African Folktales and Social Order: A Study of Selected Yoruba Folktales
Introduction
The evolution of the folktale or oral narratives across world cultures is necessitated by human
attempts to make sense of the world they live in, and understand certain complex phenomena
which dwell on obscurantism. Unlike other societies, especially the western society, it took the
African society quite some time to jump on the bandwagon of literacy and modernity even
though certain ancient writing traditions do exist in Africa. For centuries, preliterate and precolonial African societies relied solely on employing oral tradition forms such as myth, legend,
proverb and folktale for the transmission of culture, and the education of generation after
generation of their people. Folktale or the act of storytelling is a way, in traditional African
societies, of passing on traditions, moral codes of conduct, as well as maintaining social order.
Folktale as an oral tradition form is a story by words of mouth. Invariably, the African story
teller is a repository of knowledge, history and experiences, whose position is fortified by his/her
multiple mandates as a historian, entertainer, poet, musician and educator who is duty-bound to
transfer knowledge from one generation to another. Even in today’s world of modernity and
technological advancement, many African societies and peoples still rely heavily on the oral art
forms as they are primarily oral peoples than because they have been left behind in the
advancement of the world. In these societies, the oral tradition forms serve important ethical and
social purposes; hence, the assertion that the death of an African elder is the equivalent of an
arsonist setting the library of a top class university (perhaps Harvard University) ablaze.
Many scholars and writers (Achebe, 1987; Insaidoo, 2011; Obiechina, 1993 and Owomoyela,
1997) have documented the imperativeness of folktale or storytelling as an art form in African
societies which serves as an important instrument for entertainment, documentation and
education. Adumbratively, Achebe in his epochal novel, Things Fall Apart, showcases the
important place of folktale in entertaining of, and in the education of a child. In chapter eleven of
the novel, the importance of the folklore is illustrated in the household of Okonkwo, the main
protagonist of the novel. According to the narrator, “Low voices, broken now and again by
singing, reached Okonkwo from his wives’ huts as each woman and her children told folk
stories” (67). Ekwefi, one of Okonkwo’s wives chooses to tell her only child, Ezinma a story
based on the character of the notoriously popular animal trickster, tortoise who gets his shell
cracked as a result of his treachery and subterfuge in dealing with his benefactors, the birds.
“Once upon a time” the story begins, “all the birds were invited to a feast in the sky. They were
very happy and began to prepare themselves…Tortoise saw all these preparations and soon
discovered what it all meant.” Folktales are told at night when the day’s job has been done, in
order to emphasise the importance of the maxim, ‘work before play’ and also for maximum
effect, as the storyteller become the focus of attention. The standard practice is to commence a
story with the timeless expression ‘Once upon a time’; which is a clever device of the storyteller
to cocoon time in timelessness or eternity. Not only is time timeless, land is also oftentimes
nameless. This vagueness in time and place is intended to create the opportunities for the
listeners (many of who are children) to associate the setting with their experiential world of
fantasy and reality. The story told by Ekefi in Things Fall Apart is not only intended to entertain
an innocent child after a hard day’s job; but it is equally an attempt by a mother as the teacher to
pass on to the child a set of moral ethical codes for engendering peaceful co-existence with other
members of the society. African storytellers are not just entertainers and performers in the mode
of today’s Nollywood stars; they are educators who help to teach morals and societal values and
ethos, crucial to the maintenance of social order and the survival of their societies. In the
performance of this onerous task, the African storyteller employs songs, gesture and
impersonations to titillate the audience and pass the morals.
The Nexus between African Philosophy and Folktales
For some decades now, contemporary African Philosophers like Bodunrin (1981), Gbadegesin
(1991) and Menkiti (1984), among others, have attempt to not only interrogate but have equally
placed much premium on African moral ideas in the understanding of African ethical thinking
which Western Philosophy and people have paid little or no attention to. In African societies, the
place of moral and ethics cannot be overemphasised and the language for the conveyance of
morality in most cases is folktales, in which “the centrality of the notions of character and moral
personhood, which are inspired by the African moral language, is given a prominent place”
(Gyekye, 2010 n.p.n). For a clearer perspective on this assertion, let us consider a folktale which
centres on the tortoise (Again?).
Ijapa (Tortoise) is acknowledged as a cunning, lazy and greedy character in his society. Because
he is lazy, he lacks the capacity for work to fend for his young family; hence, a resort to stealing.
