the african heroic epic

THE AFRICAN HEROIC EPIC: INTERNAL BALANCEAuthor(s): Isidore OkpewhoSource: Africa: Rivista trimestrale di studi e documentazione dellIstituto italiano per lAfricae lOriente, Anno 36, No. 2 (GIUGNO 1981), pp. 209-225Published by: Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40759480 .Accessed: 28/11/2013 12:36

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THE AFRICAN HEROIC EPIC: INTERNAL BALANCE

by Isidore Okpewho (*)

Introduction

The tradition of epic or heroic narrative in African societies has become a subject of growing interest. But of all the question which scholars of this branch of oral literature ponder, perhaps none has received quite as little attention as that of the sheer implications of scope. Some of the more notable scholarship on this genre has, with varying degrees of sensitivity, recognized prosody as a determining factor in the classification ('); and though there seems to be a certain concession to the fact that for a tale to be classified as epic there must be some element of largeness or scope to it (2), the question has seldom been raised what this scope consists in or how the narrator, given the very immediate pressures of performance before a sensitive audience, manages to sustain the sheer weight of the material and sustain plausibility or interest.

A close look at the internal dynamics of the African heroic epic soon reveals that it is sustained by an intriguing counterpoise

(*) Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. (1) See Adam Parry (ed.), The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers

of Milman Parry (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971); Albert B. Lord, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1960); Ruth Finnegan, Oral Literature in Africa (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970), for a denial on prosodie grounds; and David E. Bynum, The Generic Nature of Oral Epic Poetry , in Folklore Genres, ed. Dan Ben-Amos (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1976).

(2) See Daniel Biebuyck, Hero and Chief: Epic Literature from the Banyanga (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1978), pp. 34-74; Isidore Okpewho, The Epic in Africa: Toward a Poetics of the Oral Performance (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1979), pp. 66-79, 119-134; Lilyan Kesteloot, Les popes de l'ouest afri cain, Prsence Africaine, 58 (1966), 204-9.


210 ISIDORE OKPEWHO

between elements that are both contradictory and complementary; on the whole this counterpoise helps to ensure for the tale a certain comprehensiveness both in terms of cultural outlook and of structural design. We shall see how this comprehensiveness is achieved in the narrative by a careful examination of a collection of three versions of the Sunjata legend recently made by Gordon Innes (3).

But first we may need to have a fairly clear picture of the legend before we can discuss the various elements of its composition that numerous traditional poets have elaborated or manipulated in different ways. For there is evidently a large number of versions of this tale circulating among bards across the Western Sudan who trace their relationship to the fabled hero-leader in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons. In spite of this plurality of versions, the kernel of the tale seems to be essentially as follows.

Sunjata was the son of a thirteenth-century (?) king, Maghan Kung Fatta, of a nucleus of the Mandinka ethnic group in Mali. His mother Sukulung was also of royal blood and was one of a number of wives of the Maghan. One of the first sons to be born in this polygamous household, Sunjata suffered some setbacks early enough in his life and career. For some reason or other he seems to have been cheated out of his right to succession to the kingship. First, there was the intrigue carried out by the other sections of the family against his own. Then there was the death of his father, which seems to have encouraged the territorial hunger of te Susu (Sosso) chieftain Sumanguru, a formidable sorcerer, who now usurped the throne of Mali; thus dispossessed, Sunjata's mother and her children (including one or two girls) were driven into poverty and, in view of the menace of Sumanguru's tyranny, into exile. Another early set- back experienced by Sunjata was his being crippled (for whatever reason) from birth for many years; when he does rise on his feet he is on the threshold of a heroic career which will lock him in a fierce conflict with Sumanguru.

For Sumanguru, apparently recognizing the dangers to his unlaw- ful position and on the strength of warning from a number of sooth- sayers, has begun to plot the elimination of the boy whom destiny

(3) Gordon Innes, Sunjata: Three Mandinka Versions (London: School of Orien- tal and African Studies, 1974). The texts were collected from three Gambian bards, Bamba Suso, Banna Kanute, and his older brother Dembo Kanute. References to the texts will bear the bard's first name and verse number, e.g. Bamba 75.


THE AFRICAN HEROIC EPIC: INTERNAL BALANCE 211

has chosen as king of the Mandinka. But his plans can avail him nothing. Sun j ata moves from one portent to another in his path to heroic supremacy: from uprooting a giant baobab tree simply in order to provide his forlorn mother condiment for couscous he goes on to subdue, like the Pindaric Achilles, the most formidable beasts in hunt. In numerous ways he shows himself to be a personality aided both by the force of destiny or God and by the power of sorcery. He makes a tremendous impression on monarch of different neighbouring communities who accomodate his family during their exile. When therefore the time comes for him to take up arms against Sumanguru to reclaim the throne of Mali, and he is indeed invited to do so by emissaries from the citizenry of Mali labouring under Sumanguru's tyranny, it is from these friendly monarchs that he receives the essential military aid that he needs for the expedition.

