CHAPTER 16

ORAL TRADITION AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECONSTRUCTION

Chikere Reginald, Keke, PhD, MHSN.

Introduction

This chapter examined the importance of oral tradition and archaeology as history and source in historiographical reconstruction. European colonial administrators and their African apologists had in programmed ignorance argued that Africa had no history owing to the non-availability of writing. This work is aimed at showing convincingly that oral tradition and archaeology are viable non-written sources to reconstruct and authenticate the history of man about the past in any society. In other to explain how, why, when and where man lived, show continuities and changes in intra and inter-group relations while measuring the level of advancement made in society, oral tradition and archaeology will certainly be the guides. Archaeology is in the province of reconstructing man’s past from his physical and cultural remains which have survived till date. History studies the past in the living present while oral traditions is the transmission through generations of oral account of man’s past through word of mouth by either eye witnesses or non-participants in the event recounted. Oral tradition and archaeology are related as valid and invaluable sources of information about the past. Using the interdisciplinary approach, this work found that for a balanced reconstruction of the human past, oral traditional historians and archaeologists must compliment other disciplines to be able to have an objective and more realistic outcome of reconstruction without which reconstruction will be incomplete. Archaeology adds concreteness and a more secured chronological base to cultural reconstruction which if allowed to oral tradition solely may lead to a mere fabrication or half-truth. Both oral tradition and archaeology as indispensable sources of reconstructing the history of a people must integrate aspects of other disciplines to give concreteness to the study of the past. Their import remains very germane to any meaningful reconstruction of the past of African people, irrespective of the challenges of these historical sources.

According to Alagoa, “the past may be dead but cannot be buried. There are some people who are willing to act as undertakers and wish the past is disposed of for good. There are others who have made it their business to see that the past does not completely disappear from our consciousness”, Alagoa, (1979:1-2) and these are the historians and archaeologists. History has shown that Africa is the home of man following the discoveries by the Leakeys in Olduvia Gorge in Tanzania. This means that Africa has been the bee-hive of human social, economic, political and cultural activities from time immemorial. However, African history in the colonial and the immediate post-colonial periods, has seen the continent’s monumental historical achievements undergo tremendous ridicule and great distortions by Eurocentric scholars and some Africans sympathizers who think Africa was an irrelevant corner of the globe.

Herodotus was a master in the art of oral history and the study of oral testimonies of the recent past by eyewitnesses and participants brought down through chains of transmission over generations of informants. Herodotus discovered the African oral tradition in combination with other sources of historical evidence, possess merits, representing past realities not present privileges, politics or today’s social status alone. The Homeric epics were all Greek oral tradition preserving the history of the people.

Between the 1618 centuries, Africa’s historical dignity and personality was assaulted by uninvited colonial invaders who denied Africa ever had a historic past if not the past of European activities in Africa. Scottish philosopher David Hume said ‘I am apt to suspect the Negros to be naturally inferior to the white. There was never a civilized nation of neither any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent in action of speculation. No ingenious manufacturersamongst them, no arts, no science’ (cited in Uya, 1984:1., Alagoa, 1979:10-11). In the 19 century George Hegel, a philosopher of history opined that ‘it is manifest that want of self-control distinguishes the character of the Negroes.This condition is capable of no development or culture and as we have seen them at this day, such they have always been. At this point we leave Africa, not even to mention it again. For it is no historical part of the world; it has no movement or development to exhibit’ (Hegel,1956, cited in Alagoa, 1979:11).

