The Anecdote as an Oral Genre: The Case in IgboAuthor(s): E. 'No̧lue Emenanjo̧Source: Folklore, Vol. 95, No. 2 (1984), pp. 171-176Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1260201Accessed: 14/08/2010 01:42

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Folklore vol. 95:ii, 1984 171

The Anecdote as an Oral Genre: The Case in Igbo E. 'NOLUE EMENANJO

STUDENTS of oral and written literature seem to agree that there is nothing universal about the number and types of genres of literature that can be found in all cultures, whether literate or preliterate.' In preliterate societies, especially in Africa, certain genres have been identified which can be said to be universal.2 Among these 'formal' universals (as linguists call them), are folktales, proverbs, other gnomic forms, folksongs and verses, riddles, and tongue twisters. The interesting point, however, is that even in cultures where these genres have been identified, it is not always the case that languages of these cultures have distinct, single, non-sentential names for each of the genres. For example, Yoruba has tongue twisters (more correctly 'tonal puns'), yet the Yoruba language has no name for these forms.3 This same observation is true of Igbo. In addition, in Igbo there exist hundreds of riddles,4 yet in most parts of Igbo land there is no word that refers to the riddle as a distinct genre of traditional Igbo literature.

Chukwama has correctly observed that:

. . there is no word for drama in the western use of the term in the Igbo language, but one sees the prevalence of established dramatic art cherished by the people . . There is also in Igbo no word corresponding to 'poetry' (in Igbo). Yet there is song and chant ...5

Until the discussion by Egudu,6 it was not realised that the anecdote exists as 'A separate and independent (though not isolated) genre in the corpus of Igbo Oral Literature.' Yet there is no distinct word in the Igbo language for anecdote.

Dr. Johnson first defined the anecdote in 1755 as 'something yet unpublished,' though he revised this definition in 1773, following the French, as 'a biographical incident, a minute passage of private life.' Snipes defines it as 'originally an unpublished item or (an) interesting or striking incident, usually of a personal or biographical nature.'7 Edmund Fuller, a celebrated collector of anecdotes, wrote 'Anecdotes are stories with points.' But it should be recalled that anecdotes, in common English usage, are usually thought of as personal narratives in the form one finds in The Talk of the Town, The New York Magazine, or Life. They are normally short, involving no more than a single incident, generally factual and authentic in content (or at least alleged to be so), and basically uncomplicated in plot line. The Oxford English Dictionary defines an anecdote at 'the narration of a detached incident or a single event, told as being in itself interesting or striking.' Sutherland accepts this definition and uses it to assemble 500 examples for his Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes.8

One thing common to all these English definitions is that the anecdote is seen chiefly as something written, though the Oxford Dictionary's use of the term 'told' does serve as a brief acknowledgement that many anecdotes circulated orally among families and friends before becoming incorporated into memoirs, journalistic articles, biographies and the like. In a literate culture like English, this emphasis is not unexpected. But in

172 E. 'NOLUE EMENANJO

the preliterate culture of the Igbo the anecdote still exists in the sense first used by Dr. Johnson as 'something yet unpublished'-in other words, as a form of oral art.

According to Egudu, the Igbo anecdote can generally be defined as:

. a brief story which often embodies witticism or a ludicrous situation and which is used to embellish speech, reinforce or illustrate an argument, or convey moral lessons. It resembles the folktale in having narrative form and animal characters, but differs from it by being more limited in scope and structure and in not having any embedded folksong such as some folktales do have. The anecdote also resembles the proverb, particularly in being a tool for linguistic expression and composition for purposes of rhetorical adornment and persuasion, and being witty, humorous and generally imagistic, but also differs from the proverb by not possessing the epigrammatic symmetry and pithiness, balanced structure and poetic rhythm which are characteristic of most Igbo proverbs.9

Like the tonal pun or the riddle, but unlike the folktale, the anecdote does not have a single word for it in the Igbo language. A neologism now exists for it: ukabidilu. This is made up from the three operative words usually used as a sentence after an anecdote: Nke a

bi. uka buru ili, meaning 'This is a story that is a proverb.' As this phrase

implies, and as Egudu pointed out in the description above, the Igbo anecdote shares features with both proverbs and folktales. In two works,'" however, I have further investigated the nature and form of the Igbo anecdote and come to the conclusion that though it does indeed exist as an independent genre sui generis it shares kinship not only with the folktale and the proverb but also with the wellerism and the joke.

