Adrian OnyandoTHE MAGIC OF STORYTELLING: INTRODUCING THE WORLD OF MAGICAL ORALITY Wach en juok (The spoken word is wizardry) --Luo proverb Introduction As a creative writer with both feet in the oral and written traditions, one of my major challenges is creatively managing the transition from orality to literacy. I have to be both a story teller and a story writer, and therefore must occupy and operate in the no-man's land between story telling and story writing. This borderline area of operation, is often an uncharted territory, but is of a nature and manner that is full of surprises. I like to call it the area of magical orality, and I should like to hereby chart it so the world may know of its existence and hence appreciate it. I shall draw a lot from my works, published and unpublished, that conform to the manner and matter of this literary mode. Definition First of all, what is magical orality? I should like it to be considered as a mode alongside others like (socialist) realism, magical realism, metafiction, fantasy and experimentalism. It is a mode that imitates the heritage of oral performance styles. The term ‘oral' simply refers to a spoken piece, that is, a piece whose performance and distribution is by word of mouth as contrasted to written or printed literature. This therefore implies that magical orality is modelled on those traditions that had been untouched by writing, but whose styles are still relevant in mainstream creative written literature and those literatures that we refer to as oral, but are nevertheless existing in the print form too. The Magic of Orality I come from a part of the world where what you hear is what you are supposed to get. Throughout the ages in which we have used it, the spoken word has evolved into a thing and an event. In my work, The Epic of Gor Mahia (hereinafter, The Epic), the hero, Gor Mahia, explains the nature of the spoken word to a British colonialist, Charles Hobley, who is trying to record it. ‘You see, son of Nyobilo woman,' he says, ‘I'm a man of words, but once out of my mouth, words turns into things and I'm not responsible for what people see' (The Epic, 137). The hero then invokes the names of some objects, and the colonialist sees them with his naked eyes. In frustration at this inexplicable event, Hobley describes the hero as an actor, an impersonator par excellence. But later on he writes down about the hero: This is a wizard, pure and simple- A genius too, he could be: Probably no man has been so many things; Probably no man has been so many men And certainly no man has ever had affinity With so many ages, races and species' (The Epic, 138).
In his literate, scientific mind, Hobley explains away the event as acting, but in his later analysis he acknowledges that something unusual has taken place, and that in the scheme of such matters the hero has performed a feat whose description is wizardry. Significantly, one proverb among the Luo of East Africa is wach en juok, meaning that the spoken word is wizardry, witchery or magic. Someone can cast a spell on you by using words only as opposed to acts of sorcery in which weird objects, like dead animals are used. To begin with, in such a situation you can physically see what is merely said; then, you can encounter what you have heard or said; and lastly, but not least, you can be spurred on to action by what has been said by you or someone else. Thus this wizardry can be negative at times, as when it results in a person being haunted, but it is often positive. The word then becomes a compelling action, as the heroine of Heart of Wilderness, Atieno discovers: ‘To say is to bewitch'. By saying it, I had bewitched myself into doing it, even if it meant entering willingly into the jaws of a beast, as it were. Second, I realised that no amount of training would ever prepare me for this real exercise, that it had been a waste of time postponing this final act. ‘Yes, I can' was either going to make or unmake me. It was a saying that was a matter of life and death (Heart of Wilderness, 9). To return to the incident regarding the colonialist and the epic hero, we can see the principle of the word as magic or wizardry at work; the colonialist has been bewitched so that he can see mammoths, antelopes and anthills even though Gor has only verbally mentioned them. To Hobley, words turn into things, some living. He is spellbound, and though he tries, he cannot extricate himself from the storytelling situation. In spite of himself, he concedes witchery (The Epic, 137-8). In the hustle and bustle of modern life, stories must necessarily bewitch their audiences, if they have to compete with the various projects and media clamouring for an individual's attention. In my part of the world, that is, East Africa, storytelling as a whole is faced with great challenges in the face of modern life. The formal fora for storytelling such as the gatherings around bonfires, in the huts or arenas, are largely gone, but so have new ones sprung up, namely, the political rally, the congregations (especially the so-called Christian crusades), the print and the electronic media, to name but a few. All these fora have attractiveness about them, except the print medium, in which we writers operate most. A cynical commonplace joke has it that if you want to hide anything from an African, keep it in a book. Why this unpopularity of the print medium? There are many reasons, which we cannot go into here, but I suggest that one major one is that while the other fora borrow heavily in terms of style from orality, the print medium somehow lags behind. As the hero of The Epic says, the book becomes a cave into which the body of the once-living word is consigned (181). One of the characteristics of the spoken word is its surprising quality through its vivid images and action. If the book (written literature) borrows this quality, it need not be a cave but a lively, life-giving, medium. Thus, the one quality of magical orality is the vividness and performance in which words turn into things, as it were. But the word as a thing or