When Sunjata and Sumanguru finally join battle - fighting with a fearsome combination of physical strength and sorcery - Sunjata suffers a few reverses early in the campaigns. But two significant events occur to ensure victory for him. The first is the defection from Sumanguru's side of the powerful general Faa Koli; the greedy tyrant does not stop at appropriating the wife of his nephew Faa Koli, who in retaliation withdraws a considerable segment of the smith caste (who constitute the backbone of support for the king) to team up with Sunjata. The second event is a Delilah-type trick played on Sumanguru, whose mystical powers seem to present a continuing obstacle to the victory of Sunjata 's heavily augmented army. Appar- ently on the pretext of a quarrel with her headstrong brother, Sunjata's sister defects to Sumanguru whose yet undefeated leadership may be seen to have exercised a certain attraction on the woman. Sumanguru is overcome by her seduction and in an unguarded mo- ment, in the prospect of making love to her, yields to her on request the secret of his mystical power. Thus armed with this priceless taboo, the woman - no mean sorcerer herself - escapes back to her brother Sunjata for the final onslaught on the now essentially disarmed Sumanguru. The latter is destroyed but, with the little that is left of his sorcery, undergoes metamorphosis into some other object like a bird or a stone.

Now established as king of Mali, Sunjata nevertheless thirsts for more action. The latter part of his career is taken up with campaigns both against neighbouring rulers and against his own sub-


212 ISIDORE OKPEWHO

jects who are apparently dissatisfied with a restless (and no doubt overbearing) monarch. Though there is a touch of anticlimax to this portion of the legend, none of the published versions presents ut with an ignoble end to the life of the hero; the sum of his portraiture shows us a figure who is thoroughly master of a world that is somewhat above the level of everyday mortality (4).

The story of Sunjata would be hardly worth the reputation it has achieved over so many generation if it was being told in so little space. Depending on the type of audience he has before him, on the kind of response he gets, and on various other factors, the narrator makes all manner of adjustments and elaborations to the details of his story. He can even choose as the subject of his elaborative act one particular segment of the overall legend that appeals to him: the third version of Innes' collection concentrates on the career of Faa Koli in the Sunjata cycle of tales. The essential thing is that the bard is free in his performance to exercise such a pro- prietorship over a story that is intended not so much as a fossilized package of objective data as an act of glorification of the courageous life and an inspiration to the men of his day. Yet the two imperati- ves - the exaggerated ideals of the active life and the sobering real- ities of life as it actually is - are kept in clear focus, and it is in the process of seeking a balance between them that the tale reveals some kind of tussle - or reciprocity, depending on how one looks at it - between what may be called the elements of enlargement and control. Let us see some of the areas in which this balancing act is revealed in the three versions of the Sunjata story as collected by Innes (5).

(4) For other synopses see Jan Knappert, The Epic in Africa , Journal of the Folklore Institute, 4 (1971), 171-90; Daniel Biebuyck, The African Heroic Epic, in Heroic Epic and Saga, ed. Felix J. Oinas (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1978), pp. 341-2. In 1978 one of my oral literature students, Miss Marie HafTner (a Sierra Leonean), reported from her fieldwork on hearing versions of the Sunjata story by some Susu bards that made Sunjata into something of a treacherous villain. Perhaps what Banna Kanute tells us in his version (Banna 908-66) of an early dependence by Sunjata's mother on Sumanguru (called Defender of orphans , 935) for aid suggests some infiltration of Susu prejudice into the griot's material. Se also M. Sibide, Soundiata Keita: hros historique et lgendaire, empereur du Manding , Notes Afri- cains, 81 (1959), 41-51 for further evidence of Sunjata's reckless end.

5) Iwo other versions available in iinglish are JJ. 1. XMiane, undiata: An tpic of Old Mali {London: Longmans, 1965) and John W. Johnson, The Epic of Sun-] ata According to Magan Sisoko, 2 vols. (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Folklore Monograph Series, 1978).


THE AFRICAN HEROIC EPIC: INTERNAL BALANC 213

The heroic image

By far the most striking element of the heroic narrative is the personality who is glorified in the tale. He is generally conceived as a human being but it is clear from the overall portraiture of him that he is rather unlike ordinary human beings. We are expected to admire and no doubt emulate the courage with which he faces the most extraordinary challenges; but it is clear that he is equipped for the confrontation with resources that ordinary men do not usually possess. And right from the beginning to the consumation of his career he is shown in a light that places him above the level not only of natural men but indeed of the other figures in his extraordinary world; there is usually an extra resource that ensures he will always triumph either physically or spiritually.

