Fieldwork, Orality, Text: Ethnographic and Historical Fields of Knowledge in Colonial and Postcolonial Gabon

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 47-77
Author(s):  
John M. Cinnamon
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Historical Anthropology ◽  
British Colonialism ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Equatorial Africa ◽  
Written Traditions ◽  
Over Time

I can claim no direct pedigree from African Studies at Wisconsin, but one of my own graduate school mentors, Robert Harms, benefitted from David Henige's and Jan Vansina's influence; all three have profoundly marked my own approaches to the historical anthropology of equatorial Africa. In this paper I draw on David Henige's illuminating and still relevant insights into the problem of “feedback,” in light of a key methodological preoccupation in my own discipline of anthropology – “fieldwork.” In particular I want to suggest how ethnographic fields are formed over time through a layering process that involves ongoing cycles of intertwined oral and written traditions.Henige's 1973 article, “The Problem of Feedback in Oral Tradition,” prefigures by a full decade Terence Ranger's highly influential essay on “The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa.” In that 1973 article, Henige argued that given traditions were “dynamic over time.” British Indirect Rule had led the Fante of the Gold Coast to devise new oral traditions in order to take advantage of opportunities of British Colonialism. In particular, he cites the ways printed sources, especially the Bible, but also the Qur'an, colonial sources, publications, and later scholarly works, have all found their way back into oral accounts. Henige also suggests that pre-colonial oral traditions also would have been continually reworked; present practices suggest considerable adaptability and flexibility in the past.

Impossible to Disprove Yet Impossible to Believe: the Unforgiving Epistemology of Deep-Time Oral Tradition

2009 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 127-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Henige
Keyword(s):  
American Indian ◽  
Carrying Capacity ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Of Affairs

This is not a real old time myth but it is what they say now, and it must have been like that.This man from Ulimang was highly skilled in the art of warfare—like Eisenhower.A Tahitian businessman who provides ‘Polynesian’ entertainment for tourists in Hawaii with a young Marquesan man whom he took to Samoa to be tattooed by their artistsfollowing designs recorded by early European visitors.… as for oral Traditions, what certainty can there be in them? What foundation of truth can be laid upon the breath of man? How do we see the reports vary, of those things which our eyes have seen done? How do they multiply in their passage, and either grow, or die upon hazards?Writing about American Indian reactions to their discovery of large fossil remains, Adrienne Mayor observes in passing that “[f]olklore scholars now generally accept that oral traditions about historical events endure for about a thousand years, although some oral myths about geological and astronomical events can be reliably dated to about seven thousand years.” Mayor's chosen task is to demonstrate that American Indian legends suggest that they rightly regarded fossils as the remains of long extinct megafauna populations. In aid of this, Mayor accepts these arguments in her own work. While this claim might seem extravagantprima facie, and while most folklorists would disown Mayor's claim, she is not without support from the work of a relatively small, but not uninfluential (and possibly growing), cadre of anthropologists, mythographers, geologists, and historians, whose efforts on behalf of deep-time oral tradition I address here.Some interesting—even intriguing—things have been happening recently in discussions of the carrying capacity of oral tradition—its long-term historicity, in particular.À laMayor, the thrust of this is to credit tradition with being able to preserve “intact” various pieces of information for as long as tens of thousands of years. To the historian interested in the reality of the past in oral societies, this state of affairs is challenging, perplexing, and no doubt to some, highly promising. If, for instance, it can be demonstrated that certain information in oral data is thousands of years old and at the same time an accurate recollection, then reservations about much later (say, several centuries old) orally transmitted information might need to be reassessed, and with such rethinking would come new ways to approach great swaths of the past.

Oral Tradition and Sierra Leone History

1985 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 65-72
Author(s):  
C. Magbaily Fyle
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Human Problem ◽  
Written Sources

This paper attempts to examine specific problems encountered with the collection and interpretation of oral traditions in Sierra Leone and ways in which these were approached. I will suggest with examples that problems facing oral traditions are not always peculiar to them, as the researcher with written sources faces some similar problems.Much has been said about methodology in collecting oral tradition for it to warrant much discussion here. One point that has been, brought out, however, is that methods which work well for one situation might prove disastrous or unproductive in another. It is thus necessary to bring out specific examples of situations encountered so as to improve our knowledge of the possible variety of approaches that could be used, while emphasizing that the researcher, as a detective, should have enough room for initiative.For the past eight years, I have been collecting oral histories from among the Yalunka (Dialonke) and Koranko of Upper Guinea, both southern Mande peoples, and the Limba and Temne, grouped under the ‘West Atlantic.’ Extensive exploration into written sources has indicated that similar problems arise in both cases. In both situations, the human problem was evident. For the oral traditionist this problem is more alive as he is dealing first hand with human beings. A number of factors therefore, like his appearance, approach to his informants, his ability to ‘identify’ with the society in question, may affect the information he receives. These could provide reasons for distortion which are not necessarily present with written sources.

