SOURCE: Okoh, Nkem. “Writing African Oral Literature: A Reading of Okot p'Bitek's Song of Lawino.” Bridges: An African Journal of English Studies, no. 5 (1993): 35-53.

[In the following essay, Okoh regards Song of Lawino as an experimental oral piece.]

INTRODUCTION

Literature is both a multifaceted phenomenon and a potentially powerful mode of communication. It is thus significant that our title echoes three (writing, speaking, reading) of the four basic communication skills. It is of even greater significance that two of our terms, namely “oral” and “writing”, apparently present a problem, indeed a commonly discussed conundrum.

Students and scholars of oral literature have often been confronted with the question Can literature be oral? They themselves have posed such questions as what is the relationship between the oral and written modes? Can oral literature be written? While some discussion of the written/oral dichotomy will be entered into and some features of the later mode further illuminated, it is the consideration of the third question that forms the focus of this paper.

In this regard, the paper views oral literature as constituting by itself, a distinct, rounded phenomenon and, African oral literature, in particular, an organismic, full-blooded and vibrant literary means of expression, even in contemporary times. Still sometimes rearing its head is the assumption that literacy is a prerequisite for the production, even consumption of literature. More importantly, the impression is often created in studying modern African literature that oral literature fulfils the fundamental function of providing raw material for the “end product” of written literature, which is the form with which people are more familiar.

Our basic argument in this paper, therefore, is that in Song of Lawino (SOL), Okot p'Bitek is actually subtly writing oral literature, rather than incorporating or pressing it into the service of written literature, as in the case of works by the overwhelming majority of African writers.

We further make the assertion that while p'Bitek is a writer of proven craftsmanship, it is precisely for this exclusive connection, indeed concern with, oral literature that SOL ranks as one of Africa's best known literary works. The work stands out on the African literary scene as a remarkable experiment and this paper represents another attempt at providing further basis for appreciating it. Although published in 1966, SOL is a work to which literary critics, both local and foreign, will certainly constantly return. From this viewpoint, this article or “rereading” draws background material from the work, to prove our main proposition or assertion stated above.

ORALITY AND WRITING: THE CASE FOR A SEPARATE EXISTENCE

In view of the misconception already pointed out, our logical starting point lies in considering the meaning of the label “oral literature”. It is not necessary here to deal exhaustively with such a question as it would require an encyclopaedic treatise far beyond the scope of this paper. Thus, some general comments will serve our purpose, especially as such scholars as Awoonor (1975), Andrzjewski & Innes (1975) and Finnegan (1970) have in varying degrees treated the subject.

No less a reference tool than the OED defines literature in the following terms: “realm of letters; writings of a country or period; writings whose value lies in beauty of form or emotional effect …” As is evident, Western scholarship has traditionally associated literature with writing. One implication of such a definition is that it promptly denies the possibility or existence of literature in non-literate societies, like most in Africa. But unquestionably there is, in all such societies, an enormous profusion of pieces or works of belles lettres, imaginative creations, marked by excellence of form, the central criterion for literature, even according to the partial dictionary definition above. Examples of such verbal or artistic expressions of culture include such forms as tales, songs, riddles, proverbs, and festival drama. This kind of literature, as the name clearly implies, is one that thrives on verbalization, in other words, it is characterized by the oral, rather than the written mode of expression. Of course, there are other distinguishing features, including its major vehicle of self-perpetuation or realization (performance), its evanescence, that is, existence in a non-tangible form, and its critical-cum-audience processes.

To the Western eyes focused on the etymological implications of literature, its form marked by orality will doubtless prove elusive. Western scholars without any real intimate knowledge of such non-literate societies thus easily perceived them as lacking in literary sensibilities, especially if forms evidently analogous to the Western were not immediately encountered. In fact, the serious researcher soon discovers the existence of certain categories which simply do not conform to Aristotelian or Western taxonomical prescriptions.

Regarding research in the ethnography of communication, Fasold (1990: 47) emphasizes the need for “an intimate understanding of the community by the investigator”, then adds: “Essentially, the investigator tries to learn to see the world just as the members of the community see it, … Above all, the investigator has to avoid passing judgement on the community's customs”.