Tortoise does not have a yam farm, yet his wife is always seen pounding robust yams for their
dinner every other night. On the other hand, Tortoise in-law complains of theft in his yam farm
on a daily basis. The matter gets to a head when Tortoise’s in-law decides to set a trap to nab the
perpetrator(s) of the crime. The next day, Tortoise’s in-law gets to his farm in the early hours
only to meet with the spectacle of his in-law, Tortoise wriggling in the trap with some freshly
dug tubers of yam in his possession. As punishment, Tortoise is tied to a big Iroko tree on the
communal pathway for maximum disgrace as everyone going to their farms could see who the
thief is. Not too long, as members of the community begin to pass on their way to the farm, they
individually chastise the Tortoise for his twin-crime of indolence and theft. However, to the
chagrin and consternation of the same people, on their way back from the farm later in the
evening, they meet the tortoise in agony, still tied to the tree. Not surprising, the table is instantly
turned against Tortoise’s in-law who is tongue-lashed and reprimanded for indulging in
excessive punishment tantamount to overkill.
In Yoruba, nay African societies, Iwa (Character) is the linchpin of morality and a necessary
factor for societal well being and order. So crucial is Iwa (Character) among the Yoruba that it
subsumes the totality of a personality and is “perhaps the most important moral concept. A
person is morally evaluated according to his/her Iwa-whether good or bad” (Gbadegesin,
1991:79). Accordingly, in the foregoing folktale, there exists a communal evaluation founded on
years of co-existence, experiences and iron-clad empirical evidences that Tortoise (Ijapa) is
bereft of ‘Iwa’. Thus, it can be conveniently said of him that Ijapa ko ni iwa (Tortoise has got no
character). The act of stealing from another person is a good recipe for social disharmony. The
danger which stealing poses to social order presupposes that when a thief is caught, appropriate
punishment concomitant with the act must be imposed. Therefore, Tortoise’s in-law is in order to
punish him in the first place regardless of the bond of relationship that ties them. However, the
boundary of propriety is crossed when Tortoise’s in-law commits overkill in administering the
sanctioned punishment. The audacity of the punishment turns the table against him. The moral
lessons to be learnt here are not far-fetched. Even though the Tortoise is known not to have any
character in him, the community expects his in-law as an Omoluabi (A good/honourable person)
to know when to let go. Iwa and Omoluabi are like Siamese Twins on the Yoruba moral and
ethical landscape. Omoluabi is at the core of the person, Iwa is central in the making of a person;
hence, the Yoruba maxim: Iwa rere leso eniyan (Character is a person’s guard).
For over-
reaching himself in the punishment meted out to Tortoise, Tortoise’s in-law loses the privileged
status of an Omoluabi which Iwa confers on a person in the society; rather, he slides
automatically into the abyss of Alaseju (a Yoruba noun for one who overdoes things). The
trajectory of this story poignantly indicates that every member of the society is held to certain
standards of responsibility and that regardless of a person’s status in the society (at any given
time), the person’s right and privileges are not trampled on for whatever reason(s).
The concept of personhood in African society is also crucial to the maintenance of social order.
In a contribution to this concept, Menkiti (1984:176) avers that:
the various societies found in traditional Africa routinely accept
this fact that personhood is the sort of thing which has to be
attained, and is attained in direct proportion as one participates in
communal life through the discharge of the various obligations
defined by one’s stations.
In Yoruba land, personhood is codified in eniyan (person). In relation to this, it can be safely
argued that both the Tortoise and his in-law lose their rights to personhood in the story based on
their individual indiscretions. Then the epithet, ki i se eniyan (He/she is not a person) can be
thrown at each of them for violating the moral codes of conduct on which their society stand. For
Gbadegesin (1991:27), when a person receives the insult, ki i se eniyan, it represents vividly the
“judgement of the moral standing of the human being who is thus determined to fall short of
what it takes to be recognised as such.” Simply put, the person at the receiving end of the insult
has been completely stripped of his/her personhood. The far-reaching implication of this cultural
put-down within the communal space is analogous to pulling off the personhood of a human and
reducing him/her to an ‘animal’. Thus, the task of passing various moral codes, ethos, values and
knowledge to members of African societies both young and old is carried out through forms of
moral education, of which the folktale stands out as the most important for its capacity to
engender genuine interest and acceptance by its very nature of being able to hold its audience
spellbound as it entertains and educates.
