ANTHROPOLOGY , TEXT AND TOWN

Literary texts tell us things about society and culture mat we could Jearn inno ocher way. l.n chis book I im•estigatc what oriki tell us about Okukuand what Okuku told me about oriki.

Okuku is a town in me Oyq State of Nigeria, small by Yoruba standards,but an important political and cultural cemre in its own area, me Odo-Otin district. Oriki arc a genre ofYoruba oral poetry mat could bedescribed as attributions or appellations: collections ofepimcts, pimyorelaborated, which are addressed to a subject. In Okuku mey areperformed mainly by women .

On"ki are a master discourse. In me enormous wealm and ferment ofYoruba oral literature, mey are probably the best-known of all forms. Theyare composed for innumerable subjects of all types, human, an imal andspiritual; and mey are performed in numerous modes or genres. They arecompact and evocative, enigmatic and arresting formulations, uneranceswhich are believed to capture the essential qualities of meir subjects, and bybeing uttered,to evoke mcm. They establish unique identities and at me sametime make relationships between beings. They are a central component ofalmost every signi ficant ceremonial in me Life ofthe compound and town;and are also constantly in the air asgreetings, congratulations and jo kes.They are deeply cherished by meir owners.

The most conspicuous of me genres based on oriki are chose performedby specialists, like me hunters who perform ijala chams, or professional entenainers like me travelling egrmgun masqueraders. Born men andwomen can make a name for themselves as public performers, by goingwherevergreat celebrations are being held -and, nowadays, by appearing on television and making records. There is also, however, a less conspicuous butmuch more pervasive tradition of oriki perfom1ance carried on byordinary women, me wives and daughters of the town 'scompounds, wholearn and perform the oriki relevant ro me individuals and groups wimwhich mey are associated. This less showy, more anonymous, but often

more profound tradition of oriki chants performed by women is mecentral subject of this book .

Because oriki are crucia.l in making the re.lationships, human andspiritual, that constitute the Yoruba world, they reveal connections andhidden faces in sociecy that would not otherwise be accessible. Byattending ro what people say themselves, through the concentrated andoblique refractions of oriki and through what they say about oriki- we learnhow people constitute their society. Texts like this can lead into the beanof a community's own con ception of itself: without which,any descriptionof social structure or process will remain purely external. Inextended texts,better than in brief citations of lexical items, descriptions of physicalartefacts, or artificially-constructed interview schedules, we find !hepossibility of entering into people's own discourse about their socialworld.

Malinowski knew the value of'texrs'. He collected them wilh avidity andspent a lot of his time in the field poring over them. But despite the modemdominance of interpretative approaches in anthropology, it is rather unusualfor literature to assume irs proper place at the centre of anthropologicalenquiry. Work like that of Fernandez (1982, 1986), Jackson (1982), AbuLughod (1986) and Seidelman (1986), where literary texts arc used as a keydiagnostic device, a thread leading into the inner aspecrs of a sociecy'simaginative life, are still rather rare. Anthropology has on the whole beencontent to leave literature to the folklorists and oral historiographers, whoseaims have been somewhat different.'

Anthropology, in fact,has tended to adopt interpretative techniques fromliterary criticism and apply them to almost anything but literary texts.Ritual symbolism,' spatial relations ,' and culture itself• have been treatedas texts whose metaphorica l meanings can be 'read' like !hose of a workof literature. Semiotics and structuralism have attempted, with partialsuccess, to show that !hesymbolic and classificatory systems ofsignification that anthropology bas traditionally concentrated on arehomologous to language.What is much more evidently true, however, isthat they are implicated in language and dependent on it. Sooner orlater,they are interpreted, amplified, or evaluated by a verbalcommentary, and with out this speech context !hey could not continue tooperate. As Volo§inov (or Bakhtin),j the great Russian literary theoristput it sixcy years ago, speech is 'an essentia l ingredien t in allideological production '; ritual, music, visual an, not to mention day-to-day behaviour, areaU 'bathed by,suspended in, and cannot be entirelysegregated or divorced from the element of speech' (VoloSinov 1973a, p.15). And in Okuku-asinother places -literary texts function like nodalpoints in the Oow of speech. They are salient and enduring landmarks inthe field of discourse, reference points 10 which speakers orienr them

selves or from which they take their departure. Iris often through literarytexts that exegetical commentary is directed towards these other systemsof signification.

