In every single folktale of whatever genre is a moral or lesson that has served as a reference point for cherished virtues and values in all ages and in all cultures. The stories have been vintage guideposts for public morality and have inspired heroism in individuals in countless circumstances, thereby extending the frontiers of human accomplishment and civilisation
By Nimibofa Ayawei
IT is with utmost delight I stand here this day in the exalted position of keynoter, duly apprised of my primary responsibility as dictated by convention: to develop the main theme of this festival, and in the process set the overall tone for our engagement.
Some Preliminary Remarks
Looking at the theme, “Resiliency: How Storytelling Shapes Our Lives,” it is tempting to believe that I am a seasoned practitioner of the art of storytelling, with prodigious understanding, and able to expertly guide this audience through its many delicate strands as experienced in diverse cultures, with appropriate emphasis on its inherent potential to model human attitudes as well as worldview.
I should state right from the outset that I am not a practitioner but have been an ardent fan of folklore from childhood to date. Bedtime stories, often by our mothers and grandmothers, and ‘Tales by Moonlight’ in the wider family courtyard, as popularised by the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) between 1984 and 2002, have been part of cultural experience that some of us are nostalgic about. My infant mind was nurtured in some way through folklore and I grew up embracing certain values and rejecting others, and cultivating cherished virtues that have moulded me into who I am.
Exposure to the rich cornucopia of myths, aetiological tales, fairy tales, legends, romances, and fantasy that our homes and traditional settings afford us has thus been positively impactive. Not only are they entertaining and educative, they have inspired generations of men and women to great attainments and breakthroughs in all human history. Even such modern variants like science fiction and memoirs have irresistible appeal for me.
These storytelling genres derive largely from glimpses of the dim past, the earliest beginnings of human existence, as captured in oral tradition. Preliterate society had no documentary records of events, of how human life and physical nature evolved over time, but the performing arts, notably, folklore and drama, became a means of recreating that world – the people, their worldview and thought systems, etc. – to teach us fundamentals of truth and of life and thus preserve those qualities that are central to human success and societal stability.
Creation myths, for instance, seek to provide explanations as to how the world and universe as well as human life came to be. The corpus of stories in Ijaw folklore that centre around Woyingi – She who creates – belong in this genre. In much the same way, aetiologoical tales provide what are presumed to be explanations as to why certain things are the way they are. So we have a body of stories like “How the Tortoise Got the Cracks on His Shell,” which is so popular in the Niger Delta.
In countless folktales, too, we encounter characters who rose from rags to riches or gloriously weathered storms through sheer courage and a never-say-die attitude.
Given this background, I should not fail to comment on the phrasing of the theme, the key words you have thoughtfully chosen, and to commend the timeliness of this event – a time of hardship across the land. ‘Resiliency’ evokes images of adversity and an unyielding spirit, a spirit of unrelenting struggle driven by faith in a better tomorrow and a conviction that hard times are only for a season, merely a passing phase.
Storytelling inundates our minds with past events and experiences that suggest what is happening now is not new and also proffers means of escape, strategies that work and could be adopted.
So, much as you have stated your aims, namely, “to promote literacy, arts, and culture among Bayelsa citizens, with a special focus on empowering our young people,” I should like to state that there is a lot else to it.
This is a festival – and festivities are moments for unwinding, for relaxation and celebration of the good things of life. Moments like this incline us to the bright side of life; they challenge us to be positive about life. Which I think is most apt for the present circumstances of our country. And as you rightly implied in the theme, storytelling helps shape our attitude to life.
Our engagement here today is an exploration of this theme, and at the end of the exercise, we should be able to establish its veracity.
Definitions
There is a simple but concise definition from America’s National Storytelling Network I should like to share with you. It states, “Storytelling is the interactive art of using words and actions to reveal the elements and images of a story while encouraging the listeners’ imagination.”
The definition captures salient features of the art in its pristine form. It is interactive because there is a storyteller and an audience, whose mood and responses are carefully gauged by the narrator to determine how to proceed – with or without modification. That is part of the traditional setting of storytelling.