event also ushers us into another quality of magical orality, namely, fantasy with a difference. Fantasy in Orality Fantasy in magical orality is not non-realism. True, the author may go outside the physical world, so to speak, and invent a strange world of strange beings interacting with themselves or with man. There may be stories peopled with animals, ghosts, extraterrestrial beings, but in most cases these are seen as part of everyday reality. Pure fantasy in magical orality is rare. By and large, magical orality fuses the natural and the supernatural, the rational and the irrational, the hyper and the hypo and accepts them as part of prosaic reality. It is in this instance that it may be related to magical realism, especially of the Borges type, in which the specular and human kingdoms lived in harmony, and ‘you could come and go through mirrors' (‘Fauna of Mirrors' in The Book of Imaginary Beings, 67-8). The difference between magical realism and magical orality is mainly in style and location, with the latter basing itself on the African spoken word and worldview. Thus, in my novel, Jinn of the Jungle, spirits that cause road accidents in Africa are indicated on a road sign that reads: ‘Beware, spirits are crossing!' (24). The African worldview that presents what you hear, the supernatural, the hyperboles and the fantasies, as unquestionable is very much dominant in magical orality. The magic of the word and the unique fantasy in magical orality are elements that are aimed at casting a spell (as Gor Mahia does to Hobley), that is, captivating an audience that is operating between one form of orality (primary orality) and another (the print and electronic orality). Yet there are also many other elements to consider in magical orality, like plotting.
Plotting in Magical Orality For many, the starting point in creativity is plotting. Those who belong to the Aristotelian school will put premium on a thundering good plot with a beginning, a middle and an end. The sequence, plausibility and the unity of the events will occupy the artist as much as the suspense, the climax(es), and the conflict. But at the end of the day, the artist will realise that plots had been established before and reduced to formulas and themes concerning mysteries, contests, races, prizes, trickery, betrayal, unrequited love and so on. Creativity in that case, may not be inventiveness, that is, it may not be offering something original, something unexpected, something - at times-outrageous. In African oral literature, on which magical orality is based, members of the audience already know the plot. They know that the Hare is small, but will give birth to twins, that is, she will do something significant, like triumphing over his big enemies: the hippo, the lion and the elephant. They know that the Elephant may be big, but his size will be like that of foam, that is, it may not translate into strength, mental or physical; the Apulapul monsters turn into gentlemen to win beautiful, but gullible human girls; a beautiful girl turns into a dog to disguise her identity and then surprise the bachelor who thinks he has had a raw deal in the sharing of the spoils of a hunt (Rieko Joluo, 50). They know that the beautiful one may have an unmitigating defect; that the wizard or healer will be able to cure all, except himself; that Disease, the Brother of Death, will spare some, but Death the Leveller, shall in the long run, level all-the poor and the rich, the weak and the powerful. The question then is: is there room for creativity for artists within the oral tradition, and magical orality? The answer is a resounding yes. The time-tested methods of rhapsodizing and collating plots as found in great epics, like The Kalevala, easily lend themselves. The numerous story-lines in the tradition have limitless possibilities for manipulation. An artist can take any story-lines for synthesis, for creating new twists and turns. If history repeats itself, the story also do repeats itself but creatively. Creativity in this case lies in manipulating themes, motifs and formulas within the tradition. This is not a weakness, however, for the magical oral artist is a hybrid and a progeny of the past and present. The artist operates within a tradition that predates him and will outlive him by ages. In some of our myths, God creates out of nothing.1 Magical oral artists can also do the Godly task, but in most cases they create out of something; that is, they create out of ready-made materials that may be in chaos and may need to be ordered. Homeostatic Magical Orality I wish to draw attention to the homeostatic principle which I believe is a powerful dynamic in the creative process of magical orality. Walter J. Ong describes homeostatic as ‘a process in which oral societies live very much in a present which keeps itself in equilibrium or homeostatis by sloughing off memories which no longer have present relevance' (Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, 46). Ong goes ahead to say that in oral societies, meaning (of words ) is controlled by the present situation or what Goody and Watt call ‘direct semantic ratification' and that when a word passes out of present lived experience, its meaning is commonly altered or simply vanishes (46). As can be seen above, Ong applies the homeostatic principle to words; I wish to extend the application to plots in magical orality. Plots that are unfamiliar to the present situation may not be discarded, but altered and updated. When I was researching on The Epic of Gor Mahia, I discovered that the concern to update the plot was so intense that the artist would even introduce recent occurrences into the ancient story. Likewise, for a magical oral artist, anachronisms do not arise so long as they may update the works. African artists are never pedantic about their wares; they are dynamic. The urge to update an oral narrative may take many forms: for instance, allusion, comparing and contrasting old plot with contemporary occurrences, and altering them. In my story, The Giant and the Lake, a story about