In the 20 century, specifically in 1963, an Oxford Regius Professor of modern history Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper (1914-2003) was responding to his students, when they demanded to know why Africa history courses were not studied in Oxford. This renowned historian in a British Broadcasting (BBC) interview said ‘Perhaps in the future, there will be some African history to teach. But as at present, there is none; there is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness… darkness is not a subject of history’.To him African societies come and go ‘battles and conquests, dynasties and usurpations’ but it is all meaningless because it has no direction, Appiah, (1998).How can these scholars be so hopelessly uninformed?Prejudice, bias, and programmed ignorance in these scholar’s perspective of looking at Africa was nothing other than racial hatred, cultural superiority, idea of the ‘white man’s burden’ and parochially alluding civilization with writing.If this is true about African in their own lenses, then there was a time when states in Europe had no history because writing was not invented with the creation of man. Man is over two million years and writing are five thousand years old. This shows quite a long period in the past written records cannot cover but can only be resuscitated through oral tradition and archaeology.

Africa was relegated in the back ground of civilization as an appendage of European societies and any study of it will as Trevor-Roper will say is ‘prying into the unrewarding gyration of barbarous tribes in picturesque at irrelevant corners of the globe’ thus using history as a tool to legitimize European authority and domination on the ‘Dark Continent’ waiting to be discovered by Europe.These views by European scholars were erroneous and hinged on basic perspectives and methods of studying and reconstructing the past based on written documents alone.

However, in the 1950s with the rise of African Studies and Black Power Movements in America came an explosion in the study and interest of African history and culture by Africans to really assert and prove that actually Africa has a glorious past (history of self-assertion) and that great leaders and empires had risen in the continent before European advent in the 16 century. This led to the Ibadan, Legon, Makarere schools of history in which African students were taught a reasonable dose of historyto further show that African societies were never static nor or incapable of positive change and leadership. African scholars were ready and did debunk A.P. Newton’s opinion that ‘history begins when men begin to write’. These Eurocentric prejudices toward African history tried to conceal the true history of Africa from the world at large. Think about the irony of this bias that; the Iliad and Odyssey were rightly regarded as essential sources for ancient Greek history but African oral tradition, the collective memory of peoples which holds the thread of many events markings their lives, was rejected as worthless.

African scholars started digging into the prehistory of Africa of which archaeology will supply a bulk of the information into the distant past writing cannot cover. In factattempts made towards discrediting oral sources as useful tools for the reconstruction of the history of preliterate societies in Africa collapsed under the weight of this new Pan-Africanist consciousness and movement of historical renaissance.Dike had opined that, that subjecting oral history to systematic criticism and supplementing the resulting residue with evidence from written documents after the fashion of Western historiography, as well as with evidence derived from archaeology and other ancillary historical sciences, would put old-style African history through a process of rebirth (Afigbo, 1984: 3).

Africa had develop systematic ways of preserving her past not in written form but through word of mouth, pictures, arts, songs, signs, folklore, drumming, and other means which have been validated by archaeology and other disciplines and from the writings of Arab and Muslim scholars, geographers, and traders like, Al- Masudi, Al-Bakri, Ibn Battuta who visited and interacted with African empires, political leaders and societies and left records of those relations.

Records from Tarikh-as–Sudan authored by Rhaman Al-sadi and Tavikh-al-Fettach by Muhmud Kati had different perspectives on African societies through their records which were like mines of information for reconstructing the past of African based on writing. These Arab records had limitations as they recorded mostly Arab kings and their exploit in Africa and how it had aided the growth of Islam in African. No wonder Arab Muslim leaders like Mansa Kanka Musa of Mali, Askia Mohammed Toure of Songhay were praised but non-Muslim leaders like Sonni Ali of Songhay and Sundiata of Mali were not.