ANTHROPOLOGY, TEXT Al':'DTOWN 3

it. Speech act theory has enabled us ro ask what a speaker is doing in uneringcertain words;• and what the performer of oriki is doing is a vital part of lhesocial process. Oriki performance is involved in struggles for power as wellas in lhe legitimation of the starus quo. Oriki are used to swelllhe reputationof the person they are addressed to and to lay claim ro membership ofcertain social groups. But oriki not only are a form of social action, lhey alsorepresetll social action: not of course as in a mirror image, but in amediated and refracted discourse. Whether implicitly or explicitly, lheyofferacommentaryon it: a commentary which is made up of heterogeneous and sometimes

.compenng vaews.

Literary textS, whether wrinen ororal, offer an especially valuablerepresen tation of ideology because of their concentrated, 'worked-on'character. Literary texts are often described as having anvolved greaterthought or effort than other kind5 of utterance, as being more premeditated,or as undertaking to exhibit a greater degree of skill.' They may aniculateand give form ro otherwise amorphous notions circular.ing in society.Because a literary text is more detached from the immediate context thanother utterances, having the quality of repentability and the capacity to berecreated in a variery of situations, it is compelled to put things into wordswhich normally are left unsaid. Less of its content can bo: assumed fromthe immediate context of utterance. In this way, the text becomes, as Voloinov put it, 'a powerful condenser of unaniculated social evaluations -each word is saturated with them '(Volotinov 1973b:I 07). The text,furlhermore,does not just represent an already-constituted ideologicalviewpoint; it is in the text that a viewpoint is constructed, in the processrevealing more about the ideology implicit in daily discourse lhan couldolherwise be discovered. The text itself says more than it knows; it generates'surplus': meanings lhat go be)•Ond, and may subverr, the purporredintentions of the work. It has lhe capacity ro pick up subterranean

.

ideological impulses that are brought to realisation in no other discursivearena.a

Above all,literary texts arcrevealing because they arcinhercnuy discursive.Verbal forms lend themselves to verbal exegesis. There is a continuirybetween the object of discussion and the discussion itself which IS

conducive to detailed , active, conscious commentary by the peopleinvolved in its production and transmission. In Okuku,as in many orberplaces, language, linguistic formulations,and especially literary texts, areintended and expected to be talked about, to be explamed ,expounded, andopened up so rbat the multiple meanings enclosed and compressedwithin them arc revealed. Quoting an orikioften leads automatically to ahistorical narrative. Itmay also open our into a discussion of family taboos,the characters of the gods, or the composition and relations of socialgroups. The on·ki are not just the trigger which sets olfa separate discourse;rbey are the kernel ofrbe discourse itself, which will not take place exceptwith reference to the oriki.They are thus, in

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4 ANTHROPOLOGY, TEXT AND TOWN

many c.ases, the only route into the subject. lt is in literary texts rbatcommentary on all spheres of experience is inscribed and from thestarting point of literary texts that second-order discussion is instigated .

Not only are literary texts made to be interpreted;they arealsoaccompanied by well-developed indigenous methods and techniques bywbjch their interpretation is carried out. The decoding of oriki -as ofother Yoruba oral texrs•-relics on etymology, etiology, personalmemory,and something like riddling. These techiDques provid e theoutsider with a gujding thread, a certain linllted access to the inneraspects of the discourse. The outsider contemplating ritual, art or cookingis seldom so fortunate.

