thus reproduce a cultural process that has been observed several other places throughout the world—a process of professionalization of performers and performances, and of distancing between performer and audience.
But while in performances at the marketplace, singing and dancing and instrumental music-making prevail, storytelling, in the main, slowly, but inexorably, falls by the way. Perhaps it is too personal a form to maintain itself very long away from the fireside and the family compound. Its decline, however, takes considerable time. With the development of larger cities, the marketplace changes its character, balloons, and becomes more specialized, and, therefore, more threatening to large segments of the populace. At that point, the storyteller seems to find his way to the drinking hall and even the theater, where he performs as one type of entertainer at Concert Parties. These public entertainments, found in many urban areas, often involve people of many languages and cultures coming together in the expectation that everyone will understand everything. Naturally, the style of performance and even the range of stories that can be told is altered for these events, and the emphasis on individual performing virtuosity becomes even greater. Undoubtedly, popular new ways of telling stories will emerge from this, in the same way that “high life” music and numerous new trans-African dance styles have developed offshoots. But such developments are far removed from the kind of village artistry that has kept the stories in this volume afire for such a long time.
The history of the African aesthetic impulse suggests only one development that can be comfortably predicted—new styles and new forms will constantly evolve out of the old. We will get new heroes and even new gods using modern means of power to perform; but their connection with the old gods and the old ways will remain profound, for Trickster, cutting up, still living at the crossroads and in nooks and crannies, will always be with us. Not that he will continue in the form of rabbit or spider, or hyena or hare, for he changes his shape to suit the situation. The aesthetic pulse that runs through African art maintains, in this way, its connection with vital spirit, with life itself. As long as art and life are one, beauty and endurance will remain sisters.
To the stories, then, with the hope that in this collection I have successfully captured the distinctive blend of traditional vision and adaptive vitality that marks the narrative spirit of Africa. As to their essential and representative humanity, the stories will speak for themselves, even when they “go round for long.”
NOTES TO INTRODUCTION
1 Cf. Leo Frobenius and Douglas C. Fox, African Genesis (Stackpole Sons, 1937), p. 236.
2 William Bascom surveys its appearance in “The Talking Skull Refuses to Talk,” Research in African Literatures 8 (1977): 226–91.
3 Sony Camara, “Tales in the Night: Toward an Anthropology of the Imaginary,” in Varia Folklorica, ed. Alan Dundes (The Hague: Mouton and Co., 1978), p. 95.
4 Found in Stannus.
5 Alan Lomax, Cantometrics: An Approach to an Anthropology of Music: Handbook (Berkeley: University of California Extension Media Center, 1976), p. 42.
6 Ethel Albert describes the Burundi approach in “Cultural Patterning of Speech Behavior in Burundi,” Directions in Sociolinguistics, ed. John Gumperz and Dell Hymes (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972), pp. 72–105. The Wolof situation is surveyed by Judith Irvine. Her insights are usefully summarized in her “Formality and Informality in Communicative Events,” American Anthropologist 81 (1979): 778, 790.
The richest study of the relationship between hot noise and cool, restrained, weighty speech is Karl Reisman’s “Noise and Order,” in Language in its Social Setting, ed. William W. Gage (Washington, D.C.: The Anthropological Society of Washington, 1974), pp. 56–73.
7 Elimo P. Njau, “African Art,” in Proceedings of the First International Congress of Africanists, ed. Lolage Bowa and Michael Crowden (Paris: Cahiers Etudes Africaine, 1964), pp. 237–38.
8 Written under the name of Elinore Smith Bowen (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1964), p. 293.
9 Ibid., pp. 285–93.
10 From George W. Ellis, Negro Culture in West Africa (New York: Neale Publishing Co., 1914), p. 228.
11 William Bascom, African Dilemma Tales (The Hague: Mouton and Co., 1975), pp. 1–3.
12 “Principles of Opposition and Vitality of Fang Esthetics,” in Art and Aesthetics in Primitive Societies, ed. Carol Jopling (New York: E. P. Dutton Co., 1971), P. 358.
13 This and the other terms and concepts for the Black African aesthetics emerge from my reading of the work of Thompson, as well as Lomax, Cantometrics. The quotation comes from Thompson, “An Aesthetic of the Cool: West African Dance,” in African forum II (1972): 87.
14 Robert Farris Thompson, “An Introduction to Trans-Atlantic Black Art History: Remarks in Anticipation of a Coming Golden Age of Afro-America,” in Discovering Afro-America, ed. Roger D. Abrahams and John F. Szwed (Leyden: E. J. Brill, 1975), pp. 64, 67.