What we in Ijaw land expect in hours of leisure, after a day’s hard labour, when a griot or an elder intones, ‘Ado buruku’ is an occasion of delivery involving folktales. The formulaic ‘Egberi O’ (by the narrator) and ‘Yai e’ (response by audience) follows.
Delivery in storytelling is by words to the accompaniment of physical gestures and sometimes music, and listeners get imaginatively involved, trying to make sense of the twists in a story, and oftentimes feeling transported from their real world to an alien environment.
It is worthy of note that stories could be real or imagined and that storytelling could take one of different forms, including drama, poetry and fiction, aside from the subcategories highlighted immediately above.
Characteristic Elements:
Every story or piece of drama has a theme, an overarching idea in whose exploration or explication supportive elements like characterisation, setting, and plot are deployed. Essentially, in every theme is a perspective on issues of life and existence.
In Woyingi, the theme is Creation (or origin of the universe and human life); in ‘How the Tortoise Got Its Cracked Shell,’ it is Greed.
Folklore is noted for such themes as origin of the world, human nature, good versus evil, tradition versus modernity, love versus hate, transience of life, power, freedom and oppression, courage and perseverance, hope.
It would be necessary to add at this point that a story usually ends with a moral or lesson. It is often sobering to listeners as a story comes to an end and the lesson sinks deep into our psyche.
Story Archetypes
Across cultures around the world seven major story archetypes have long been identified. These are
- Overcoming the Monster:
Every story in this category presents a world in which the freedoms, material well-being, security, peace and prospects of growth of a society and its people are under threat or severely constrained on account of the presence and or activities of an evil force that must be conquered or overcome. The evil force could be physical, like the buffalo in Odi, whose menace and death gave birth to the Odi Ogori Ba Uge Festival, or metaphysical, like the god Obenede, ‘owner of the river (Epie Creek),’ that killed and terrorised the people of Epie for ages. These stories always end with the evil force or monster overcome and the community liberated.
Mortal contests or battles occur as a force for good (human or metaphysical) determines to liberate self or community by taking on the evil force. Battles could be gruesome and protracted, but ultimately, the force for good triumphs and restores normalcy in the society.
Reward by the society for the heroism and feat takes diverse forms in different cultures and civilisations. In many African communities, reward could be life-long kingship for the hero or heroine and their descendants, or marriage to the king’s daughter, or allotment of swathes of land.
- Rags to Riches
This story archetype has a central character whose extreme conditions of material deprivation are immediately striking. In the opening of the narrative a wretch in gloomy circumstances is presented, but he/she is not without a redeeming feature, some personal quality that could effectuate a remarkable turnaround. It could be an unyielding spirit that sees them progress through varied experiences of good and bad toward ultimate success – a spectacular attainment.
- The Quest:
The chief character is a man or woman who is passionate about attaining a particular object that lies outside of their immediate environment. As he or she sets out on their mission, traversing physical space and encountering difficulties and setbacks, they remain focused on what they want. Ultimately, they achieve their objective and emerge as a leading light in society.
Sometimes the quest is a search for something intangible like a quality such as happiness.
- Voyage and Return:
Stories within this category involve adventure. There is some strong yearning in the heart of the protagonist to do something unusual but constructive to better his lot in life or make his society better. So he/she undertakes a voyage to a strange land, an uncharted territory.
After trials undergone and overcome in the voyage and exposure to life and activities in the strange land, he returns home with uncommon knowledge and wisdom. His attainments in this respect make him/her an invaluable asset to his community, which then counts on him for a redemptive role, able to bring solutions to existential challenges.
- Rebirth:
It is a story in which the chief character undergoes a complete spiritual regeneration and attains a state of mind and of existence that makes them fulfilled and happy.
- Tragedy:
This story archetype features a protagonist, usually a person of high standing and or reputation, who in the pursuit or defence of an ideal or lofty goal, suffers a disastrous end as a result of a character flaw or resistance by an opposing force.
Figures like Okolo in Gabriel Okara’s The Voice and Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart are notable heroes in African stories.
Sometimes the tragic end of the hero/heroine is inevitable, when there is orchestration by powers immanent in the universe or by fate, as is the case with King Odewale in Ola Rotimi’s The God’s Are not to Blame.
