A Postcolonial Approach to Abduction in Indigenous Folksongs

Omosule, Segun

doi:10.21608/misj.2021.58153.1019

A Postcolonial Approach to Abduction in Indigenous Folksongs

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Segun Omosule

Department of English, Olabisi Onabanjo University, ago Iwoye, Ogun State, Nigeria

10.21608/misj.2021.58153.1019

Abstract

Abstract

Folklore in Africa harbours ample records of the forceful migration of folks from the continent to the new world. Two prominent Ifá verses record this untoward development. What may not be in the public domain, however, is the record of the scars, and the amount of tears, wailing and pains that the dislocation might have caused folks on account of their estrangement from their loved ones. Record of the moment and pains of forceful severance from siblings, parents and ancestral roots may have been captured in two oral records subsisting in relevant axioms and tales of the unforgettable onslaught. The first arising from the moment of despair was that the pain of a dead child would be easier to bear and forgotten than the anxiety surrounding the whereabouts of a missing child and the disappearance of two sisters in one fell swoop leaving traces of an unfinished piece of fried yam and another uneaten yam on fire that they were preparing for breakfast prelude to the onslaught as well as the soul searing songs they rendered while being captured by two different marauders. Using a combination of postcolonialism and semiotic, the paper sets out to unravel the pains and despair of estrangement and complement same with the history of slave trade, concluding that man’s inhumanity to man has been a recurring decimal in the record of time.

Keywords

Full Text

Segun Omosule, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer in the Department of English, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Nigeria. He is a prolific writer who has contributed scholarly papers to leading journals in Africa, Asia, America, Europe and Australia. His area of specialization is aesthetics and oral indigenous performances. His versatility cuts across the genres of literature and is a leading voice in postcolonial literature, translation and semiotics. He began his career as a journalist with the Nigerian Tribune and rose to the position of senior staff writer/reporter. He resigned from there and pursued a career in literature at the University of Ibadan, where he earned his Master’s and Doctorate in oral literature from the Department of English. He began his career as a Lecturer with the Department of English, Covenant University, and later joined the Department of English, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Nigeria. He has contributed articles to many renowned journals all over the world.

https://staff.oouagoiwoye.edu.ng/profile.php?id=13

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Segun-Omosule

https://scholarsviews.academia.edu/SOmosule

References

Abimbola, Wande. (1968). Ijinle ohun enu ifá, 1. Glasgow, UK: Aim Press.

Abimbola, Wande. (1997). Ifá will mend our broken world. Roxbury Massachusetts: Aims Books.

Abimbola, Wande. (1997). Ifá divinatory poetry. New York: Nok Publishers Limited.

Abrahams, D. R. (1975). Personal power and social restraint in the definition of folklore in Toward new perspectives in folklore. (ed.). Americo P. et al. Austin: The University of Texas Press.

Abrams M. H. (2003). et al. A glossary of literary terms. United Kingdom: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Andrew Milner. (1994). Contemporary cultural theory: An introduction. London: Routledge Taylor and Francis.

Ato, Quayson, Olaniyan, Tejumola et al. (2015). African literature: An anthology of criticism and theory. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Anozie, S.O. (1981). Structural models and African poetics: Towards a pragmatic theory of literature. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Arewa, O. et al. (1975). The genesis of structures in African narrative: Zande trickster tales: v. 1. New York: Conch Magazines Ltd.

Bascom, William. (1969). Ifa divination: Communication between gods and men in West Africa. London: Indiana University Press.

Bamgbose, Ayo. (1969). Yor̀ubá folktales. Ibadan, 27, 1969.

Bauman, Richard. (2020). Performance in A companion to folklore. Google.com Books.

Ben-Amos, D. (1975). Toward a definition of folklore in context in Toward new perspectives in folklore. (ed.). Americo P, et al. Austin: the University of Texas Press.

Bucknell, Brad. (2020). Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and the theory of signifying. Google online.

Campbell, Joseph. (2019). The power of myth. New York: Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

Dasylva, Ademola. (1994). Towards a new taxonomy of the hero in the African novel. PhD Thesis, University of Ibadan, Ibadan.

