Excerpts From "Oral Literature In Africa" Book By Ruth Finnegan (Part II)

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part II of a two part pancocojams series that consist of excerpts from "Oral Literature In Africa" book By Ruth Finnegan.

Part II presents information about the book and provides an excerpt from the same section of that book which focuses on names in various African cultures.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/09/excerpts-from-oral-literature-in-africa.html for Part I of this pancocojams series. Part I presents information about this book and excerpts from the section entitled "Oratory, Formal Speaking, and other Stylized Forms".

The content of this post is presented for linguistic and cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Ruth Finnegan for her research and writing and thanks to all those who she cites in her book "Oral Literature In Africa".

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE "ORAL LITERATURE IN AFRICA" BOOK
From https://www.amazon.com/Oral-Literature-Africa-World/dp/1906924708 Oral Literature in Africa (World Oral Literature) Paperback – September 17, 2012 by Ruth Finnegan (Author)
"Ruth Finnegan's Oral Literature in Africa was first published in 1970, and since then has been widely praised as one of the most important books in its field. Based on years of fieldwork, the study traces the history of storytelling across the continent of Africa. This revised edition makes Finnegan's ground-breaking research available to the next generation of scholars. It includes a new introduction, additional images and an updated bibliography, as well as its original chapters on poetry, prose, "drum language" and drama, and an overview of the social, linguistic and historical background of oral literature in Africa. This book is the first volume in the World Oral Literature Series, an ongoing collaboration between OBP and World Oral Literature Project. A free online archive of recordings and photographs that Finnegan made during her fieldwork in the late 1960s is hosted by the World Oral Literature Project (http://www.oralliterature.org/collections/rfinnegan001.html) and can also be accessed from publisher's website.

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EXCERPT FROM "ORAL HISTORY IN AFRICA" BOOK

[Pancocojams Editor's Note: The full text of this chapter is given at that link. The brackets with ellipses [...] that are found in this pancocojams post indicate the portions of this book's chapter that I didn't quote (including the ellipses at the end of this excerpt which indicate that there is more content that isn't quoted). Other ellipses are found "as is" in that book. This excerpt also doesn't include paragraph numbers that are found in this writing, including some of the reference citations.]

https://books.openedition.org/obp/1204?lang=en
"16. Oratory, Formal Speaking, and other Stylized Forms
p. 431-464

"IV
I shall end this miscellaneous list of minor literary usages with a brief account of the significance of names. This is a subject of greater literary interest than might at first appear. In fact it would be true to say that names often play an indispensable part in oral literature in Africa. Such names as ‘One who causes joy all round’ (Yoruba), ‘Its hide is like the dust’ (a man’s name after his favourite ox whose hide has marks like writing) (Jie), ‘He who is Full of Fury’ (Ankole), ‘Devouring Beast’ (Venda), ‘God is not jealous’ (Bini), or ‘It is children who give fame to a man’ (Bini) can add a depth even to ordinary talk or a richly figurative intensity to poetry that can be achieved in no more economical a way.

There have been many different interpretations of these names. They have ranged from the psychological functions of names, in providing assurance or ‘working out’ tensions (e. g. Beattie 1957, Middleton 1961), to their connection with the structure of society (e.g. Vansina 1964, following Lévi-Strauss), their social function in minimizing friction (e.g Wieschhoff 1941: 220), or their usefulness either in expressing the self-image of their owner or in providing a means of indirect comment when a direct one is not feasible (see below). As usual, there is some truth in most of these approaches.

One of the most striking aspects is the way names can be used as a succinct and oblique way of commenting on their owners or on others. Junod gives some good examples of this kind of use of nicknames among the Thonga. One is the instance of an administrator nicknamed ‘Pineapple’ or ‘The one of the Pineapple’. On the surface this was a flattering and easily explained name. But it also had a deeper meaning. The reference was to a custom (said to be followed by another tribe) of burying someone they had killed and planting pineapples on the grave—nothing could be seen but the leaves, and their crimes were hidden. The administrator’s name, then, really suggested one who shirked his duty and tried to bury matters brought to him for judgement—a fitting designation for a man who avoided responsibility and sought compromise. In another case a woman missionary was called Hlan-ganyeti—’The one who gathers dry wood for the fire’. In a way this was polite—it is pleasant to have a fire and wood gathered ready. But it also implied the idea of gathering wood for another to kindle, of bringing information to her husband who kindled the fire, of being someone who never showed anger herself but stirred up others. Many other similar nicknames were given to Europeans by the Thonga, an effective and quiet comment on their characters: ‘The fury of the bull’; ‘Kindness in the eyes (only)’; ‘The little bitter lemon’; ‘The one who walks alone’ (Junod 1938: 54–6).

[...]