Anecdotes and Folktales. Like the folktale, the anecdote has (i) a story to tell; (ii) the stereotyped opening phrase 'once upon a time,' which, however, is often deleted before anecdotes; (iii) characters from the human, animal and vegetable worlds; (iv) the Tortoise as the central and most common animal character in a good number of the stories-of seventy-two anecdotes containing animal characters in my Ukabuilu ndi Igbo, seventeen deal with the Tortoise only; (v) an uncomplicated story line; (vi) prosaic language shorn of extensive verbal and nominal modifiers; (vii) served as the sources of some Igbo proverbs; (viii) served as stories with aetiological bases.

The anecdote that follows below illustrates this. Although no single anecdote can illustrate all the eight points listed above, the following is a typical one:

Agu ka umu anumanu ndi ozo rioro n'otu ubochi n'oge okochi ka ha ruo ulo, o ju. Agu mere ka o do ewu na okuko anya na o di mkpa ka onye o bula mee mkpa ya ka o siri choo n'ihi na uche onye ozo, nyiri onye ozo. Oge udu miri biara, Agu gbara oso gawa n'ulo ha n ihi ma o nweghi ulo nke ya. Nke a gosiri ihe kpatara na wee ruo taa, Agu enweghi ulo nke aka ya.

One day during the dry season, other animals begged Mr Leopard to join them in building a house; he refused. Mr. Leopard made it abundantly clear to everybody that one should paddle one's own canoe because one man's meat is another man's poison. Then came the wet season and Mr Leopard ran for shelter to their house because he had none of his own. This story illustrates why it is that to this day Mr Leopard does not have a house of his own.

This anecdote has a simple story line with animal characters. Its lafiguage is simple and prosaic, and it is aetiological in import. It is a story that makes a point, like a Biblical parable.

There are, however, several areas where the anecdote differs from the folktale, in spite of the affinities already shown. These include: (i) It is children who more often than not use and tell folktales, whereas it is elders who use and tell anecdotes during discussions. Thus whereas the folktale can be told by itself for entertainment, it is not so with the anecdote. (ii) The folktale is usually longer than the anecdote. In Ukabuilu ndi Igbo some anecdotes are only one sentence long, others two or three sentences lorng.

THE IGBO ANECDOTE 173

On the whole, the longest anecdote in that collection is shorter than even the shortest folktale in either Omalinze, or Oka Mgba, or Nza na Obu, or Mbediogu, etc. (iii) Even though both folktales and anecdotes have simple, straightforward story lines, the plot of the folktale is generally more complex than that of the anecdote. For one thing, whereas the anecdote is usually mono-episodic, the folktale can be multi-episodic. Because of this, the folktale can contain many dramatis personae, but the anecdote contains very few indeed. (iv) Fourthly, whereas there are stereotyped beginnings and endings for folktales, both of which vary from area to area, there are no such things for anecdotes. Usually it is at the end of the narration of an anecdote that the audience is aware of the fact, not at the beginning. This is probably because, like the modern short story, the narration of the anecdote begins in medias res. (v) In terms of performance, folktales can contain songs, and some of them can be sung or chanted. This cannot be said of anecdotes, which are always narrated. (vi) Finally, whereas Spirits feature among the characters in folktales, this is rarely the case with anecdotes.

In spite of these differences between the two genres, the unwary can be easily misled into regarding both as the same. This, in fact, happens with Egudu himself, in whose collection the narrative entitled 'Palm Nuts on Palm Leaves'" is really an anecdote, not a folktale.'2 The problem for Egudu, as for all doing research in this area, is that on occasions folktales can become condensed or shortened to look like anecdotes.