Only by viewing a society through its very own eyes can such an ignorant assumption that societies without writing or print technology conversely lack literature be laid to rest. N. K. Chadwick appropriately points out that “Writing is unessential to either the composition or the preservation of literature” (quoted in Finnegan 1970: 16), while in the words of Wellek & Warren (1956: 142), “There are poems or stories which have never been fixed in writing and still continue to exist”. Much, it must be said, has actually been made of the so-called absence of writing in traditional African societies, for example. Such societies as the Bamum of Cameroon and the Vai of Liberia developed some form of writing, though these were essentially esoteric. The nsibidi script from Eastern Nigeria, perhaps more well-known, was securely shrouded in mystery, and accessible only to members of the Ekpe secret cult.

Oral literature is in fact a social phenomenon which displays great mobility. Its presence even in the highly technologized world, as well as in the cosmopolitan communities of the so called developing world, attests to its ubiquity. Its strongest base, however, lies in non-literate societies, as many in Africa are. Not only does each of such societies boast a flourishing tradition of literature (which must be assessed from the group's own viewpoint), such oral literature remains a dominant socio-political force in the community. Green's (1948:841) informant makes an interesting analogy: “Our songs are our newspapers”.

As an academic discipline, African oral literature is one with which people are rapidly acquiring greater conversance. Nwoga (1978:58) presents this excellent anecdotal picture:

In 1963, at an international conference on African Literature and the Universities, I mentioned in conversation with a newspaper editor of high standing that I was organizing a course on African traditional literature. His response to the suggestion was a scornful question as to whether there existed in African traditions anything of any interest beyond a few trickster stories of the tortoise or the spider.

Not only are eyebrows now no longer raised at the mention of African oral literature, the field itself is witnessing an increasing number of research and courses in both local and foreign universities. Much of the “demolition work” required to establish African oral literature as a viable, rather than ancillary discipline, or field contiguous to such others as history, philosophy, ethnology, sociology or anthropology, is nearing completion. Early European studies of African cultures and institutions were preponderantly anthropologically-based, showing virtually no concern for literary considerations. Such a situation obviously strengthened speculations regarding the “literaturelessness” of such societies.

While due tribute has to be paid to such a scholar-anthropologist as Ruth Finnegan, more indigenous scholars are now quarrying the mines of African oral literature. The important role of such professionally trained scholars cannot be questioned. Many of them have provided perceptive studies of their indigenous, or other cultures. Contrary to Nnolim's (1985:398) claim that their work amounts to no more than “unscholarly remplissage” only capable of “dragging us back to the discredited period of foreign fascination with those ‘quaint books’ from Africa …”, such scholars are contributing immeasurably to a better understanding of man's creative capabilities in the African environment, besides accelerating the pace at which some popular but pernicious prejudices emanating from the West are being debunked.

All this tends towards one inevitable reminder: only the most unwary critic can cling further to any such hidebound dictionary definition which ties literature to the idea of writing. In the study or criticism of oral literature, there is the need to deemphasize writing, indeed jettison such a parochial definition. This universal phenomenon or concept—literature—must not be strangled or circumscribed by such myopic and over-literal definitions. In the words of Okot p'Bitek:

We are forced to reject this elitist, restrictive and discriminatory definition; and to frame instead a dynamic and democratic definition by which literature stands for all the creative works of man expressed in words. Writing, … is a mere tool for expressing ideas.

(1973:20)

ORALITY/WRITING: THE LINK IN AFRICAN LITERATURE

Regarding the spoken/written dichotomy, we have seen that not only can there exist a flourishing tradition of literature in the absence of literacy, its oral and written manifestations can, and do coexist. Both forms interrelate closely in different societies, while the work under consideration here clearly demonstrates some aspects of such intertwining. Finnegan (1992:5) makes the point that the distinction between “oral” and “written” is “apparently obvious but in practice somewhat slippery … “But more importantly, there is no need to call to question the status, validity or capability of any form. “Although”, in the words of Bloor & Norrish, “It would be rash … to underestimate the importance of the written mode” (1987:1); “there are [also] no grounds to overrate it in the field of artistic expression at the expense of the purely oral form” (Andrzjewski & Innes 1975:6). Finnegan herself provides this neat summary: “we need of course to remember that oral literature is only one type of literature, … there is no essential chasm between this type of literature and the more familiar written forms …” (1970:25).

