The Failure of Oral Tradition: A Case of African Beliefs and Customs (original) (raw)
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The last quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed the outward and inordinate expression of European's quest for territorial occupation of Africa in order to massively control and brutally exploit African resources for their benefits. To achieve their selfish economic and political interests, the rapacious colonizers deliberately distorted and grossly misinterpreted African historical accounts. History was used as a tool to becloud realities and make Africans to look docile and timid. Africa was regarded by European historians and historical writers as a continent whose history only began with European intervention in Africa. Whenever they write about Africa, derogative words and statements emanating from their imaginations which have no respect for African past overhaul their writings about African continent. Hence, evidences available and utilized by African scholars have shown that the use of oral traditions have contributed immensely to the reconstruction and value of African historiography. This study examines the European conception of African history and contributions of Africanist historians, leading to the establishment of the historiographical tradition. Emphasis is laid on oral traditions as a valid and viable source in the reconstruction of the histories of several localities not only in Nigeria but in West Africa as a whole.
Before the advent of the European, every existing African community had its own means of education. Like the Kasena, the worldview of most communities is inextricably woven into the fibre of their oral traditions. Kasena oral traditions express beliefs, values, ideas and other socio-cultural negotiations that depict their philosophy of life. Quite apart from the novelty of technique of Kasena oral traditions, they serve as road guides to their endeavours and offer a better understanding of the spiritual and mundane worlds. Oral traditions embody the sense of time, place and identity of the Kasena in this multicultural world. The ways and manner to practice good hygiene and conserve the environment are embodied in proverbs, whereas the code of conduct and several other social negotiations are carried in folktales and puzzles. However, in the wake of globalization and its attendants such as Christianity, formal education and rural-urban migration amongst a host of other factors, the role and purpose of Kasena oral traditions have taken a down turn. This article therefore seeks to bring to the fore the significant role of Kasena oral traditions in transmitting and maintaining indigenous knowledge. It further examines the negative toll globalization has on Kasena oral traditions. Keywords: worldview, tradition, Kasena, oral traditions, knowledge
African Indigenous Epistemologies, Traditions, and Practices Before the Arrival of Europeans
Ernestina Wiafe, 2023
Africa is the second-largest continent in the world (after Asia), making up around one-fifth of the planet’s land area. There are many different cultural and linguistic groupings, because of how long humans have lived there. Due to this, Africans have a network of knowledge, beliefs, and traditions that they use to preserve, explain, and contextualize their ties with their culture and en-vironment before the arrival of Europeans. Formal and informal transfers of indigenous knowledge took place between families, tribes, and communities through social contacts, oral traditions, ceremonial acts, and other activities. I will indicate, with all these indigenous systems and ways of life, the Europeans and other foreign settlers to the areas of Africa labeled the cher-ished traditional ways of teaching and learning of the native people as primitive and referred to the indigenous as uneducated, savage, and uncultured. It is therefore important to tell the story so that those who mismanage our affairs would not silence our criticism by pretending they have facts not available to the rest of us because, as Cinua Achebe stated, “Until the lions have their historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”
Oral Traditions as Embodiments of Knowledge: The Case of the Kasena of North Eastern Ghana
International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies, 2015
Before the advent of the European, every existing African community had its own means of education. Like the Kasena, the worldview of most communities is inextricably woven into the fibre of their oral traditions. Kasena oral traditions express beliefs, values, ideas and other socio-cultural negotiations that depict their philosophy of life. Quite apart from the novelty of technique of Kasena oral traditions, they serve as road guides to their endeavours and offer a better understanding of the spiritual and mundane worlds. Oral traditions embody the sense of time, place and identity of the Kasena in this multicultural world. The ways and manner to practice good hygiene and conserve the environment are embodied in proverbs, whereas the code of conduct and several other social negotiations are carried in folktales and puzzles. However, in the wake of globalization and its attendants such as Christianity, formal education and rural-urban migration amongst a host of other factors, the role and purpose of Kasena oral traditions have taken a down turn. This article therefore seeks to bring to the fore the significant role of Kasena oral traditions in transmitting and maintaining indigenous knowledge. It further examines the negative toll globalization has on Kasena oral traditions.
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The African religion, religious and moral values have been described by most European scholars as not been part of history, because unlike the two major religions of the world – Christianity and Islam, it has not been committed into writing, to produce documents like the Bible or Quran. The chapter therefore seeks to assess the role that oral tradition has played in the preservation of the African religion, religious and moral values, with specific reference to the Esan, Benin and their Igbo neigbhour.