Anecdotes and Proverbs. (i) Like proverbs, anecdotes are the preserve of elders, who use them in discourse not only to make their points but also to give prestige and depth to the subject of the discourse. (ii) Like proverbs, anecdotes are never used until occasions warrant them. (iii) Like proverbs, riddles and parables, anecdotes make their points by indirection and allusion. For example, instead of telling a pig-head point- blank about his pig-headedness, the anecdote about 'The Porcupine and his Relatives' would make the point.'3 (iv) Like riddles and proverbs, new anecdotes are always coming into the language. For just as a new occasion creates or warrants a new riddle or proverb, so too it is with the anecdote.

It is perhaps interesting to note that a kinship between proverbs and anecdotes has been found not only in Igbo but also in Kimbundu. According to Chatelain,'4 in Kimbundu anecdotes are sometimes just illustrations of a proverb, while a proverb is frequently an anecdote in a nutshell.

The anecdote is, however, different from the proverb in a number of essential respects. If we look at Ukabuilu ndi Igbo and compare its contents with those in F. C. Ogbalu's Ilu Igbo, we shall be forced to make the following observations: (i) There are more anecdotes dealing with human beings than with animals or trees or other natural elements. (ii) Anecdotes are always longer than proverbs. It is true that some are only one, two or three sentences long, like proverbs, but there are essential structural differences between the two genres even for these anecdotes that are only one sentence long. The structural arrangements of words and sounds are more memorable and functional in proverbs than in anecdotes. Repetitions of various sorts ,re the

,aison d'tre of proverbs, but not of anecdotes." (iii) In observing that anecdotes are akin to proverbs, it is necessary to add that this kinship is to the wellerism more than to the proverb per se. The unwary will easily mistake the wellerism for the anecdote, but they are two different forms. The essential difference is that whereas the anecdote contains a story, the wellerism is usually a simple witty statement, made by whatever character:

Onye ara si na ihe kpatara o ji ekwu otutu okwu bu na ya na-ekwu otu ihe, ihe ozo abata ya n'uche.

174 E. 'NOLUE EMENANJO

The mad man says that why he is very talkative is that when he is saying one thing, another enters his mind.

In fact, it appears to me that on a closer examination, proverbs and wellerisms appear to be more closely related, since some proverbs look like wellerisms shorn of their introductory remarks. In fact, it seems likely that a good number of the extant proverbs started as wellerisms, but with the passage of time, the introductory statement got lost.

Anecdotes and Jokes. The anecdote is usually an interesting narrative. Its captivating nature comes from the usually witty and ludicrous content of the story itself. It is this fact that has tempted writers like Umeasiegbu to equate it with the joke.'6 But as Snipes has correctly observed in relation to the European/American anecdote, 'An anecdote is not quite a joke since it is not pointless humour for the sake of a laugh. It has a purpose . . . Anecdotes are stories with points.'17 This comment is equally applicable to the Igbo anecdote which, though humorous, contains and makes a point.

Functions and Literary Features of the Igbo Anecdote. So far we have been concerned with making a case for the anecdote as a genre of oral performance. I know that a literary audience will, in addition to studying the differences between Igbo anecdotes, folktales, proverbs and jokes, like some comments on their functions and aesthetic value. Egudu has adequately covered these grounds,'8 and we shall quote him exten- sively. According to Egudu:

(i) A lizard once fell off a tall tree without sustaining any injury. He looked at the people standing by watching him, but received no word of congratulations from them. He nodded with confidence in himself and with contempt for them, and said, 'If people will not congratulate me, I will congratulate myself.'

There are occasions in life in which some people, perhaps out of mere jealousy, refuse to recognise a person's merits or special strength. Such a person, like the lizard, will have to accord himself the deserved recognition. For, as an Igbo proverb has it, 'one who is forgotten by others does not forget himself.'

(ii) Anecdotes can be 'used for the purpose of exhortation.' Those which perform this function often involve the ironic situation where a character is caught in its own trap, and this irony is the main source of their aesthetic appeal and the basis of their didactic function. They generally warn against indiscretion or misjudgement and against futile effforts and the evasion of responsibility. The attitude of the users is therefore very often a didactic one and the audience is expected to be taught a lesson through them. See the following anecdote:

'The Snake was once pursuing the Frog to kill him. The Frog said to the Snake: "By pursuing me you are only driving me into the open square where I will be stronger than you, for these people will certainly kill you and will not even take notice of my presence." But the Snake heedlessly pursued him to the square and got killed by the people.'

