Oral Literature as Source for Written Literature in Yorùbá

Akínwùmí Ìṣọ̀lá[1]

I.          The apparent neglect of children’s literature in African Languages by creative writers and critics alike raises fundamental questions about our conception of the role literature plays in the socialisation of the child. Whereas the adult Yorùbá has a good number of literature books (many of them well-written) to choose from, the child hardly has any respectable choice. The unbelievably poor content quality and low literary standard of the few that exist (some of them mere translations from the dubious originals) cannot fail to embarrass anyone who cares about what our children should read.

            I am painfully aware of being out of my depth in the area of current theories on educational methodology, but with the growing global recognition of the powers of literature, I find it necessary to publicly lament our inability to liberate ourselves from the cobwebs of colonial and neo-colonial delusion that is preventing us from giving to our children a body of written literature that can equip them better for the future struggles ahead.

            What I intend to do in this paper therefore is first to discuss what used to be readily available as oral literature for children among the Yorùbá but which is fast disappearing, then to review the present situation with an attempt to explain what went wrong and finally to suggest possible guidelines for remedial action that may lead to an improvement of written literature for children.

II         Language is the abiding place of culture and literature provides its illumination. If culture denotes, according to Geertz;

an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate and develop their knowledge about, and attitudes towards life (Geertz, C. 1975: 89).

The potent tool usually used for communicating, perpetuating and developing that knowledge is oral literature. The socialization of children into Yorùbá culture is through poetic language where rhythm is deliberately foregrounded. In fact, at the very beginning, it is all rhythmic sound and movement with no intention of any verbal communication. Any patterned sound and any patterned movement would do. Although the intention here is to pacify the crying child, the action indirectly sensitises the child to rhythm in sound and movement. This may be the origin of the observation that the African race is more sensitive to rhythm (in poetry and dance) than most other races.

            A little later, real words are introduced. Although the child does not yet understand any speech, he is now getting accustomed to the sound patterns of the language in addition to the rhythm in popular lullabies like:

                                    Iya rẹ̀ o ò

                                    Wáá gbé e o!

                                    (Mother,

                                    Come and carry your child).

                                    Taa ló nà án o?

                                    Ìyá ẹ̀ ni

                                    Ó gbọ́mú rodò,

                                    (Who beat this child?

                                    It’s the mother.

                                    She has gone to the river with her breasts

                                    She’ll soon be back).

                                    Ògbùró o,

                                    Kò roko,

                                    Ògbùró o, kò rodò

                                    Bó bá ji a gbọ́bẹ̀ kaná

                                    Jẹba tan a sekùn rondo.

                                    Ọmọ ọlọ́rọ̀ tii jẹyin awó.

                                    (Ògbùró (name of child) he goes to no farm

                                    Ògbùró, he goes to no river

                                    He wakes up and warms the stew,

                                    He eats ẹba, his bally becomes extended.

                                    It’s the rich man’s son who eats guinea fowl’s eggs).

            or

                                    Délé ńkọ́ o?

                                    Ó wà nílé o,

                                    Ó sùn jabura sì yàrá o.

                                    (Where is Dele?

                                    He’s at home.

                                    He’s fast asleep inside the room).

There are numerous other examples (see Sheba, 1988) which can be a rich source of material for a writer of literature for children who want highly patterned poetry where content is not emphasised.

           

            The content of the poems gradually changes when the child has started to speak. To facilitate language acquisition tongue-twisters are available to drill the child on the pronunciation of certain consonant combinations, e.g.,

                                    Àgbọn ń gbágbọn gàgbọn

                        (A coconut fruit is carrying a coconut fruit and climbing a coconut palm).

                       

                        Adìẹ funfun má funfun nífunfunkífunfun mọ́

                        (White hen, stop being white in such an objectionably white fashion).

                        Ọ̀pọ̀bọ gbọ́bọ bọ̀gbẹ́

                        Bóò bá tètè gbọ́bọ bọ̀gbẹ́

                        Ọ̀bọ ó gbe ọ bọ̀gbẹ́.

                        (he kills a monkey and hides it in the bush.

                        If you don’t quickly throw the monkey into the bush.

                        The monkey will throw you into the bush).

Strictly speaking, the tongue-twisting is untranslatable. The consonants are arranged in such a way as to make pronunciation hazardous.