In modern African literature, the oral/written distinction is one of crucial importance. In their works, the overwhelming majority of African writers seem to demonstrate T. S. Eliot's poetic statement that “Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future / And time future contained in time past” (“Burnt Norton” (1935) opening lines). Deservedly, then, the link between the two literary traditions remains one of the most explored questions in contemporary African critical writing. As early as 1968, Bernth Lindfors based his study of Achebe's indebtedness to the oral traditions on the Igbo maxim, “Proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten”, while Moore (1969:139) attributes the strength of Awoonor's poetry in part to his “knowledge and understanding of traditional Ewe songs”. More recently, Roscoe (1976: Preface) has pointed out that african oral literature is a field “without which no understanding of modern African poetry can be complete”. In similar vein, Maduka (1985:57) offers this catalogue:

… Dadie has … exploited traditional stylistic features … recast some of the folktales of his people … Awoonor can be seen exploiting the devices of the Ewe oral traditions … Achebe has adroitly quarried the mines of the folk traditions … Rotimi has effectively transmuted Yoruba words and expressions, while Kunene … harnesses the resources of the Zulu oral tradition.

Considerable attention has been here devoted to the comments of several writers, for the purpose of demonstrating one important point: much emphasis has been laid on the “service” role of oral literature. Such emphasis, rather than present a realistic picture of the link between written and oral literature, tends to detract from the validity of the latter, equally eclipsing its true status. The impression easily arises that African oral literature exists primarily, even solely, to serve the written and is, thus, little more than a means to an end. Such impression in fact seems to justify the erroneous position of the structural-functional scholars who, for obvious reasons, imposed a strictly “utilitarian” role on African oral literature, entirely disregarding its very quintessence - the literary dimensions. For the oral literature scholar, of course, there is one overriding consideration which justifies the investigation of any verbal data in the first place, namely its literariness. Thus such a scholar is fundamentally concerned with, in the words of Roman Jakobson, “that which makes a certain work into a literary work” (quoted in Fokkema & Kunne-Ibsch (1977:17).

As pointed out, our concern here is with demonstrating that, to the contrary, African oral literature represents a robust, distinctly indigenous art form. Apart from being supportive of modern African writing, it remains a viable, deep-rooted phonemenon, able to stand on its two feet, and displaying definite characteristic features, including a variety of extra-linguistic resources. Thus it cannot be conceived of as simply serving the fundamental and final function of furnishing written literature with raw data. The connoisseurs and bearers of a traditional culture certainly view the various strands of the verbal materials which constitute their oral literature as representing, on their own, a complete and aesthetically pleasing product.

At this point, then, we take our argument further: the mass of discourse, shaped, constructed into a particular form and thus presented as SOL, is wholly oral literature, to which p'Bitek has skilfully brought some of the conventions but, more importantly, preserving capabilities, of the written medium. The point that these two self-contained literary mediums constantly coalesce and intermarry, is all too often missed by an overemphasis on the role of African oral literature in providing material for the written. Wellek & Warren duly recognize this interrelationship when they comment: “Thus the lines in black ink are merely a method of recording a poem which must be conceived as existing elsewhere” (1956:142). In the words of Goody (1968:1). “The importance of writing lies in its creating a new medium of communication. Its essential service is to … provide language with a material correlative, a set of visible signs”. In SOL, then, the “lines in black ink” (in other words, the writing mode) have been borrowed—for the purpose of recording and preserving a piece of oral literature.

We shall not here consider the implications of this, such as accessibility to a wider audience beyond the Acoli.

A MARRIAGE OF MODES: THE WRITING OF SOL

Not only does p'Bitek dismiss the traditional dictionary definition of literature, he also hypothesizes on what should constitute the core or essence of literature. In his own words: “Literature is the communication and sharing of deeply felt emotions … The aim of any literary activity must be to ensure that there is communication between the singer and the audience, between the story-teller and his hearers. There must be full participation by all present” (1973: 22). In this section we argue that not only does this definition loom large in SOL, it constitutes its very artistic centre, the main motivating force behind the work's technique. We further argue that as a piece of oral literature, SOL consciously and constantly underlines the phenomenon's two most salient characteristics, namely performance and the presence of a “live” audience. It is significant that for its entire framework, SOL, first written in Acoli, adopts a typically oral genre—the song—one with which the audience is quite familiar. The enormous role of songs in traditional African societies has long been recognized and such scholars as Nketia and Awoonor have made insightful studies establishing the richness of African indigenous song/lament traditions. In African societies poetry and song are indissolubly linked as a means of artistic expression. In spite of his title with emotive overtones, Greenway (1964: 37) rightly comments that in Africa “Poetry … does not exist as an entity separate from song …” but rather combines with “singing, drumming, dancing, acting, clapping … into one ‘homogeneous art form”. While adopting the traditional framework or form of a song, SOL also includes several indigenous Acoli songs. As Heron points out, there are “innumerable places where Lawino's own echo the words of a traditional song” (SOL, Introduction, p. 7).