scholarly journals LESSON FROM THE PAST, KNOWLEDGE FOR THE FUTURE: ROLES OF HUMAN MEMORIES IN EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI NARRATIVES IN MENTAWAI, INDONESIA

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juniator Tulius
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Andaman Islands ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
Tectonic Plates ◽  
Mentawai Islands ◽  
The Past ◽  
Active Tectonic

<p>Oral traditions are an important part of the culture of most Indonesian communities. Mentawai, an ethnic group residing in Mentawai Islands of Indonesia, has various genres of oral tradition. Traditional knowledge and local wisdom pertaining to natural disasters are also part of their oral tradition. Mentawai Islands are located along active tectonic plates, where earthquakes commonly occur at various magnitudes. Records show that<br />great earthquakes and tsunamis hit Mentawai Islands several times in 1797, 1833, 2007, and 2010. Surprisingly, earthquakes occurring some hundred years ago do not seem to appear in Mentawai oral tradition. This is slightly different from communities in Simeulue, Solomon, and Andaman Islands whose natives still remember some devastating catastrophes that occurred in the past. People’s collective memories play an important role in upholding significant messages from past natural disasters. Some of<br />those messages contain important lessons on how to cope with natural disasters if they should occur again. As a result, the majority of inhabitants of those islands survived future catastrophes because they remembered the lessons contained in their oral tradition. This is totally different in Mentawai where more than 500 people died during the 2010 earthquake and tsunami. Because of this, the Mentawai case becomes an interesting topic of study. This paper aims, therefore, to find out the reasons behind this apparent<br />lack of oral tradition pertaining to the earthquakes and tsunamis that occurred several hundred years ago.</p>

The Displacement of Indigenous Oral History

2019 ◽  
pp. 16-39
Author(s):  
Nēpia Mahuika
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Folk Songs ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Past Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Fields Of Study

This chapter examines the evolution of oral history and oral tradition as two separate fields of study with their own associations, journals, theories, and definitions. It considers how these fields have been viewed and engaged with by indigenous writers, with a particular emphasis on scholarship out of Aotearoa New Zealand. Oral history and oral tradition have often been considered the same, but over the past century have been presented as two distinctively different fields with their own theories, methods, and emphases. This chapter surveys the seminal writing and definitions popularized in oral history and tradition, which include the idea of oral history as a methodology and interview practice and oral traditions as predominantly the study of ballads and folk songs. It explores some of the arguments about the orality or textuality of oral sources, and the differing focus oral traditionalists and oral historians have proposed in their evolving theories and politics.

Desert Oral Traditions

2018 ◽  
pp. 167-203
Author(s):  
Clinton Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Song Of The Sea ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

The Bedouin oral literary product—proverbs, genealogies, tribal stories, and poetry—shares many likenesses with these genres as they appear in the Hebrew Bible. This commonality pertains, even though some Bedouin oral traditions survived until the late twentieth century CE, when they were still heard recited, while the biblical traditions existed orally only until their ancient transcription in the Bible. This chapter brings examples from the various genres of oral tradition in both societies, comparing them in form, content, background, and initiative, and offering insights into their use in the biblical texts. Bedouin poetry also sheds light on the Bible’s oldest poems, “The Song of the Sea” and “The Song of Deborah.”

The Contemporary Significance of What Has Been. Three Approaches to Remembering the Past: Lineage, Gada, and Oral Tradition

2006 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 53-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hermann Amborn
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Linear Time ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Word Memory ◽  
System Generation ◽  
The Common ◽  
Hill Farming ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Common Memory

For current discourse in the southwest Ethiopian hill farming populations of the Burji, Konso, and D'iraaša, the present time constitutes a spatiotemporal system of coordinates in which modern attitudes to the past and tradition intersect or are knotted with group “memories.”What do we mean by memory? Who remembers? And how? The word “memory” is used here to refer to the common memory of a local group of people, in other words the cultural processing of memory.In the course of time such memories have manifested themselves in different ways. This paper examines why certain events are remembered and how their transmission is expressed. Linked to this is the question of the meaning (Sinngehalt) of memory. The question of the relationship between memory and so-called real historical events is thus only secondary. Three types of possible approach are discussed in this paper: mythical time, referring to mytho-historical traditions of origin; cyclical time, as seen in the Gada system (generation grading system); and linear time, as shown in the genealogical lines of specific lineages.In their traditions, all three population groups refer to a common original settlement area in Liban, to the east of the areas they occupy today. References to Liban, with varying geographical locations, are also found in the oral traditions of many Oromo-speaking groups. Oromo nationalists claim Liban as the common original home of all Oromo. In this paper, however, Oromo-speaking groups are not discussed, since we are mainly concerned with the Burji, Konso, and D'iraaša, for whom, according to their Liban traditions, the exodus was the moment of their separation from the Oromo-speaking Borana, who lived in Liban together with them up to that point.

scholarly journals For Oral Tradition (But Not Against Braudel)

