¹ Fage, J. D., ‘Some notes on a scheme for the investigation of oral tradition in the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 1, i (1956) 15–19.Google Scholar

² Cf. Vansina, J., Oral Tradition (Harmondsworth, 1973), who cites a number of influential articles published in the 1950s.Google Scholar

³ Fage, ‘Some notes ’, 16, 18.

⁴ Fage, ‘Some notes ’, 16.

⁵ Cf. Lloyd, P. C., ‘Yoruba myths: a sociologist's interpretation’, Odu, 11, 20–8.Google Scholar

⁶ The word ‘ oralcy ’ as used by my colleague P. de Moraes Farias may be more correct, but ‘oracy’ has gained some currency since, e.g. Tonkin, E., ‘Implications of oracy: an anthropological view’, Oral History, III, i (1975), 41–9Google Scholar, and also in sociology of education.

⁷ See ‘ tradition ’ in the Concise Oxford Dictionary.

⁸ Fage, ‘Some notes ’, 15.

⁹ See Henige, D., The Chronology of Oral Tradition : Quest for a Chimera (Oxford, 1974).Google Scholar

¹⁰ Perhaps the most incisiveexponentof thisargumentwas Nadel, S. F., The Foundations of Social Anthropology (London, 1951), e.g. 91–100.Google Scholar

¹¹ First published in English in 1965 as Oral Tradition (revised edition, Harmondsworth, 1973). I do not address in this article Vansina's many contributions to African studies. These include innovative uses of ‘evidences in spite of themselves ’ (see e.g. Vansina, J., The Children of Woot (Dawson, 1978))Google Scholar and many critical discussions of methodology, some distilled in Vansina, Oral Tradition as History (London, 1985), reviewed on p. 393.

¹² Vansina, Oral Tradition, 79.

¹³ , Vansina, Oral Tradition, xiii, corrected to this formulation for the Penguin edition of 1973.Google Scholar Cohen points out that this does not really alter the assumptions behind the earlier phrasing of a ‘chain’ of transmission; Cohen, D. W., Womunafu's Bunafu (Princeton, 1977). 8.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Vansina, Oral Tradition as History, xiii.

¹⁶ Ibid., 27.

¹⁶ Some anthropological versions of interactionism influential in other disciplines are by Bailey, F. W. and – e.g. in an early credo – Barth, F., Models of Social Organization, R.A.I Occasional Paper No. 23 (London, 1966)Google Scholar, repr. in F. Barth, Selected Essays, 1 (London, 1981). Discussions of exchange theory include Ekeh, P. P., Social Exchange Theory (London, 1974)Google Scholar and Heath, A., Rational Choice and Social Exchange (Cambridge, 1976).Google Scholar

¹⁷ Cohen, D. W., ‘Reconstructing a conflict in Bunafu: seeking evidence outside the narrative tradition’, in Miller, J. C., ed., The African Past Speaks (Folkestone/Hamden, 1980), 214–17 .Google Scholar

¹⁸ Cohen, Wotnunafu's Bunafu, 8, repeated in ‘Reconstructing a conflict ’, 206.

¹⁹ Bloch, M., The Historian's Craft (tr. Putnam, P.) (Manchester, 1954), 61.Google Scholar

²⁰ Bloch, op. cit., 54.

²¹ Examples of structuralist interpretations are in Miller, The African Past Speaks; see also Willis, R., A State in the Making (Bloomington, 1981).Google Scholar

²² Cf. Prins, G., The Hidden Hippopotamus (Cambridge, 1980), 8.Google Scholar

²³ Anthropologists have now become more aware of the complexity of their practice; see e.g. Ellen, R., ed., Ethnographic Research : A Guide To General Conduct (London, 1984)Google Scholar and many references cited therein.

²⁴ Bloch, Historian's Craft, 62.

²⁵ I make no distinction here between ‘ traditionists ’ and eye-witnesses. Objections to Vansina's distinctions are made in Tonkin, E., ‘The boundaries of history in oral performance’, History in Africa, IX (1982), 273–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar A single oral historian's narrative may bring together ‘tradition’, ‘eye-witness account’ and other types of testimony. Vansina Mark 2 retains these as distinct types of source while now urging the holistic understanding of narrative.

²⁶ Lamphear, J., The Traditional History of the Jie of Uganda (Oxford, 1976)Google Scholar; Tosh, J., Clan Leaders and Colonial Chiefs in Lango (Oxford, 1978).Google Scholar

²⁷ Tosh, Clan Leaders, 8.

²⁸ Lamphear, Traditional History, 61.

²⁹ The classic account of segmentation is E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer (Oxford, 1940), and it was popularized in a more ‘substantivist’ form by M. Fortes, see e.g. their edition of African Political Systems (London, 1940). There is, of course, a substantial literature of criticism, support and modification which must now be understood as well.

³⁰ Tosh, Clan Leaders, 87.

³¹ Just one example of these writers is Whitehead, A., ‘Men and women, kinship and property: some general issues’, in Hirschon, R., ed., Women and Property, Women Property (London, 1984).Google Scholar

³² Vansina, Oral Tradition, 191–2.

³³ Irwin, P., Liptako Speaks: History from Oral Tradition in Africa (Princeton, 1981), 32–3.Google Scholar

³⁴ Some of the issues raised here also discussed in Tonkin, E., ‘Steps to the redefinition of oral history: examples from Africa’ (review article), Social History, vii, iii (1982), 32O–35.Google Scholar

³⁵ Bourdieu, P., Outline of a Theory of Practice (tr. Nice, R.) (Cambridge, 1977).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁶ See, e.g. Forgas, J. P., ed., Social Cognition (London, etc., 1981).Google Scholar

³⁷ Cf. Bourdieu's discussion of marriage strategies, Outline, e.g. 70, which were analysed by Cohen as a historical resource.

³⁸ Studies of political language are reviewed by Parkin, D., ’Political language’, Annual Review of Anthropology, XIII (1984), 345–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For metaphor see Ricoeur, P., The Rule of Metaphor (tr. Czerny, R. et al. ) (London and Henley, 1977).Google Scholar

³⁹ Lapin, D., ‘Story, medium and masque: the idea and art of Yoruba storytelling’, Ph.D. thesis (Wisconsin Madison, 1977) 102 ft., 233 ff.Google Scholar I am grateful to John Peel for drawing my attention to this work.

⁴⁰ Peel, J. D. Y., ‘Making history: the past in the Ijesha present’, Man (n.s.), xix, I (1984), 111–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴¹ Conrad, D. C., ‘Islam in the oral traditions of Mali: Bibali and Surakata’, Journal of African History, xxvi, i (1985).Google Scholar

⁴² Cf. Todorov, Tzvetan, ‘The origin of genres’, New Literary History, vii, i (1976), 159–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴³ Portelli, A., ‘The time of my life: functions of time in oral history’, International Journal of Oral History, XL, ii–iii (1981), 162–198.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Cf. Van Velzen, H. U. E. Thoden, ‘Robinson Crusoe and Friday: strength and weakness of the big man paradigm’, Man (n.s.), viii, iv (1973), 592–612.CrossRefGoogle Scholar