The extraordinariness of the hero in these versions can be seen from many angles. For instance, Sunjata is not simply born into the world; his birth is first pre-announced both to the delight of his own group (Bamba 31-32) and to the dismay of the tyrant Sumanguru (Banna 233-4). Having been born, he does all sorts of extraordinary things. For instance, For seven years he crawled on all fours, / And refused to get up simply because his birth was announced to his father later than that of another (wife's) son, thus robbing him of the primogeniture (Bamba 82-84). As a child he performs tasks in which adults fail woefully, like donning a massive pair of trousers (Bamba 107-121), or effortlessly bending huge iron rods (Bamba 89- 97, Banna 943-966), or uprooting a whole baobab tree just to present the leaves as seasoning to his mother (Banna 1039-1050). As a full- grown man the hero's unique potential does not lessen: thus Sunjata causes a tree to fall just by bellowing at it (Bamba 333-335); in the fierce fighting between them the swords and spears which Sumanguru strike at Sunjata's body simply shatter and fall to pieces (Banna 1895- 1908); and Sunjata is able to win allies to his cause by doing amazing things like lifting pieces of iron from hot molten ore and shooting an arrow through five hoe-blades till it emerges at nine exit holes from the other side of a tree (Dembo 536-67).

All this is possible, of course, because our hero does not rely on ordinary human, mortal strength alone. In Dembo Kanute's version Sunjata is called great man and wizard (32), and the implication is that he combines physical might with supernatural powers whether


2 14 ISIDORE OKPEWH

of a magical order or as divine benediction. Thus he is able to anticipate the sorcery that is plotted against him by his jealous brothers (Bamba 182-208); he is shown to enjoy the protection and assistance of his sister's spirit-lover Manga Yura in his preparations against Sumanguru (Banna 1210-90); in all three versions, Sunjata is able to destroy Sumanguru by using the knowledge, fetched for him by his sister, of Sumanguru 's spiritual power in fashioning offensive weap- ons; and in Banna Kanute 's version we have an instance of divine benediction in the fact that, following a prayer from the Prophet Mohammed, Allah blesses Sunjata's parents with unusual good fortune in the birth of Sunjata by a rejuvenated mother as compen- sation for the loss of all previous forty sons in the prophet's war against infidels at Haibara (Banna 84-185).

These features clearly put the hero beyond the level of ordinary mortality. Yet it seems inevitable that, if he has been conceived primarily in an anthropomorphic light and the message of his great- ness is meant for a human society, he will harbour in his personality some of the limitation attendant on mortal life. It is true of course that in nearly every case the limitation simply serves to make the eventual triumph more impressive; but its presence at least brings some element of balance to the portraiture. Something of these limi- tations may be seen in the fact that Sunjata and his mother fall into penury at the death of his father and the crisis that ensues (Banna 880-93; cf. Bamba 125-73). A more striking instance of this dimi- nution is seen in the fighting between Sunjata and Sumanguru, during which Sunjata suffers considerable reverses (at least at the outset) and even demonstrates a certain cowardice before Sumanguru 's attacks (Bamba 667-91, Banna 1403-5, Dembo 771-80). But perhaps nothing in all the versions is as significants as a comment made by Bamba in one of his non-narrative interludes: The world does not belong to any man (310). In these tales the heroes invariably emerge as absolute masters of their society, with powers of life and death over those under their control. When therefore the narrator takes such an extenuating view within the context of his portraiture of an extraordinary world it can only be because he, as a human being with natural human concerns and fears, feels moved to warn his human audience of the dangers of absolute figures like Sunjata and Sumanguru about whom he sings; or at least he is saying that even these heroes, in spite of their outstanding qualities, cannot escape the ultimate fate


THE AFRICAN HEROIC EPIC: INTERNAL BALANCE 2 15

of all mortality. In these ways the narrators of the Sunjata story seek to contain within human terms the extraordinary largeness which the portraits of their heroes inevitably attain.

The heroic ideal

In these portraits the stakes are piled so high that we often wonder if there is any message meant for us ordinary mortals. The risks the heroes take are sometimes so unreal, and the resources on which they rely so out of the ordinary that we accomodate their experiences only because we could never be expected to go through them ourselves. Any modern writer who creates situations such as we find in these heroic tales can only be dubbed a romantic or mythic writer; we accept the fiction of Fagunwa largely because it is a nostalgic echo of our mythical traditions.