Arabs and Europeans perspectives of African history actually magnified discontinuities and devalued African historical experiences to glorify and exaggerate their own exploits and presence in Africa at the detriment of Africa. The consequence is that it led to pre-European African history to be discarded and written off, only to be saved by archaeology, ethno-botany, ethno-zoology and historical linguistics. This approach failed to capture African in totality and in the dead hours of colonialism, African scholars schooled in ‘historical methods’ fashioned by Ibn Kaldun started interrogating theseearlier thesis on African past and the role of Europeans and Arabs in African history. Dike and other African scholars pioneered the new African historiography or historiography of decolonization to effectively contain and combat the threat of colonial propagandists and racial jingoists to African identity, dignity, world view, values, image and self-definition. This led to the popular saying that, until the lions have historians to tell their own history in their own way, only the exploits of the hunters will always be told. Africans had to start telling their own story their own way thus, the rise of oral tradition and archeology as a valid method of reconstructing history and as history. This work will look at oral tradition and archaeology in historical reconstruction, problems and prospects of oral tradition and archaeology in historical reconstruction and then conclude.

Oral Tradition and Archaeology in Historical Reconstruction

According to Ian Vansina, oral tradition is all oral testimonies concerning the past which are transmitted from one person to another. His student E.J Alagoa, says oral traditionhas three significant elements: the testimonies are oral, it deals with the past, delivered by word of mouth in song chanted, recited or rendered through talking drums, Alagoa, (2014:1-2) transmitted from person to person through time. This differentiates oral tradition from rumours. Oral tradition comes in the form of formulae, poetry, lists, tales and commentaries.

In the fifties and sixties as continental Africa started getting political independence from its colonizers, African history also assumed her independence as Africans can now tell their story by themselves. Africans startedmaking their history as they were made by history. They started by collecting oral testimonies from eyewitness, those who participated in the event and from those in villageswhose duty it was as custodians to keep and report village history (community historian). The people recounted the history of theirmigration and settlement, culture, genealogies rulers, family, wars, inter-group and economic relations with other groups and such matter of interest to the historian. Presently, Africa and the world now recognize the sterling importance of oral tradition in writing history, and it is used in almost all historical researchworks. Archeology deals with recovering ancient remain of human activity which are left behind and are used to give chronology to artifacts and what they were used for so as to determine man’s past. Archeologyvalidates oral tradition by providing real dates for artifacts. Oral traditions transmitted from past generations and recounted by traditional, or village historians are authentic sources for African historical reconstruction with a major shortcoming of weakness in human memory and dangers of distortion after several generations of transmission.

Oral tradition as a valid and respectable source of historical document gained prominence from the work of Jan Vansina whose seminal work was on Oral tradition as source of history in Wisconsin University in 1961. This Belgian historical anthropologist pioneered the study of precolonial historical linguistics. Vansina, tirelessly worked to develop a historical methodology that would enable researchers to listen closely and critically to language (regional, etymological change), gossip, visions, creation mythologies, proverbs, and music—and with an ear to the distant past. Vansina had argued in 1965, “[a]ny message containing historical information tells us about events or sequences of events, describes a situation of the past or reports a trend”, Vansina, (1965:70).

Vansina’s study of oral tradition helped pioneer the field of precolonial intellectual history writing and numerous studies on the importance of using oral traditions to reassess Africa’s shifting vernacular, social, and cultural landscapes. Because oral tradition is one of the most important human aspects of African history, Vansina, trained Africans like E.J. Alagoa in Wisconsin and encourage Africans to, collect oral traditions, open museums, archives, and research institutes to reclaim the past.This led to the study of African past from all perspectives thus making African scholars in the immediate post independent era to insist that to understand the African past, an inter-disciplinary approach was germane like the works of archaeologist, linguists, botanists, paleontologists, anthropologist et al. In all oral tradition and archaeology remained very useful tools in achieving the goal of a proper reconstruction and validation of African past. Archeological artifacts producedon African past, tell the story of African history not of Africa relations with Europe at the time.

