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Some Reflections on the Oral Traditions of the Galinhas Country, Sierra Leone
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 May 2014
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Whenever historians of Africa write: “According to tradition…”, they evade the crucial question of what kind of oral tradition they are referring to. The assumption that oral tradition is something more or less of the same nature throughout Africa, or indeed the world, still permeates many studies on African history; and even those who have themselves collected oral material seldom pause to consider how significant this material is or how it compares with that available in other areas.
The majority of studies of oral tradition have been written by people who worked with fairly formal traditions; and those who, after reading such studies, go and work in societies where such traditions do not exist are often distressed and disappointed. There is therefore still a need for localized studies of oral tradition in different parts of Africa. As far as Sierra Leone is concerned, no work specifically devoted to the nature of oral tradition has been published, despite several valuable publications on the oral literature of the Limba and Mende. The notes that follow are intended to give a rough picture of the kind of oral material I obtained in a predominantly Mende-speaking area of Sierra Leone in 1977-78 (supplemented by a smaller number of interviews conducted in 1973-75, 1980, and 1984). My main interest was in the eighteenth and nineteenth century history of what I have called the Galinhas country, the southernmost corner of Sierra Leone.
I conducted nearly all of my interviews through interpreters and did not use a tape recorder more than a very few times. This was partly because the amount of baggage I could carry on foot was limited, but also because I soon found that some informants were disturbed by the tape recorder, and because it was difficult to catch on tape the contributions of all the bystanders.
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- Copyright © African Studies Association 1985
References
NOTES
1. E.g. Finnegan, Ruth, Lirnba Stories and Storytelling (Oxford, 1967)Google Scholar; Kilson, Marion, Royal Antelope and Spider. West African Mende Tales (Cambridge Mass., 1976)Google Scholar; Cosentino, Donald, Defiant Maids and Stubborn Farmers. Tradition and Invention in Mende Story Performance (Cambridge, 1982).Google Scholar
2. Some initial conclusions are given in my book, From Slaves to Palm Kernels. A History of the Galinhas Country (West Africa) 1730-1890 (Wiesbaden, 1983).Google Scholar
3. These notes are accessible in typescript: “A preliminary investigation of oral traditions in the Galinhas area of Sierra Leone” (1978), and are deposited at the Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham, and the Institute of African Studies, Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone.
4. See Jones, Adam, “White Roots: Written and Oral Testimony on the ‘First’ Mr. Rogers,” HA, 10 (1983), 160n26.Google Scholar
5. In Sierra Leone Studies, 22 (1939), 83–87.Google Scholar
6. See below, and Jones, , Slaves to Palm Kernels, 65.Google Scholar
7. See ibid., 56, 70, 76n95, frontispiece, Plates 5-7.
8. This was certainly the case at Kasi. At Mani, I was told, there are three graves which all belong to the famous warrior Gbevo. For the importance of Gbandi to the Kiajua Massaquois see Jones, , “White roots,” 156–57.Google ScholarPubMed
9. Ibid.
10. Jones, Adam, “Who were the Vai?” JAH, 22 (1981), 164-68, 174–777.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11. The classic example of such a migration story (almost an epic) comes from just across the Liberian border: Kromah, K. Senesee, A Brief Historic Account of the Kromah and Massaquoi Houses of the Vai Tribe in Grand Cape Mount County (Bobalor, 1961).Google Scholar
12. Jones, , Slaves to Palm Kernels, 56–114.Google Scholar
13. Ibid., 63-66; idem. “Théophile Conneau at Galinhas and New Sestos, 1836-1841: a Comparison of the Sources,” HA, 8 (1981), 93-94.
14. Jones, , Slaves to Palm Kernels, 89–94.Google Scholar
15. People at Gomna Jembehun,for instance, insisted that their ancestor Boakei Gomna always fought on behalf of Gendema, the Massaquoi capital, yet documents of the time show that he was the principal enemy of Gendema throughout the 1880s.
16. Jones, , Slaves to Palm Kernels, 120-25, 140–60.Google Scholar
17. Cf. Davidson, John, “1898 revisited” in Proceedings of the 3rd Sierra Leone Studies Symposium (Birmingham, 1984).Google Scholar
18. Jones, , Slaves to Palm Kernels, 81-82, 133, 142–46.Google Scholar
19. It is certainly true that one clause in the treaties of 1850 and 1882/83 permitted Christian missionaries to “exercise their calling” within the territories of the African signatories: PRO, CO 267/218, FO 27.4.1850 to CO Enc, treaty of 2.2.1850; CO 879/20/Afr.251/30, Havelock 3.4.1882 to Secretary of State. Although two chiefs' sons were sent to school in Freetown in the early 1850s, no one seems to have paid much attention to the clause concerning missionaries.
20. Jones, , Slaves to Palm Kernels, 58–59.Google Scholar
21. Here it would be interesting (were it possible) to know what role the Poro plays, either in maintaining or in overcoming the slave-free distinction.
22. Hence perhaps the statement by Amara Lalu's descendants that he was the son (or “stepson”) of Siaka--a claim which sounds highly unlikely and is not substantiated in written documents.
23. I was given names for the fathers, grandfathers, and great grandfathers of Bai Jabi, Fansona II, Fan Kpato, Moana San-do and King Jaia, all of whom I know to have been chiefs in the 1880s.
24. In two villages on the northern periphery of the Galinhas country (Falaba and Bandasuma) I was shown a cannon which, it was said, had been sent to the village as part of the “dowry” qf Siaka's daughters, together with live fish which were to be released in a river or pond near the village concerned.
25. See Jones, , Slaves to Palm Kernels, 73–77.Google Scholar
26. See ibid., 91-92.