The narrators of these tales, no doubt recognizing the extraordinariness of the world which they are painting before their audiences, do not hesitate to acknowledge that they are discuorsing a higher order of reality and that the present society surely falls below the level of grandeur and dignity which these fabled heroes set in their days. There is of course an element of professional self-interest in this claim about the grandeur of the olden days. The griots who tell the story of the heroic days of Sunjata and his generals do so for public entertainment, and like most public performers they expect to be tipped handsomely by their audiences; what better way to earn the respect and appreciation of their patrons than by claiming that in those glorious days they enjoyed greater esteem than they do now- adays? What these present-day griots are sayng in essence is that their predecessors played a significant role in the attainment of high excell- ence by Sunjata and his company. The griot characters in these tales are consequently treated with a certain partiality and dignity. Thus Bamba Suso tells us that of the two messengers sent to announce to Sunjata's father the birth of his first two sons, the griot showed a more urgent sense of duty; and after his father died, Sunjata declared he wanted nothing of his extensive patrimony other than the griots, thereby uniting himself with them in a lasting bond of loyalty and friendship (Bamba 64-180). Banna Kanute laments repeatedly that


216 ISIDORE OKPEWH

In Sunjata's day a griot did not have to fetch water, To say nothing of farming and collecting firewood. Father World has changed, changed.

(Banna, 320-22, 735-8, 1463-5, 2006-7) (6).

And Dembo Kanute, tracing the origin of all griots back to the griot of Sunjata's father (Nyankuma Dookha), informs us that the real cause of the war between Sun j ata and Sumanguru was the latter 's cruelty in hamstringing Dookha and coercing him into his service (Dembo 270-331) (7).

If, as these griots repeatedly tell us, the day of their heroes is past , in what has that world changed; what are the ideals of heroism which are no more? There seems little doubt that in these griots* estimation the highest regard was shown for the active life, and this meant nothing less than warfare. Some anthropologists have drawn a line between what they call the guilt culture and the shame culture, with the implication that in the latter a man is considered a man to the extent that he seeks the path of honour even at the cost of his life. These texts of the Sunjata story certainly lend some credibility to the argument: in the eyes of the griots heroism is seen as the highest goal - the summum bonum, as it were - and the war-mongering of the olden days as the epitome of the heroic ideal. Thus Bamba Suso laments the passing of men like Sunjata and Sheikh Umar who commanded large armies and claimed human lives in a flash (Bamba 497-501, 591-3). Both Banna and Dembo Kanute applaud the success of Sunjata in repeatedly destroying and rebuilding Mali with his army (Banna 1997-8, Dembo 266-7), and both celebrate the fact that for the men of those bygone days Death is better than disgrace (Banna 1396, 1936; Dembo 779, 1000) (8).

But the war-mongering of the past has no place in the contemporary polity; and if the ideal of heroism which these griots celebrate should mean anything for their audiences they should again be

(6) Compare Bamba 293-307 on Sunjata's prophecy of a sad future awaiting the griots.

(7) See also Niane, Sundiata, p. 40. For a critique of griots' claims and positions see especially Austin Shelton, The Problem of Griot Interpretation and the Actual Causes of War in Soundjata, Prsence Africaine, 66 (1968), 145-52 and Inns, Sun- jata, pp. 3-7.

(8) For a discussion of the pre-eminence given in pre-Islamic Western Sudanese society to the military life and the ideal of tmrit attached to it, see Cheikh Anta Diop, Nations N egrs et Culture (Paris: Prsence Africaine, 1954), p. 357.



contained within the terms of life as it is lived today. It is in Dembo Kanute 's version that we find an unequivocal reassurance that the men of today can still achieve heroic proportions and be worthy of celebration in heroic song. For the griot heroism continues to consist in a life of action, all the more laudable if it is not weak- ened by prevaricating thought ( A single act of thinking will not last as long as the world , Dembo 25). But there is room for contemporary figures in the heroic society of the griot 's song as long as they can exert themselves successfully; thus Dembo tells the host of his performance:

Seni Daabo, do something sir; Life consists of doing something, Not of doing everything, For there is no end to that, and failure wins no support.

(Dembo 67-70)

Despite the ventilative or digressive character of Banna's chant exhorting the people of Gambia to exert themselves gainfully ( Let the whole of the Gambia take up work... For that is what profits a man , Banna 386-9). it is arguable that his mind here is guided by a belief in the active life as the sure path to glory. In this way the narrator is able to adjust the lofty demands of the heroic ideal in line with the new socio-political conditions for the benefit of his patrons (9).

The temporal scheme

And yet the effort to bring the heroic ideal within the reach of contemporary society does raise some problems for the sense of pastness on which the heroic narrative song tends to lean for its authenticity as a record of the heroic deeds of bygone days.

(9) For perspectives on adjustment to change in the griots' narratives, see Gordon Innes, Stability and Change in Griots* Narration , African Language Studies, 14 (1973), 11048; Donald R. Wright, Koli Tengela in Sonko Traditions of Origin: An Example of the Process of Change in Mandinka Oral Traditions , History in Africa, 5 (1978), 257-72; Isabelle Leymarie-Ortiz, The Griots of Senegal and Change, Africa (Rome), 34 (1979), 183-97. Compare Robert Cornevin, Les po- mes quipes africains et la notion d'pope vivante, Prsence Africaine, 60 (1966), 140-45.