15 Thompson, Aesthetic.
16 What these professional innocents and seekers-after-wholeness project upon reality is the ability of mystic words to help us recapture earlier experiences—a kind of “creative regression” operating upon the individual and on society in general. All seem to promulgate the small-is-beautiful view of humanity, which elevates the agricultural, pastoral, sometimes even the hunting-and-gathering community to a place of honor because of their simplicity and their relative naturalness! I’ll refrain from commenting on this Rousseauvian and Utopian vision, except by implication—the lives of the “simple” villagers who have created and maintained these stories hardly conforms to anyone’s idyllic vision of anything.
17 Marcel Griaule, Conversations with Ogotomêlli (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965): p. 21.
18 Cf. Sammi Metelerkamp, Outa Karel’s Stories (London: Macmillan & Co., 1914), pp. 70–77.
19 Cf. Susan Feldman, African Myths and Tales (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1963), pp. 170–73.
20 Camara, Tales.
21 This information comes from Deirdre LaPin, Story, Medium and Masque: the Idea and Art of Yoruba Storytelling (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International, 1977).
22 Donald Cosentino, African Arts 13, no. 3 (May 1980): 54–57.
23 Ben-Amos’s monograph
, Sweet Words: Storytelling Events in Bini (Philadelphia: ISHI, 1975), details this changeover in roles and styles between village and town contexts.
Part I
Tales of Wonder from the Great Ocean of Story
Introduction
T
he emphasis in the introduction on the unique features of Black African performance may have created the impression that the subcontinent is a cultural entity with few connections to other areas of the Old World. But as the stories throughout this book will attest, that is far from the case. In many areas, the connection is a direct one: native cultures have been strongly influenced by Mediterranean and Middle Eastern forms brought in with Islam. And in a number of other ways, too, Black African traditional practices can be seen as part-and-parcel of an Old World cultural complex.
In addition, as many of the stories in this section testify, the folk or fairy tale as Westerners are accustomed to think of it is also widely found here—although Africanized both in form and content. It seems useful, then, to introduce the reader to African tales through a few of the familiar ones that are in international circulation. Included are stories in the general mold of “The Race of the Tortoise and the Hare,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” as well as some of the Br’er Rabbit stories, such as “Tar Baby.”
Here, then, you will find the familiar wonder-tale patterns of the passing of the multiple tests, the progression of magical helpers, the winning of the king’s beautiful daughter. In “The Three Tests,” for instance, we see the youngest son perform a set of marvelous tasks in order to free his older brothers from a spell and win in marriage the lovely princess. In “Rubiya,” the tests are devised by the sultan chief protecting his daughters. In a very complicated development of the pattern, the hero conquers, and adopts as brothers, various helping figures; then he wins the hands of a series of beautiful princesses and gives them, magnanimously, to one or another of the helpers. Obviously, he has larger things in mind. In “Profitable Amends,” we begin to see other more African patterns emerge. Here, the trickster, Yo, wins the beautiful girl through his powers of trading; but in this case, he does so for the benefit of Dada Segbo, his king, who needs a queen with whom to found the royal house. Unfortunately, as in so many of the African tales, the new mate turns out to be a sorceress and has to be sent back to “the bush,” from which she emerged.
Yo “trades up” for this sorceress through a series of clever exchanges, each of which brings about a recounting of his trading abilities in a song composed of cumulative verses that will remind the reader of “For Want of a Nail the Horse Was Lost” or “The House That Jack Built.” A similar technique, chronicling progressive disasters, but driving toward a more positive end—the hero’s attainment of the chieftancy—is to be found in “The Hare’s Hoe.” In a fanciful retelling of the tale of the tortoise and the hare, “The Tortoise and the Falcon,” we see the racing sequence combined with that of the hero’s quest for the chief’s lovely daughter. Here, Hare goes into a partnership with Tortoise in competition with Falcon.
This section begins with two stories that turn on the use of a password. In the first, reminiscent of Hansel and Gretel, it is employed as a defense against the cannibal-ogre who (naturally) wants to eat the young girl, Demazana. In the other, a version of “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” (but with a twist), the boy who discovers the cave has a brother who unsuccessfully tries to use the password to repeat the deception.
The section ends with another tale of a familiar type, one related to “Jack and the Beanstalk,” but taking a wonderful turn, the fight at the center of the narrative is given a cosmological explanation that provides insight into how such stories may be made to signify in a traditional culture.
