The Roots of African Storytelling: From Oral Traditions to Modern Literature

Stories are not just written in books or told by words, they are lived in the minds of men.. Beyond the grim faces of elders who distilled their lived experiences unto the younger ones, there remained a reality that was lived by the stories. They gave Africans a sense of purpose and identity. That is why the varied stories bear striking similarities. And in modern times, people who lived in Africa have subconsciously embraced the spirits of the forbears inextricably in their web of being; the root of African narratives and spirituality is a reverence of ancestors. 

The oral tradition encompasses fables and folklores, myths, proverbs, elegies, and epic stories all serving different purposes while drawing from the same source. From the Igbo proverb of a proud god, “if a deity forments too much trouble, it will be shown the tree it was carved” and stories of Amalinze the Cat whose back never touched the ground, to the congo’s myth of Mbombo, also named Bumba, a white giant who willed the world into existence from nothingness, to the Yoruba’s appraisal of ogun, the god of metal and metallurgy who wielded metal weapons as an extension of his will. All of these are single examples of the richness of the African endeavors to define their history by inherited narratives. 

Africa’s literature’s roots are woven in the threads of storytelling. For preservation and conservation of the race, this is seen in the striking similarity that traverses cultures and generations, anchoring metaphors for cultural, didactic, and elegiac, myths, and even war purposes. The symmetry is not far fetched — the heavy well of wisdom and the intensity of lived experiences where with each iteration, an oral story is told in a new way. By that, everyone participates in making sense of reality that bears a heavy toll upon the minds of men.

Overtime, the narratives evolved and transformed from a state of communalism to the rise of metropolitan states. States of being were dislodged and traditional rulers were deposed. In this, there was a search for meaning beyond the baggage of resistance Africans wore at the heights of British imperialism and colonialism — therefore, there was an effort to reconcile the narratives of the old and the beginnings that was foisted upon Africans. This bore different literature texts such as “Things Fall Apart” as a significant disruption of the centre that collapsed under the weight of the white man’s contradiction. An example is “Ovonranwen Nogbaisi” by Ola rotimi where a king was deposed for insubordination to the whims of colonial powers. 

Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart“ written as a response to the “Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, a classic relic that brooded upon the African condition as savages and the white good man who observed the intricacies of an uncivilized world. But he understood the dangers of this story and the effect it had upon shaping narratives of African continent. In his words, the book “set[s] Africa up as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe’s own state of spiritual grace will be manifest.” 

In this pursuit of clarity, he dissipates the mainstream narrative at that time, but perhaps, persists in the web of narratives that are hard to undo, rich in proverbs and tales that he acknowledged came from learning from elders while he was much younger. Again, ”Weep Not Child”, “The Trial of Dedan Kimathi” by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o,  meant brooding upon the struggle of the Mau Mau as a tension of the old and the British Impalement of the kenyan ancient civilization that deepened grievances and existential crisis. At that point, the tensions bore new stories and written texts only amplified the voices that wailed against the irreconcilable tensions and the multiplier effects. 

From here, the Narratives morphed into the struggles of the post colonial era and letters like Ayi Kwei Amah’s “The beautyful ones are not yet born” and how Africans terribly fail to hold themselves back together after the heist and cultural purge by forces beyond comprehension. Chimmanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of A Yellow Sun – the struggles, in general, of a country lumped by circumstances rather than history, and the conflict between cultural experiences. Yet this is felt in the fractured identities and the perpetual longing for cultural hegemony, or at least autonomy and the curse of an imposed identity. 

Beyond the troubles of the past, there is a depth of new narratives for new generations in a globalized world, yet the artifacts are not discarded as they still persist in Wole Soyinka’s Jero’s Metamorphosis or The war-ridden narratives of Nuruddin Farah, and the new writers in the modern ages, trying to find meaning and navigate identities without much detachment in modern cultures of personal aspirations, racial discrimination. This includes ordeals of modern African life in Chimmanda’s “Americanah” spanning three continents on divergent issues like racism, definition of success, and personal relationships.  

The storytelling culture and literature is not only in books but in movies and cultural traditions still present, still shaping and preserving the essence of Africa’s existential artifacts in a globalized world, even in the weight of language, accent, and poetry that reflect their root. It still exists in the minds that continue to shape them and the African minds that seek to escape them, it is as though the elders are still present, watching or participating in the process of Africa’s being and becoming.