Both oral tradition and archaeology are not easy to collect and examine as they are time consuming and need a great deal of patience.Alagoa spent a lot of time in 1964,1966-7 to collect oral tradition of the Niger Delta from which he produce his bookA history of the Niger Delta.Alagoa worked with linguist Kay Williamson to translate languages in tapes from oral traditions collected and also worked with Anozie in site in the Niger Delta to correlate oral information to authenticate his reconstruction.Before 1953, archaeology was a pastime activity for amateur archaeologists (treasure hunters) who all the same made Nigeria to be known as a mine for artefacts to the world. Donald Hartle had listed 400 archaeological sites in Eastern Nigeria and only 14 had been excavated as at 1967 and none in the Niger Delta. It took the effort of E.J. Alagoa of the Rivers State Research Scheme at the Institute of African Studies University of Ibadan in 1971 for archaeological research to start. Thus in 1972 and 1975, Onyoma, Ke, Saikiripogo, (Ewoama) and Ogoloma were excavated. In 1976, Okochiri and by 1985 other sites in the Central Niger Delta were excavated. Abi Derefaka, N. Nzewunwa and F. Anozie have also done great excavations in the Niger Delta with Radio Carbon Dates for artifacts recovered, documented and preserved. In those sites artifacts such as miniature ritual clay pots called Tamunobele, terracotta human head figurines, large Arc senelis shells, smoking pipes, Kuronama Aka (leopard teeth) were discovered interpreted, dated and preserved. From the Niger Delta excavations, a lot has been learnt the way the people lived, adapted and conquered their riverine environment in Nigeria.

Jeffrey has collected the oral tradition of the Nri people, Afigbo, used oral tradition to analyze legends and myths of origin among the Efiks and Aro. In Igbo Ukwu, findings show that a dynamic Igbo culture and civilization (in Nri) based on a kinship system had flourished since about 800 ADS, long before the Norman conquest of England. Onwuejiogwu, used oral tradition to assign chronological dates to king succession in Nri and Shelton also used it to relate Nsukka Igbo –Igala relations. Work of literary professionals like Chinua Achebe, Nguigi Wa Thiongo, CamaraLaye and Chimmanda Adiche are vested in oral tradition. Oral tradition is very vital in history and literature intelling the history of a people and it has acquired new dimension in Africa historiography. The main problems collecting oral tradition is for the scholar or historian tobe able to know who to approach and for what knowledge, He must respect the traditions and customs of the people and pay attention on social groups, the positions of individuals and eldersin the society, and when the collection begins all the town elders and the traditional historian should be present, and others for clarification of grey areas. There must be consensus and unanimity of all views accommodated and agreed on and recorded electronically.

Although the Process of collecting oral tradition is pains taking, burdensome, and time consuming, another serious problem with it is getting adequate and sequential chronology (dating) as references most often is done by correlating calendar dates. So, in most cases event is described as oral tradition is not very efficient in the reconstruction of time sequence. The historian collecting Oral tradition must realize is doing a humane work and must detach himself from the history of the people and be objective and careful not to flare conflict amongst the people or revive old wounds when reconstructing the past. He should reconstruct for development, peace and progress of society only then can the collection and usage of oral tradition play a role in national development. Oral tradition will definitely offer leads to the archaeologists in culture and sites for possible excavation.

Archaeologists study man and his ancestors by means of the material remains which have survived till date. It has three basic aims: toreconstruct the culture history of extinct people, to explicate processes of culture change, validate oral history Derefaka, (1997:111). For the archeological scientist, oral tradition is of a different value because of method of investigation used in obtaining information. While a historian, linguist or literalist will collect and start analyzing oral traditions, an archaeologist sees oral traditions as working hypothesis, speculative and learned guesses.

The archaeologist is very skeptical with non-archeological evidencesas they feel those evidence rarely resolve contentiously controversial issues though he does not have to deal with challenges of subjectivity, ethnocentrism, which the oral historian has to contend with as measurement have overtaken subjectivity. Archeology often adopts the eclectic approach by relying on models from the historical and social sciences to interpret human finds. Thus, specialist evidence are provided and corroborated by pedologists, ethnographers, paleontologists, geomorphologists, metallurgists, geologist and potters.

