The Use of African myth, Folklore and Oral tradition in

African Literature

The history of African literature consists of written

literature and a strong tradition of oral literature that is

still alive. English is the second language used all over

the country, used as a medium of education and as a medium

of communication with other countries in Africa and beyond.

The past history is that of colonial territory, subject to

cultural, political and missionary as well as linguistic

influence from Britain. The present history is one of

achieved independence with a growing awareness of both

national identity and modern problems. There is an acute

awareness based on colour. Traditional culture is a major

influence on the development of the contemporary national

culture and its accompanying attitudes and beliefs.

The oral literature is so intimately connected with the

socio-cultural context. In the case of African literature,

the use of English language is a crucial thing which

connects the colonial and the mythopoeic traditions. For

example in Soyinka, there is interchangeability of cultural

experience, the use of one culture to cope with the

experiences of the other. He is opposed to the negritude

movement. The use of myth and folktale has been fastened to

the African traditions and befuddle Western attitudes. The

African world was a fantasy world for Europeans before

science fiction came along, inhabited by witch doctors and

mysterious beings, or dominated by a literally swinging

Tarzan .But we find that the oral tradition and myth forms a

large part in African literature and it acts as a resistance

against the colonial intervention in Africa.

Sub-Saharan Africa has two distinct kinds of

literatures. Traditional oral poetry and the written

Literature. Traditional oral poetry and folklore date back

to the early days of various tribal cultures and the written

literature emerges in the 18th century but mostly it is the

phenomena of 20th century. According to Achebe, “Both novel

and short story in Africa have undoubtedly drawn from a

common oral heritage. But each has also achieved

distinctiveness in the hands of its best practitioners.”The

oral tradition is in fact the story telling tradition.

Storytelling is alive, ever in transition, never hardened in

time. Stories are not meant to be temporally frozen; they

are always responding to contemporary realities, but in a

timeless fashion. Storytelling is therefore not a memorized

art. The necessity for this continual transformation of the

story has to do with the regular fusing of fantasy and

images of the real, contemporary world. Performers take

images from the present and wed them to the past, and in

that way the past regularly shapes an audience’s experience

of the present. Storytellers reveal connections between

humans—within the world, within a society, within a family—

emphasizing an interdependence and the disaster that occurs

when obligations to one’s fellows are forsaken. The artist

makes the linkages, the storyteller forges the bonds, tying

past and present, joining humans to their gods, to their

leaders, to their families, to those they love, to their

deepest fears and hopes, and to the essential core of their

societies and beliefs. Stories deal with change; mythic

transformations of the cosmos, heroic transformations of the

culture, transformations of the lives of everyman. The

storytelling experience is always ritual, always a rite of

passage; one relives the past and, by so doing, comes to

insight about present life. Myth is both a story and a

fundamental structural device used by storytellers. As a

story, it reveals change at the beginning of time, with gods

as the central characters. As a storytelling tool for the

creation of metaphor, it is both material and method. The

heroic epic unfolds within the context of myth, as does the

tale. At the heart of each of these genres is metaphor, and

at the core of metaphor is riddle with its associate,

proverb. Each of these oral forms is characterized by a

metaphorical process, the result of patterned imagery. These

universal art forms are rooted in the specificities of the

African experience.

African literature heavily borrows from African myths.

Africans have their own myths about the creation of the

world. According to most of them, one, all powerful god

creates the world, and then passes the job of overseeing it

to a group of lesser gods.

The most elaborate deities are probably those of Yoruba

of Nigeria and the Ton of Benin. They are very powerful

beings and can do amazing deeds. We have a very frequent

reference to such supernatural spirits in Achebe’s Things Fall

Apart. Folktales, proverbs and riddles also constitute

African Literature. Achebe’s work is full of all these

details. Proverb is an inalienable part of conversation all

over Africa. They are entertaining as mostly they express

ideas in a surprising way. For example, instead of saying,

“Be careful,” a mother might tell her child, “The housefly

does not play a sticky drum.” When a father says, “The

staring frogs do not prevent cattle from drinking,” he means

“Don’t worry about other people’s opinions.” In the riddle,

two unlike, and sometimes unlikely, things are compared. The

obvious thing that happens during this comparison is that a

problem is set, then solved. But there is something more

important here, involving the riddle as a figurative form:

the riddle is composed of two sets, and, during the process

of riddling, the aspects of each of the sets are transferred

to the other. On the surface it appears that the riddle is

largely an intellectual rather than a poetic activity. But

through its imagery and the tension between the two sets,

the imagination of the audience is also engaged. As they

seek the solution to the riddle, the audience itself becomes

a part of the images and therefore—and most significantly—of

the metaphorical transformation.