But an even more important aspect of the songs and work in general is discoverable in the overwhelming use of imagery drawn from the diverse situations and experiences which the audience commonly feel, see, sense and hear in their every day lives. The oral performer is an artist whose cardinal concern is with communication. Considering the immediacy of his situation (he is before a “live” audience), he cannot afford any significant degree of mis- or non-communication. He therefore endeavours to imprint his performance with local flavour, to “bring it home” to his audience. Regarding the Limba, for example, Finnegan (1967) and Cosentino (1980) discuss several devices for achieving this, while for the Gbaya, Noss (1970: 43) cites such a device as “personalization”. The use of imagery in SOL is similarly guided by the simple but central principle of drawing things from the environment to communicate to the listeners. Much of the impact of SOL is in fact attributable to p'Bitek's consummate skill in deploying indigenous Acoli imagery.

This early complaint by Lawino, for example, (p. 35) is one with which the Acoli audience can easily identify and thus relish:

My husband's tongue
Is bitter like the roots of the / lyonno lily
It is hot like the penis of the bee,
Like the sting of the kalang
Ocol's tongue is fierce like the arrow of the scorpion,
Deadly like the spear of the / bufflo-hornet
It is ferocious
Like the poison of a barren / woman
And corrosive like the juice of / the gourd.

The free-flowing, almost effortless use of similes drawn from both Acoli, and life in general will potentially appeal to other readers as well. The same can be said for the imagery pertaining to Ocol's education, the cause of his “madness”. When engrossed in his reading and disturbed by a child, Ocol “storms like a buffalo” (p. 67). In Ocol's study “The backs of some books / Are hard like the rocky stem of / the poi tree / … Some books are black and oily, / Their backs shine like / The dangerous ororo snake / Coiled on a tree top” (p. 114), while the papers on his table “Coil threateningly / Like the giant forest climbers / Like the kituba tree / That squeezes other trees to / death / Some stand up / Others lie on their backs / They are interlocked / Like the legs of youths / At the orak dance (p. 114). In Ocol's house, “You twist a cross-like handle / And water gushes out / Hot and steaming / Like the urine / Of the elephant” (pp. 55-56), while against the curse of an uncle or father, “The white man's medicines / Are irrelevant and useless / Like the freak rains / In the middle of the dry season” (p. 100).

The discerning reader cannot but be struck by the authenticity of the imagery in this work in virtually every other line, p'Bitek introduces a delightfully vivid image. It is impossible to deal with this topic exhaustively here; a few examples are thus considered sufficient. In the work p'Bitek constantly creates such a compelling concatenation of similes as shown above, piling up powerful pictures which exercise the reader's imagination. In drawing upon local similes and metaphors, p'Bitek can be seen donning the garb of the skilled oral artist, striving like the latter, to carry his audience with him, by providing picturesque details which they can share and participate in.

p'Bitek traverses enormous Acoli cultural territory—literary, social, medical, sartorial, architectural, culinary—to draw his imagery. For example, the Acoli conception of manhood is apparent in the following: it is wise to avoid a mother's anger, or else “Your manhood will disapeear / And like a castrated bullock / Women will be perfectly safe / with you!” (p. 99); in mission schools the boys and girls are kept apart “And the young men / Sleep alone / Cold, like knives / Without handles / And the spears … / Rust in the dewy cold …” (p. 80). There is indeed need for Ocol to pray to the ancestors to give him. “A new spear / A new spear with a sharp and / hard point / A spear that will crack the rock … / One that does not bend easily / Like the earthworm” (p. 119), as Lawino is tired “Of sharing a bed with a woman!” (p. 119).

Young men are expected to boast “trusted spears” which” … should strike the death spot / Deep and painful / Then the young cobs / Will scream / And shed tears of sweet pains (p. 101).