Some literary texts are more cemral to social discourse rban others. Inthe

history of European literature, there have been periods when the role ofthe literary text has extended far beyond the boundaries we recognisetoday, organising fields of knowledge which now are assigned todiscourses not defined as'literature'. 10 In oral cultures, Ongsuggests, theliterary text always plays this kind ofmnem onic and organising role (Ong

1982).11 Ifliterary form is what makes knowl edge memorable andtherefore transmittable, then all of inherited knowledge in oral cultures is'literatu.re'. Itis in poetry and narrativethat history, philosophy and natural science are encoded and th

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fonns that this knowledge is organised. It is certainly true that inYorubatowns, oral literature is still an organising discourse. Even those whoare functionally literate ba se a large part of their self-conception - theirideas about sociecy and their pla ce in it - on ita11 (narratives) and oriki.

On.ki commemorate personalities, events and actions that peopleconsider important . They provid e a way of lhinking about socialrelationships within and between families, and a way of promoting andexpressing the riva lry of ambitiou s individuals.They are the living linkthrough which relation ships with the orif a, the 'gods', arc conducted .And it is i n oriki that the past is encapsulated and brought into thepresent,where it exercises a continual pull. On.ki,then,arcone oftheprincipal discursive mediums through which people apprehend history,society, and the spiritual world .

This srudy traces the ways in which oriki enter into the construction ofpersonal power and communal solidarity in Okuk-u ,and bow theyimplicate the pasr in the process. The guiding thread of orik i leads tosome discoveriesabout the constitution of this Yoruba rown. The way notions of kinshipand town membership arc articulated in oriki,and the way the on"ki arcactually used in daily life,reveal a complexity and negotiability in thecomposition of fundamental social units that existing accounts ofYorubasocial structure do not prepare one for.The oriki of individual s also bringto view the central importance of the self-aggrandisernent of 'big men',who within the chiefly hierarchy and between its interstices operate muchin the manner of their New Guinean counterparts, building up afollo,ving and thereby creating a place for themselves in society.Thoughthe phenomenon of patron-client

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A.'l"fHROPOLOGY. TEXT A.'ID TOWN 5

relationships bas been well described in the comcxr of modem Yoruba citylife," the 'traditional political system' of Yoruba towns has always beenpresented much more in terms of the checks and balances berweengovernmental institutions, or the 'representative' character of chiefship and

the importance of competition between lineages rather than betweenindividual big men. Persona l 01-iki are the means by which a big man'sreputation is established. Through them, we arc afforded access to thedynamic process of self-aggrandisement and the values it generates. Onkishow that big men are

a cenual and long-estabHshed feature of Yoruba social processes.Oriki, however, do not represent the only way of apprehending soc1al or

spiritual realities. Theother 'literary' discourses that coexist with oriki-notablyIfa divination poetry and iwn or narratives-offer other ways, which convergewith oriki along some dimensions and diverge along others. In some respects,they offer a different view of the world and are the means through whjchdifferent social and spiritual relationship s are established. These differencesand convergences need to be mapped in future work. There is a panicu larlyclose, symbiotic relauonship between oriki and uan which makes its presencefelt throughout thisstudy. But my focus isalways on oriki and the modelsthey provide for interpreting and intervening in social experience - withoutsuggesting that these are the only models or that they are used in all contextsor equally by all members of the community. £ndeed, it 1s precisely theelement of 'bia ', their aptness to express values from a particu lar angle,withparticular ends in view, which makes them valuable as clues to socialexperience and social process." On"Ju are nothing if not partisan. Srruggle jsevident in these texts: rivalry, aspiration, self-promotion, an intensity ofprojection and volition that is almost beyond words.

