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General Overview
In West Africa, Yoruba writing emerged after Bishop Ajayi Crowther, a former slave, developed a script for the language and in 1900 published the first Yoruba translation of the Bible. Isaac Babalola Thomas published the first work of fiction in Yoruba, Sègilolá eléyinjú egé (Segilola of the Seductive Eyes, 1929). It appeared in serial form in Akéde Èkó, a newspaper in Lagos, Nigeria, and warns of the woes in store for women who live a life of prostitution. The most important Yoruba writer, Daniel Olorunfemi Fagunwa, used his writings to commend Christian virtues to the public. His first work is also the first full-length novel published in Yoruba: Ògbójú ode nínú igbó irúnmalè (1938) was translated by Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka as The Forest of a Thousand Daemons: A Hunter’s Saga (1968). It tells of the exploits of Akara-Ogun, a fearless hunter in a forest infested with a myriad of unnatural creatures, and draws extensively on Yoruba folklore. Writing emerged in the Hausa language earlier than in the Yoruba language, with such works as Wakar Muhammadu (Song of Muhammad, 1845?), a portrait of the prophet Muhammad by poet Asim Degel.
In Southern Africa as well, writing was introduced by missionaries who established themselves in the 1820s at Lovedale, near Alice (now in Eastern Cape Province). In addition to the Bible, one of the texts the missionaries translated for instruction was ThePilgrim’s Progress (1678 and 1684) by English author John Bunyan. This work provided the model for the first South African work of fiction, Thomas Mofolo’s Moeti Oa Bochabella (1906; translated as TheTraveller of the East, 1934). Like Bunyan’s book, this Sotho-language work uses allegory to tell the story of a man’s spiritual journey after converting to Christianity. Also associated with the Lovedale mission is Samuel Edward Krune Loliwe Mqhayi, whose Xhosa-language novel Ityala lamawele (The Case of the Two Brothers, 1914) recreates the legal proceedings he observed at the court of his great-uncle, a chief. He is also known for his poetry, for which admirers named him Imbongi yesizwe jikelele (the poet of the whole nation). In the Zulu language, Abantu abamnyama lapha bavela ngakhona (1922; The Black People and Whence They Came, 1979), by Magema ka Magwaza Fuze, tells of Zulu history and presents an early plea for black unity in Africa.
In East Africa, a system of writing for the Somali language was not developed until the early 20th Century, long after writing in Arabic had become widespread among Somali-speaking peoples. Literature in Somali is predominantly in verse, and its greatest figure is Sayyid Maxamed Cabdulle Xasan, who was born in the mid- 19th Century and died in 1921. He criticized the European colonizers and their native collaborators in such poems as “Xuseenow caqligu kaa ma baxo idam Ilaahaye” (O Xuseen, God willing may good sense never leave you). The short novel “Qawdhan iyo Qoran” (Qawdhand and Qoran, 1967), by Somali writer Axmed Cartan Xaarge, is about two lovers who cannot marry because a marriage for the woman had already been arranged. Although literature in Amharic, now the official language of Ethiopia, did not flourish until the 20th Century, much earlier writings do exist, including the anonymous 17th-Century religious works Mazmura Dāwit (The Psalter of David) and Waddaseē Māryām (Praises of Mary).
Literature in Swahili dates back to the 17th Century. Early writings, by Muslim scholars and clerics, consist largely of celebrations in verse of religious figures. Modern Swahili literature, in prose and in verse, dates from 1925, when the countries then forming British East Africa (now Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda) adopted Swahili as the only African language for use in their schools. The first important modern Swahili writer was Tanzania’s Shaaban Robert, who wrote in prose and verse, praising his traditional culture. Very different in subject and style is the later Simu ya kifo (Phone Call to Death, 1965), a police thriller by Tanzanian writer Faraji Katalambulla.
The European languages most commonly used in Africa are English, French, and Portuguese. Literature in the English language, known as Anglophone literature, is the African literature best known outside Africa, followed by Francophone (French-language) and Lusophone (Portuguese-language) literatures. The British began colonizing Africa in the early 19th Century. Their holdings eventually grew to include what is now Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya in North and East Africa; Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria in West Africa; and in the southern part of the continent, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa. African literature in English is more extensive than African literatures in other European languages, but it generally made a later appearance than Lusophone or Francophone African literatures.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1
Trace the beginning of ethnic prose fiction in African literature. How popular is the type today?