            Similar to tongue-twisters, but serving as aide-memoirs for counting, are certain mnemonics. They are so composed to help the child remember counting from one to ten. Couched in poetic language, they are easier to recall than dry numbers. Here are some examples:

                        Eni bí enì                     (1)

                        Èjì bí èjì                       (2)       

                        Ẹta ǹ tagbá                  (3)       

                        Ẹ̀rin wọ̀rọ̀kọ́                (4)

                        Àrún  ǹ gbódó             (5)

                        Ẹ̀fà ti èlè                      (6)

                        Bóró n bóro                 (7)

                        Aro ní bàtá                  (8)

                        Mo jálákẹ̀sán               (9)

                        Gbangba lẹ̀wá                         (10)

           

The following one serves both as aide-memoirs and also as practice in long-breathing. It is a poem you have to recite from line one to ten in one long breath. If you stop to breathe you have to start all over again.

                        Ká múgbá lámù fi dámù, ó denì,

                        Ká múgbá lámù ká fi dámù, ó dèjì,

                        Ká múgbá lámù ká fi dámù, ó dẹ̀ta,

                        Ká múgbá lámù ká fi dámù, ó dẹ̀rin

                        Ká múgbá lámù ká fi dámù, ó dàrún

                        Ká múgbá lámù ká fi dámù, ó dẹ̀fà

                        Ká múgbá lámù ká fi dámù, ó dèje

                        Ká múgbá lámù ká fi dámù, ó dẹ̀jọ

                        Ká múgbá lámù ká fi dámù, ó dẹ̀sán

                        Ká múgbá lámù ká fi dámù, ó dẹ̀wá.

(Lift the calabash off the water-pot and cover it back, it is one.

Lift the calabash off the water-pot and cover it back, it is two.

Lift the calabash off the water-pot and cover it back, it is three.

Lift the calabash off the water-pot and cover it back, it is four.

Lift the calabash off the water-pot and cover it back, it is five.

Lift the calabash off the water-pot and cover it back, it is six.

Lift the calabash off the water-pot and cover it back, it is seven.

Lift the calabash off the water-pot and cover it back, it is eight.

Lift the calabash off the water-pot and cover it back, it is nine.

Lift the calabash off the water-pot and cover it back, it is ten.)

            These poems provide solid foundations in language acquisition and the fruits of the experience are reaped throughout life.

            Some of these poems actually introduce the child the first rudiments of language analysis. There are short poems that describe pints of articulation for certain sounds, and others that describe body position or body movement for certain activities. The following poem describes various positions of the lips, cheeks and the head when particular sounds are pronounced:

                        Eni tí ó ó pe tọ́rọ́ a sẹnu tọ́ọ́sín

                        Àgbà tí yóó pa sísì a fẹ èrìgì

                        Àpèwúùkẹ́ là á pÀwááwù.

                        Àpèforísọ̀pó lẹgbẹ̀ẹ́dọ́gbọ̀n.

                       

                        (To say tọ́rọ́ your lips protrude

                        To say sísì the lips must spread

                        To say Àwááwù, your cheeks are blown.

                        Ẹgbẹ̀ẹ́dọ́gbọ̀n  is said as if you would knock your head against a post).

The child enjoys the poem, but the embers of the future linguist in him are being stoked.

            Special bodily postures, assumed in some daily activities, is the subject of the following poem:

                        Báá nùdí, ìkún làá mú,

                        Ẹni tí yóò lé tìróò, a tẹ́ pẹpẹ ẹnu.

                        Òṣùkú-ǹ-sùkú,

                        Orí ẹni ti ń lọta kò níí gbé bìkan.

                        (To clean your anus, your knees knock each other,

                        To put antimony on your eye lashes, you spread and flatten your lips.

                        Up-and-down

                        The head of one who grinds pepper cannot be stable.)

Although these are common every day activities, the humorous poem will force the child to pay special attention when next he sees any one engaged in any of the activities mentioned.

           

            Although proverbs are the special preserve of elders, the fact that they are used every so often in the presence of children sometimes sets the child thinking. Proverbs arise from close observation of phenomena, they are like axioms, widely accepted for their intrinsic value and self-evident truth. So, when adults want to present any information as universal truth, they do so through a proverb. The value of proverbs to the child however is that some of them are sources of amazing summaries of empirical observation, the veracity of which the child may want to investigate later in life. For example the proverb:

                                                Bílẹ̀ bá ká akọni mọ́

                                                A jẹ̀dò ẹkùn

(When the valiant is about to be humiliated, he eats tiger liver, i.e., takes poison).

I had wondered from the first day I heard this proverb, some forty years ago, whether tiger liver is indeed poisonous. There is another proverb that says:

                                   

                                    Bí sòbíà yóò bá degbò, Olúgbànbe là á ké sí.

                                   

(when a guinea-worm attack leaves a sore, you should seek the help of the Olúgànbe plant).