Two great colonizing movements have affected the

African literature. First, there came Islamic Arabs in 7th

Century and then came Christian European in the 19th. Most

of the 20th century literature written in English,

Portuguese and French languages charts the effects of

European colonization. Colonization has had a profound

effect on the social order of most African societies.

Colonizing forces integrated African societies into a

capitalist world economy, and exposed them to many aspects

of a now globe-encircling civilization.

Conquered and colonized by Western European

imperialists, African societies, , or organized in feudal-

like politics with complex stratification system, lost their

political, economic, social and cultural autonomy, and

became appendages to the west. Discussing the dilemma of

such Westernized African individual ,Chidi Amuta in the

Theory of African Literature quotes Frantz Fanon who says,

In order to ensure his salvation and to escape from theSupremacy of the Whiteman’s culture the native feelsthe need to turn backward toward his unknown roots andto lose himself at whatever cost in his own barbarouspeople … He not only turns himself into the defender ofhis people’s past; he is willing to be counted as one

of them, and henceforward he is even capable oflaughing at his cowardice. (114)

Writers like Achebe represents a modern Africa whose

ethnic and cultural diversity is complicated by the impact

of European colonialism. Things Fall Apart challenges European

stereotype of Africa as primitive savage identity and brings

forth the complexities of African societies with their

alternative sets of traditions, ideals, values, and

behaviours. Achebe is even more disturbed to see African

themselves internalize these stereotypes, lose confidence

and turn away from their culture to emulate the so-called

superior white European civilization. Therefore, Achebe has

a dual mission to educate both African and European readers

to reinstall a sense of pride in African cultures and to

help his society to regain belief in itself and put away the

complexes of years of denigration and self-abasement.

African writers recreate a sympathetic portrait of

traditional culture in Africa and try to inform the outside

world about their oral tradition and folk values and affirms

that Africa had a history or culture worth considering.

African Poetry

The influence of various elements of oral tradition exert on

Modern African poetry .This tendency is a part of the

recognition of the functions which verbal art forms perform

in the society. They contain detailed description of myths

and legends, sacred ritual and the codified dogma of the

religious system of the people. Both Okot p’ Bitek and

Christopher Okigbo are significantly influenced by oral

traditions. They use myths to create new visions of life and

new poetic idioms with remarkable originality.

One of East Africa's best-known poets, p'Bitek helped

redefine African literature by emphasizing the oral

tradition of the native Acholi people of Uganda. His lengthy

prose poems, often categorized as poetic novels, reflect the

form of traditional Acholi songs while expressing

contemporary political and social themes. p'Bitek's most

famous work, Song of Lawino, is a plea for the protection of

Acholi cultural tradition from the encroachment of Western

influences. The prose poem is narrated by Lawino, an

illiterate Ugandan housewife, who complains bitterly that

her university-educated husband, Ocol, has rejected her and

his own Acholi heritage in favor of a more modern lifestyle.

Perceiving his wife as an undesirable impediment to his

progress, Ocol devotes his attention to Clementine (Tina),

his Westernized mistress. Throughout the work, Lawino

condemns her husband's disdain for African ways, describing

her native civilization as beautiful, meaningful, and deeply

satisfying: “Listen Ocol, my old friend, / The ways of your

ancestors / Are good, / Their customs are solid / And not

hollow. …” She laments her husband's disrespect for his own

culture and questions the logic of many Western customs: “At

the height of the hot season / The progressive and civilized

ones / Put on blanket suits / And woollen socks from Europe.

