Question:

No element has served as a clearer signature of and for African historiography than the development of oral source and oral history within the programs of recovering the African past. Cement on this statement.

Oral sources are the sources which provide verbal information about the past. According to Jan Vansina, oral sources are of two types and these are eye witness account and oral traditions. Eye witness accounts are the oral information given by the person who witnessed the event or participated in it and this depends much on experiences of the informant who witnessed such kind of event

. Oral traditions according to Jan Vansina are the verbal messages which are transmitted from the past beyond the present generations and emphasizes that the message must be oral statements spoken or sung, called out on musical instrument only.[1]

Oral history refers to the kind of history which collects memories and personal commentaries of historical significance through recorded interviews. An oral history interview generally consists of a well prepared interviewer questioning an interviewee and recording their exchange in audio or video format[2]. Oral history also can be defined as collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes or transcriptions of planned interview[3]. Due to that, oral sources had great significance to the productions of oral history since the values, experiences, and other practices of the society are in fact collected by oral source of historical information. A researcher is responsible to organize an interview ready to get oral information needed in writing history of that society and the kind of history we expect is oral history.

It’s true that, no element that can be a signature of and for African historiography particularly in the whole process of recovering the African past then the development of oral sources. This is because, oral sources accepted that Africans had their own history but the colonial scholars in writing African history they believed that before colonization Africa had no history and whenever they wrote about Africa they wrote on their own imaginations with no respect of African past. In the art of writing history Africans were less consulted in the making or remaking of their history. Their past was left unwritten because colonial historians did not trust Africans word of mouth which they labeled superstitions, biased and lacking evidences. Example of colonial scholars who undermined African history is like Professor A. P. Newton in 1923 who said “ no history before the coming of the Europeans, history only begin when men take to writing”[4].

Due to the above explanations, oral sources specifically the oral traditions had great roles in recovering the African past and the following are among of them;

Oral sources shed light on the ways of the societies concerned, thus making it possible for historians to reconstruct the society’s history. Historical poems and songs that related to the events such as deeds of rulers and wars depict societies, politics, and social values needed to be revisited[5]. In writing history, historian can learn about political events and altitudes of the societies involved. Example praise songs and songs of the past meant to record the praise names, victories and glorious qualities of the chief and his ancestors. To the historians such poems and the old songs are the source of historical information to recover the African past since they obtain social values and ideals of the time when they were composed. Within these songs and poems historians can extract information about victories of indigenous African towards wars and political leaderships of those periods.

Oral sources has an ability to trace place names, king’s lists and genealogies; in this aspect the process of recovering African past place names tends to give the names of places experienced migrations. The main aims of these testimonies are usually to maintain and study migrations and information about demographic structures of the past[6]. For the oral societies such as those of pre- colonial Africa, the lists of kings and genealogies of local chiefs are very important and their great role is to prove continuity of chieftainship and to make justifications of occupation of authorities by the pre-literate African local leaders. Here for the historians to recover the past can obtain from them information about political and social development of chiefdom or a kingdom on other side historian can use the lists of kings and genealogies to establish chronology by providing units of durations which are more useful in evaluating how far in the past something happened.

Oral sources have considered the narrations of Africa as a historical message which recover the African past. The various narrations belonging to a given ethic group can be sources of historical information  to be used by African historians to recover the past since they contain a lot of social values, experiences and political practices of indigenous Africa. Example the Luba narratives from the shore of lake Tanganyika tells how a chief rid himself of another by inviting him to sit on mat under which a pit has been dug…[7]. Also according to Finnegan, the narratives give an account of events such as wars migrations and establishment of ruling dynasties and deeds of heroes and their functions is record history as well as to provide justification for the continued positions and powers of ruling houses and are recited at ceremonial occasions[8]. Through these narratives we get historical messages on how events happened concerning local administrations of indigenous Africans, African heroes and legends as well as religious spirits of the past and these can be used by historians as a body of historical knowledge to write a detailed history of Africa.

Oral sources particulary oral tradions tend to glorify pre-literate African civilizations. Eaxmple, the African civilization in the Sahara and South of the desert were the great extent civiliztion of the spoken words.[9] This implies that, among the sources of historical informations which identifies Africans with civilization is just the oral sources and they show that the pre-literate civilizations of Africans in some part of Africa like Sahara and south of the desert were in term of spoken word by mouth. But other sources those used by colonial scholars did not recognize such kind of civilization and the words of mouth were not considered as a source of history to be taken into account and in the programs of writing the African history. Therefore, historians can write a detailed African history concerning different civilizations of different ethnic groups by using the oral traditions.

Oral sources specifically the oral traditions are the history by themselves; to prove this statement for example, it follows that oral traditions are not just a source about the past by a historiology[10]. In this aspect, oral traditions as sources of historical informations as well as the important source to the productions of oral history and recovering the African past since they tend to stand alone as history of the given society. This means that story telling during the period of indigenous African societies together with traditional ways of life portrayed the culture of that society and how it differed with another society and through this, the history of that particular society was within the oral traditions. Something to note here is that, if any historian he or she is interested to study and understand the history of a given society he or she may use oral traditions of that society and this is a justification to show that oral sources are the source of recovering the indigenous African past.

By concluding; oral sources are very useful in the productions of oral history as well as recovering the African past since through the old poems and songs, narratives, genealogies they reflect important events that colonial scholars did not take them into account and produce history of Africa instead they wrote from their understanding about Africa. Oral sources particularly oral traditions accept social events like migrations, populations, ethnic boundary conflicts and other different events and from there oral sources has a special part to play in constructions of  history of illiterate society as well as to re-write African history under African perspectives.  

REFERENCES:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/oral_history: ( accessed on 12/12/2015 at 10:11 P.M.).

Ki-Zerbo, J. (1981). General History of Africa Vol.1. United States of America. University of Califonia Press.

King, Monica.  (n.d). The role Oral Traditions in African History Vol. 2.2. (Online, available from: ir.msu.ac.2w.8080/jspui/bitstream/11408/5603/1/king.pdf: accessed on 12/12/2015 at 10:11 PM).

Richard, A. D. (2003). Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide 2^nd Edition. New York. Oxford University Press.

Vansina, J. (1985). Oral Traditions As History. Kenya. The University of Wisconsin Press.

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[1] Vansina, J. Oral Traditions As History. (Kenya, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1985). Page 27.

[2] Richard, A. D. Doing Oral history: A Practical Guide 2^nd Edition. (New York, Oxford University Press, 2003) page 19.

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/oral_history (Accessed on 12/12/2015 at 10:11 P.M).

[4] Ki-Zerbo, J. General History of Africa: vol 1( USA, University of Califonia Press, 1981) page 32.

[5] King, Monica, D. The role Oral Traditions in African History: vol 2.2.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ki-Zerbo, J. General History of Africa: vol 1 ( USA, University of Califonia Press, 1981) page 147.

[8] King, Monica, D. The role Oral Traditions in African History: vol 2.2.

[9] Ki-Zerbo, J. General History of Africa: vol 1 ( USA, University of Califonia Press, 1981) page 142.

[10] Vansina, J. Oral Traditions As History. (Kenya, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1985). Page  195.