BIG Oral Arts Presentation

From: HUM 211 Course Pack
2.2 AFRICAN PRAISE SONGS:
Traditional African Oral Arts

In-Class Listening:

"Two Shellini" & "Holotelani"

SEMINAR #2 PREP. (handout)

What's in an African Name?

conditions of entry into the world
(e.g., a boy after three girls, birth in the midst of a terrible draught, special joy in a child who lives after a series of infant mortalities);

unusual features of the birth
(e.g., born wrapped in a caul or feet first) that are believed to denote character or spiritual affiliation;

a spiritual force known to have interceded in the child’s conception or an ancestor “come again” (reincarnated) in the child to form part of her/his complex soul, character, and exerting influence on her/his destiny;

genealogy or kinship group affiliations—of the individual’s people, clan, family, revered ancestors—that connect and identify the individual with the past and the community (past & present), and whose mythic and social history (key events, generalized character, special ancestors) may shape the individual’s future;

geographical affiliations of place and region, or elements of the natural environment (past and present) that identify and influence the individual and her/his community, kinship group;

totem (e.g., animal, plant, natural object) epithet--usually determined by divination or special revelation (e.g. a dream or vision)—of the individual and/or clan influencing the individual’s character, values, and/or destiny;

an important past experience or unusual incident (e.g. accomplishment, tragedy, special escapade, twist of fortune or fate) with which the person is identified (has gained the person either celebrity or notoriety), which has marked the person, and/or which reveals key character trait(s)

the (initiation) stage or social role in (spiritual and/or communal) life that the person has attained on her/his journey toward achieving full “humanness”

special “age-mates” to whom the person is bonded by shared affinities, experiences, character traits, spiritual destiny, etc.

Genre Conventions

A series of Praise names or epithets
(descriptive terms that substitute for the names of persons or things) comprise the poem's content;

Each line of the praise poem is comprised of
one praise name or descriptive epithet;

No connector words or transitional phrases
are generally used to connect lines or explain relationships between lines (i.e. parataxis)

"[P]raise poems must be pronounced and
heard in order to have their
intended effect" (Gleason xv); therefore . . .

Rhythm and sound are carefully attended to,
for a praise song is meant to be chanted to rhythmic beat or sung to music;

Call and Response:
In communal performance, the lines of the praise poem would be called by the chanter, and audience-participants would be expected to respond as a chorus at regular, rhythmic intervals within the chanted praise song.
Call-and-response forms, found everywhere in Africa, entail a caller or soloist who “raises the song”--as the Kpelle say--and the community chorus who respond, or “agree underneath the song" (Mutere, "African Oral Aesthetic"). Traditionally, formal and informal African storytelling is a communal interactive experience, and participation is an essential part of African social life.

Ambara, The Interpreter
Example of a Dogon Tige (Praise Song)
to an individual

Ambara
Abundant cloud
Pushed up through hollow bamboo
Fatigue
Banished brothers
Men of mud
Cutter of the road.

(Source: Solange de Ganay: Les Devises des Dogons, Paris: Institut d'Ethnologie, 1941; p. 149; as cited by Gleason 11.)

Explication
(line-by-line interpretation)

Line 1. Ambara (names the person)

Line 2. Abundant cloud (greeting given primal Dogon blacksmith when He arrived on Earth with the possibility of rain, reminds Ambara he is Dogon; the Dogon also associate this phrase with mystery and occult knowledge known only to high initiate in a Dogon secret society)

Line 3. Pushed up through hollow bamboo (“hollow bamboo” is praise name of the Dyon branch & clan of the Dogon and recalls their arrival to the region of the Bandiagara cliffs)

Line 4. Fatigue (associated with the neighborhood of Sanga and clan history: Ambara’s ancestors wore themselves out carrying soil from the bottoms of evaporating ponds up onto the rocky terraces of Bandiagara—beginning agriculture in this inhospitable desert environment; Also indicating the curse of the human condition)

Line 5. Banished brothers (For a mythic seven years in the past, the Dyon clan was banished from the villages of Ogol for breaking a serious taboo)

Line 6. Men of Mud. (“mud” indicates a water source and identifies the quarter of Ogol villages where Ambara’s immediate family lives)

Line 7. Cutter of the Road. (This final epithet characterizes Ambara’s personality type and social role—he has a facility of interpretation, which he has inherited from an ancestor whose life Ambara is reliving under different worldly circumstances.)

[Call:]	[Response:]
Jillian	Animal medicine woman
Born in snow	Animal medicine woman
Of Dane and Scot	Animal medicine woman
With Wolf I walk	Animal medicine woman
Helper of the animals	Animal medicine woman

Ambara, The Interpreter
Example of a Dogon Tige (Praise Song)
to an individual

Ambara
Abundant cloud
Pushed up through hollow bamboo
Fatigue
Banished brothers
Men of mud
Cutter of the road.

Line 1. Ambara (names the person)

Line 3. Pushed up through hollow bamboo (“hollow bamboo” is praise name of the Dyon branch & clan of the Dogon and recalls their arrival to the region of the Bandiagara cliffs)

Line 5. Banished brothers (For a mythic seven years in the past, the Dyon clan was banished from the villages of Ogol for breaking a serious taboo)

Line 6. Men of Mud. (“mud” indicates a water source and identifies the quarter of Ogol villages where Ambara’s immediate family lives)

Ambara, The Interpreter Example of a Dogon Tige (Praise Song) to an individual

Ambara Abundant cloud Pushed up through hollow bamboo Fatigue Banished brothers Men of mud Cutter of the road.

Line 1. Ambara (names the person)

Line 3. Pushed up through hollow bamboo (“hollow bamboo” is praise name of the Dyon branch & clan of the Dogon and recalls their arrival to the region of the Bandiagara cliffs)

Line 5. Banished brothers (For a mythic seven years in the past, the Dyon clan was banished from the villages of Ogol for breaking a serious taboo)

Line 6. Men of Mud. (“mud” indicates a water source and identifies the quarter of Ogol villages where Ambara’s immediate family lives)

Ambara, The Interpreter
Example of a Dogon Tige (Praise Song)
to an individual

Ambara
Abundant cloud
Pushed up through hollow bamboo
Fatigue
Banished brothers
Men of mud
Cutter of the road.