The relationship between archaeology and oral traditions are evinced properly when one takes a look at reconnaissance/site location and oral tradition, actual excavation and oral tradition, laboratory analysis and oral tradition and results interpretation and oral tradition.Archaeological reconnaissance of sites or locations is known basically by oral traditional leads, a times by accidents, visual observation of soil texture and color, electro magnetometer, differentials in vegetation and others.

While the historians visit communities to investigate the history of what and how the people had lived, an archaeologist ask in terms of abandoned habitation, burial site, ritual sites, garbage dumps theatres and other such sites where artifacts can be found for reconstruction. Igbo-Ukwu was thrown to light when a cistern was dug from an acheulian site in Uguele was literarily discovered by a bulldozer of a quarry construction company and caterpillars of a road construction company found the Ogbodu-Aba site in Isi-Uzo local government on Nsukka. When the archaeologists get his artifacts like human and animal bones, pottery, shells of sea foods, stones, knives and others, he analyses to get the date and era they were used through Radio Carbon-14 Dating to get near accurate chronology better than oral tradition which has the shortcoming of human memory and distortion.

A times site designated to archaeologist oraltraditions yield nothing only for other sites to proof oral tradition wrong. Archaeological artifacts are not subject to propaganda, human enthusiasm, distortions and patriotic feeling like oral traditions. These are all weaknesses by oral tradition giving archaeologists leads to potential sites. Thus, archaeologist help authenticate oral history. Both disciplines complement each other as sites like Nwanker site, Etiti-Ulu Bende, Umundu site Nsukka, Umukete-Aguleri have yielded positive findsto archaeologists through leads from oral tradition. Having gotten his lead, he has to excavate.

With direction from oral tradition the archaeologists get himself well prepared for the journey of excavation especially in terms of getting the requisite equipment and tools to facilitate his job. If lead is given for a burial site or rock shelter, the archaeologist will prepare according by taking with him what will ease his findings, preservation, analysis and report efficiently. The archaeologists have to materially and mentally prepare for surprises, shocks and challenges as he excavates.

Excavation is the principal tool of the archaeologist. After excavation proper, comes laboratory testing. Report from oral tradition will inform the archaeologists the type of tools to expect and haven found his artifact resulting from excavation, he cleans them up and takes to a testing laboratory to ascertain the age or chronology of the artifacts through Radio Carbon dating. Being well versed in oral tradition will greatly help the archeologist to arrive at fairly accurate dates valid in archeological history. Once the laboratory testing has been done the results has to be interpreted. From the artifacts the archeologist will begin to infer from finds to make sense so as to know why both organic and inorganic resources were made, what a particular tool or site was used for and why, of what importance and how it has undergone changes over time.Archaeological remains are studied by their geometry (shape), physic(weight and magnetic properties), chemistry (chemical composition, trace element), Biology (anthological, flora and fauna), mineralogy, petrology and others. The point of interpretation is very vital and often may lead to controversy on the part of the archeologists hence he has to be very sure, definite and objective in his interpretations, report and preservation for others to access, read, understand and research further.

It is glaringly; from the above that oral tradition and archaeology are vital in the reconstruction of the past as they complement each other.

Problems and Prospects of Oral Tradition and Archaeology in Reconstruction

The main factors that have severely made it increasingly difficult for African society to hold and retain oral traditional knowledge over long periods, has been attributed to the long period of the slave trade, European colonialism in different parts of the continent with different consequences like the case of white settlers in Southern Africa, wars causing violent and forceful movements, destruction of organized communities, displacements, and instability overwhelming the mental capacity to hold memory of oral tradition. Archaeological sites are forgotten and for some communities the owners never returned to them after conflicts to identify sites for historical reconstruction.

