Beth Massingill
HUM 211, Prof. C. Agatucci
Take-Home Midterm Paper: Final
19 October 2004

Midterm Part 1: Topic Choice #1

            I have taken stock from my own experience to help determine some important guidelines which I feel are important for productive cross-cultural study of African oral arts and film.  As was stated in class by Cora Agatucci, the moment I walked into this particular arena of study, I crossed a cultural boundary because I am a white woman studying African history.  Having my own orientation to the world and other peoples, I realize what would be advantageous to me in my desire to learn about another culture is maintain an open mind, prepare for differences in language, beliefs systems, rituals, etc., and exercise a willingness to respect cultural differences.

            When I chose to take this course of study, I asked myself why I was interested in African culture.  It was clear to me that I knew very little about Africans and their history and I was curious about understanding the truth.  Without conscious thought, I was clear that I would have to be open to new input.  Input is only potent if it is channeled into something receptive.  In other words, an open mind would be essential to get the most from my study experience. 

            When our class began working on Seminar #1 Prep, I was particularly drawn to two quotations that affirmed my belief that an open mind is an essential component to cross-cultural study.  Ron Mpho Shea Solberg, “an American with white skin” (CP 1.3 “Cross-Cultural Study: Some Considerations” 14) states, “this capability and willingness to learn, to more accurately perceive is not dictated by skin tones, but one’s heart and personal drive” (14).  He furthers his position, in no uncertain terms, indicating “it requires an open mind…” (14).  I found that this was relatively easy to put into practice; however, I did get tripped up when I was caught making     <page break>

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a couple of general statements about a culture and gender.  A general statement puts me at a disadvantage because it closes my mind.  Catching myself with the help of another, I was quick to retrieve my open mind once more.

            It takes an open mind to move to the next step in order to prepare for cultural differences.  This is where I find it can be easier to justify slamming the mind’s door shut, but this would disengage me completely from the skill of studying.  So, in preparation, I ask myself what could possibly come up that might be the extreme of how I live, speak, and believe?  My thoughts travel in imagination and I realize that knowledge of these differences could not hurt me, but perhaps enlighten me.  Maybe it might even enhance my own life!  It is critical for me to imagine that not everyone lives as I do, an American white-skinned woman in a culturally sterilized part of Oregon, and that this is a very good thing!  Now, imagining this was not a big leap for me to make.  My life’s background was centered in a mixed race society of which I felt gave attitudinal dimension and tolerance, rather than it taking something away from me.  But again, as a tool of learning about another way of living, to be prepared for the audacious, the unimaginable, the startling, the beauty, the gore, the wonder, allows a receptiveness to grow in understanding.

                 Jacqueline Jones Royster, author of When the First Voice You Hear Is Not Your Own, frames another key to cross-cultural study in her statement, “treat differences in subject positions as ‘critical pieces of the whole, vital to understanding, problem-finding, and problem-solving’” (CP 1.3 Cross-Cultural Study: Some Considerations” 20).  It is to say that treatment of new information about a culture is critical to the treatment of a culture itself.  It is important to be aware of the contextual environments from which the information sprung and to be wary of       <page break>

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judging a “piece” to represent the “whole.”  For in doing so, I can remain open and, above all, respectful to the messenger and respectful about the culture. 

            I have found that this process of discovering a world unknown to me, a people unknown to me, has brought with it a sense of me.  I have found common ground, once more, with humanity as a result of adopting the challenging guidelines I have set forth.  I can imagine myself in the struggle that Cinque endured in the film Amistad, and in the determination of Olaudah Equiano, and in the pain of all the slaves who were uprooted and faced with the brutality of people who placed themselves above the uprooted.  Through this I understand that the human element of spirit and heart transcends skin color.  This is a truth that links humanity.  This is the truth that is fundamental in accepting and respecting cultures yet to be discovered.

Midterm Part II: Topic Choice #6

            I Is A Long Memoried Woman, a compilation of poems written by Grace Nichols who was born in Guyana, tells the powerful story of the African Diaspora.  Her poems convey the raw, gritty, account of the African every-woman’s turbulent journey from Africa to the Carribbean.  The written tale is significant in depicting the anguish and courage of this desperate experience, as well as the visual aid of the film by which the tale is enriched.  The blend of these two mediums gives an artful dimension to this story - a story which must be told.