…”

The poem relies on theAcholi symbols of the horn, the

bull and the spear to lament her husband’s loss of

traditional qualities .Among the Acholi,the horn is not only

a musical instrument but also a ritual object connected with

the initiation in to adulthood. Also among the Acholi , the

bull is a panegyric title used as a compliment for bravery

and respect. Lawino combines the symbols of the bull and the

horn to remind Ocol, her husband, of the respectable and

famous ancestry from which he descends. She indicts Ocol for

behaving like ‘ a dog of the white man’ and reminds him of

the proud ancestry.

Your grandfather was a Bull among men And although he died long ago

His name still blows like a hornHis name is still heardThroughout the land

The spear also possesses a ritual essence .A man is

never buried without his spear carefully placed by his side.

It is a symbol of masculinity which Lawino uses to capture

Ocol’s impotence and alienation from tradition. With the

spear symbol, the poet makes a major statement that

modernization paralyses the traditional essence and

emasculates victims like Ocol. Okot has completely avoided

the stock of common images of English literature and used

common images from Acholi literature. Lawina relies on a

string of traditional images to criticize Clementina, her

rival for Ocol. When Clementina dusts powder on her face,

she resembles the wizard getting ready for the midnight

dance. In the same section Lawina exposes the poverty and

neglect which the voters are forced to bear after each

election. She castigates the politicians who abandon the

voters like the local python ‘with a bull water buck in its

tummy’, the politicians ‘hibernate and stay away and eat!’

In the poem, the central proverb is the one built on

the pumpkin. The pumpkin planted around the homestead is

never uprooted even the old homestead is to be abandoned.

This is directed against Ocol who abandons the old

traditions in favour of the new. The Acholi myth is used to

develop the character of Lawina. Unable to understand the

process by which electricity works she falls back to the

myth surrounding her tradition. When the rain cock opens its

wings ,the blinding light… flow through the wires.

Repetition of the lines are intended to emphasise Lawino’s

attempt to preserve traditional values against the

encroachment of Western tradition. Audience involvement is

another feature which is a fundamental feature in African

creative arts.

Christopher Okigbo

Okigbo published three volumes of poetry during his short

lifetime: Heavensgate (1962), Limits (1964), and Silences (1965).

His collected poems appeared posthumously in 1971 under the

title Labyrinths, with Path of Thunder. Okigbo had a deep

familiarity with ancient Greek and Latin writers and with

modern poets such as T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, as well as

with Igbo  mythology. His poems are highly personal, richly

symbolic renderings of his experiences, his thoughts on the

role of the poet, and other themes. He weaves images of the

forests, animals, and streams of his native Igbo landscape

into works that are often obscure, allusive, or difficult.

Okigbo like any other poet has created a system of symbols

which is difficult to read.He believes that his struggle is

to concentrate and to renew his association with traditional

wisdom ,to reestablish a vital connection between the

individual and race. In “Heavensgate”, the present society

is unbearable because of the presence of alien culture.

Memory and dream are the means of salvation for the hero.

Hence the dream of reunion with mother Idoto ,a longing for

mother Africa.

Before you, mother Idoto,naked I stand,before your watery presence,a prodigal,leaning on an oilbean.lost in your legend….

The significance of the ritual offering on the part of

the poet hero are concerned with the traditional feast of

purification .In the rest of Labryinths ,images and symbols

such as ‘palm grove’, ‘weaver bird’ the horn bill, ‘the

sacrificial ram’ etc are used for the exploration of the

poet’s socio-spiritual state as he searches for

purification.

Okigbo borrows the invocational and incantatory devices

from the oral traditions and uses them imaginatively to draw

attention to the traditional religion from which he has been

exiled and to which he has been exiled and to which he now

returns like a prodigal. In Labyrinths,the scenes of sacrifice

adds to the incantatory tones .In Igbo culture, this

traditional icon is put ‘by every Igbo high priest of the

indigenous god. Okigbo’s “Hurrah for Thunder”,uses elephant,

a symbol for the Federal Government during the first regime

in Nigeria to destroy the four regions of Nigeria.It invokes

the traditional chants on this animal by the oral artists.