The snake's effort was not only futile but ironical, for though he was normally stronger than the frog, it was not the frog but he that got killed. This anecdote is used in a situation where somebody is unduly exercising his power over a weaker person, or where a person is being maltreated by another person. It is, therefore, a caution against such maltreatment and misuse of power.

(iii) Anecdotes can also be used for 'Satirization of foolishness:' 'A woman once told her son-in-law that he should visit her at home by the "top route" after he had been to the market-place. After the young man had finished with his business at the market-place, he climbed up the first tree by the road to his mother-in- law's home. From the top of the tree he tried to jump to the top of the next, and fell down, breaking one of his legs. And when people asked him why he was trying to jump from one tree-top to another, he said he wanted to visit his mother-in-law by the "top route" as she had instructed him. The people left him with comtempt.'

In Igbo 'to visit somebody by the top route' (elu elu), which literally means to visit 'by the route on the top,' idiomatically means to visit directly without returning to one's home first or making a detour. But instead of this figurative level of meaning, it was the literal one which the young man understood, and therein lay his ignorance and stupidity.

Egudu has also discussed adequately the essential literary characteristics of anecdotes:

THE IGBO ANECDOTE 175

They are analogical, imagistic, and comic. In each of the cases we have looked at above, there is a parallel between the fictional content of the story and some actual life situations, and between the central characters and human beings, which makes its application to the actual human situation possible and realistic. The analogy is, of course, only implied, and this helps to establish the anecdote as an art which communicates by implication and indirection. It is this analogical nature of anecdotes which in fact forms the basis of their practical functions-vindication, exhortation and satirization-though it also contributes towards the real- ization of their aesthetic fhnction.

Igbo anecdotes are imagistic. In the first place, each of them is a complete picture (like proverbs) which can easily be seen by the eyes of the mind; and in the second place, each has an in-depth or implied meaning different from the surface one (like proverbs). For example there is an implied comparison (metaphor) between a man and a bird in 'going by the top route' (a road in the air). These implied comparisons are effected through deviational use of language which is characteristic of figurative and idiomatic expressions and which contributes towards the aesthetic appeal of literature.

The comic nature of Igbo anecdotes is brought about by the irony, wit and humour which characterises them all, and occasionally by an element of surprise. The function of these elements is to generate humour, surprise, and pleasure, and to intensify the meaning of the anecdote.

From our discussions and the quotations from Egudu, it is clear that in Igbo the anecdote exists as a distinct genre of verbal art, worthy of note and of study. Although the Igbo anecdote still exists mostly in the oral medium, it shares certain features with the English anecdote even when the latter is defined as a genre of written text, as in Sutherland. " Both are short, striking, purposive narratives with a basically uncompli- cated plot line. But whereas the English anecdote usually claims a factually authentic biographical or personal content, the Igbo anecdote is often imaginative, fanciful and fictional. Whereas English anecdotes use human beings as their dramatis personae since, as Snipes observes, 'an anecdote . . . begins and ends in the authenticity of human life,'"2 Igbo anecdotes often use animals and other non-human phenomena as well as humans.

it is significant that Anecdotes and Jokes constitute one of the five basic divisions of folktales recognised by Stith Thompson. In fact, according to Thompson, anecdotes belong to a class he calls the 'simple tale:'

A very considerable proportion of the legendary stories among any people is made up of simple jests and anecdotes, sometimes of human beings and sometimes of animals, and consisting of but a single narrative

motif. Even in the area restricted to Europe and Asia such stories are very numerous. Each country has

developed many of them which are not known outside, and everywhere new anecdotes come to life and old ones pass into forgetfulness.21