Names can also be used in oblique comment. Thus the Karanga subtly give names to their dogs as an elliptical way of chiding another. A dog called ‘The carrier of slanders’ really alludes to a particular woman, ‘A waste of cattle’ reproves a bad wife, while ‘Others’ and ‘A wife after the crops are reaped’ are a wife’s complaint that others are more loved than she, that she is only fed in time of plenty, unlike her co-wives (Hunt 1965). Somewhat similarly a parent may choose for his child a name with an oblique or even open comment on the other parent’s behaviour—like the Nyoro Bagonzenku, ‘They like firewood’, from the proverb ‘They like firewood who despite the gatherer of it’, a name given by a mother who has been neglected by the child’s father (Beattie 1957: 100).

Names are also often used to express ideas, aspirations, sorrows, or philosophical comments. Grief and an awareness of the ills of life are frequent themes—’Bitterness’, ‘They hate me’, ‘Daughter born in Death’ are Thonga examples (Junod 1938: 53), and many other similar names could be cited expressing suspicion, sorrow, or fear (see especially Beattie 1957, Middleton 1961). Among the Ovimbundu a mother can lament a lost child in the more complex form of a name representing an abridged proverb ‘They borrow a basket and a sieve; a face you do not borrow’, in her knowledge that though she may have other children, there will never be another with that same face (Ennis 1945: 5). But names can also express joyful sentiments, like the Yoruba ‘Joy enters the house’, ‘The God of iron sent you to console me’, ‘I have someone to pet’; (Gbadamosi and Beier 1959: 6) or a sense of personal aspiration for oneself or others, like the Dogon name Dogono (from Dogay, ‘It is finished’), which expresses a wish that the son of a rich man may end life as he began it, in wealth; (Lifchitz and Paulme 1953: 332) the Fon assertion that the name’s owner is not afraid of his rivals, expressed in the form of an abbreviated proverb ‘Le crocodile ne craint pas les piquants qui servent de défense aux poissons’; (da Cruz 1956: 23–4) or the Bini name “The palm-tree does not shed its leaves’, which claims that its holder is invulnerable, cannot be caught unawares, and, like an old palm-tree, will stand against all opposition (Omijeh 1966: 26)—and similar examples abound in the many published collections of names.

Names contribute to the literary flavour of formal or informal conversation, adding a depth or a succinctness through their meanings, overtones, or metaphors. They can also play a directly literary role. We have already considered the studied use of names in Akan dirges; a whole series of different forms (day names, by-names, praise names, and dirge names) together enhance the intensity and high-sounding tone of the poems. The introduction of names in other forms of literature also— perhaps particularly in the case of those with a historical cast—can bring a sense of allusiveness and sonority not easily expressed in other forms. This is strikingly so in panegyric poetry, a genre that is in Africa so often based on an elaboration of praise names like ‘He-who-fails-not-to-overthrow-the-foe’, ‘Transformer-of-peoples’, or ‘Sun-is-shining’. Names also play a significant part in the drum literature discussed in the following chapter. In such a passage as

The ruler of Skyere has bestirred himself.
The great Toucan, has bestirred himself …
He has bestirred himself, the gracious one.
He has bestirred himself, the mighty one.
(Nketia 1963b: 148–9)

the names which describe and refer to the person being addressed are most significant. Names also have a close connection with proverbs; many names are in fact abbreviations or restatements of recognized proverbs and share some of their stylistic characteristics.

[...]

There are, of course, many names that are relatively straightforward, with little overt meaning. Others, however, are richly allusive. Among these, the most interesting are perhaps the abundant proverb names already mentioned. In these a proverb is either stated or, more often, referred to by only one of its words, and all the overtones of meaning and allusion inherent in the proverb can be found in the name. Thus we find several Nyoro names that refer to proverbs—like Bitamazire (a reference to the saying nkaito z’ebigogo bitamazire). ‘The sandals which were made of banana fibre were inadequate’ (in other words, small children cannot be expected to survive long), or Ruboija meaning ‘It pecks as a fowl does’—just as one does not know which exact grain will be picked up next by a fowl, only that some grain will be attacked, so one cannot tell who will be struck next by death (Beattie 1957: 101). Many similar cases occur among the Ganda who are said to have thousands of proverbial names— among them Nyonyin-tono (from Nyonyintono yekemba byoya). ‘A small bird, to appear big, must clothe itself in many feathers’, and the female name Ganya which comes from the saying ‘When a wife begins to disrespect her husband it shows that she has found another place where she intends to go and live’ (Nsimbi 1950: 209). In West Africa, Bini proverbs about wealth (among other topics) also appear as names in abbreviated forms that recall the full tone of the proverb. This is so, for instance, in the recommendation to go prudently about gathering property (‘It is with gentleness one draws the rope of wealth’, i.e. lest it break), or the satiric comment on the lengths to which men will go for money (‘If one is seeking wealth, one’s head would go through a drainage pipe’) (Omijeh 1966: 29).