218 ISIDORE OKPEWHO

Let us briefly examine those instances in which the narrator has tended to spread his temporal canvas rather widely. Perhaps the least 'culpable' of these can be seen in that tendency whereby various scenes, events and attitudes in contemporary society are traced back to the days of Sunjata. Bamba Suso traces the phenomenon of the silk-cotton tree's rotting from the top to an incident in his version when Sunjata fells one such tree merely by bellowing at it (Bamba 333-8); attributes the thinness of wrist among the Darbos to Sunjata's fierce grip on the wrist of the founder of their line (342-8); and dates the unique bond between the Keitas (Sunjata's lineage) and the Kuyates (the ancestral line of all griots) to Sunjata's act of love in giving a piece of his flesh as meat for his starving griots (467-75). Banna Kanute traces the Kante family's taboo against the eating of white chicken to the fact That when Sunjata and Susu Sumanguru met (in war), / It was a white chicken which killed the latter (Banna 371-4). Dembo Kanute relates the love of tomatoes, okra and maize among the Mandinka back to the incident in his version when emissaries from Mali are able to discover the exiled Sunjata and his family simply by vending those vegetables in the market of their host town (Dembo 345-58); and he puts the origin of the custom of buying burial plots in the entire region from Sierra Leone to Liberia to the bad faith of Mansa Farang Tunkara in making his exile -guest Sunjata purchase the piece of land on which to bury his dead mother (487-98).

The implication of such aetiological tendencies is that the traditions of the society have defied the passage of time, that the outlook is timeless. This may not be such a serious threat to the 'pastness' of Sunjata's career; but it does mean that details within the canon of the legend may be altered not only in tune with successive historical circumstances but indeed in accordance with peculiar interests. The potential for this may be seen in Banna Kanute 's version which makes Sunjata fire at Sumanguru with a gun loaded with cockspur stuffed with gold and silver dust (Banna 1659-67 et passim): it is obviously arguable that if the narrator was obliged to respect quite rigidly the 'antiquity' of these events (the earliest Arabic sources date the reign of Sunjata to the thirteenth century), there could be no question of a gun being used then; but it seems compatible with the professional interests of the performer to use a more 'fashionable' (if not more formidable) weapon for his hero.



But perhaps a more significant corruption of interest may be seen in the identification of leaders within the Sunjata circle. We may recall the well-known argument that the sixth-century tyrant Peisistra- tos had passages in Homer altered to reflect the interests of his family (10), and we are also familiar with Virgil's politic assignment, in the Aeneid, of a remote ancestry to members of the Augustan circle. Somewhat similar personal and political prejudices may be seen in Dembo Kanute 's version. The antiquity of the Darbo lineage in the Gambia may not be in doubt; as we have seen above, Bamba Suso himself refers to it in his version, though this may again depend on the influences on the griot 's training in the art of telling the Sunjata story. But Seni Darbo happens to be the patron of Dembo Kanute for this particular performance; and when Dembo makes the ancestor of the Darbos the leader - even ahead of Sunjata himself - of the final rout of Sumanguru (Dembo 956-74), the fact may be due far less to the authenticity of the Darbos' claims to such a remote ancestry than to the griot 's suit for a generous patronage. Consider- ing what Gordon Innes tells us of Dembo 's hobnobbing with pro- minent leaders in the Gambia and various other West African count- ries, the same may be said for his making Sitafa Jawara - no doubt an ancestor of the then Prime Minister of the Gambia, Sir Dauda Jawara - another one of the leaders of the rout (976) (n).

The performer cherishes such a patronage for his livelihood as well as for the contemporary appeal of his art. But there is an inherent risk that the circumstances of the present will detract from that sense of the past, if not exactly the basis in real history, to which the story pretends. It may indeed be true, as we have pointed out above, that timelessness is a principal virtue of the heroic epic. But when Bamba Suso makes the joyous reception by Sunjata's sister of their envoy half-brother an all too natural reaction (Bamba 372-3), or when Dembo takes the same view of the immediate attraction of Sunjata's family to familiar Mandinka vegetables vended in the market at their place of exile (Dembo 360-62), we have some reason to suspect that the actual events which these griots celebrate may not after all be so remote as they seem to expect us to believe.

(10) See L. R. Palmer, The Language of Homer (p. 106) and J.A. Davison, The Transmission of the Text (pp. 219-20) in A Companion to Homer, eds. A. J. B. Wace and F.H. Stubbings (London: Macmillan, 1962).

(11) See also Innes* note ad loc. (Sunjata, p. 322).