If the reasons for studying a Yoruba town through on"ko' are self-evident, something more probably needs to be said about the reasonsforstudyingmikrthrough the particular town of Okuku. Apart from the fact that I took animmediate liking £O Okuku, and was rrcared from the moment l arrived assomeone who belonged, there were some broad general reasons forStaying there rather r.ban in one of the numerous other places I visitedduring my first year in Nigeria. Okuku iscui rurally and politicall}'an Oyotown -though with srrong lje a influences and some features of dialectpeculiar to the Osun area- and on"ki are believed 10 be more highly devc.lopcd in the Oyo area thanin other parts of Yorubaland 14 O.kuku is also an old town, with anunusually important oba ('king') for its size, and exceptionally strongceremonial life. However, all Yoruba m1vns have r.beir own rraditions ofperforming arts and their own cultural specialities and peculiarities, and astudy based in any one oftbem would have yielded equally interestingresults. Itwould be in1possible to select one place as being outstanding.

On the other hand, it would be equally impossible to select a 'typical'place representative of the Yoruba small town, though there is a gap in theexi ting literature for this category. "

ScholarsofYorubo culture nnd sociecy have always hnd to denI with thefact that there IS no such thing as a 'representative' social unit .The: conceptseems inapphcable, 10 a place where there IS, ftnt, such regionaldwersicy, and second, so many levels of org;amsauon. It IS not JUSt thatYoruba are divided mto rtCOjnJsed 'sub-groups' such as IJebu,IJesa, Oyo orEluu,each of which has chsnncU\'e SOCial and cultural features whilepo$Se<'lng a common language and sharmg fundamental social andcultural pnnaples; but that even Wlthm any such Yoruba 'sub-group·,ddferent towns have d1fferent culrural trad1uons; different gods areprominent and dtfferent an forms are emphasised from one place to thenext .At the same ume, however, a town is not a dtscrete unit thar can betreated in •solation. It is subordinate to a bigger town, overlord oversmaller ones; it bas economic and historical links with neighbounng towns.Members of every town also have thetr farm senlements, where theyoften spend more time than tn the town proper. People have businessconnecuons, jobs and sometimes even propeny in other towns and, for longperiods, even tn other countries. It IS anttiaal to talk of any Yorubo town asif its people's interest5 and acti\ lies were confined within its boundones .Culturally, too, no town is self-contatned. While there are differences,there 1S also a great deal of overlap. The same culruml elements are foundover wide a.reas, though they may appear in different configurations andwith dttTercnt meanings. What we arc presented with could be described byWittgenstem's famous notion of 'family resemblances', where a group ofitems share 'a comphcau:d nerwork of sJDU!anues overlappmg and crisscrossmg· someumes 0\-'Cr.lll strntlanues, sometimes stmtlanues of detad', sothat all somehow seem to go together, though there IS no sinaJe dtacriticalfearure whach they all share (Wirtgenstem, 1978, p. 32). Resonances andrecognition combmed with a feeling of Slr.lngeness, of dtsplaccment, arethe expericnccofunyone who has lived in more than one place in Yorubacountry.

Studies of Yoruba social srructure have responded to this situation withlocal and comparative accounts of the varying forms found in differenttowns.P.C. Uoyd ,10 pankular, has laid thcgroundworkforasystemauccomparative ovemewofpohtical and social org;arusauon (Uoyd, 195I , 1958, 1960, 1962, 1965, 1968, 1971) andj.D.Y. Peel has proVIded an exccpuon.Uy full and penetrauna social hmory of one town (Peel 1983). The study of culture, however,1nd espea11ly of hterature, has tended eather to generalise prcmarurcly, or to anthologise, synthesasmg elementS liken from dtfferent places . The result has been a reprc$entauon of 'culture' as asynthetic construct, occupying some adeat realm well above the concrete forms of real life.There are good reasons for generaltsing and

synthesisma. Much of the onkr I quote m this book ' IIbe recognised by people from other towns, and sometimes the Interpretation g vcn tn one place will complement or enhance the one rccogntsed in another. A broader Vltw ts ulnmatelytnescapable .But this VJew c11n only be constructed on the basis of detaded, locahsed srudies.