Ethnic Literature 1: D.O. Fagunwa’s The Forest of a Thousand Daemon
D.O. Fagunwa known throughout Yorubaland as the father of the Yoruba novel, pioneer writer, blazed the trail for creative writing in Yoruba with five seminal works, classics in their own right, leaving a literary legacy still preeminent today. Responding early to the need for a literature for the growing literate population shortly after the language was orthographed, Fagunwa soon distinguished himself not only as the purveyor of Yoruba culture but also as the consummate story teller whose gift for fusing sound with action in his adventure stories pushed the boundaries of Yoruba language. Critics and readers consistently point to the latter – his love and mastery of the language – as his distinctive claim to literary genius. In speaking about Fagunwa’s works (although scripted), we must emphasize at the outset that the distinction usually made between oral and written literature in African literary criticism obtains only in a very limited literal sense, and only when strictly applied. Because African writers writing in mother tongue or in European languages cull materials for their imaginative works from their African experiences and indigenous surroundings through a “trans- creative” process, we must note, as Ruth Finnegan, Ayo Bamgbose, and a host of African writers themselves have concluded, that any rigid distinction between the oral and written African literatures is arbitrary, simply one of convenience. The structure ofFagunwa’s tales and those of his successors attests to this. African writers.
The Forest of a Thousand Daemon contains a very interesting story and adventure of a West African Hunter in a dreadful forest, who eventually found the secret of lasting happiness and peace of mind. The reader is easily swept away by many adventures of the heroic hunter in this book. The story is captivating, and emotion-laden. The Forest of Irunmale is very symbolic. The "Forest of a Thousand Daemons" is itself a symbol for entering this world, to which we shall refer as the "world of Irunmale" in the following, for the sake of brevity. This term, however, is intended to comprise other places of this same peculiarity that appear in the novel, such as the city of Mount Langbodo or the Great Forest, which is the place where Kako lives before he joins the main hero's, Akara-ogun's, expedition. This world is, as we shall see later, a symbolic representation of human life. On the hero's journey through the Forest Irunmale, he encounters various characters which are themselves symbols of human qualities and troubles and who incorporate various human patterns of behaviour.
The first impression we get from reading The Forest of a Thousand Daemons is that we are faced with a world which is incomprehensible and unpredictable. The characters have strange shapes and behave in a
way that we fail to understand. So does the hero, although we can feel certain disorientation in this weird world on his part as well. On a second thought, however, we find the world of The Forest of a Thousand Daemons somehow intuitively comprehensible, although it is still hard for us to explain what message we actually get from reading the novel.
The Hero has a world view that is richer, because of his belief in magic and witchcraft, and is different from the "world of Irunmale", because on entering it, he is taken by surprise. It is only by a process of experience and of instruction that he gradually learns how to behave in the environment of the Forest Irunmale and how to deal with the weird creatures he encounters there. He has to work out the laws, rules and restrictions of the Forest of Irunmale. The hero must rely on the fact that the "world of Irunmale" has certain regularities. Otherwise, no orientation in it would be possible. The hero's first orientation scheme is naturally that of his everyday experience, that of his society, and reflects the worldview of the Yorubas. This worldview involves certain thought patterns which differ from ours. The most conspicuous difference is perhaps his belief in magic and witchcraft. Indeed, he knows how to put to good use various charms and spells. These spells fit into the causal chain as its regular components. But the hero's way of understanding the world which he faces in the Forest of Irunmale leaves him at a loss many times and he has to substantially modify his orientation scheme in order to come to terms with it.
We see that the behaviour of the inhabitants of the Forest of Irunmale follows rules. The hero usually knows the principles guiding the behaviour of the beings or someone explains them to him. The same holds true for various physical objects as well as for the charms. Thus the hero seems able to classify the creatures he finds in the Forest of Irunmale, he refers to the "usual run of ghommids" (p. 43), for example, and the like. There are very foreseeable moral laws. We often find the moral behaviour of the beings weird, but it nevertheless fits into a scheme of moral actions, good brings good in effect and evil is punished. Kako kills his wife in a very cruel and unintelligible way, but his deed brings misfortune to the whole group, and it must be redressed by the sacrifice of a bird (p. 75ff.).