220 ISIDORE OKPEWHO

It is perhaps in recognition of such sceptical tendencies on the part of the present-day audience that the bards once in a while seek some kind of authoritative support in tradition or the past. Bamba Suso does this by citing as the source of his knowledge of the Sun j ata story his grandfather Koriyang Musa, who he claims spent a week with the spirits {jinns) in their uninhabited island sanctuary at Sani- mentereng and brought back from them a kora (harp-lute), the principal instrument traditionally used in performing the Sunjata story (Bamba 7-15). Banna Kanute also wishes to impress it upon his audience (12) that he narrates his story as I have heard it from the traditional narrators (Banna 42) and from his parents and teachers (2065-6). And Dembo Kanute stresses the difference between the traditional janjungo tune that he plays in his performance (in honour of Faa Koli) and its later corruption by modern griots (Dembo 100- 101). By seeking such a sanctuary in tradition or antiquity, the bard is simply trying to control the extravagance of time and impress us with the historical authenticity of his record.

The mode of presentation

In discussing such aspects of the heroic narrative performance as structure and style, I do not think there is any radical need for me to reiterate points I have already made in The Epic in Africa, so I will only try to distil the major points within the purview of this essay.

We have seen in the introduction how lean the essential story of Sunjata 's life and career is, and observed that the reputation (as well as size) of this story as revealed in the available texts is a token of the elaborative genius of the narrator as performer. Perhaps the most noticeable physical mark of the text of the performance is the repetitiveness of it. Every one of the three versions here sports this characteristic with varying degrees of dramatic or thematic plausibility, and we may just cite a few representative examples.

Bamba Suso gives us a ka tal o go s of generals - Fofana, Kamara, Madiba Konte, and Faa Koli - who in the preparations for war against Sumanguru pull their forces up beside Sunjata. In each of the four

(12) On a possible flagging of interest on the part of the host, Mr Sidibe, and Banna Kanute's response to this, see Innes' note to Banna 1266.



cases the ally answers Sunjata's call with 1444 troops; in every case Sunjata responds that they cannot be said to be ready for the war until Tira Makhang has come; in two of the four cases the ally objects to Sunjata's preference of Tira Makhang over him, and Sunjata explains this preference on the grounds that Tira Makhang is not so much better than anyone as he is a tireless fighter (Bamba 515-613). In portraying Sumanguru's frenzied attempts to forestall Sunjata's threst to his throne, Banna Kanute devotes over a quarter of the text of his performance to the consultations which Sumanguru makes with at least three marabouts. The results of these consultations are essentially the same: two white objects (chickens, sheep, or stone and paper) are marked for the two rivals; there is a contest between each pair; and the one marked for Sumanguru goes down, foreshadow- ing his destined destruction by Sunjata (Banna 265-794). For the first eighty-one (prefatory) verses of his performance Dembo Kanute works variations on a very limited set of phrases used for recalling the heroes of bygone days; and later he submits Sunjata to thematic- ally the same trial by numbers - a test of his supernatural powers on an iron object multiplied five times - by leaders whose aid he solicits for the war against Sumanguru (Dembo 530-67).

There is considerable dramatic appeal and potential in the specta- ble which the bards conjure by their use of numbers and size played many times over; but have we no grounds, given the 'historical' claims of these chronicler-performers, to wonder the coincidence of numbers in every case? It is at such point that we have recourse to the aestheticist logic of symbolism. For instance, Bamba Suso multi- plies the number 1444 many times over as a way of saying that the large size of the allies' forces is as nothing compared with the dependable stamina of Tira Makhang; and Banna Kanute replicates the frenzied efforts of Sumanguru and their discouraging message as a way of stressing that the doom of the tyrant is inexorable.

There is, as I have said, considerable dramatic or performance value to this replication of details which accounts for the substantial size of text that we get in these tales. And yet this replication of numbers and details is facilitated by an in-built mnemonic resource which ensures stabilization in the often difficult circumstances of performance. This is the technique that oral literary scholars have called formulaic. There is a certain paradox involved in this technique: the mind of the bard is working with a limited set of ideas (folklorists


222 ISIDORE OKPEWHO

have long used the term motifs for such ideas) which facilitates both generation and conservation. In Bamba Suso 's case we have the single idea that an ally arrives with a large army, but Sun j ata still expects Tira Makhang. In Banna Kanute 's case we also have one idea: the future of the rivalry between Sun j ata and Sumanguru is proven by the confrontation between two white objects; the same trial by numbers is seen in Dembo Kanute's case (13).