1
Demane and Demazana
Once upon a time, a brother and sister who were twins and orphans, being poorly treated at home, were obliged to run away from their relatives. The boy’s name was Demane, the girl’s Demazana.
They went to live in a cave that had two holes to let in air and light, the entrance to which was protected by a very strong door with a fastening inside. Demane went out hunting by day, and told his sister that she was not to roast any meat while he was absent, lest the cannibals should discover their retreat by the smell. Whenever he returned, he would sing this song and his sister would let him in:
Demazana, Demazana,
Child of my mother,
Open this cave to me.
The swallows can enter it.
It has two openings.
But then it happened that a cannibal overheard it.
The girl would have been quite safe if she had done as her brother commanded. But she was strongheaded, and one day she took some buffalo meat and put it on a fire to roast. The cannibal smelled the flesh cooking, and went to the cave, but found the door fastened. So he tried to imitate Demane’s voice, and asked to be let in by singing the song:
Demazana, Demazana,
Child of my mother,
Open this cave to me.
The swallows can enter it.
It has two openings.
Demazana said: “No. You are not my brother, for your voice is not like his at all.”
The cannibal went away, but after a little time came back again and spoke in another tone of voice: “Do let me in, my sister.”
Demazana, Demazana,
Child of my mother,
Open this cave to me.
The swallows can enter it.
It has two openings.
The girl answered: “Go away, you cannibal; your voice is hoarse, you are not my brother.”
So he went away and consulted with another cannibal. He said: “What must I do to obtain what I desire?” He was afraid to tell what his desire was, lest the other cannibal should want a share of the girl. His friend said: “You must burn your throat with a hot iron.”
He did so, and then no longer spoke hoarsely. Again he presented himself before the door of the cave, and sang:
Demazana, Demazana,
Child of my mother,
Open this cave to me.
The swallows can enter it.
It has two openings.
The girl was deceived, and believing her brother had come back from hunting, she opened the door. The cannibal went in and seized her, but as she was being carried away, she dropped some ashes here and there along the path. Soon after this, Demane, who had found nothing to eat that day but a swarm of bees and their honey, returned and found his sister gone. He guessed what had happened, and by means of the ashes followed the path until he came to where the cannibal, Zim, lived. The cannibal’s family was out gathering firewood, but he was at home and had just put Demazana in a big bag, where he intended to keep her till the fire was made.
Entering the room, Demane said: “Give me water to drink, father.” Zim replied: “I will if you will promise not to touch my bag.” Demane promised. Then Zim went to get some water, and while he was away, Demane took his sister out of the bag and put the bees in it, after which they both hid.
When Zim came with the water, his wife and son and daughter came also with firewood. He said to his daughter: “There is something nice in the bag; go bring it.” She went and put her hand in the bag, but the bees stung her hand, and she called out: “It is biting.” He sent his son, and afterwards, his wife, but always the same thing happened. He got angry at them and kicked them out of his house. He put a block of wood in the doorway so Damazana couldn’t run away. Then he opened the bag himself. The bees swarmed out and stung his head; his eyes swelled up so that he couldn’t see.
There was a little hole in the thatch and through this he forced his way. He jumped about howling with pain. Then he ran and fell headlong into a pond, where his head stuck fast in the mud and he became a block of wood, like the stump of a tree. The bees made their home in the stump, but no one could get their honey because when any one tried, his hand stuck fast.
Demane and Dem
azana then took all Zim’s possessions, which were numerous and great, and they became wealthy people.
—Kaffir*
* Complete bibliographic information for the tales will be found in the Bibliography, this page.
2
The Password
Good! There were six thieves. They were the chiefs of all thieves. Their name was Adjotogan. Good. There was a mountain full of gold. No one knew that gold was inside it. Only these six thieves knew. They slept there. Good. Whatever they stole, they put inside this mountain. The mountain was their house.
There was a father who had eight sons. He called them one day and asked each of them what he wanted to become. “I am an old man. Tell me what you want to be.”
The first son said he wanted to become a mason.
The second said, “I want to become a carpenter.”
The third said he wanted to be a farmer.
The fourth said, “I want to become a great thief.”
The fifth said, “I want to become a trader.” The sixth said, “I want to become a liar.”
The seventh said, “I am going to the forest to cut down wood, and I will sell it in the market.”
The eighth said, “I will also get wood and sell it.”
The elder of the two youngest sons was called Jean, the younger, Joseph. They began to go to the forest for firewood, and they sold the firewood for a franc a bundle. When Jean sold a bundle of wood, he spent the money he got for it. Joseph saved his earnings. This went on.