There are different categories of stories such as animal tales, fairy tales, wonder tales and
trickster. Despite this broad categorization, it is noteworthy to indicate that animals play central
roles in African folktales; and this is so for obvious reasons. Traditional societies maintain close
relationships with nature as many of their daily activities for survival revolve around nature. As
farmers, hunters, fishermen, hewers of wood and drawers of water, the people share a close
relationship with the land and with animals of different kinds, which also affords them the
opportunity to observe the behaviours of these animals from a close range. Understandably, it
becomes a fait acompli that animals would stray into the people’s world as they (people) share
the land with them. Folktales help the human society in understanding nature, its own nature and
its relationships to the world around it. However, animal characters in African folktales are
mainly in the trickster form and this form has been identified to differ from one culture to the
other, straddling regions of the continent. The tortoise is the chief culprit and trickster hero in
most parts of Nigeria. The spider (Anansi) is the hero in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia while
the hare is the most prominent trickster in East, Central and Southern African cultural milieu.
These animals whether tricksters or not, are imbued (by the storyteller) with essential human
attributes, abilities and capabilities such as heroism, courage and mental agility as well as human
foibles and vices like greed, treachery, mischief, subterfuge, dishonesty to mention but a few.
For instance, let us cast a critical look at the nature of popular animals in folktales: tortoise and
fox-cunning (The English expression ‘to be out-foxed’ is indicative of the nature of the fox);
rabbit-swift and quick; snake-evil and venomous; lion-fearsome, powerful and domineering.
Quite interesting is the fact that the archetypal portraitures of these animals in folktales resonates
with their proclivities. However, and pertinently, as these animal characters speak and act in
folktales, they remind the listeners of the human world and its incredible capacity for vices,
intrigue, virtues and moral principles. Herein lies the usefulness of folktale not only as signpost
of culture but also of education, and in the fostering of a social order necessary for the
development of any society, as most of the stories are built on the punishment/reward model.
Interestingly, it can be generally accepted that the function or the social purpose of storytelling is
to preserve the culture of a civilization, to explain natural phenomena, to transmit historical and
important social information, or to teach important moral or ethical issues (Taylor, 2000).
Folktale: Culture as harbinger of Development
In Africa, folktale bears the imprimatur of culture. Culture is one of Africa’s greatest assets and
its appropriation is an unequivocal manifestation of a clear desire for social ordering. In a bid to
maintain social order, things which cannot just be explained by formal or informal rationalism
are transferred into folklores for the maintenance and sustenance of social equilibrium. Because
it is a deliberate process of education, the policy of catch-them-young is employed as the target
audience for folktale is innocent children who surely need answers to certain questions. Consider
the complex and complicated scenario of a parent in a traditional set up trying to explain how the
world was created or why the sky is so far from the earth to a precocious child; this parent does
not have access to the big bang theory/Darwinian theory of evolution neither does he/she know
anything of the Judeo-Christian story of how God created the heaven and the earth in seven days.
What possible explanation could he/she offer a child searching for an answer to a complex
phenomenon to which the child is completely unmindful? Recourse to folktale is culture’s own
way of helping that parent escape a perplexing quagmire. With culture giving a helping hand, a
Yoruba parent will tell the child the story of how Olodumare (Supreme Being) sends Obatala
(god of creation) to a waterlogged earth, descending with a chain from the sky, some sand in a
gourd and a fowl. Upon reaching the water, Obatala empties the sand and then places the fowl
on the sand to spread the sand as far as possible. The parent tells the child that the inability of the
sand to cover the whole body of water is the reason why some parts of the world are covered in
water today. The Yoruba child also gains the benefit of realising through this story that the spot
where the fowl begins the onerous task of creating the world is the cradle of the Yoruba race, IleIfe; and that the word ‘Ife’ in the compound word ‘Ile-Ife’ is the Yoruba equivalent of the
English verb ‘spread’. Therefore the town, Ile-Ife is the origin of the Yoruba world because it is
the land from which the world spread.
Contextual analyses of some folktales would privilege the importance of this oral narrative form
in passing ethical ideas, moral codes and education for societal development. A popular Yoruba
trickster tale concerns the matter of pride coming before a great fall. According to the tale:
The deer brags about running faster than any animal at the meeting
of all animals. With the highest immodesty he could muster, the
deer announces that he could run over twenty-six miles non-stop
and dares anyone to challenge him to a race to prove this point.
The tortoise happens to be the unusual animal to square up to the
deer and his offer immediately exposes him to terrible jeer and
taunts of the fast running deer who wonders how tortoise who is
universally acclaimed as one of the slowest animals could choose
to put himself up for a public disgrace. But the folly of the deer is
the underestimation of tortoise’s wile. The tortoise accepts the
challenge and arranges for some members of his family to be
stationed at every other mile along the race path. At the beginning
of the race, the deer teases the tortoise because he is panting
behind him. But as each of tortoise’s family members shouts ahead
of the deer, he runs more rapidly. Eventually, the deer dies of
exhaustion two miles before the end of the race.