What we have said about the mode of symbolization has further implications for the idiom in which these tales are told. No doubt the narrators of these tales, and their traditional audiences among the indigenous folk, take rather seriously the supernatural design of the portraiture of both heroes and events in the tales. There is a double advantage to this supernatural design: not only does it fill the people with a high sense of spiritual satisfaction with the facts of their heritage, but it infuses into the tales a certain degree of 'high seriousness' which is no mean boon to the narrator's art. The narrator exploits this advantage by indulging the poetic uncommonness of his idioms. Many of the phrases occurring especially in the versions by the Kanute brothers - who are considerably younger than Bamba Suso and so filled with greater dramatic zeal - are, as Gordon Innes occasionally informs us, largely nonsense; an example is the 'Arabic' contained in the prophecy of the first two marabouts consulted by Sumanguru (Banna 295-6, 459-61). In other cases - as in the praise titles of various characters in these two versions - the sheer alliterative or ideophonic force of the phrases is so strong that it is doubtful that they are used for anything other than their vocal-dramatic effects. Otherwise the bards once in a while use words and phrases which they claim are intelligible only to the Eastern Mandinka (Bamba 518, Banna 1945-52, Dembo 674-5). No doubt the griot hopes to make a high poetic impression by dabbling in language that the aver- age man does not understand.

(13) For other modes of control see Okpewko, The Epic in Africa, pp. 194- 201. For a criticism of the Parry-Lord oral-formulaic theory, see B. A. Stolz and R. S. Shannon (eds.), Oral Literature and the Formula (Ann Arbor: Center for Coordina- tion of Ancient and Modern Studies, 1976); John D. Smith, The Singer or the Song? A Reassessment of Lord's Oral Theory, Man, 12 (1977), 141-53; Ruth Fin- negan, Oral Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1977), especially chapter 3. For further discussion on generation and conservation see Michael N. Nagler, Spon- taneity and Tradition (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1974) and Jack Goody, The Domestication of the Savage Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1977), especially pp. 112-28.



And yet there are dangers here too. Innes usefully informs us that Dembo's host Mr Sidibe thinks that... Dembo's greater use of (non-Gambian Mandinka) words would detract to some extent from the enjoyment of a Gambian audience (14). Of what use indeed is a performance if the language of it is lost to the audience? Whatever the reassurance that the Mandinka audiences may find in the recreation of a heritage of superior men and their deeds in idioms of considerable grandeur and uncommonness, whatever prestige such a recreation brings to the art of the narrator, the needs of effective communication and rapport with the audience dictate that the artist stay safely enough within the level of everyday discourse. Not only are these tales told principally in everyday diction (15); but the narrators are obliged every now and then to explain carefully the un- familiar usages in their texts (see especially Banna 1953-99). By these means the narrator manages to enjoy the double advantage of poetic loftiness and rapport with men such as himself.

Conclusion

Clearly, then, there is some degree of balance between various constituent elements in the heroic narrative. This balance may be in no small degree due to the contending but complementary claims of history and myth, in the sense that on the one hand the narrator is conscious of his charge to record human experience whether of the present or of the past, while on the other hand he realises that much of the appeal of his craft lies in transporting the imagination of his hearers beyond the banality of everyday experience and injecting some taste into an otherwise insipid order of reality. Indeed the premium put on the aesthetic element in these tales can be so high that the performer will not hesitate to renounce somewhat of his role as chronicler: such is quite likely to be the background to Banna Kanute 's piqued rejoinder to his rather unappreciative host: Don't you know / That an ordinary narrator and an expert singer are not the same? (Banna 1265-6). There is no use, Banna would seem to be saying, in telling about events if you don't dress the tale out pleasantly.

(14) Innes, Sunjata, p. 261. (15) See Innes, Sunjata, pp. 11-15.


224 ISIDORE OKPEWHO

It will be observed that by analysis has leaned somewhat heavily on the element of performance which seems to me a quite essential path to our understanding of the oral narrative art. I am nevertheless aware of other techniques that have been used in the exploration of contradictions in traditional narrative. Not the least notable of these techniques is the structural analysis of myth by Lvi-Strauss, from his revolutionary essay The Structural Study of Myth 16) to the monumental quartet the Mythologiques (17). Ingenious though I consider this mode of analysis, I have remained suspicious of the validity of its disregard of the creative personality and the contextual element of performance, a disregard which inevitably yields the con- viction that the organisation of elements within the tale is supra- conscious. It may be argued that some of the constraints of context which I have pointed to in this essay are of an exodermic nature in relation to the tale; but it can hardly be denied that the stresses between the claims of reality and myth - between fact and fancy - with which the narrator has to grapple consciously (as amply demonstrated above) are intrinsic to the existence of the tale. I feel quite convinced that Lvi-Strauss' structuralist theory is overdue for a reconsideration from an aestheticist point of view (18).

