CONTEMPORARY Pacific academics are giving oral tradition an identity so this article briefly overviews the discourse of oral tradition, meaning of its forms — oral history and oral literature — and their relevance to the Pacific Islands.
Oral tradition is a form of human communication where useful information is received, preserved and transmitted orally or verbally for posterity. The transmission of a preserved cultural knowledge is done via vocal utterances prevalent especially in preliterate societies. It includes spoken words in form of folk tales, ballads, chants, jokes, riddles, stories, legends, proverbs, belief, motion, music and songs.
This tradition does not remain stagnant in terms of its historicity as it keeps on changing and evolving over time, filtered and codified with every generation.
Alessandro Portelli’s article Oral History reflects oral tradition is an umbrella category which includes oral history and probably also includes oral literature or orature whereas Jan Vansina’s Oral Tradition as History considers oral history as based on reminiscences, hearsay or eyewitness accounts of contemporary events. This is different from oral tradition that has been passed by word of mouth beyond the lifetime of the informants.
However, oral history refers to recording, preserving and interpretation of historical information of personal memories and histories of those people who had experiences or were part of historical eras, events and discourse. These eyewitness evidence about the past is transmitted over the years through recorded interviews, audiotapes and videotapes. The interviews are with people or actors/actresses who witnessed the events.
Donald A Ritchie’s book Doing Oral History, elaborates on how oral history is collected; setting up an oral history project, conducting interviews, using oral history in research and writing, videotaping oral history, preserving oral history in archives and libraries.
Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson’s edited book The Oral History Reader remarks about the four paradigm shifts in oral history theory and practices beginning from the post WW II renaissance as a source of history in late 1970s, 1980s and the digital revolution of the 1990s. Further the book stated oral history gave voice to people who might be considered to be “hidden from history” — a voice for the subaltern classes, women, and powerless masses.
However, the World Heritage Encyclopedia explains oral literature as folk literature corresponding in the sphere of the spoken word to literature as it operates in the domain of the written word. It thus forms a generally more fundamental component of culture but operates in many ways as one might expect literature to do. Jane Nandwa and Austin Bukenya explain oral literature as “those utterances, whether spoken, recited or sung, whose composition and performance exhibit to an appreciable degree the artistic character of accurate observation, vivid imagination and ingenious expression” via folklore, proverbs and folk songs.
In regard to Pacific oral sources, JW Davidson emphasises the importance of new primary sources, that is, oral evidences and records in the vernacular languages of the islands. This custom implies knowledge or practices handed down orally.
HE Maude highlights the value of oral tradition in case of lack of written sources, especially in regard to Pacific historians. Evelyn Wareham explained Pacific Islanders lacked written sources in the pre-European contact period so orality continued to be dominant in island life.
Ruth Finnegan’s Oral Literature and Writing in the South Pacific explaining the transformation in oral tradition after contact with Europeans, said: “It’s fascinating to study how once foreign ideas and stories have been taken over by the Pacific Islanders and moulded according to local styles and insights into truly Pacific literary genres.”
The author argued the overlapping of oral and written literature, ie “a piece may be composed in writing, but then transmitted and performed orally but writing may be used in its transmission” by giving examples of Maori songs-myths of New Zealand, Tongan poetry, Tahitian traditional narratives and the Kaunitoni story in Fiji.
Because the islands of the Pacific are scattered, Finnegan explains there has been little study of Pacific cultural forms and the references of Pacific oral tradition are rare in comparative literary analyses or in theories of oral literature and tradition despite this region having immense historically rich oral literature and traditional sources.
She highlights the significance of spoken narratives and oral sources, such as chorally performed, often danced songs and dramas, and of emotive and sorrow feelings of individuals in the Pacific are the world’s treasury of literature and tradition. Thus, they have greatest potential for a comparative research based on oral literature and tradition. Because of the advance in modern transport and communication techniques in the 21st century, the questions of geographical differences are marginalised.
Moreover, the author suggested that oral tradition in Pacific gives immense information regarding varied themes; history, culture, society, protest songs, visual presentations, love and performed songs, myths, lament, religious mantras, folklore, prose narratives, local traditions, personal portrait, ghost stories and sung poetic genres.
Examples of oral work would include Malama Meleisea’s study of Melanesian plantation labourers in Samoa; Brij Lal’s study of Indian indentured labourers in Fiji, Clive Moore’s history of the Melanesian community in the northern Queensland; Ellis, Orsmond and Fornander’s reconstructions of early Tahitian and Hawaiian history.
Sione Latukefu’s The Making of the First Tognan-born Professional Historian enlightens obstacles to writing Pacific history.
Firstly, outsiders exploit indigenous cultures for their own benefit and they can never understand indigenous cultures properly. This was because of colonial experience so Pacific historians’ need to take all aspects into consideration while writing Pacific history.
Secondly, he suggested outsiders may not have clear knowledge of local customs and understanding vernacular language but suggested Pacific historians need to write irrespective of race, gender, creed or nationality for the benefit of everyone.
Thirdly, oral tradition should not be misused as it has been neglected by colonial and mission historians in earlier decades who believed authenticity should be only based on written records. With the emergence of oral traditional sources, there is a need for specialised skills to extract the historical facts deeply enshrined in myths and poetry which should be checked and counter checked from other versions of the same story.
Fourthly, the problem of preconception ideological commitment makes distorting in selection of evidence to justify their assertions.
Lastly, unquestionable loyalty could also be an impediment in extracting oral tradition. Fabrication or exaggeration is the drawback of oral sources as each generation may add a part of its own version in addition to their personal prejudices and bias to seek the truth as every historian is influenced by some conviction and completely unbiased history is impossible.
Finnegan showed an urgency to record oral tradition of the Pacific Islands before they perish as they are an invaluable source of information which are performed and transmitted in the South Pacific.
The advantage of oral tradition where it is based on long-term observation, direct questioning of poets and narrators, or lengthy experiences can sometimes lead to the discovery of unanticipated insights.
Oral literature shows no sign of disappearance as songs and other oral forms as they continue to be composed, performed and exchanged in the Pacific. Oral historians need to have an objective and balanced approach in order to conserve the cultural heritage of the Pacific.
I conclude with David Routledge’s words: “French school of total history, that traditional documentary research must be complemented with quantitative analysis and systematic use of oral testimony.”
* Dr Sakul Kundra is an assistant professor in history at the Fiji National University. The views expressed are not of this newspaper.