Generally oral tradition and archaeology are both history and invaluable sources of history. A lot of problems bisect both the collection oral tradition and archaeological research in Nigeria. For archaeology, the terrain is often an issues especially in water logged (creeks, rivers swamps) like the Niger Delta and some mountainous regions like the Jos Plateau.The cost entailments are always very high in terms of maintaining staff on site, transport of equipment, excessive stress locating site on foot over long distances, climbing slopes to access site is really hard work and it’s a challenge.For oral tradition some communities are still attached to traditional believes not to tell their histories to academic historians, or show site that are shrines, grooves and burial sites used by their ancestors for archeological research.These hamper the efforts of historians to actually do their work and write the histories of communities. Lack of cultural awareness, failure of academic archaeologists to blend and share knowledge with amateur archaeologists creates a gap in research and site identification. The problem of honorarium for local historians and community heads is often very expensive. These lacunae must be bridged for archaeological results to be all inclusively fruitful.

To collect oral tradition the historian must know the structure of the community to locate centers of knowledge and repositories, after a systematic recoding of persons, specialists, groups, to obtain detailed records and variants of oral accounts including, poetry, folklore, proverbs, songs and others. The age, names, relevant biography of the informants must be taken. Such data remain paramount in accessing the useful authenticity of particular texts. Oral traditional texts recorded must reproduced as original as they were collected free from distortions. High quality recorders, note taking, and recorders could be played back to obtain good repetition of words and expressions. At times the informants hate to be recorded on tapes, especially in land disputes and chieftaincy disputed communities.

Another challenge is the limited or complete absence of technical equipment and facilities within Nigeria which obviously hinder fieldwork, analysis and publication of research results. In case in point is the lack of radio carbon dating equipment and laboratories for testing and dating artifacts in Nigeria. Nigeria lacks a proper repository to where data from field works can be properly stored, conserved, restored and exhibited for people to access and study and appreciates cultures and history of ethnic groups in the country. High cost of publishing oral traditions and archaeological researches at times cannot be borne by the scholars and aid are often scares to come by to assist in this type of academic endeavors, and are often abandoned by scholars who cannot afford the cost. Most of the journals where results from oral traditions and archeological findings and reports are published in are foreign which makes it difficult for Nigerians and local historians to access, read and carry further research. Thus, these research reports should be put in local archaeological report guides (source book) in small volumes in abridge form for further research.

Irrespective of these challenges, the prospect for collection, analyzing and publishing and exhibiting results of researches on archeology and oral tradition remain still very promising. Government should come in and sponsor these researches as way to educate the people to know their history. The government can acquire equipment, set up testing labs and setup and institute for archaeological and oral traditional researches with the mandate to collect the history of all communities in the country. The results of which will help foster inter-group relations in the country. Private academic investors, multi-national companies and other Non-Governmental Organizations(NGOs) the United Nations Organization (UNO) should be interested and assist researches in the history of communities they live and operate for a better social corporate responsibility relationship. Society will be better off.

Conclusion

This chapter examined the importance of archaeology and Oral tradition as undisputable sources of historical reconstruction as any meaningful research on African historiography must start with these two complimentary sources. A lot still has to be done in the collection of oral history and archaeological excavation from communities in Nigeria. This will help toeffectively tell the true story of the African past to show areas of intergroup relations and peaceful coexistence making for unity and tolerance. Both archaeology and oral tradition face the problem of difficulty in the collection, interpretation, documentation, preservation and publication of the oral traditions and artifacts for reconstruction and further research for future generations. The most problematic issue is they both do not effectively periodize Africa’s past before the fifteenth century based on African timelines. Prospectively, these challenges must be surmounted by intensifying archaeological oral traditional researches and probing of the remote areas of African societies, to recover the hidden past for more communities to be able to write their history and know how they are related to other communities or ethnics groups for mutual co-existence. Government must also come in to assist the historians financially, provision of equipment for research in their bid to uncover the past of communities. The historian must be wise to use archaeology, oral tradition, personal observations and make his own evaluations and deductions from the total evidence before him before he commits it to writing as authentic account of his historical reconstruction.

 

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