Proverb names that are chosen by their bearers, as among, for instance, the Fon or the Ovimbundu, offer the opportunity for their choosers to express their own images of themselves.

[...]

Strings of proverb names can also be used to praise oneself. This is exploited effectively among the Ibo. When a man takes an ozo title he sings aloud a list of the names he now wishes to be addressed by. These are usually a series of proverbs which refer metaphorically to his various exploits and wealth:

I am:
The Camel that brings wealth,
The Land that breeds the Ngwu tree,
The Performer in the period of youth,
The Back that carries its brother,
The Tiger that drives away the elephants,
The Height that is fruitful,
Brotherhood that is mystic,
Cutlass that cuts thick bushes,
The Hoe that is famous,
The Feeder of the soil with yams,
The Charm that crowns with glory
The Forest that towers highest,
The Flood that can’t be impeded,
The Sea that can’t be drained.
(Egudu 1967: 10)

[...]

Praise names are a category of great interest for the student of oral literature. This is a convenient term used to cover many honorific appellations and flattering epithets.26 These names have already been mentioned in Chapter 5 as existing both independently and as a basis for praise poetry where they fulfil something of the same function as Homeric epithets. Thus the Yoruba oriki, Zulu izibongo, and Hausa kirari are praise terms that occur both as names and as elements in panegyric, and come in such metaphorical and evocative forms as, for instance, ‘Fame-spread-abroad’, ‘Thunder-on-earth’, ‘Father-of-the-people’, ‘Light of God upon earth’, ‘Bull Elephant’, ‘Weaver-of-a-wide-basket-he-can-weave-little-ones-and-they-fit-into-one-another’, ‘He draws red palm oil from the necks of men’, or (one of several praise names referring to Rhodes). ‘A powerful bull from overseas’.

[...]

The forms that particularly concern us here are the personal praise names applied to individual people. But their effectiveness cannot be fully appreciated without noticing the other, related applications of praise names and epithets. It is not uncommon for these terms to be applied also to non-human, even non-animate objects, and the succinct summing up in this form of the referent’s basic characteristics—or, it may be, of just one facet that catches the imagination—is part of the genius of these languages. Thus the Hausa have elaborate praise terms for animals or for general categories of human beings. The hyena, for instance, has its own praise name ‘O Hyena, O Strong Hyena, O Great Dancer’, the eagle’s reputed wisdom is alluded to in ‘O Eagle, you do not settle on the ground without a reason’ (i.e. without seeing something to eat there), while the general kirari of wife and husband is ‘O Woman whose deception keeps one upon tenterhooks (thorns), your mouth though small can still destroy dignity. If there were none of you there could be no household, if there are too many of you the household is ruined’. Similar types of praise names in various languages for particular clans, families, villages or regions, trees, deities, natural phenomena like rain or storms, masks, particular professions, or even tobacco. Some of these are expressed in short phrases or compounds only, but others come in fuller form and can be elaborated into a kind of prose poem, closely related both to praise poetry and to the lengthy salutations and the prayers mentioned earlier.

Like the generic praise terms for things, individual personal praise names take various forms, more or less elaborate according to context and area. Besides their use as an element in more lengthy literary forms, they also appear on many ceremonial occasions—terms of formal address to superiors, public and ceremonial announcement of the arrival of some leading personage by the calling or drumming of his praise name (very common in Nigeria, for instance), honorific pronouncement of a dead man’s praise name in funeral rituals, or utterance of a praise name as a part of personal aspiration or encouragement of another to live up to the ideals inherent in the name.

How elaborate praise names can be among certain African peoples is well illustrated from the Dogon tige of which several accounts have been published (de Ganay 1941; Lifszyc 1938; Lifchitz and Paulme 1953; 343ff.). Among the Dogon, every child is given three ordinary names; but in addition each man has his own individual praise name (tige), a kind of motto. Those of individual human beings refer less to personal characteristics than to some general truth; Dogon tige thus really blend the characteristics of praise and of proverb. One man’s name is translated as ‘Parole d’homme âgé’ (implying the wisdom expected of an old man’s words), another ‘(Il est) inutile (de faire) un cadeau (à celui qui ne remercie jamais)’, ‘(Même si) le plat (est) mauvais, (on peut manger la nourriture qu’il contient)’, (de Ganay 1941: 50). ‘Femme menteuse’ (aussi rusé qu’une femme menteuse), or ‘Hogon, chef de la communauté, ventre de Hogon’ (i.e. ‘Les meilleurs champs appartiennent au Hogon, c’est l’homme le mieux nourri’) (Lifchitz and Paulme 1953: 346).