There is a regularity shown in the symbolic usage of numbers. This makes future events foreseeable. The examples are numerous. Symbolic numbers are, for example, the number of three: there are usually three tasks that the hero and his companions have to perform, the third being the most difficult. The number of six is also very important (it is six times that Ajantala abuses his surroundings; the gifts from the king of Mount Langbodo to the king of Akara-Ogun's town are always in six), as is the number of seven (the seven days in the house of Iragbeje).
The repetition of actions makes future events foreseeable, too. We find several examples. During the fight with Agbako, Agbako mends the hero's cutlass, then his arm. Another instance of this is the repetition during the above-mentioned number symbolism. And finally, the inhabitants of Irunmale behave partly like humans. They have human feelings (pride, sorrow etc.), they respect many moral laws that humans have, and their motivation is mostly understandable from the human perspective.
The hero's initial state is a state of ignorance. He does not know the appropriate rules and he has to learn them on his way through the Forest of Irunmale. That he does learn is clear from his later reactions. One example is his later fear of Agbako: in the beginning, he boldly faces the monster and nearly perishes during the fight with him. When he meets Agbako later, he is wiser and reacts by taking to his heels. There are many more instances where it is apparent that the behaviour of the hero has changed in accordance with his newly-acquired knowledge of the regularities of the world of Irunmale.
The hero travels to the Forest of Irunmale, but the forest is a metaphor of a different world. The return from this world to the normal world of the hero's life happens often by means of the metaphor of a house: the hero is mysteriously transported to his room at the end of his first journey to the Forest of Irunmale (p. 34), his second journey is finished by finding a hut (p. 66), where his cousin resides. This hut is the abode of the normal - of the hero's family, of his connections to the world of humans. Significantly, the house is no longer needed when the hero has acquired such dexterity in travelling to the Forest of Irunmale that he can reach and leave it at will, i.e. during his last expedition.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2
D.O. Fagunwa exploited the folktale tradition in the writing of The Forest of a Thousand Daemons. Defend this statement.
Ethnic Literature 2: Ken Walibora’s “Kipara-Ngoto” [CleanShaven…]
Kenyan writer Ken Walibora’s Swahili short story “Kipara-Ngoto” (Clean shaven, like the knuckles of a clenched fist) the African American features briefly as a metaphor of ludicrous character. The narrative is jocular, but it reveals profound issues about the relations between diasporic and continental Africans. The story is about a badly
behaved city boy, Matata (Swahili for Trouble) who is taken to the rural areas to see whether he can be reformed. The story figures him with metaphors and references to foreignness and artificiality. The narrator, a rural boy and cousin of Matata’s, associates the urban boy with popular music icons and he presents his cousin chewing gum continuously, a city habit. What is intriguing is the way the African American is brought in as a metaphor to complete the ludicrousness of the urbanite:
Baba aliporejea kutoka kazini jioni, alimkuta mgeni mheshimiwa kajiwetaka kochini, asoma James Hadley Chase kwa sauti kubwa kama redio. Ungemdhani Mwamerika Mweusi anatongoa. Shabash! Kimombo kilimtoka cha ajabu! (62).
When dad returned home from work in the evening, he found the guest of honor lodged on the coach reading James Hadley Chase in a loud voice like a radio. You would have thought him a Black American in a public- speaking exercise. Alas! Strange English issued from him.
In calling Matata “mgeni mheshimiwa” (guest of honour, or guest to be greatly respected), the narrator is engaging in ironically worded sarcasm. The irony is sharper and more caustic in the original language, where the term would be reserved for a highly respected person, usually an esteemed leader in public functions; in a private space like the home where the action is taking place, there cannot be a “mgenimheshimiwa” . The narrator has quite little respect for Matata, whose strange habits he finds laughable and, to him, the strangeness of Matata can only be comprehended by putting him in the context of the behaviour of African Americans. To understand the attitude to African Americans as displayed in this text, it is imperative to remember that in a metaphor, the vehicle (the concept we compare the subject with) is more familiar and concrete than the tenor (the subject of discussion). In this metaphor, it is assumed that we know African Americans in a wooing mode more concretely than we know the badly behaved city boy among us. We can only comprehend his conduct by seeing it through what we know about African Americans and their habits.