Another feature of the poem is the use of proverbs. Okigbo

uses local proverbs to caution those in the vanguard of

Nigerian politics .eg., ‘The eye that looks downwards will

certainly see the nose.’Music is also a key feature of

Okigbo’s poetry.It expresses more intense themes which words

fail to express. Okigbo fuses African myths with the

Babylonian gods, Roman mythology and twentieth century

scientific mythology. In the poem “Lament of the Drums” and

“Path of Thunder” ,a form of Yoruba praise poem is invoked,

gods and men and their deeds or attributes are placed in a

heroic context. Lament of the Drums also constitute this

oral tradition. Just as the European poet invokes the muse,

the poet invokes relevant forces from the forest. The

sleeping ancestors are invoked with drumming and animal

sacrifice. In the poem “Come Thunder”, myth is used to

create art out of contemporary political events. Thus the

use of African orature in Okigbo’s poetry aims for the

retribution of colonial past and the contemporary corrupt

politics of postcolonial Africa.

African Novels

The Folk Tales and Proverbs in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall

Apart

The Igbo people are ethnic group of south Eastern

Nigeria, The most important crop is Yam. Before colonization

they were politically fragmented people. They became overtly

Christianized under colonial regime. The tradition of their

folktales featured non human beings endowed with human

characteristics. The good always triumph over evil, truth

over falsehood,honesty over dishonesty, parental

responsibility, care and upbringing of the young, respect

for old age, labour, grace and beauty in women, strength and

virility in men, social justice, spirit of daring etc.

Achebe presents his aim of writing novel is that to

dispose a culture, a philosophy of great depth and value and

beauty,all lost in the colonial period .In Things Fall Apart,

Achebe represents the cultural roots of the Igbos to

represent the dignity they lost during colonial period.

Mother is considered to be supreme in this culture.

(Nneka) .The deity Ala or Ani is important as the female

goddesses which shows respect for women. Proverbs are

another feature in the novel.

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is the best example of

the use of narrative proverbs to express the distinctive

quality of African fiction. . In this novel there are nine

embedded narratives, of which seven are folktales and mythic

stories, one a pseudo-history, and one an anecdote. Most

importantly, the narrative proverbs help to define the

epistemological order within the novel. Okonkwo’s world is

entirely traditional, subsisting within an oral culture with

its intimate face-to-face social configurations and a world-

view and value system that have been handed down from great

antiquity. The use of narrative proverbs in the structuring

of the action of the novel is a major constructive strategy

in the expression of the oral traditional impulse in the

lives of the characters and in defining their vernacular

sensibility.

The first embedded narrative is the cosmic myth of the

quarrel between Earth and Sky. It is embedded in the context

of the crisis of confidence between Okonkwo and his son

Nwoye, a sensitive teenager who is afraid of his father. His

father wants to bring him up in the warrior tradition by

telling him “masculine stories of violence and bloodshed,”

while Nwoye prefers “the stories that his mother used to

tell,” which include the cosmic myth of the primeval quarrel

of Earth and Sky . Okonkwo is pictured as an archetypal

masculine figure who rules his household with a heavy hand

and keeps his wives and children down and in mortal terror

of him. Nwoye is crushed by his father’s violence. It

foreshadows the triumph of imperialism and the defeat so

poetically evoked in the title of the novel. Imperialism is

symbolized by Sky and Umuofia clan by Earth. In the unequal

conflict between them, imperialism, like Sky, predictably

wins.

The locust myth and Ikemefuna’s song are also embedded

within the narrative. In the third year of Ikemefuna’s

arrival into Okonkwo’s household and on the eve of his

tragic death, a locust swarm descends on Umuofia. The locust

myth prepares the ground for this radicalization of events

in the narrative. It is as if by opening the mythic “caves”

from which the locusts emerge, the “stunted men,” the Igbo

equivalent of the fates of the Greek mythology, also open up

a pestilential phase of events that would consume the hero

and quicken the tempo of the fall of the old dispensation.

Ikemefuna’s song is a song extrapolated from a folktale.