Dorson, Richard M. (1976). Folklore and fakelore: Essays toward a discipline of folk studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Dundes, Alan. (1975). Folk ideas as units of worldview in Toward new perspectives in folklore. (ed.). Americo, P. et al. Austin : The University of Texas Press.

Dundes, Alan. (ed.). (1965). The study of folklore. Englewood: Prentice Hall.

Ekwueme, Laz. (2002). Composing contemporary African choral music: Problems and prospects in Music in Africa: Facts and illusion. Ibadan: Stirling–Horden Publishers Nigeria Limited.

Finnegan, Ruth. (1992). Oral poetry in nature, significance, and social context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Flaubert, Gustave. (1965). Shortcomings of Taine’s theory in The modern tradition: Backgrounds of modern literature. Ellmann R., et al, (ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

Francis Vas da Silva. (2020). Tradition without End in A companion to folklore. Google.com Books.

Gates, Henry Louis. (1989). Signifying monkey: A theory of African-American literary criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Goldstein, Diane. (2007). Health and the stigmatised vernacular. Panel chair at the annual meeting of American folklore society, Quebec, October.

Grafeldi, Juali. (2019). What is the meaning of woeful ballad?” https://www.quora.com. RetrievedSeptember.

Haley, Alex. (1976). Roots. New York: Doubleday.

Henrik Gottlieb. (2018). Semiotics and translation in The Routledge handbook of translation studies and linguistics, Kirsten Malmkjaer (ed.). New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis.

Iain, McLean et al. (2003). Oxford concise dictionary of politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jonathan, Roper. (2007). Thoms and the unachieved folk-lore of England in Folklore, Vol.118.

Machlis, Joseph. (1955). The enjoyment of music. New York: W. W. Norton & Company Inc.

Maulana, Karenga. (1999). Odu ifá: The ethical teachings. Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press.

McClintock, Anne. (2015). The angel of progress: Pitfalls of the term postcolonialism in Ato, Quayson. Olaniyan, Tejumola et al. (ed.). African literature: An anthology of criticism and theory. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Ogunpolu, Babatunde. (1990). Okosi festival songs in Yor̀ubá oral tradition.(ed.). Wande, Abimbola. Ibadan: University Press.

Okpewho, Isidore. (1981). Myth and rationality in Africa in Ibadan journal of humanistic Studies. (ed.).Ayo Banjo. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press.

Okpewho, Isidore. (1992). African oral literature: Backgrounds, character and continuity. Indiana: Indiana University Press.

Propp, Vladimir. (1928). Morphology of folktales. Torino.

Ranjan, Datta. (2017). Traditional storytelling: An effective indigenous research methodology and its implications for environmental research in Michael Walker et al. AlterNative: An international journal of indigenous peoples: Sage Journals. New Zealand: University of Auckland.

Shakespeare, William. (2019). Macbeth. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Seitel, Peter. (2020). Three aspects of oral textuality in A companion to folklore. Google.com Books.

Sekoni, Ropo. (1994). Folk poetics: A sociosemiotic study of Yor̀ubá trickster tales. Westport: Greenwood Press.

Soyinka, I. Ogunbusola. (2019). The cosmic beginnings: The chaos chronicals, Vol. 1.http://www.amazon.comRetrievedSeptember 2019.

Stecconi, Ubaldo. (2010). What happens if we think that translating is a wave?” Translation studies. 2: 2: 47-60.

Levi-Strauss, C. (1955). The structural of myth in Journal of American folklore, No. 270. 1955.

Taine, Hippolyte. (1965). Art as historical product in The modern tradition: Backgrounds of modern literature. (ed.). Ellmann Richard, et al. New York: Oxford University Press.

Tejumola, Olaniyan. (2015). Postmodernity, postcoloniality and African studies in Ato, Quayson. Olaniyan, Tejumola et al. (ed.). African literature: An anthology of criticism and theory. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Von Sydow, C. W. (1948). On the spread of tradition in Lauritz Bodker (ed.). Selected papers on folklore. Copenhagen.

w.w.w.wikipedia online/source/Retrieved/May/2020.