1. Introduction[1]
There is no denying the fact that there is a great threat to the preservation of African oral tradition especially as the repositories of indigenous knowledge are dwindling in number as the old ones die off. It is a fact that efforts could be made to preserve this knowledge through documentation but the Department of African Languages and Literatures, Ọbáfẹ́mi Awólọ́wọ̀ University, Ile1-Ifẹ̀, Nigeria has gone a step further. It has designed a course called Certificate Course in Yorùbá Oral Literature which could help in the preservation of Yorùbá oral tradition.
This course is unique to Ọbáfẹ́mi Awólọ́wọ̀ Univeristy, Ilé-Ifẹ̀. The objectives of the course are to promote and develop the performance of Yorùbá oral poetry. It also aims to train students to identify, evaluate and perform the various genres of the poetry. Students taking the course are required to specialize in Yorùbá oral performance.
2. The Personnel
To achieve these aims, consultant traditional exponents are employed. A consultant traditional exponent must have a proven expertise in at least one genre of Yorùbá oral literature. He must also have, at least, eight to ten years of practical expertise. His duty is to teach and participate in the inquiring into Yorùbá oral tradition as shall be directed by the staff co-ordinator of the programme on Yorùbá oral literature and as shall be specified from time to time in the academic curriculum.
An academic staff with a good first degree and who is an acknowledge expertise in the Yorùbá oral tradition is put in charge of the consultant traditional exponents. This academic staff has practical working experience of more than ten years and he has the ability to teach and conduct inquiry on Yorùbá verbal art and related field. His duties are to teach, co-ordinate teaching by the consultant traditional exponents and conduct inquiry into various genres of the Yorùbá oral literature. He is also to perform all other duties expected of members of staff of his cadre and category.
3. The Student
To be eligible for admission, a candidate should normally have the General Certificate in Education at the Ordinary Level or its equivalent with passes (not necessarily at the credit level) in four subjects one of which must be Yorùbá. In addition, each candidate is expected to possess a potential ability to perform Yorùbá oral poetry. Acceptance of a candidate depends on his or her performance at an interview conducted by the Department. The duration of the course is one session. The students attending the course come from as far as the Yorùbá speaking areas of Benin Republic.
Although during the interview, the students have been made to be aware of how the course will be run, they still express their surprise when, on getting to the class, they met the traditional exponents. They little expect such type of teachers in a university environment. They also add that they did not know that somebody who is not a babaláwo (a diviner) could touch the paraphernalia of divination nor that students form one part of Yorùbá land could recite genres from other parts of the land eloquently.
4. The Programme
The Department has limited itself to teaching, at any one session, only three and, at any rate, not more than four of a score of the most viable genres of Yorùbá oral tradition. Thus, in addition to the trans-ethnic genre of Ifá and the pan-Yorùbá Ìjálá, the Department selects one, or at most, two other genres to teach in any session. Apart from Ifá and ìjálá, the Department has taught Ẹ̀sà and Alámọ̀. And there are others such as Olele, Ègè, Ìgbálá and Rárà, on each of which there exists already a body of information fit for proper instructions and expert consultant traditional exponents to handle them. No genre is considered which has no more than a provincial interest and expansion. And each has a unique contribution to make to learning.
The programme provides for intensive studies in performance in a chosen area of specialization in either Ìjálá, Ifá or any of the other genres. With respect to the student’s choice of genre of specialization, emphasis is laid on voice training, the use of formulae and the acquisition of repertoire. Several hours, every week, are devoted to practical training led by the consultant traditional exponent and the lecturer in charge of the course. The students are also required to attend as many traditional festivals as possible to give them first hand information about such festivals.
The students are taught the proper use of tape recorders to ensure clear recording and they are exposed to the use of other field equipment such as camera. They listen to Yorùbá poetry, recorded and live, with a view to identifying them auditorily. They study the sociological and historical significance of genres and examine the genres’ forms and contents.
On the academic sphere where all the academic staff of the Department takes part in the teaching, students are taught the important grammatical aspects of the language and their use by oral artists. The sound system of the language is also taught.
The students are also taught the origin of the Yorùbá people, their migration, their oral and written history and their relationship to other people in Nigeria and Africa. They are introduced to the Yorùbá orthography and the history of the development of the orthography. They are taught the genetic, typological and aerial classification of the language and the scholarship on the language over the years.
The Department expects that all the students would develop high level of proficiency in the performance of Yorùbá oral poetry. Each student is evaluated for attainment level through the performance and presentation of a genre in which he or she specializes. Award of certificates is dependent on both the successful completion of all coursework and distinction is awarded to a student whose work shows an exceptional high standard throughout the duration of the course.
5. Worthy of Emulation?
Although job placement and marketability have never been used to justify the programme, we are delighted to report that no graduate of the course, to date, has failed to find placement. They can be found in media houses, information establishments, the classrooms, cultural centres and in the palaces as chanters.
Some of the students have come back for their degree course in Yorùbá. In the class, they meet students who did not go through the certificate course. What we noticed is that students who went through the certificate course perform better in the degree course than those who did not go through the course. As a matter of fact, it is among the students who went through the certificate course that we were able to produce a first class student in the 1996/97 session. The department had not been able to produce one for a long time.
The admission of students with this certificate course to a degree course is not limited to our department. Some of them have been admitted into the Department of Music and that of Drama and they are performing very well in these departments. One of the former students of this course has graduated in the Department of Drama of the Ọbáfẹ́mi Awólọ́wọ̀ University, Ilé-Ifẹ̀, Nigeria and he has been employed as a member of the Faculty in the Department. Most of the actors in the same department come for this course to improve their proficiency in Yorùbá oral tradition.
The most eloquent argument, however, which persuaded the Department to establish the course is that the Yorùbá oral tradition offers an art form and an intellectual tradition worthy to be transmitted from one generation to another. It also has proved to be an efficient vehicle and repository for information of interdisciplinary interests.
[1] An earlier version of this paper was published as L.O. Adewole (1998), ‘Towards a Solution to the Preservation of African Oral Tradition: The Ifẹ Example’, AAP 56: 203-206.
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