The significance of African oral tradition in the making of African Christianity
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies, 2021
As religious systems are intertwined with social systems, change and continuity in thought and practice constitute a significant feature of Christianity. Thus, African Christianity embodies a distinct socio-cultural stamp of the continent. Considering the historical phases of Christianity, this socio-cultural stamp distinguishes African Christianity within global Christianity. One of the cultural vehicles of this imprint on Africa Christianity is the African oral tradition. Oral tradition is a necessary social antecedent and cultural heritage of Africans. African oral tradition is visible primarily through proverbs, folktales, songs, dances, customs, traditional medicines, religious practices and ancestral utterances. Through a substantial range of literature research on the subject matter, this article contends that African oral tradition is a relevant socio-cultural element in the constitution of African Christianity and its influence cannot be ignored. It sets out to pinpoint cer...
Historiography of oral traditions
The use of oral traditions in the study of history can be argued to be as old as the discipline itself. Given this scenario, a thorough understanding of the historiography of African oral traditions begins with an examination of the works of earliest historians and an understanding of how these historians have used oral traditions through to how oral traditions are being used by historians at present. It the assumption of this paper that oral traditions are as old as the human race and historians have used them and perceived them in many different ways. Perceptions of historians about the nature and usefulness of African oral traditions have continued to undergo various changes from the works of what Jan Vansina termed community historians and also antiquarians and ethnographers up to those of post modernists and other scholars working on the genre of oral traditions. In this light this paper endeavours to analyse the changing historiography of African oral traditions and examine the major developments affecting these changes in the historiography and also to assess the position of oral traditions in the present academic discourse. Vansina defines oral traditions as verbal messages that are reported statements in the past beyond the present generation, these messages can be sung, called out or acted. 1 Miller defines them as narratives describing or purporting to describe eras before the time of the person who relates it. 2 Thus both scholars are agreed that oral traditions can only be from the time beyond the present generation and are verbal. Beach however, from his studies of the oral tradition of the Shona people Zimbabwe came to the realisation that all these definitions of oral traditions need some modifications to include statements about the past which need not necessarily be from it or be true representation of the past. 3 Hence by and large oral traditions can be argued to be both people's recollections of the past and also their perceptions or constructions of their past. It should be highlighted that 'both oral communication and historical sensitivities have been present in all human societies for all the time. 4 Given this it is ideal to begin by analysing the works of Herodotus [480 BC] who has been viewed by many historians as the 'father of history.' Herodotus traveled widely throughout Asia Minor and the Near East collecting stories about the past, in this case he used oral traditions to right the history of the regions he traveled to. 5 Thus Herodotus can be argued to have used fieldwork in collecting oral traditions, a methodology which grew to become of fundamental importance in the gathering of oral traditions. Furthermore the fall of Troy as recounted by Homer in the Iliad can also be argue to have been one of the earliest works to be based of oral traditions. 6 The Iliad is fundamentally an epic chronicling the fall of Troy. Such forms of oral traditions also exist in African oral traditions as amplified by
RELEVANCE OF AFRICAN ORAL PHILOSOPHY
Since the independence, most African countries have adopted educational systems that are identical to those of the colonial masters, thus rejecting and denying the importance of local and indigenous culture for education (Ngara 2007). The goal was to insure a sustainable development and “modernize” the countries. Unfortunately, “Education in African countries (remain) largely unproductive; it enlightens by distancing and estranging Africans from their life circumstances” (Nsamenang and Tchombe 2014: XXVII).This situation then lead to really question the raison d’être, the effectiveness of these educational systems, to ask oneself if this situation is not subsequent to the absence of African philosophy in general and African oral Philosophy in particular in those educational systems. If it is then the case, how far is really African oral philosophy significant or relevant for education? What are the elements of it that can really be taught? What are its fallacies? What is its place in the new context of globalizations? All these questions accordingly constitute the compass that will serve to navigate in the sea of critical analysis.
YET TO PUBLISHED, 2022
This book is inspired by the living experiences of a man born into a typical traditional community that witnessed his community transforming into a new world where traditions and culture were the order of the day. He happens to be born into a traditional home where the father was the chief and he being the first son (Ahenkan, Kakra because he is a twin) had a lot of responsibilities bestowed on him by tradition. Samples of the functions that he assisted