1978 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 351-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Vansina
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
World War ◽  
History Writing ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Waves ◽  
Fernand Braudel

One wonders what Fernand Braudel and the school of the Annales have done to become a kind of Trojan Horse for the wholesale condemnation of the historical value of oral tradition. Yet they are the banner raised by W.G. Clarence-Smith in a recent article in his journal to preach jihad against its historical value. Clarence-Smith claims that the historiographical revolution effected by Annales has resulted in the definitive exclusion of oral traditions from the halls of Clio. Oral traditions are at best ambiguous “signs” about the past and are very much of the present. They lack absolute chronology and they are selective, so away with them. If they be worthy of attention at all, let anthropologists and sociologists be concerned, save in a few rare instances where a historian wants to check on some European printed source. And even then, caveat emptor. Significantly, the article is not just the expression of the views of one person; rather it is symptomatic of much of the criticism which has been leveled at oral tradition, mostly by fasionable anthropologists. And it brings this criticism to its logical conclusion.But first a word about Braudel, the Annales, and oral tradition in general. The Annales School was founded by Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch before World War II. Fernand Braudel is its most distinguished exponent. His major theoretical pronouncements can be found in his Ecrits sur l'histoire, a collection of articles reprinted and published in 1969. This and his two major historical works should be read by those who want to know more about his views and ways of dealing with history. The basic tenets that members of the Annales School hold is that the history of events is but the spray of past developments; other time depths tell us more about the waves of the past. There is the time of the conjoncture, the trend, and the even longer time periods -- sometimes many centuries long -- the longue durée or long term. Successful history writing does not liminate the study of events, but analyzes them against the movement of these longer and deeper-running trends.

Oral Tradition and the History of Igala

1969 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. S. Boston
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Early Period ◽  
Time Span ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
Major Development ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Growth And Change

A wide range of contact with other peoples has tended to produce variety and divergence in Igala traditions concerning the origin of the kingship. To select one or other of these traditions for special emphasis, as was done in the past, is to misrepresent the nature of the corpus as a whole. Analysis of this complex body of tradition can be simplified by concentrating on three problems, the problem of divergence, the question of chronology, and the need to distinguish between the historical and the political functions of oral tradition. Divergence in Igala tradition reflects divisions within the clan system on which Igala political structure is based. But these differences of emphasis can be resolved if the time span covered by the legends is properly understood. These traditions open with a mythical or quasi-mythical period in which events are placed without reference to their sequence in time. Mythical thought is concerned with structure in the abstract, with form rather than with process. Thus it is argued that the early period of Igala history, where most of the divergence occurs, demonstrates the interaction of different principles of political growth and change, the time span being defined conventionally by associating each major development with one reign or generation. Dating from archaeological and ethnographic material suggests that a much longer time span is involved in Igala history than might be indicated by a superficial analysis of the oral traditions, based on genealogical counting.

scholarly journals DIGITAL PRACTICES TO ENHANCE INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE

2021 ◽  
Vol XLVI-M-1-2021 ◽  
pp. 273-278
Author(s):  
E. C. Giovannini ◽  
M. Lo Turco ◽  
A. Tomalini
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Scenic Design ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Intangible Cultural Heritage ◽  
Visual Storytelling ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Systematic Collection

Abstract. The term “cultural heritage” has been enriched with multiple contents in the last decades, partly thanks to the protection instruments developed by UNESCO. Despite the past, the cultural heritage is not limited to monuments and collections of objects. The term nowadays includes tangible and intangible cultural heritage (ICH). ICH includes traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants, such as oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts. Within this context, the Museum of “Passione di Sordevolo” preserves and spreads the cultural and social value of the largest representation of popular Christian theatre in Italy, called “La Passione di Sordevolo”. The paper presents the results of the research of the reconstructive modelling and visual storytelling project called "Digital historical scenic design". The project explores the use of digital technologies to create new content compatible with the Museum’s mission: dissemination, communication and valorization of the documentary heritage (photographs, sketches, drawings) and the systematic collection of the oral tradition of this theatrical tradition.

Archaeology and Oral Tradition: The Scientific Importance of Dialogue

2002 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. Whiteley
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
Scientific Archaeology

Scientific archaeology and indigenous oral traditions have long been estranged. While there appears to be something of a thaw in recent years, the terms of epistemological engagement are unclear. Are these different modes of constituting the past heuristically compatible at all? Or should they, as the postmodernists would avow, simply be treated as alternative narratives in the intractable culture wars, where the privileged truth-claims of science are dismissed as a spurious arrogance? Focusing on an example from Hopi oral tradition, this paper argues that objective archaeological explanation can gain a great deal, without any loss of analytical rigor, by treating oral traditions not as scientifically unassimilable myths but as a primary source of evidence and interpretation of past social formations. The need for dialogue, then, is important not just as a matter of multicultural diplomacy, but for the enhancement of scientific explanation itself.

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