Because of his denial of a conscious basis to the structure of myth, Lvi-Strauss is inclined to see in it more of an isomorphism with the contrapuntal flow of music - a theme that he belabours in the four volumes of the Mythologiques - than with the guided balance of modern poetry, though an early joint analysis with Roman Jakob- son of a poem by Baudelaire is strikingly similar to his own efforts on traditional tales (19). Lvi-Strauss is of course not alone in this

(16) See Claude Lvi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology (London: Allen Lane, 1968), pp. 206-31. The essay first appeared in a special number on myth published by the Journal of American Folklore (1955) and later republished as Myth: A Sym- posium, ed. Thomas A. Sebeok (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1958).

(17) Paris: Libraire Pion, 1964-71. The first two volumes have been published in English translations as The Raw and the Cooked (1969) and From Honey to Ashes (1971), both by Harper and Row, New York.

(18) ror two efiorts in this direction see Ierence Iurner, Uedipus: lime and Structure in Narrative Form, in Forms of Symbolic Action, ed. Robert F. Spencer (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1969) and Isidore Okpewho, Poetry and Pat- tern: Structural Analysis of an I jo Creation Myth , Journal of American Folklore, 92 (1979), 302-25.

(19) See Roman Jakobson and Claude Lvi-Strauss, Charles Baudelaire s Les Chats' in Structuralism: An Introduction, ed. Michael Lane (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970). For a critique of the isomorphism between myth and music, see Pandora



underestimation of the oral technical skill. At about the same time that he published The Structural Study of Myth , Cedric Whitman came out with a rather stimulating study of the Homeric epic de- monstrating that the structural balance of episodes in Homer is a child not so much of the oral tradition as of the literate or sophisti- cated skills of late-Geometric Greek art (20). Perhaps an episodic analysis of one or more of our African heroic epics somewhat along the lines adopted by Whitman will lead us toward a more dependable understanding of the relationship between oral and literate creativity.

Isidore Okpewho

SOMMARIO

La leggenda di Sunjata, sovrano del Mali medievale (forse del sec. XIII) ricor- data ancor oggi nelle tradizioni orali con molte varianti che danno origine a vari cicli. In questo studio si fa un accurato esame critico di tre versioni della leggenda, allo scopo di meglio spiegare i criteri e i metodi seguiti dai griots nel comporre i loro canti epici.

RESUME

La lgende de Sunjata, roi du Mali mdival (du sicle XlIIme dit-on) est vo- que encore aujourd'hui dans les traditions orales trs varies entre elles donnant lieu plusieurs cycles. Dans cette tude on effectue un soigneux examen critique des trois versions de la lgende afin de mieux expliquer les critres et les mthodes suivis par les griots dans la composition de leurs chants piques.

Hopkins, The Homology of Music and Myth: Views of Lvi-Strauss on Musical Structure, Ethnomusicology, 21 (1977), 247-61.

(20) 5ee Cedric H. Whitman, Homer and the Heroic Tradition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958).


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Issue Table of ContentsAfrica: Rivista trimestrale di studi e documentazione dellIstituto italiano per lAfrica e lOriente, Anno 36, No. 2 (GIUGNO 1981), pp. 167-356Front MatterLA SCULTURA DELL'AFRICA NERA E LA CULTURA EUROPEA [pp. 167-182]CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS OF YOUNG AFRICAN GIRLS' ATTITUDES (STUDENTS OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN KINSHASA) [pp. 183-208]THE AFRICAN HEROIC EPIC: INTERNAL BALANCE [pp. 209-225]APPUNTI SULLA LINGUA DI SOYO [pp. 227-252]NOTE E TESTIMONIANZEREPERTORIO DELLE INCISIONI, PITTURE ED ISCRIZIONI RUPESTRI PRESENTI NEL TERRITORIO DELL'AIR ED AREE LIMITROFE [pp. 253-305]LA GAZZETTA DI ADUA [pp. 306-314]RICERCHE ARCHEOLOGICHE NEL DELTA DEL GASH, PROVINCIA DI KASSALA (SUDAN) [pp. 315-327]ATTORNO AL V CONGRESSO INTERNAZIONALE DI STUDI ETIOPICI (NIZZA 1977) [pp. 328-330]

AFRICA E COMUNIT ECONOMICA EUROPEAGli avvenimenti registrati in questa rubrica vanno dal 1 febbraio al 30 aprile 1981 [pp. 331-332]

CRONOLOGIA AFRICANA [pp. 333-335]RECENSIONIReview: untitled [pp. 336-337]Review: untitled [pp. 337-338]Review: untitled [pp. 338-339]Review: untitled [pp. 339-340]Review: untitled [pp. 340-341]Review: untitled [pp. 341-342]Review: untitled [pp. 342-343]Review: untitled [pp. 343-344]Review: untitled [pp. 344-345]Review: untitled [pp. 345-346]Review: untitled [pp. 346-346]

BOLLETTINO BIBLIOGRAFICO AFRICANO [pp. 347-356]Back Matter

the african heroic epic

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