the genesis of Lake Lolwe (otherwise known as Lake Victoria), the first two homeostatic principles apply in the following passage: And so it happened that the sky collapsed into the earth and the floodgates of our sky opened and became unstoppable. All of us were drowning, and there was no place to put your nose, no place to stand and no place to dance. All of us were just stopping to breathe when Min Koth, the Mother of Rain, came to our rescue. She moulded clay and used it to stop the horrible bottom of the sky dam. And then there was space for breathing again, and for standing and even for dancing. We gathered together under the roof of the sky and said together: "Thu kiragi! Curse it! We don't have Noah's Ark and we don't have trees taller than our tallest mountains. And we don't want our women to give birth on trees...as it happened in the South. And we don't want our houses to go as it happened in the US. Away with such a curse! Thu kiragi!" Min Koth stopped the rain, and so there was no rain. And when there was no rain, she made rain again! ... What a clever mother! She became the driver of the vehicle called Rain. We used to say, "Don't panic, expert driver in control."
The plot alludes to the famous genesis story about the floods and Noah's Ark and again moves forward to the recent flood disasters in Africa and US. Rainmaking and rain distribution is then described in terms of driving a taxi, a modern phenomenon across Africa. Allusions, alterations and moving plots in time makes magical orality have limitless possibilities for the creative writer. Characterisation Someone once asked me why we should let the animals steal the show in our stories. For instance, many stories reveal the Hare to be so human: a trickster, a conman, an inventor, a soldier, a magician and so on. Should we substitute the characters of such dynamic animal characters as Hare with humans? The answer could be ‘yes' and ‘no'. Animal characters have a role in our stories, especially the children ones; changing them into humans would be like substituting oneself for the mirror; or a Mr. Bean for a Mickey Mouse. Both the animal and human characterisations can be effective, but their stories should not be interchangeable. Style An oral genre is determined by both its form and content. In order to fully appreciate the magical oral materials as literary, we must employ what the Zimbabwean literary critic, Ngara, demarcates as ‘narrative structure, character and linguistic format' whereby ‘structure' means the arrangement of episodes as well as the general shape and pattern of the work effected by repetition and parallelism, and ‘style', the use of language (‘linguistic format') as well as characterisation (Stylistic Criticism, 16). Such a distinction as I have made between style and structure must be seen as useful for analytical purposes only. In an oral performance, on which magical orality is based, matters of content and form, or in this case, style and structure cannot be practically divorced from each other. We will do well to remember Okpewho's statement in The Epic in Africa that ‘in a study of the oral epic it is rather difficult to draw a rigid line between structure and style, for often the mood of the bard determines the structure of the song, its coherence or total dislocation, its balance or its unevenness' (202). Performance In talking about style and structure we must take into account the moment of performance with its attendant aspects of the setting, occasion, audience and artists. The texts in magical orality are supposed to be products of fervid situations, even if they are not. The performance situation in all its aspects is therefore not an extraneous introduction into the stylistic and structural discussion of a magically oral text but rather part and parcel of it. What Ruth Finnegan says of oral poetry should apply to magical orality too: ‘the distinction between the two (performance and style) is not a clear one, and it is impossible to appreciate either fully without some understanding of the other. I suggest that the overlap between performance and style in oral literature is such that anyone interested in one has much to learn from the other' (Oral Poetry, 88). The stylistic and structural devices that should be considered include authorial/audience intrusion or digression, the use of the collective voice, fantasy, imitation, repetition, parallelism, ring composition, allusion, (sound) imagery, symbolism and allegory. In the oral genres, the choice of these devices is deliberate and is meant for the enhancement of the themes in the story. The magical oral artist is a conscious artist within the oral tradition and must therefore incorporate these oral styles into his oeuvre. Language/ Dialogue Magical orality operates within the context of post-colonialism. The colonial languages in which Africa expresses herself are sites of power play in post-colonial culture and politics. To begin with, language is an instrument of political and cultural control. It is a means of naming, knowing and therefore controlling reality. In other words, the colonial countries, through the imposition of their languages, are seen to have dominated the colonised in all facets of life. For African writers the colonial language in which many of them operate has had many implications, as Achebe notes: For an African, writing in English is not without its serious set-backs. He often finds himself describing situations or modes of thought which have no direct equivalent in the English way of life. Needless to say there are challenges even in writing down in an African language, for our culture is orally based, as opposed to print-based. More challenges exist in writing in a colonial language. In magical orality, the answer to these challenges is adaptation of the colonial language to the African situations. There have been many experiments to this effect. As early as 1952, Amos Tutuola had written a novel in a style whose salient feature was the ungrammatical English. Some critics hold that Tutuola's language, notably