Although the unreliability of the narrator is not well brought out in the story, we can assume that, told by a child, the story registers more than it is aware of. It could even be holding in high esteem Matata and his African American ways, but as a figure of protest against commonsense. Unconsciously, the narrative indicates the source of the image of the African American to be popular texts that the narrator has interacted with – popular music, advertisements and novels. The text also shows that texts by African Americans reach only a small fraction of Africans that the majority would not want to associate with – the city middle class with a warped sense of morality. African Americans, then, are associated with that bourgeois class that celebrates rootlessness. In the narrator’s metaphor, we also hear a sense of frustration athis inability to understand Matata’s hybrid language. In fact, there appears to be a subtle admiration of Matata’s city way but the language puts off the narrator from his relative. The implication here is that Matata’s incomprehensibility is seen as an African American phenomenon. This indicates that the African American language is misunderstood in the continent by the poor who cannot meaningfully interact with the materials. There is thus need for African Americans to speak the languages spoken by the majority in Africa and collaborate with local artists in creating music that African people, such as the young narrator, in the story would comprehend. Although we cannot say that authentic Africa is limited to the rural areas, it is in the rural Africa that, according to more recent texts, that the African American can fully realize his or her potential.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3
By using Swahili in telling a tale that addresses international issues, Walibora has added dignity to his ancestral language. Discuss.
CONCLUSION
According to Ngugi “Language and literature are taking us further and further from ourselves to other selves, from our world to other worlds, so long as African writers write in English, they continue to enrich European languages and culture. He remains a slave to it. Ngugi believes colonialism of the mind undermines one’s dignity and confidence which is the worst outcome of colonization. If an African writer really wants to 'decolonize his mind' from European slavery, he has to write in his own language. Besides, African writers have a duty to enrich African languages and cultures. Ngugi regrets the choice of writers like Soyinka and Achebe to write in English. In talking about African literature, there is a tendency to forget that the whole of African art is linked with oral literature which has been the mainstay of both traditional and modern Africa.
Often times, African written literature is a transcription, adaptation, translation or exploitation of oral material, irrespective of the language chosen by the author to write her/his piece. Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Obi Wali believe that any work that is African must be written in one of the languages of Africa while Chinua Achebe and Ama Ata Aidoo are of the opinion that African literature can also be written in a foreign language.
All three authors do agree that oral sources are at the heart of African cultures.
Chidi Amuta and others shift the emphasis to considering African literature as an institution of several associated units thus African literature is "the sum total of all national and ethnic literatures of Africa." Ethnic, in this sense, being literatures written in the native languages of the African people which embody African culture, oral art, sociological and mythical properties. The two works under study here have revealed to a great extent, the oral arts of the African people. Fagunwa’s The Forest of a Thousand Daemons reveals the rich African mythical make, the supernatural beliefs, the powers of nature, man and his environment, man and his society while Walibora’s “Kipara-Ngoto” written in Swahili about contemporary experiences of neo-colonialism reveals African oral arts in contemporary discourse.
SUMMARY
Abiola Irele finds it futile to de-emphasize the social function of literature, because without its social functions, African literature does not merit to exist. The problem of defining Africa's limits is relegated to the background, and the need to establish the affinity of Africans to their root becomes paramount through reference to social experience and history. One of the hopes in actualizing this is the translation of literatures written in African languages. These ethnic literatures capture the essence of African culture in its totality. It presents undiluted pictures of African society and culture in the natural language of the people. There are vast literatures written in African languages which have been relegated to the point of non-recognition because of the craze for the acquisition of scholarship in foreign languages and culture.
The two literatures under study here have revealed that African prose in African languages is rich, if not richer than the ones written in foreign languages. Even in the translated version of Fagunwa’s work by Soyinka, one still feels that sense of originality in the way African culture is presented. Writing in Swahili never stopped Walibora from expressing his worldview about the influence of the west over Africans. It is clear that ethnic novels exist in translation in African literatures in English and for literature to reflect its society, it must be presented in the form that comes naturally to the people's appreciation of art.
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