            Grace Nichols weaves her native language Creole, with standard English to develop a sense of culture and the imposition of the enslaver.  Creole itself, when looked at carefully, was created by the African slaves as a way of keeping a part of their culture alive while being forced to adopt the new language, English.  In a sense, when the author writes in the Creole language, it       <page break>

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evokes an image of the slave woman and the land from where her capture took place.  And there is a reverence that is associated with the use of this language.  It is an honoring of the roots from which this ebony language sprung.  At the same time, the calculated use of the English language interjects the oppressor, the white man’s dominance from which the slave woman has no escape.  Throughout Nichols’ poems, the African woman’s innocence is being violated by the English speaking male; she is being plunged into, raped, and with every injection of the new world tongue, she is forced into physical subservience.  We can see this tug of war between the two languages in one poem called “Hi Di Buckras* Hi: O buckra man him come over de sea/with him pluck-chicken skin/from him cold countree/him palaver him a pray him a dress/fancee but suddenly so him turning/weak and dizzy…” (CP 3.4 I Is A Long Memoried Woman: Film Notes & Study Guide, 99).

            Another adaptation of the African rooted language and English is developed in Nichols’ use of the traditional African call-and-response using primarily the English language in the body of the poem.  An example of this is sewed into Nichols’ poem “Waterpot: the daily going out/and coming in/always being hurried along/like  like…cattle/in the evenings/returning from the fields/she tried hard to walk/like a woman/she tried very hard...” (CP 3.4 I Is A Long Memoried Woman: Film Notes & Study Guide, 94).  It is a powerful form used to illuminate the struggle of the African slave as well as create an ancestral energy that restores her courage to press on in this new world.  The response brings to mind the ancestral force that holds the slave woman up despite the cruel conditions.  The African female slave clings to the roots of her forefathers/mothers by bearing the native tongue almost as a weapon of anger and defiance  needed for survival.        <page break>

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            The effective development of the dance-drama performance acts as an aid to understanding the true meaning of the story as it unfolds. The visual accompaniment of the written language and the dance-drama bring to light the intangible elements that perhaps might be lost or misunderstood in the interpretation of Nichols’ poems.  A good example of this is when we see the African slave woman giving birth to “my bastard fruit/my seedling/my grape/my strange mulatto/my little bloodling…” (CP 3.4 I Is A Long Memoried Woman: Film Notes & Study Guide, 102).  The poem, “In My Name” (102), tells the story of her psychological struggle bearing a white man’s child, which is greatly etched in viewers’ minds through the film as we agonize with her torment.  It further helps associate our own feelings of compassion and makes her situation more of a tangible reality.  It seems this is also the intent of the author who has collaborated with another art form.  It gives her words new life, yet does not stray from traditional dance forms, so as not to dilute the African context.

            The essence of I Is A Long Memoried Woman impresses upon an audience an essential truth about the tragic violation of another culture at the white man’s ancestral hand.  It burdens the conscious mind and demands acknowledgement and understanding to learn about the hardships that the African woman/man endured.  This understanding breathes new vision and respect in correcting and/or adding to our current history.  And the impact of the visual effect of the film with the beautifully orchestrated words of Grace Nichols, gives substantial weight to a culture often misunderstood among the Ethno-centric minded, and yet it undeniably awakens the common bond of humanity.          

Oral Arts:  Cross Cultural Comparisons

            Around the world, many indigenous peoples have common similarities with the cultures of others.  The affinity of the natural world, spirituality, ancestral ties, preservation of heritage, and culture amongst native peoples is remarkably paralleled. 

            Consider Africa where history and heritage, spiritual beliefs and aspirations, and knowledge and preservation of cultures are reliant upon the traditional forms of oral arts.  Through verbal conveyance, life is breathed into praise songs, epic stories, and proverbs of wisdom, empowering the storyteller, the “griot”, to manifest ancestral creation and bring their history into the present. 

Across the Pacific Ocean in New Zealand, the native Maori people have also been reliant on oral transmission of heritage and cultures of ancestry, language and tradition, and of spirituality.  The Maori can trace their genealogical heritage back over 1000 years, and the ability to do so has been through the spoken word.  Songs, dances, and creation myths have been passed on from generation to generation from the Kaumatua, the elders, to the young, much in the same fashion as the African griot. 

            The African praise songs consist of a praise name, which informs others of your identity, your passage through life, and may also convey your class or references, your status or any other characteristics that portray your persona.  Each line within the praise song consists of either a praise name or an epithet, and there are no words that        <page break>

© 2004, Daniel Sowerby