in The Palm-Wine Drinkard, is too idiosyncratic and aberrant while some like Gerald Moore like to see him as representative of an English dialect, omparable to the 'racy American vernacular.' Tutuola uses Yoruba grammar and structures, idioms, myths, proverbs, repetitive style, redundancy and expresses them in shaky English. A. Afolayan argues that Tutuola's language really represents 'a temporary intermediate point in the bilingual evolution of a dialect' of a Yoruba English user with post-primary education (56). If Tutuola is an unconscious and low-educated English user operating within his oral tradition, the other African writers, university educated, are clear in their artistic goals. Such is Gabriel Okara who says of his artistic project: As a writer who believes in the utilization of African ideas, African philosophy and African folk-lore and imagery to the fullest extent possible, I am of the opinion the only way to use them effectively is to translate them almost literally from the African language native to the writer into whatever European language he is using as his medium of expression (African Writers on African Writing, 137). Okara's endeavour is best illustrated by his novel, The Voice, which rings with his native Ijaw language and culture. As in The Palm-Wine Drinkard, the first things that strike the reader are the African linguistic structures and idioms: Some of the townsmen said Okolo's eyes were not right, his head was not correct. This they said was the result of his knowing too much book, walking too much in the bush and others said it was due to his staying too long alone by the river. So the town of Amatu talked and whispered; so the world talked and whispered. Okolo had no chest, they said. His chest was not strong and he had no shadow. Everything in this world that spoiled a man's name they said of him, all because he had dared to search for it. He was in search of it with all his inside and with all his shadow (1). The glaring African (Ijaw) idioms we notice here include: ‘eyes ...not right', ‘head...not correct', ‘no chest', ‘no shadow'. The idioms translated into English present a different world-view from the English ones. For instance, ‘Shadow/chest' mean ‘courage/essence, character etc.' Again we see redundancy, the repetition of the just-said, a retained feature from orality. Okara's linguistic strategy best exemplifies the process called relexification by which is meant using English vocabulary but indigenous structures and rhythms, it is indeed what has been described as ‘the making of a new register of communication out of an alien lexicon' (The Post-colonial Studies Reader, 314). Looking at Okara's story one would think that he was translating from Ijaw; but relexification is different from translation in the sense that it does not involve two texts; there is no original, but two languages operating from one to another within the same text. Artistically, the relexification of African tongues solves the problem Achebe points out, that is, rendering African concepts, thought patterns and linguistic features in the European language. It also seeks to address the decolonization of the language of colonial power and to affirm the dynamism of orality. It is a process of rendering a new form of African expression. But it also has the problem of obscuring the texts; in magical orality, it can only be used very minimally but very creatively, especially in speeches. Some writers have taken a liberal stance with respect to the English language. Rather than alter the grammatical structure of the English language to suit the African tongue like Okara or write with as little scruple about the English grammatical rules like Tutuola, this group of writers write in good English but one which is replete with African speech patterns, images and proverbs and sayings. This style, in which Achebe writes is highly recommended for magical orality. He has developed several prose styles to suit the dialogues, the characters and situation. For, instance, he is able to differentiate his characters and situations through speech and prose style. To this effect, he recommends that language be in character and gives the following example from Arrow of God in which the Chief Priest, Ezeulu, is telling one of his sons why it is necessary to send him to church: I want one of my sons to join these people and be my eyes there. If there is nothing in it, you will come back. But if there is something then you will bring back my share. The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place. My spirit tells me that those who do not befriend the white man today will be saying, 'had we known' tomorrow. How would you put the above passage in Standard English? Achebe attempts this exercise below: I am sending you as my representative among those people--just to be on the safe side in case the new religion develops. One has to move with the times or else one is left behind. I have a hunch that those who fail to come to terms with the white man may well regret their lack of foresight. Achebe then explains, 'The material is the same. But form of the one is in character and the other is not. It is largely a matter of instinct but judgement comes into it too.' (All quotes fromTransition IV, Vol. 18 (1965) article: 'English and the African Writer.') It is precisely the exercise above, the exercise of language in character that the magical oral artist should engage in when writing in a colonial language. Apart from evolving an appropriate style, the magical oral artist should make use of proverbs and sayings, puns, word play and idioms, to not only show the thought patterns, philosophy and picture of the African life but also to advance the artistic purposes. Repetition One feature of language in magical orality that needs to be emphasised is repetition. The oral context allows for a great deal of repetition, for instance in the following passage: On that day the eye of the sun smiled The dead eyes of the beasts glared The river was our abyss or paradise, To drown in or to cross over... SAI MARANDA!