In SOL, p'Bitek deliberately makes recurrent use of the image of the spear, certain that its sexual connotations cannot be lost to an Acoli audience. Even for some members of a foreign or non-Acoli audience, this use of the spear as a metaphor for manhood is a potentially savourable detail. In fact, considerable use is made in SOL of sexually implicit and explicity obscene imagery. On the Acoli conception of Western education and its impact on manhood, Lawino has this bitter lament: “For all our young men / Were finished in the forest, / Their manhood was finished / In the class-rooms / Their testicles / Were smashed / With large books!” (p. 117).

In general, then, p'Bitek's extensive use of local imagery reflects his conception of literature, as primarily a medium of communication with the audience. He presents Lawino as the typical oral poet—a man talking to fellow men. This is in contrast to much of contemporary African poetry in which the artist talks to a coterie in highly coded language, nurtured by the ars usi celare artem concept. Such display of the l'art pour l'art precept is certainly not lacking in the works of such African intellectuals as Soyinka and Okigbo, euromodernists who engage, in the words of Chinweizu et al (1980), in “senseless narcissism” by “retreat [ing] into a private language” (p. 188). An accomplished artist, p'Bitek assigns Lawino an appropriate register to enable her communicate effectively with her audience. Lawino speaks a popular language, such that traditional folk will fully understand. Thus p'Bitek captures the linguistic reality of the society being depicted, for “Traditional African poetry speaks a public language” (Chinweizu et al 1980: 188), rather than the language of “private hard verse” (Roscoe 1977: 32).

In addition to Lawino's language, with its characteristic local imagery as already shown, the audience is certain to relish, even more, p'Bitek's particular use of another oral device: repetition is frowned at in the written medium, it is, in the oral, a standard device with enormous potential for serving several stylistic purposes. In fact repetition can be used as the major aesthetic pillar of oral narrative, lending it great support and vitality. Readers of a novel, for example, have before them a tangible text and thus the possibility of turning back the pages to recall events and situations. In contrast, the oral performer relies on repetition, as an aide-memoire for his audience.

To achieve his overriding aim of communication with the audience, then, p'Bitek makes overwhelming use of repetition—for emphasis and for arousing emotion. The refrain “The pumpkin in the old / homestead / Must not be uprooted” (p. 41) is one that recurs with great frequency and can be considered as a thread that binds the entire lament or work together. p'Bitek bends this Acoli proverb to carry the weight of Lawino's sustained outbursts, the main message of which is paraphrasable thus; “Stop denigrating Acoli ways”. Thus this proverb-cum-refrain is repeatedly employed, with variations such as “Who has ever uprooted the / Pumpkin?” (p. 35) and “Let no one / Uproot the Pumpkin” (p. 56). This last form indeed recurs—constituting the very last two lines (p. 120) that conclude the entire poem.

Lawino persistently criticizes those imported cultural chains that now hold her husband captive, Western dancing, for example: “Women lie on the chests of men / They prick the chests of their / men / With their breasts / They prick the chests of their / men / With the cotton nests / On their chests” (p. 45). Not only are ideas repeated, the word “chests” occurs four times; the sentence “They prick the chests of their men” twice; while the nominal “men” is succeeded by the anaphoric “they” / “their”. The repetition here is deliberately carefully built up, to express Lawino's intense disgust at such intimate kind of dancing in which “There is no respect for relatives: / Girls hold their fathers / Boys hold their sisters close / They dance even with their / mothers / … They coil around their nephews / And lie on the chests of their / uncles” (p. 45). This example not only involves a listing of collocative family relationships—fathers, mothers, uncles, sisters, nephews—but also terminates by echoing two earlier lines “And prick the chests of their / brothers / With their breasts”. In an eleven-line passage (p. 35), Lawino introduces her complaint five times with “He says …” The same structure occurs another nine times on the same page, giving the impression of querulousness on Ocol's part, and indeed providing justification for her own tirade.

Closely related to such repetition is the use of parallel grammatical structures. According to Lawino, the wife who wins the husband's heart is one “Whose food is good to eat / Whose dish is hot / Whose face is bright / And whose heart is clean / And whose eyes are dark / Like the shadows” (p. 41). The same grammatical pattern is repeated; a simple x subject + y complement, with different words—in this case, nominals and predicate adjectives—being slotted in. Such use of parallelism and slight variations to words is further evident, for example, in “Children in our homestead / Do not sleep at fixed times: / When sleep comes / into their head / They sleep / When sleep leaves their head / They wake up” (p. 69) and in the highly rhythmical lines. “A lazy youth is rebuked / A lazy girl is slapped / A lazy wife is beaten / A lazy man is laughed at / Not because they waste time / But because they only destroy / And do not produce” (p. 69). Of a vigorous Acoli girl dancing, Lawino eulogizes: “She does not stand here / Like stale beer that does not / Sell / She jumps here / She jumps there” (p. 43).