The proverb may be used to illustrate relevant points, but the direct observation it contains points to a remedy for guinea-worm sore, which may have a general application for other stubborn sores. Proverbs like the above keep the child wondering. They keep him asking whether statements contained in them are true, and they may trigger off future investigations and important discoveries.

            Of the literary genres for children, folktales are of great value for indirectly introducing the child to the socio-political problems of the society because the folktales of a people tend to serve as commentaries on their fears and aspirations. A community of poor people will invariably create in their folktales desirable reversals of roles: the poor miraculously becoming rich. A rich community will prefer folktales where rogues and other criminals are punished, So,  in the Yorùbá society, folktales are woven around two important themes (among others):

           

                                    Àlá Ọ̀ṣọ́ (dreams of prosperity – for the poor)

                        and      Àlá ìṣẹ́ (nightmares of bad fortune – for the rich).

            By listening to these folktales therefore, the child may begin to have a feeling of some of the social and economic relations that exist in the society. Through folktales, he acquires some of the humorous explanations for certain phenomena. Folktales in general, because they contain allegorical fantasy, tend ample practice when he takes his turn at story telling sessions. Serious efforts to adapt folktales for written children literature will be very rewarding. Riddles are also another source of practice for decoding metaphors.

            The various songs that normally accompany many activities in the community also provide good source materials for written literature. Appropriate  songs accompany wrestling matches, moonlight games and some simple social ceremonies.

            In the Yorùbá society of not too long ago, the literary practices described above were robustly evident. Today the picture is embarrassingly very different.

III.       Culture is behaviour typical of a group or class. But since that group or class is of living people with a  history, culture cannot escape the effects of the course of history. This dynamic nature of culture explains the present cultural confusion in the Yorùbá society. Colonialism intervened and we now have significantly different social and economic relations of production which now determine our social order.

            The old social institutions that ensured the continuity of certain cultural practices have become irrelevant and the discontinuation of ceremonies connected with them has caused the death of the literature they engendered.

            The rude intervention of two foreign religions, active companions of colonialism, has dealt devastating blows to many major aspects of Yorùbá culture. The fatal effects of the foreign religious disaster have led to the virtual disappearance of Yorùbá oral poetry for children. What we now have in its place is a pitiable parody of western nursery rhymes taught by half-baked local teachers in senile repetition. Even illiterate women hardly now remember good nursery rhymes in Yorùbá.

            An illiterate wife of a semi-illiterate worker composed a rhyme that utterly embarrassed her husband and friends. Because the husband was fond of calling everybody “bastard”, the wife grew to like the sound of the word and started singing the rhyme to pacify her crying child:

                                    Tájù bastard

                                    Tájù bastard

                                    Bàbá ẹ̀ bastard 

            All important social ceremonies have completely been taken over by semi-illiterate men of God who continually apply the form of faith, predicting the eschatology as if religion and morality were happy couples.

            The explanation for all this, of course, is that religion is produced by real-life economic conditions and that is why it has such a strong hold on men. It is the result of a continuation of “a social order is which men’s destiny escapes their control” (C. Slaugher, 1980:31). They have to look for sucour somewhere, anywhere. Some oppressed Nigerians move rapidly from one religion to another looking for salvation from a problem created by the oppressive economic conditions.

            The Moslem belief of man-as-slave and God as ruthlessly revengeful on the one hand and the Christian notion of the ineradicable sin of man and the horrible punishment prepared for the unbelieving on the other hand, as forcefully preached by dervishes, have sufficiently battered the new generation into a state of near mindlessness that precludes thought, let alone creative analysis. With such fatal lack of dialogue with the natural environment, men now rely on religious teachings to supply their songs and poetry, ignoring the substance of reality for the chloroform of religion.

            The average Yorùbá child today has not learnt much Yorùbá nursery rhymes. They all chant “bah bah black sheep” in a country where the sheep hardly produces any wool. He cannot tell any Yorùbá folktales. He has never heard any tongue-twisters repeated. He cannot remember any proverbs. The most popular Yorùbá song he loves is “Ó sé o Jésù” (Thank you Jesus). He does not know his natural environment. And because he has not mastered the Yorùbá language, he has no access to information about Yorùbá culture. It is not his fault.  He is a victim of an oppressive socio-economic condition which has attacked the very source of cultural information. 

            In spite  of the fact that the foreign religious drug is being advocated with hysterical enthusiasm, our society remains evidently not yet redeemed. So, we have the urgent task of vigorously struggling against these redemptive creeds that have deformed our culture.