The folktale teaches that crass display of immodesty and arrogance can bear severe
consequence(s). Every man, no matter their visible status in the society must show humility and
endeavour to eschew immodesty. This is a critical factor in social development as it entails the
importance of every person, old or young, fast or slow, rich or poor, in the process of building
the society, as well as for peaceful co-existence.
Further insight into the usefulness of folktale in development is found in the story, Aseje Awon
Eran Oniho (The Horned Animal Party):
All the horned animals decide to have a party. No one but those
with horns is invited to the party. Dog and Cat hear about the party
and really want to go, so they get busy, kill a goat, and take his
horns. According to mutual agreement, Dog is to use the fake
horns for half the night, and then he is supposed to come out of the
party and tie them on Cat for him to also enjoy the party. So Dog
takes the first turn, but after he is in the party he does not give a
thought to Cat anymore, as he is completely lost in the atmosphere
and merriment of the party. The time passed when the Dog is
supposed to come out, but he is nowhere to be found. Cat gets near
to the door and begins to shout at the top of his voice, “Dog! Dog!
Dog!” Cat goes on and on several times, but Dog does not give a
hoot about him. Eventually the noise becomes too much to ignore,
Cattle, who is the Chairman at the party comes to the door and he
angrily reprimands the Cat saying, “Go away you burdensome
nuisance of gigantic proportion, go away now. There is no Dog in
here, okay?” Cat is infuriated. Determined, he returns to the door
shouting louder, “Mr. Dog! Mr. Dog! Mr. Dog!” This time, Dog is
forced to come out himself and tries to hush Cat into silence.
Employing subterfuge, Dog says to Cat pretending to be someone
else, “Please don’t bother that fellow in there.” Cat is livid with the
anger of betrayal so he continues to shout for Dog. Finally, Cattle
smells a rat and says, “Maybe Dog is in here somehow. Let’s just
see for ourselves.” So all the horned animals at the party begin a
search. Still unwilling to give up his subterfuge, Mr. Dog himself
says, “Let me see whether Dog is at this party. Let’s see if Dog is
in here.” After a painstaking search, Dog is discovered to be an
impostor in a stolen robe and they tear off his fake horns and start
to beat him. Somehow, Dog manages to escape only to meet Cat
waiting for him. An argument ensues, which soon turns to a fight.
When Cat notices that he is getting the worst of it, he scratches
Dog on the corner of his lip. Now you will notice that the corner of
a dog’s lip always looks raw; well, that is why. It is also the reason
why a dog and a cat can never agree.
In understanding the relationship of this folktale to social development, one must adequately
account for the variables thrown up by the story. The agreement of the two to form a working
alliance is precipitated on a shared goal of overcoming their mutual sense of isolation from the
horned animals’ party. More so the alliance formed, rests on two crucial ingredients of social
development: trust and honour. Also, equality is factored into the working agreement; there is no
senior/junior partner as each would have a turn at the party, it is agreed. But Dog breaches the
agreement and then attempts deception to cover his tracks until the search organised by the
horned animals blows the lid off Dog’s deception, leading inevitably to a showdown between
former comrades. Within the context of social development however, the breakdown of
communication which the breech of agreement causes between Dog and Cat typifies what is
often the case in human communities where discrimination, inequality, temptation, betrayal and
an inability to accept one’s mistakes and take responsibility more often than not, lead to rift and
violence.
Therefore, the contribution of folktale to development rests in its capacity to engender conflict
prevention and resolution, and in its usefulness in nearly all spheres of human endeavour to
convey knowledge and communicate ideas. Folklorists and anthropologists can study the cultures
and traditions of a group through the prism of their tales as the behaviour of the characters and
the deeds performed reveal much about the lifestyle and belief systems of such cultures.
Historians, for example, while questioning the historical accuracy of many folktales
acknowledge that much relevant information is contained in them as a peep into folk history can
reveal many things about behaviour during a particular historical period under review because
the views of folklores can give insight into the time and the prevailing attitudes held by the
people then. Fairytales generally trigger curiosity and tap into the unconscious inner struggles in
the development process. Complex ideas and beliefs are contained in folktales, and this is the
essence of folktale in the developmental process from one culture to the other.
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