The full tale is the story of a perverse, headstrong king

who breaks a taboo by eating roast yam offered in sacrifice

to the gods. Ikemefuna’s murder at the hands of Okonkwo and

his misfortunes after accidently killing Unoka’s son is

foreshadowed in the song. The Mosquito Myth is narrated soon

after Ikemefuna’s death. Okonkwo’s conscience is beginning

to recover its serenity after three days of great internal

turmoil. On the third night, he falls deeply asleep but is

tormented by mosquitoes. The myth serves to stress the

strength of conscience. After killing Ikemefuna, Okonkwo is

trying very hard to smother his conscience, to relieve

himself of the responsibility of his fall. But conscience is

a hardy thing; it is not easily killed. The mosquito myth is

the authorial metaphor that underlines that fact. The

Tortoise and the Birds is a trickster tale in which the

trickster is caught in his own web of intrigue. It is the

fullest text of a traditional folktale in Things Fall Apart. It

dramatizes the evil of extreme egocentricism. The hero is an

individualist whose relationship to his community has many

points of ambivalence. Just as in pursuit of

individualistically determined obsessions the trickster

comes into conflict with society, so Okonkwo shares the

tendency towards an overwhelming sense of ego that brings

him into conflict with the group. The Abame Story

constitutes a historical or pseudo-historical narrative. The

Abame story assumes an aspect of a cautionary tale presented

as an oral performance. The Kite Myth (Uchendu’s Story) is a

myth that explains why kites eat chickens but not ducklings,

the myth goes beyond etiology in this context; it is an

extended response to the Abame Story. Uchendu the teller of

the myth had intervened while Obierika was telling the Abame

story to inquire what the white man said before the Abame

people killed him. The oracle has said that the lone white

man would destroy their clan. From the Abame and the Kite

myth we know that the lone white man is only a harbinger of

others already under way. And, finally, the white men are

“locusts.” What is under way is imperialist invasion. . On

the macrocosmic plane, however, we have the parabolic

extension of the event that encompasses the global scope of

imperialism, with the locust invasion symbolizing

imperialist invasion with its attendant devastations and

destructions. The Abame story, the Kite Myth and the Locust

metaphor strategically are aired while Okonkwo is in exile,

as if for his distinct advantage, to alert him to the

changed and changing circumstances of life since he went

into exile. Unfortunately, the lesson is lost on the hero.

While his uncle responds with the Kite Myth, Okonkwo

responds in a manner totally in character: “They [people of

Abame] were fools.

There are extensive use of proverbs in the

novel.Proverbs are palm oils with which words are

eaten.eg;if a child washed his hands,he can eat with the

king, "A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for

his own greatness, The sun will shine on those who stand

before it shines on those who kneel under them, A toad does

not run in the daytime for nothing, the lizard that jumped

from the high Iroko tree to the ground said he would praise

himself if no one else did etc.

Religion plays a pervasive role in the novels.Chi is

the spirit being that has a central place in Igbo

mythology.It is the personal god of Okonkwo.If one grows

too proud or too big for his shoes,his chi would overthrow

him,that is what happened to Okonkwo. In Arrow of God, Ulu

symbolizes the political cohesiveness combating the external

forces to safeguard the freedom and integrity of the clan.

The chief deity symbolizes the consciousness of Unuaro clan,

and Ezeulu is his spokesman. When Ezeulu betrayed the clan

upon his ego,the Ulu deserted him as in the proverb,…a man

who brings ant-ridden faggots into his hut should expect the

visit of lizards. In employing the folkloristic tradition

Achebe critically reads African past and the erosion of

African values under colonialism.

Ngugi Wa Thiong’o

In the novels of Ngugi we are able to find the oral

traditions at work.In “Decolonising the Mind’’ , Ngugi's

says that you can't study African literatures without

studying the particular cultures and oral traditions from

which Africans draw their plots, styles and metaphors.So

where does all of this leave us in a discussion of current

African literature. "This blindness to the indigenous voice

of Africans is a direct result, according to Ngugi, of

colonization. Ngugi explains that during colonization,

missionaries and colonial administrators controlled

publishing houses and the educational context of novels.

This means that only texts with religious stories or

carefully selected stories which would not tempt young

Africans to question their own condition were propagated.