"MARANDA SAI!"
My friend, son of the Bush said, Neither drown nor wade through here The crocs are terrible: Jaws parted wide And the throats opened like holes SAI MARANDA!
"MARANDA SAI!"
I asked my friend son of the Bush, What can I do? What can I do? And he said, Here is a pole Walk on it on land And I'll be there to help you And when you are ready Walk on it over the river. SAI MARANDA!
"MARANDA SAI!"
And I told my friend son of the Bush, Can I do it? Can I do it? And he said, What I've done, You too can do, Just say, SAI MARANDA! And everything will be possible! SAI MARANDA!
"MARANDA SAI!" (89-90). Repetition naturally leads to song and musicality. It also allows for African prosody. This is not to be misconstrued to mean the strict, mathematical pattern known as metre but rather a rhythm system effected by recurrent elements like alliteration, assonance, rhyme, free repetition, and parallelism. Parallelism as an aesthetically balanced rendition is common in magically oral texts, as can be seen in the following passage from Heart of Wilderness: The journey from the Earth to the Lair is long. Crocodiles await you at every corner; snakes cast their fangs like nets in the air, in the trees, in the holes...The world is divided into two, so says our king. There is only the Bush and the Earth. Let those who talk about the Earth be the owners of foolish pride. My tears cannot drop and screen my eyes because of them. I must see well! The Bush is the Lair, the Lair the Bush. The Lair has got glory and power. That's why it's forever; that's why I'm clever-I'm a friend. Once in the twinkling of a star, I bring the people of the Earth here, when they are roasting in their problems and only the Bush can give them back their smile and life. Why can't they come alone? Owners of foolish pride! Don't they say they can see? Only the friends of the Lair can see. Only friends of the Lair shall be at home in the bush. Only friends of the Lair dare. When the world becomes our own and we start to live together, I shall again see from the rock the glittering river braving it through the forest. I shall be playing on top here and the monkeys shall be ashamed. Isn't that so?'(115-116). Conclusion In this paper, I set out to establish, magical orality as a mode that can be used to render traditional and modern stories aesthetically in print. I defined it as a mode that imitates the oral heritage and therefore assumes that for each story there has been a performance. I looked at the aspects of magical orality, drawing largely from my works, and I hope that its formal features will lead to appreciating its literary merit fully. These features are deliberately employed for certain artistic and socio-cultural goals. In other words, the stylistic and structural devices are deliberately chosen by the artists and pertinently used for thematic purposes. Magical orality is therefore a literary mode in its own right. NOTES 1. The Akan (Ghana) myth of creation states, in the words of Joe de Graft, in the play, Muntu: Out of nothing Odomankoma created the world Out of nothing Odomankoma created man (p.3) 2. Full text on page goes: Kasuku, ah! Kasuku said the land of the Wagasi was peaceful and fertile. The Wagasi Hills were lush and green. The Lake was sparkling and blue. The people were beautiful and peaceful and there were no more tragic events, like the Nyamgondho one. But could I despair that easily? I sailed on along the Lake... (A member of the audience here asks whether the narrator can tell them about the Nyamgondho incident, whereupon the narrator says, "No, that is for another occasion.") (Rowing.) I sailed on along the Lake till I reached Sori, the beach of the Karungu people. 3. For an analysis of these sound devices refer to A Critical Analysis of the Gor Mahia Epic thesis.
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