Whatever the cause, the downfall of the protagonist excites pity from the audience.
- Comedy:
A story that causes much laughter and amusement among the audience because of quaintness of actions or remarks by the characters. Stories in this category hold up for derision character traits of people in society that are considered anti-social or objectionable.
As the audience laugh, it is expected that individuals with such traits or tendencies would eschew them and become more refined.
How Storytelling Shapes Our lives
In every single folktale of whatever genre is a moral or lesson that has served as a reference point for cherished virtues and values in all ages and in all cultures. The stories have been vintage guideposts for public morality and have inspired heroism in individuals in countless circumstances, thereby extending the frontiers of human accomplishment and civilisation.
Story archetypes such as Overcoming the Monster, The Quest, and Voyage and Return, have a common thread running through them: unbendable will to achieve an object of critical importance at whatever cost. Individuals learn from society’s characteristic response to such stories to orient their dreams and pursuits. In the breakthroughs by such great souls is the human advancement we experience today.
Now, let’s look at Rags to Riches, and recall the very popular fairytale known in the Euro-American community as Cinderella. A little girl literally on the ragged fringes of existence, completely obscure and wretched in her girlhood, and experiencing slavery at some stage in life, transforms in adulthood into an adorable, powerful figure as spouse to royalty.
Among us seated here, and in our communities, are many individuals who drew all the inspiration that earned them success from the Cinderella archetype.
Also, thinking of the fantasies and science fiction known to men and women over the ages, we are immediately reminded of the advent of the aeroplane and the stirring that saw the Wright Brothers bring mankind to the threshold of aviation. It all began as science fiction, and then at an annual Convention of the Methodist Church in the United States in the last quarter of the 19th Century, a revered clergyman told the congregation his dream that one day humans would fly and discard the horse for long-distance journeys.
Bishop Wright, father of Orville and Wilbur, immediately rose to condemn his Christian colleague for such fantasy, which he labelled as heresy, insisting that flying was only for angels and birds, and that God never made man to fly. It is now history that his two sons, working together, gave the world the first aeroplane on 17 December 1903.
In similar measure, folklore occupies a special place in our lives for its seminal role in the development of thought systems and beliefs. No one in human society underestimates how lessons from folktales have moulded our individual lives and public morality.
Cautionary statements like “He who eats alone fights alone,” deriving from the experience of the Tortoise who crashed from the heavens onto earth on hard objects and had his smooth, sheeny shell splintered and roughly patched up, incline us to be unselfish. Greedy Tortoise, after gorging himself on the food from the host in heaven, to the exclusion of the birds, was forced to give up their feathers.
We also know of the cautionary saying in pidgin English about “Fly wey no hear word….” It explains how the protagonist in The Voice lost his life at the hands of the ruthless village chief of Amatu, Ozongo. For those alive and listening to or reading such sagas, knowledge and wisdom increase. Every right-thinking individual believes they have to set limits to how far they could go in personal ambition or disputes.
Conclusion
There are countless ways that storytelling has added value to our lives as individuals and communities. I don’t have to bore you with further elongation of this narrative. A few insightful comments by a seasoned analyst and author, Kate Hurst, would suffice. Writing on “The Importance of Storytelling and Story Creation,” she stated: “Perhaps the thing that makes us human is the stories (real and imagined) that each of us has inside.”
According to her, storytelling is “where many of us begin to learn the power of our own memory and imagination. Stories told within a family or in a culture become even more powerful as they are shared year after year. They become part of who we are, what we believe, and how we see our future.”
With these thought-provoking facts and all that I have endeavoured to set out above, the real worth of this event you are hosting today should be so obvious to everyone. Once again, I must express my very sincere appreciation for your thoughtfulness in organising this festival at this point in time.
Equally commendable is your thoughtfulness in dedicating this maiden addition of the festival to celebrating the achievements of two internationally acclaimed scholars of the Arts, Prof. Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa, who is celebrating his 91st birthday, and the late Dr. Gabriel Okara. They have raised the history and culture of the Ijaw ethnic Nation and the Niger Delta as a whole to global awareness.
Thank you all for your kind attention.