Africans were controlled by forcing them to speak European

languages—they attempted to teach children (future

generations). Ngugi writes, "language carries culture and

culture carries (particularly through orature and

literature) the entire body of values by which we perceive

ourselves and our place in the world." Therefore, how can

the African experience be expressed properly in another

language?The issue of which language should be used to

compose a truly African contemporary literature is thus one

replete with contradictions. Ngugi argues that writing in

African languages is a necessary step toward cultural

identity and independence from centuries of European

exploitation. Rama Devi in Indian Response to African writings

comments:

The essay is an organic representation of Ngugi’sorally based Gikuyu tradition…mot an imperial vision ofchild like African innocence….but incorporates thecommunal,verbal networks of the present through whichhis characters and communities exchange political andcontemporary information about those in complicity witheconomic neoimperialism.(90).

In this context in Weep Not Child Ngotho at the centre of

protest ,outlines the protest against the colonial situation

by a passionate recourse to the orality associated with the

idea of land as a time honoured heritage.In the novel the

The River Between,the power of education is given

importance.There is compromise and tolerance between the

traditions. as the Gods Gikuyi and Mumbi are also assumed

as Adam and Eve.The political perspectives of his novel is

inspired from this tradition.

Amos Tutuola’s novels have the most consistent use of

oral traditions.Specific use of the tradition are obvious

enough;the common quest of a mortal to the land of gods to

secure the return of a dead personas in The Palm-wine Drinkard

or the strange creatures and the hunter’s saga in The Brave

African Huntress. We can see the impact of oral tradition

ofYoruba in his novel. But it isn’t so obvious as it was in

Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. When we compare these two novels

we can say that oral tradition is much more used in The

Things Fall Apart. The use of proverbs, folk tales,

songs ;which are the most important elements of oral

tradition; is more common. Tutuola’s novel has much

legendary or fantastical sense whereas Achebe’s is more

realistic. The another difference is that they are from

different cultures. Achebe has Igbo culture and Tutuola has

Yoruba culture, both of these cultures are rich in oral

tradition

Flora Nwapa in his novel Efuru integrates the

traditional beliefs and characterization.Elechi Amadi’s The

Great Ponds use proverbs,songs and allusions.Gabriel Okara’s

The Voice transferred the lijo syntax into English.

Wole Soyinka and the use of Yoruba Myth

In Wole Soyinka’s Literature, Myth and African World, he comments

that creative works in Africa must be brought closer to

myths. It is a blaze of reality. He uses them as

disinherited or displaced myths and he hates the

intellectualization of myth.It is well known that Yoruba

culture and tradition forms the background of several

contemporary written dramas. But the relationship between

the Yoruba sources and contemporary drama has not been

explored in detail. One must understand the Yoruba origins

of the plays in order to appreciate their literary

evolution. Soyinka has his roots in Yoruba myths and

beliefs, as he is a Yoruba himself. He bridged the gap

between the theatre in Yoruba and the theatre in English.

A Dance of the Forest is Soyinka’s first play that defines both

the Yoruba world view and the playwright’s own artistic

vision in relation to the myth and metaphysics of Ogun. The

play presents an allegory of cosmic dimensions. The symbolic

chorusing of the past, the present and the future has been

conceived as a pattern highly suggestive of the cosmic

dance- the dance of creation as well as destruction – among

the deities, against the background of the forest. The title

itself is allegorical, representing the eternal, repetitive

rhythm of life, cyclic in operation. It is a warning against

moral complacency and escapism. The theme of the play

centres round the African concept of ‘rites of passage'

which means that no man can pass directly from one state of

life to the next, without passing through a transitional

phase. Man’s need for conscious awareness forms the basic

theme, stretching over a wide canvas, through a number of

lives, reaching forward to include posterity. Soyinka

criticizes the pre colonial past of Africa and tells the

people to learn from the past of its wrong doings.(Mata

Kharibu’s kingdom) and shows how the current situation in

Africa has not changed after the colonial rule.