The above excerpt from no less a folklorist than Thompson shows that the anecdote is a form of tale that is far from being limited in space or time. In other words, like the proverb and the riddle, the anecdote is a universal performance genre. But whereas in some cultures it can be regarded as a form of folktale, in Igbo it must be classified as a form of oral narrative distinct from the folktale. Although, as Dorson observed, it has all too often been neglected by collectors and has ranked with the jokes and the legends as 'Cinderellas of popular story books,'22 it is a particularly important and widespread form of folk narrative. In fact, according to Dorson, after visiting the major European folk archives in preparation for the 1955 revision of Types of the Folktale, Stith Thompson reported that their largest accessions since the first edition lay in jokes and anecdotes. It is scarcely necessary to add that over the past twenty years or so the attention of folklorists has been increasingly focussed on legends, memorates, jokes,

176 E. 'NOLUE EMENANJO

anecdotes, personal recollections, and other narrative genres far removed both in style and function from the mdrchen or Wonder Tales.

In conclusion I would like to say that though I have clearly set out the anecdote as a genre in its own right within Igbo folklore, one can have a broad class of folk narratives into which anecdotes, folktales, jokes among others will be put. It will then be left to the analyst to set up whatever criteria he prefers for sub-classifying these folk prose narratives.

University of Port Hartcourt, Port Hartcourt, Nigeria

NOTES 1. The present paper has gained immensely from the following colleagues, Dr. P. O. Iheakran and Mrs.

Kay Acholunu of the English Department, A.I.C.E., Owerri, who are better informed than I am in folklore.

2. R. M. Dorson, 'Current Folklore Theories,' Current Anthropology, 1963; R. M. Dorson (ed.), African Folklore (Indiana University Press, 1972); Alan Dundes (ed.), The Study of Folklore (Prentice-Hall Inc., 1965); Ruth Finnegan, Oral Literature in Africa (Oxford University Press, 1970); Ruth Finnegan, Oral Poetry (Cambridge University Press, 1977); B. Lindfors (ed.), Forms of Folklore in Africa (University of Texas Press, 1977).

3. A. Ogundipe, 'Yoruba Tongue Twisters,' in R. M. Dorson (ed.), African Folklore, pp. 211-220; 0. Olatunji, Characteristic Features of Yoruba Oral Poetry (PhD thesis, University of Ibadan, 1970).

4. F. C. Ogbalu, Okwu Ntuhi, Mbediogu, Nza na Obu (all from Onitsha University Publishing Co., 1966); E. N. Emenanjo, 'The Igbo Riddle,' Odinani 3 (1978).

5. H. Chukwuma, 'Generic Distinctions of Oral Data,' (Paper read at the Second Ibadan Annual African Literature Conference, 1977).

6. R. N. Egudu, 'Nature and Function of Igbo Anecdotes,' Odinani 2 (1977), 76-82. 7. W. C. Snipes, Writer and Audience: Forms of Non-Fiction Prose (Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1972), p.

22. 8. J. Sutherland (ed.), The Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes (Oxford University Press, 1977). 9. See note 6. 10. E. N. Emenanjo, 'Minor Genres of Igbo Oral Literature,' in R. N. Egudu and E. Ubahakwe (eds.),

Studies in Igbo Literature (African Universities Press, 1977); E. N. Emenanjo, Ukabuilu ndi Igbo (Ibadan: Evans Brothers Publishers, 1981).

11. R. N. Egudu, The Calabash of Wisdom and Other Igbo Stories (1973), pp. 75-7. 12. See anecdote no. 11, 'Mbe na Onwu Nne Ya,'in E. N. Emenanjo, Ukabuilu ndi Igbo (1981). 13. See ibid., no. 43. "

Ub" 14. H. Chatelain, Folktales of Angola (Memoir of the American Folklore Society I, Boston & New York, 1894), p. 21.

15. E. N. Emenanjo, 'The Use of Repetition and Contrast in the Igbo Proverb,' Ikenga 1:1 (1972), 109-114. 16. R. N. Umeasiegbu, 'The Study of Oral Literature,' The Muse 10 (1978), 57-8. 17. See note 7. 18. See note 6. 19. See note 8. 20. See note 7. 21. Stith Thompson, The Folktale (University of California Press, 1977; originally published in 1928). 22. R. M. Dorson (ed.), Folktales Told Around the World (University of Chicago Press, 1975), p. xix.