IV.       Before discussing possible guidelines for remedial action, it is necessary to emphasise this fact that any political struggle that does not have a strong cultural revival policy is ignorantly cutting off a rich area of our possible contributions to world civilisation. I like to quote Terry Eagleton here:

Imperialism is not only the exploitation of cheap labour power, raw materials and easy markets, but the uprooting of languages and customs – not just the imposition of foreign armies, but of alien ways of experiencing. It manifests itself not only in company balance sheets and in air-bases, but can be traced to the most intimate roots of speech and signification. In such situations which are (right here with us) culture is so vitally bound up with one’s common identity that there is no need to argue for its relation to political struggle. It is arguing against it which would seem incomprehensible.

                                                            (T. Eagleton, 1983:215).

Although the new cultural policy provides for the revival of relevant aspects of our culture, it is clear that we cannot bring back that past era of a glorious traditional Yorùbá culture. It is gone forever. In fact, the belief that if you went deep into the villages in the rural areas you would still find authentic aspects of our culture, is erroneous. Christian and Moslem songs have virtually replaced Yorùbá traditional songs at marriage and funeral ceremonies.

            In the present circumstances, the first urgent step to take is the launching of a massive programme for the collection of all extant oral children literature-lullabies; nursery rhymes; tongue-twisters: counting mnemonics; language games/codes; moonlight game songs; wrestling songs; riddles and jokes; proverbs; folktales and others. These should be extensively collected and preserved.

            Since our goal is the generation of written literature for children, the second step will be to encourage gifted creative artists to be guided by such collected materials in writing literature books for children. In writing such books however, writers should do the selection of material and the creative presentation in the best way to get the relevant progressive message across to the children. There should be an improvement on the traditional mode of presentation which exhibited a lot of glaring contradictions.

                                    Àdá lẹnu tálíkà

                                    Igbó la ó fi sán.

(A poor man’s mouth is a mere cutlass, We’ll use it to clear the bush).

                        or

                                    Ẹjọ́ olówó kọ́

                                    Bí tálíkà bá pọ̀ o.

                                    Bólówó ń se bẹbẹ

                                    Òtòsì a roko igi.

                                    (It is not the rich men’s fault

                                    That there are many wretched people

                                    When the rich has a celebration

                                    The poor will fetch firewood).

When such poems are used, they should be put in such contexts that will clearly show the contradictions, and countered by such other poems that present a correct assessment of the conditions. Positive poems should be preferred to reactionary ones. Example of positive poems are:

                                    Ìwọ kọ́ lo dá mi,

                                    O se ń sọ̀rọ̀ bí Olódùmarè

                                    Ìwọ kọ́ lo dá mi

                        (You are not my creator

                        Why are you talking like God the almighty.

                        You are not my creator).

   or

                        Àìtọ́wọ̀ọ́ rìn ejò ló ń sekú pa wọ́n,

                        Bọ́ká bá saájú, tí paraṃọ́lẹ̀ tẹ̀lé e,

                        Tí òjòlá ń wọ́ riri bọ̀ lẹ́yìn

                        Taa ló le dúró?

                       

(It is because snakes do not move about together that they are easily killed.

If the python takes the lead, followed by the viper.

And the boa-constrictor comes from the rear,  Who would wait?)

            Folktales that teach the values of team work and dedicated struggle against oppression should be chosen over those that present the condition of the poor as hopeless

            We are not advocating here a naked presentation of any ideology at this level. That kind of approach may be counterproductive. What we are saying is that the stories or poems themselves should be such that can help children get a correct understanding of their society. There is plenty of room for good-natured fantasy and creative imagination, but care should be taken that education is not tarred with the same brush as religion.

Bibliography

Awoniyi, Adedeji (1986),  Òkédìran àti Òkèlè Iyán. Ibadan: Vantage Publications. Ọ̀pọ̀lọ́ Ọmọlẹwà.  Ibadan: Vantage Publications. Ọgbọ́n Agbọ́njù. Ibadan. Vantage Publications.  Ọba Agbáragànmi. Ibadan: Vantage Publications.

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Geertz, Clifford (1975), The Interpretation of Cultures. London: Hutchinson.

Graham, Phyllis (1972), The Jesus Hozx. London: Leslie Frewin.

Òkédìjí, Ọladẹjọ (1972), Ọ̀gá Ni Bùkọ́lá. Ibadan: Macmillan.

Seldan, Raman (1985), A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. Kentucky: The University Press.

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Slaughter, Cliff (1980), Marxism, Ideology and Literature. London: Macmillan.

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[1] This paper was published as Isola, Akinwumi (1990), ‘Oral Literature as Source for Written Literature in Yorùbá’, in Seminar Series No 2, edited by T.M. Ilesanmi, L.O. Adewọle and B.A. Oyetade. Ile-Ifẹ, Nigeria: Department of African Languages and Literatures.