Politics of Oral Literature

1
Politics of Oral Literature

• Primitives dont have literature
• Taking despised cultures seriously validates the
  culture as worthy or important in local context
• Real art real people?

2
Brief History of Indian-English translation

• Principles of Identity and Difference
• Spindens double standard of fidelity to
  original source and artistic quality in the
  rendering
• Early attempts emphasized Identity
• Later C19 work included original and
  intermediate translations (movement to
  difference)
• Boasian scienticity precision above all else
• Poetic backlash in danger of appropriation
• Current work demonstrates value of considerable
  investment
• Tedlock, Hymes, Mattina, Bahr, Hinton

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Swanton, Tlingit Myths and Texts
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Boas, Religion of the Kwakiutl, pt 1
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Boas, Religion of the Kwakiutl pt. 2
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boas on texts
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Homer
while the Danaans bent the Trojans back, and each
of the princes killed his man. And first the lord
of men Agamemnon hurled tall Odios, lord of the
Halizones, from his chariot. For in his back even
as he was turning the spear fixed between the
shoulders and was driven on through the chest
beyond it. He fell, thunderously, and his armour
clattered upon him.
After him Diomedes of the great war cry drove
forward With the bronze spear and Pellas Athena,
leaning in on it, Drove it into the depth of the
belly where the war belt girt him. Picking this
place she stabbed and driving it deep in the fair
flesh Wrenched the spear out again. Then Ares the
brazen bellowed With a sound as great as nine
thousand men make, or then thousand, When they
cry as they carry into the fighting the fury of
the war god. And a shivering seized hold alike on
Achaeans and Trojans In their fear at the
bellowing of battle-insatiate Ares.
8
Beowulf
Then from the moorland, by misty crags,? with
God's wrath laden, Grendel came.? The monster was
minded of mankind now? sundry to seize in the
stately house.? Under welkin he walked, till the
wine-palace there,? gold-hall of men, he gladly
discerned,? flashing with fretwork. Not first
time, this, ?that he the home of Hrothgar sought,
--? yet ne'er in his life-day, late or
early,? such hardy heroes, such hall-thanes,
found!? To the house the warrior walked
apace,? parted from peace the portal
opened,? though with forged bolts fast, when his
fists had struck it,? and baleful he burst in his
blatant rage,? the house's mouth. All hastily,
then,? o'er fair-paved floor the fiend trod
on,? ireful he strode there streamed from his
eyes? fearful flashes, like flame to see.?
9
Parry and Lord

• Albert B. Lord, The Singer of Tales
• Research among epic bards in Yugoslavia - the
  heirs of Homer
• Fundamentally oral quality of Homeric epics
• Formulaic elements assembled on the fly
• Three stages of becoming a singer of tales
• Listening (often as child), singing privately
• Singing and learning the forms of rhythmic
  pattern
• Performing a whole song for a critical audience

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Lord, Singer of Tales
Singers emphasized constancy Parry found
variation Tradition and Creativity
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Richard Bauman, Verbal Art as Performance

• Reacting against common assumptions in folklore,
  anthropology and linguistics
• Folklore text
• Linguistic assumptions about language
• Divisions between music and verbal arts
• Emergent quality of performance -structured
  improvisation

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not primitive but poetic

• Our prose is realistic, poetry is evocative.
• Repetition is poetic parallelism (common in epic
  poetry)
• Dramatic stories

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Performance of Myth

• Denis Tedlock, Dell Hymes, Julie Cruickshank
• Oral literature, poetry
• Narrating a myth is a ritual
• Performative competence
• Form and content intertwined

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Capturing oral performance

• Tape recorders, responsive audience
• Translations which produce similar effects
• Notate paralinguistic features (tone, volume,
  pitch, pause)

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Guide to Reading Aloud

• She went out and
• went down to Waters End.
• On she went until
• she came to the bank
• and washed her clothes

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Guide to Reading Aloud

• Up on the hills
• HE SAW A HERD OF DEER.
• The would sit king
• On he went.
• KERSPLASHHHHHH

girl wor
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Guide to Reading Aloud

• aaaaaaAAAAAAH
• ta
• (gently) Now come with me.

l
a
a
a
a
a
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• And ALL THE PEOPLE WHO HAD COME
• KILLED THE DEER
• killed the deer
• 
  killed the deer
• Wherever they made their kills they gutted them,
  put them on their backs, and went home.
• Two of the uncles
• Then
• went ahead of the group, and a third uncle
• (voice breaking) dropped his elder sister
• his elder brother
• his mother.

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• while the other two uncles went on. As they
• went ON
• the boy pretended to be tired. The first uncle
  pleaded
• "Tísshomahhá!
• STOP," he said, "Let's stop this contest now."
• That's what he was saying as
• The little boy kept on running.
• As he kept on his bells went telele.
• On, he went on this way
• On until
• The little boy stopped and his uncle, dismounting
• Caught him

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Introduction to Now I know only so far

• Coherent form of patterned sequences of lines
  likely universal
• Boasian publications useful, but notebooks often
  include things omitted
• Tradition and creativity

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Complexity of form

• Politics of representation - subversiveness of
  claims that Indians have literature and art
• Going beyond performance and sound
• Documentary work of Boas not contrary to
  universalizing but part of general program
• Boas was interested in human universals, but
  found that often they were uninteresting once
  established
• Recurrence and equivalence

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Measured verse

• Not metrical
• Recurrent patterns (words, particles, episodes,
  verb tense, etc.)
• Patterns of 3s 5s or 2s 4s
• 'Bookending' pairs (openings and closings)
• Triadic patterns of onset, ongoing, outcome

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Louis Simpson, Wishram Chinook, excerpt from
Coyotes Journey

• A a Now Coyote went, 1
• straight on he went,
• he saw white salmon in the water.
• b Then he thought
• How shall I get them? 5
• c Now then he thought
• I shall make a trap.
• (He saw the white salmon jumping about,
• he made a trap).

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• B a Now then he tied the trap,
• he tied it on. 9
• b Now then he jumped straightway right into
  the trap.
• c Now then Coyote told the trap
• Whenever you become full, trap,
• Whenever you mouth is full of white
  salmon, 13
• Now then you will cry out,
• Ú, Im full,
• You will cry out,
• Now its full of white salmon at the trap.

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• C a Now then it cried out
• Ú, Im full, the trap. 19
• b Coyote cried out
• Ú.
• c Now then Coyote went,
• he saw, 23
• now its full.
• d Now then he unloosened the trap
• e Now then Coyote
• Coyote got them this way. 27
• (This countrys name is eating-place,
• or it keeps tearing out.)