Sometimes there is an interweaving of repetition and parallelism, as in the example “My husband's tongue is bitter”, cited above earlier. The parallel structure, reinforced by the piling up of similes, effectively underlines not only the acerbity of Ocol's tongue but also the spontaneous flow of corresponding caustic remarks which Lawino has to endure throughout the poem.

The entire poem is, of course, a monologue by a character bemoaning her husband's “tragedy”. p'Bitek masterfully generates and sustains the dramatic action by the use of another important oral device: apostrophe. The entire poem can be placed in the context of a performance, with Lawino as chief actor. Of the devices discussed here, it is certainly the use of apostrophe that most reflects p'Bitek's conception of literature as “communication between the singer and the audience”, marked by “full participation by all present”. In effect, then, the protagonist of SOL is engaged in a performance before an “audience”, whose name she invokes throughout the poem. At the points such invocations occur, Lawino can be seen engaging in a dramatic enactment of her sorrow and “misfortune”.

The poem actually opens, “Husband, now you despise me …” (p. 34), setting the scene and providing an early pointer to the prominent use of apostrophe in the work. This invocation Lawino varies, using titles or sometimes, to borrow one of John Searle's speech categories, “directives”. A few examples will illustrate this: “Listen, Ocol, you are the son of a Chief” (p. 34); “My friend, agemate of my / brother / Take care …” (p. 34); “Listen, my husband / You are the son of a Chief” (p. 41); “Ocol, my husband / My friend / What are you talking?” (p. 48); “My husband / I do not complain / That you eat / White men's food” (p. 63); “Listen / My husband …” (p. 69); “Listen, my husband / Hear my cry!” (p. 115). Such sustained use of apostrophe suggests the need to cajole Ocol who has irrevocably turned his back on his first love and the less “glamorous” culture she represents.

Such rhetorical apostrophe is a powerful component of the oral style and considerably heightens the emotional impact of Lawino's appeals in particular, and the work in general. Lawino actually proves herself an accomplished performer, using the device effectively; not only to underline her appeals to her estranged husband, but also to whip up the emotion, and draw the sympathy of her audience, the “community” to which she and Ocol belong. Thus Lawino has another audience in the poem. She is not complaining to the reader of the poem now frozen in print, rather her target is her immediate Acoli kinsmen, who she invites to share her sorrow.

These invitations, like her appeals to Ocol are also couched in invocatory terms. Early in the drama, Lawino acquaints “her people” with her doleful circumstances, apostrophizing: “My clansmen, I cry / Listen to my voice:”, before giving the reason for her lament; “The insults of my man / Are painful beyond bearing” (p. 35). She then proceeds to produce a catalogue of the cutting insults which she has to endure. She invokes her countrymen “Listen, my clansmen / I cry over my husband” before informing them that” Ocol has lost his head / In the forest of books” (113).

While individuality—and creativity—is of course the rule in several genres, oral literature is a communal phenomenon, speaking an essentially communal language; one that is simple, direct, but highly moving. It is thus logical that the protagonist here, a traditional wife, should invoke the communal spirit of her people, seeking their solidarity and suggesting that her loss is equally theirs. Certain genres of oral performance typically constitute a collaborative enterprise between narrator and audience, as they mutually attempt to construct an acceptable literary artefact. Structurally, for example, the songs in tales provide a formal invitation to the audience to participate formally by becoming involved psychologically and emotionally in the action of the narrative. In a less stylized manner, Lawino frequently attempts to involve her audience. She utters a final, desperate, dramatic and decidedly climactic appeal to her kinsmen for help: “O, my clansmen / Let us all cry together / Come / Let us mourn the death of my / husband / The death of a Prince” (p. 116).