Dance presents a complex interplay between the

gods,mortals and the dead in which the ideal goal is the

experience of selfdiscovery within the context of

WestAfrican spiritualism.Dance has two meanings,the

presentation of characters from all realms of

existence:gods,mortals,ancestors and spirits;second the

nonlinear time that corresponds to the Yoruba time.Soyinka

presents three major deities :Forest Head(Obatala),Ogun,and

Eshuoru.Soyinka shows a conflict of interest between the

gods and men. Ogun is the god of war in Yoruba tradition and

he is also the god of iron. He is sacred to warriors,

hunters ,blacksmiths, drivers, railroad workers and artists.

He is a god full of contradictions but he is notably

acknowledged for being the god of creativity and

destruction for all the same time.Obatala is the supreme

creator who created earth and mankind. Eshuoru is the Yoruba

trickster god and a mischief maker among the gods and men.

All the three gods are interested in shaping the destinies

of the forest dwellers and use their special powers to

defeat each other and to protect humans as well. Soyinka

also included spirits that control the universe (West

African concept of Animism);Souls reside in objects and

natural phenomenons such as trees, hills ,streams, oceans

and rocks.The spirits gather at the court of the Forest

Father to report their situations and solve their

tribulations. The inclusion of spirits here is to project an

integral cosmological order in which all aspects of the

universe correspond to a harmonious unity under the power of

the supreme deity.

Belief in the continuity of life from before death to

after death is common in Africa. The Egungun or ancestors in

the play is a reversal of mythic tradition as rather than

being greeted by the throng ,the dead pair must literally

chase the living. Demoke embodies the spirit of creation as

well as destruction.It recalls the uncertainity of African

writer on the problems in postcolonial Africa.The Ogun deity

who has Appolonian and Dionysian characteristic rules over

African experience .Soyinka also tells us about the need of

an ideal of Atunda who is an universal rebel (in this play

the General who is against Mata Kharibu’s inhumanness) , to

fight against the corrupt politics.Demoke is presented as a

devilish trickster who manipulates the destiny of the half

child.The half child or Abiku depicts a future which is to

be doomed.The play also represents symbols of general

humanity.Humans,guests of honour,gods and

spirits.Palm,Darkness,Precious stones,Pachyderms and so on.

The Strong Breed is a tragedy on the Yoruba ritual of Oro

Sacrifice, usually observed on New Year’s Eve. A man, called

Eman, considered to be the ‘carrier’ of all the evils of the

village for the past one year, is tortured to death and

hanged on the midnight heralding the New Year, thus warding

off all the evils for the future. Introducing the central

figure, Eman, Soyinka dramatizes the need for sacrifice

which is the only sure means of expiation or retribution

even to one’s own life. The Yoruba, the Classical, and the

Christian elements are blended together in the tragedy of

Eman.

The Road is set in the masque idiom. One of the

underlying beliefs of this tradition is that of

possession .At the height of the dance every true Egungun

will enter in to a state of possession, when he will speak

with a new voice. This basic belief is used to produce an

indefinite suspension between life and death in the

character of Murano .Cross cultural myth is used in the play

Bacchae of Euripedes.

Soyinka’s plays reflect the magical status of words in

the oral tradition.Agboreko’s gnomic lines in A Dance of the

Forest is an example.

The eye that look downwards will certainly see thenose.The hand that dips to the bottom of the pot willeat the biggest snail…The foot of the snake is notsplit in two like a man’s or in hundreds like acentipede’s but if Agere could dance patiently like asnake,he will uncoil the chain that leads in to thedead…

This passage is made of translations of some well known

proverbs. Soyinka through the use of myths seems to convey

the idea that there is an endless ,inescapable pattern of

life and death for man .He seems to be condemned to fall a

victim to this ill fated cycle of infernal doom. Salvation

is possible through his own voluntary action or individual

will.

The colonial impact on African language and African

culture has created havoc and destroyed the oral traditions.

There is change in the way in which oral traditions are

rendered in the contemporary times. The spirit that now it

embodies is revolution. The experience is not localized but

universalized. Revolution in Africa is not only to fight

against the colonial past but also the corruption, poverty

and civil war in the postcolonial regime. The use of myth,

folklore and oral traditions in Africa constitutes a dream

of national culture and national consciousness .Thus it

engages with the country’s past that is the repositories of

tradition and the aspirations of the people and their

struggle.