TELLING THE TALE, TELLING THE NATION: TIV TALES, MODERNITY AND THE (RE)CONSTRUCTION OF NIGERIAN NATIONHOOD
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25159/1016-8427/668Abstract
Scholarship negotiating African folktales and the entire folkloric tradition in Africa has always been constituted as harbouring fundamental lacks. One of these lacks is the supposed incapacity of oral cultures to produce high literature. However, it is true that folktales and other oral forms in Africa can participate actively in the social, political and cultural process. In this paper, we engage folktales told by the Tiv of central Nigeria and situate them within the dynamic of history, culture, modernity and national construction in Nigeria. The paper adopts a historicist and culturalist perspective in its interpretation of the folktales which were collected in particular Tiv communities. This methodological approach helps to crystallize the historical and cultural lineaments embedded in the people’s experiences, values and worldviews. It also constitutes a contextual background for the understanding of the folktales as they offer informed commentaries on social currents and political contingencies in Nigeria. It argues that though folktales belong to a pre-scientific and pre-industrial dispensation, they are part of the people’s intangible cultural heritage and are capable of distilling powerful statements which negotiate Nigerian modernity and postcolonial condition. The paper underscores the dynamism and functionality of folktales even in an increasingly globalised ethos.
References
Abubakar, Abdullahi. 2009. A new concept of actor/audience interaction and audience participation in modern African dramatic theatre. Research in African Literatures 40(3) (Fall): 174–185. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2979/RAL.2009.40.3.174
Asaah, A. H. 2007. Of pacts, trickster ethos, and impact: A reading of Ahmadou Kourouma’s Les soleils des independances. Journal of Black Studies 2 (38): 177–193. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934705285568
Akporobaro, F. B. O. 2001. Introduction to African oral literature: A literary descriptive approach. Lagos: The Lighthouse Publishing Company.
Babalola, Adeboye. 1966. The content and form of Yoruba ijala. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Babalola, Adeboye. 1981. Ijala poetry among the Oyo – Yoruba communities. Abalogu, U.N et al eds. Oral poetry in Nigeria. Lagos: Nigeria Magazine. 3-17.
Bamgbose, A. 1969. Yoruba Folktales . Ibadan, vol. 27. 6-12 Bascom, William. 1983. Malinowski’s contributions to the study of folklore. Folklore 94(3): 163–172. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0015587X.1983.9716274
Biebuyck, D., and K. C. Mateene, eds. 1964. The Mwindo epic from the Banyanga. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Cham, Mbye. 1990. Structural and thematic parallels in oral narrative and film: Mandabi and two African oral narratives. In The oral performance in Africa, ed. Isidore Okpewho, Ibadan: Spectrum Books. 251–269.
Dasylva, A. O. Classificatory paradigms in African oral narrative. Vol. 1, no. 1 of the Isese Monograph Series. Ibadan: Atlantis Books.
Denga, Daniel. 1988. Educational development in Tivland: Problems and prospects. Calabar: Rapid Educational Publishers.
Finnegan, Ruth. 1967. Limba stories and storytelling. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Finnegan, Ruth. 1970. Oral literature in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Finnegan, Ruth. 1977 [1992]. Oral poetry: Its nature, significance and social context. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hagher, Iyorwuese. 1981. Performance in Tiv oral poetry. In Oral poetry in Nigeria, ed. U. N. Abalogu, G. Ashiwaju, and R. Amadi-Tshiwala, 37–56. Lagos: Nigeria Magazine.
Hagher, Iyorwuese. 1990. The Tiv Kwagh–hir: A popular Nigerian puppet theatre. Lagos: Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilisation.
Ibitokun, B. M. 1993. Dance as ritual drama and entertainment in the Gelede of the Ketu-Yoruba sub-group in West Africa: A study in traditional African feminism. Ilé-Ifè: Obafemi Awolowo University Press.
Iwara, A. U. 1985. Unity in diversity of West African folktales. Seminar paper, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, June.
Keil, C. 1979. Tiv song. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Klipple, M. A. 1939. African tales with foreign analogies. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Malinowski, B. 1926. Myth in primitive psychology. London: Norton.
Mvula, E. 1990. The performance of Gule Wamkulu: An introduction In Isidore Okpewho ed. The oral performance in Africa. Ibadan: Spectrum Books. 80 –97.
Ogunba, O. 1975. The performance of Yoruba oral poetry. In Yoruba oral tradition, ed. Wande Abimbola, 807–876. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press.
Ogundeji, P. A. 1991. Friendship, housewife rivalry and human lust in the plays of Kola Ogunmola. Ibadan: Lace Occasional Publications.
Okpewho, I. 1990. Introduction: The study of performance. In The Oral Performance in Africa, ed. Isidore Okpewho, 1–20. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University press.
Okpewho, I. 1992. African oral literature: Backgrounds, character, and continuity. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Olajubu, O. 1981. Yoruba oral poetry: Composition and performance. In Oral poetry in Nigeria, ed. U. N. Abalogu, G. Ashiwaju, and R. Amadi-Tshiwala, 71–85. Lagos: Nigeria Magazine.
Propp, V. 1968. Morphology of the folktale. Texas: University of Texas Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7560/783911
Sekoni, R. 1990. The narrator, narrative-pattern and audience experience of oral narrativeperformance.In The Oral Performance in Africa, ed. I. Okpewho, 139–159. Ibadan: Spectrum Books.
Steinbrich, S. 1995. Images of the powerful in Lyela tales. In Power, marginality and African oral literature, eds. Graham Furniss and Liz Gunner, 99-106. London: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511521164.009
Tsaaior, J. T. 2012. New wine, old wineskins: Authorship and digitalizing Nigerian oral poetry through new media technologies. Journal of Asian and African Studies 48(1): 97–113. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0021909612440421
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright will be vested in Unisa Press. However, as long as you do not use the article in ways which would directly conflict with the publisher's business interests, you retain the right to use your own article (provided you acknowledge the published version of the article) as follows:
- to make further copies of all or part of the published article for your use in classroom teaching;
- to make copies of the final accepted version of the article for internal distribution within your institution, or to place it on your own or your institution's website or repository, or on a site that does not charge for access to the article, but you must arrange not to make the final accepted version of the article available to the public until 18 months after the date of acceptance;
- to reuse all or part of this material in a compilation of your own works or in a textbook of which you are the author, or as the basis for a conference presentation.
Accepted 2015-11-25
Published 2016-04-18