As we have seen, Lawino dramatizes her troubles, using apostrophe to elicit the sympathy of her audience, to involve them emotionally and, if possible, turn them against Ocol who, in her opinion, has let them down as well. Through the use of rhetorical apostrophe, also, the poem achieves a conversational tone, underlining the fact that Lawino is speaking to another “friend”, “brother” or “clansman”. Thus the device binds together both audience and artist in the latter's creative endeavours. Although the lament genre and the device of apostrophe are deeply rooted in Acoli and other African cultures, the use of the device must be seen here in the wider context of the performer or singer striving to involve the audience.

Another oral device for achieving such involvement in SOL is the use of questions. Lawino simply cannot comprehend Ocol's rejection of the traditional culture and expresses her bewilderment by posing such questions as “Who has ever uprooted the / Pumpkin?” and “I do not understand / The ways of foreigners / But I do not despise their / customs / Why should you despise yours?” (. 41). Sometimes there is a stringing together of questions as in “When by accident / The eyes of her lover / Fall on her breast / Do you think the young man / sleeps? / Do you know what fire eats his / inside?” (p. 44); “What is all this? / … Didn't the Acoli have / adornments? / Didn't Black People have their / ways? … Is lawala not a game? / Is cooro not a game? / Didn't your people have / amusements?” (p. 49). On foreign foods, Lawino complains, “I do not know / How to cook / Like white women; / I do not enjoy / White men's foods / And how they eat”, then queries immediately, “How could I know? / And why should I know it?” (p. 62).

Such questions of course demand no answers. Rather they are used to focus attention on some grave situation being depicted, and thus set the addressee or listeners thinking. Although the questions seem directed to Ocol, Lawino is in fact employing them as a means of further involving her audience. Okoh (1984: 190) comments on “rhetorical questions used, as in Enuani oratory, to heighten the listeners' awareness of some point being made … the interjection of questions in propria persona is a useful device for emphasizing a situation which is strange, grievous, or extraordinary”.

By employing the devices discussed, p'Bitek demonstrates his fundamental concern with literature as a means of communication. The protagonist of SOL certainly effectively communicates and shares her deeply felt emotions with the audience. More significantly, the devices not only belong fully to the oral medium, they cumulatively imbue the work with a certain freshness and vividness. Thus, whether for a traditional/African or foreign audience, the reading of SOL makes a truly aesthetic experience.

CONCLUSION

This paper has in some measure explored the oral/written question in literature by drawing upon p'Bitek's Song of Lawino. No useful discussion of SOL will fail to recognize its uniqueness in, and in fact impact on, modern African poetry. The influence of the work is easily gauged by the fact that on publication, it promptly began to provide inspiration for “a whole school of writing” (Roscoe 1977: 32). Yet, its power and appeal by no means derive from any claim to structural complexity, Eurocentric literary canons, or any other modernist-cum-obscurantist tendencies.

We have demonstrated, to the contrary, that SOL is a thoroughly homebred and autochtonomously African literary work whose readability, freshness and directness derive solely from its central concern with communicating in an oral, “communal” manner. The work displays a remarkable, sensitive control of the language and, like Achebe, p'Bitek achieves authenticity and local flavour, even in translation. This feat he accomplishes by skilfully “bending” his foreign linguistic medium, to convey the weight and feel of communal experiences; “as a tool to reach a wider audience without borrowing foreign elements that distort his message” (Heron, Introduction, SOL, p. 8). Of course, p'Bitek's definition of literature emphasizes the communication of feeling, a prerequisite or qualification clearly remarkably achieved, as we have seen, by his protagonist. In both form and style, then, the work is solidly situated and richly rooted in traditional Acoli communication, as has been established by our discussion of the oral devices employed by p'Bitek.

Above all, we have demonstrated one important distinction: SOL firmly represents a piece of oral literature in writing, rather than a piece of written literature incorporating some elements of the oral medium. p'Bitek is not just borrowing from his oral traditions, an assertion frequently and rightly made for several other African writers, but which also tends to suggest an inferior role or status for African oral literature. A certain theme has run throughout this paper: African oral literature is a self-contained system which can stand side by side the written.

p'Bitek skilfully straddles both kinds of literature, indeed marries them, by bringing the particular preserving power of print to the rich, communal and vigorous voice of orality. In every respect, the work expresses, embraces, and is robustly rooted in, the traditional milieu. It is essentially this fact of keeping faith with African or Acoli oral literature that makes p'Bitek's Song of Lawino “possibly the best rounded single work of African poetry in English today” (Chinweizu et al 1980: 195).

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