These praise names are used on a variety of occasions. One is on any rather formal occasion in which polite exchange is expected. They are shouted out during the ritualized combats that take place in public at a certain stage in funeral celebrations; during other stages of the mortuary ceremonies it is the dead man’s praise name that is called—he is addressed by this full title and conjured to leave his people in peace. Praise names are also much used at a time of physical exertion, especially in the farms. When a group of young Dogon men join together to work, as custom demands, in their father-in-law’s fields, they cry out each other’s praise name to incite them to greater efforts, calling on their amour propre and evoking the names of the ancestors from whom the names were severally inherited and of whom each individual must show himself worthy (Lifchitz and Paulme 1953: 343–4; de Ganay 1941: 47ff). Though the outward contexts for these names are so different, they have something in common: ‘la criée du tige présente presque toujours un caractère déclamatoire ou solennel qui diffère nettement de l’énoncé du nom et du ton habituel de la conversation’ (Lifchitz and Paulme 1953: 344). These formally used Dogon titles are something far more evocative and meaningful than anything we normally understand from the everyday sense of the term ‘name’. As Lifchitz and Paulme sum up its uses, it is clear that the Dogon tige has relevance for their literature and could not easily be dismissed as a mere label for some individual: ‘il est en même temps formule de politesse, voeu, exhortation, flatterie, remerciement et moquerie’ (Lifchitz and Paulme 1953: 343).

Praise names in general, then, evoke more than just their individual referent on a particular occasion. Expressed through a conventionally recognized artistic form, often marked by elliptical or metaphorical language, they can bring a range of associations to mind and put the bearer and utterer of the name in a wider perspective—either placing him within a whole class of similar beings (in the case of category praise names) or (with personal names) invoking some proverb of more general application or referring to some quality which the bearer is believed, or hoped, or flatteringly imagined to possess.

There remain two other forms of names to mention briefly. First, the use of names on drums (or other instruments). By a technique described in the next chapter, long forms of personal names are very popular items for transmission on drums. Elaborate forms appear in this context, many of them very similar to the praise names just discussed. ‘Spitting snake whose poison does not lose its virulence, sharp harpoon, from the village of Yatuka’, ‘Chief who takes revenge, who stabs civet-cats, root of the neck of the elephant, son of him who sets his face to war …’, ‘The man who is to be trusted with palavers, son of him who bears the blame …’, ‘Bright light does not enter the forest, elder of the village of Yaatelia’ (Carrington 1949b: 87; 92; 99; 102)—these are all drum names or portions of drum names used in various areas of the Congo. In savannah areas it is not drums but whistles that are used for this kind of transmission. Nicolas has made a collection of such praise names from the Lyele of Upper Volta, names which in many respects resemble the Dogon tige but with the difference that they are thought most effective when whistled. The names bear some relation to proverbs, though forming a distinct literary genre, and include such colourful phrases as ‘Les pas du lézard sont sonores dans les feuilles (sèches)’, ‘Le vent de la tornade ne casse pas la montagne’, ‘Le tambour de l’orage fait sursauter le monde entier’, or ‘On ne prend pas (a pleine main) la petite vipère’ (Nicolas 1950: 89, 97, 92; 1954: 88). These names add to the prestige of chiefs and leaders when they are whistled by those who surround them or escort them on their journeys.

Secondly, a word about some personal names other than those directly applied to people. Besides the generic praise and drum names already mentioned, personal names are also sometimes attached to certain things which, for the particular people involved, are of special emotional or symbolic interest. Among some Congolese peoples, for instance, the drums themselves have their own names—’Mouthpiece of the village’, ‘In the morning it does not tell of death’, ‘Drifting about from place to place (as water in a canoe) it has no father’. (Carrington 1949b: 107, also 1956). Dogs (see examples above) and occasionally horses (see the noms de guerre of horses in Griaule 1942) may be given names, and another frequent object for evocative and metaphorical naming is cattle (see e.g. Hauenstein 1962: 112ff. (Ovimbundu); Evans-Pritchard 1934 (Dinka); Morris 1964: 24–(Ankole). In some cases these names reflect back, as it were, on human beings; with dogs’ names this is sometimes) with an insulting intention; cattle names are more often used in a laudatory and honorific sense, as, for example, the ‘ox-names’ given to human beings in many East African areas (see e.g. Gulliver 1952, Evans-Pritchard 1948).

[...]

The exact literary value of these names cannot be fully assessed without further research, particularly on their actual contexts of use and on the relationship between these forms and other literary genres in a given culture. But we can certainly find some literary significance in the occurrence of these condensed, evocative, and often proverbial or figurative forms of words which appear as personal names in African languages—sometimes appearing directly as elements in large-scale creations, sometimes affording scope for imagery, depth, personal expressiveness, succinct comment, or imaginative overtones in otherwise non-literary modes of speech."...