Richard Bowker
Following conferences in London in 1991 and Accra in 1994, the Third International Conference on Oral Literature saw 40 delegates from around the globe – from Brazil to Zimbabwe, from the United States to Japan – converge on the University of Cape Town.
Ruth Finnegan, author of Oral Literature in Africa, got to the crux of the matter early in her opening address, asking whether oral literature is really relevant in today’s Africa.
The question had already been partially answered by Zama Batyi, the imbongi-in- attendance, who jumped ahead of the programme (as imbongi are wont to do) to spontaneously praise Finnegan, the conference, the delegates, and himself, before she started.
Oral literature, it turns out, is here to stay as a popular art form. According to Finnegan it has gained a new academic confidence and is strong enough to stand up to so-called criticisms of irrelevance, mere functionality or outdatedness by disinterested parties.
The launch at the conference of Jeff Opland’s new book, Xhosa Poets and Poetry (David Philip) goes some way towards showing how these notions are inadequate. If there was still any question, a glance through the merchandise on offer at the OUP, Van Schaik, and Clarke’s Bookshop stalls next to the venue would have dispelled it.
There has simply been a burgeoning interest, whether academic, popular or commercial, in oral studies over the last decade. Duncan Brown’s recently published Voicing the Text (Oxford), which details a history of South African oral poetry from /Xam traditions to Mzwakhe Mbuli and Alfred Qabula, and features Zolani Mkiva on the cover, was also available. Copies of David Coplan’s In the Time of Cannibals (Witswatersrand University Press) deals with Sotho migrant workers.
The range of analytical perspectives, formats, genres, and geographical areas covered by the papers presented also bears witness to this growth. The term ”orature” was often adopted in place of ”oral literature”, allowing areas as diverse as revisionist popular histories, initiation practices, film- making, devotional song, the truth commission hearings, advertisements, environmental education and music (”orature without words” as someone had it) to be opened up for common scrutiny.
The sessions further linked orality to issues such gender, the media, medicine and sexuality, literacy practice and translation, rhetoric, religion and ritual.
A comparison between diverse fields of African popular culture – generally involving performance, but not excluding written literature -was useful. As Coplan pointed out, all African culture is popular culture, and all the possible sounds emanating from oral discourses should be heard.
And of those there were plenty. Apart from the presentation of papers, the assembled delegates were treated to a video screening of contemporary dub- and rap-influenced oral poetry, and performances which included the trance sounds of UCT’s Kudu Horn Band, steel drum mania with the Langa High Percussion Band, Ugandan amadindas played by up to six people, and more izibongo. The audience, delegates included, joined in dancing and singing to the steel band’s Shosholoza.
The last day saw politicking and organising. The International Society for Oral Literature in Africa (Isola) was established and it was decided that the next conference would be in Uganda or Kenya, with a the one after that perhpas in Japan. Word gets around.