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You can’t store oral traditions
Dear Editor,
I was delighted to read in Dr. Al Crighton’s Sunday Arts Column, printed in your newspaper on June 2, that UG’s English Department has an apparently vibrant oral traditions programme. My congratulations go to the oral traditions personnel at University of Guyana for training their students in scientific data collection and analysis.
I also congratulate the students for sharing with the public some of the work done by the English Department and adding to the large body of Guyanese folklore.
It was very heartening that the students named in Dr. Creighton’s column went into various areas of Guyana, and were able to find Balgobin stories, Dutchmen stories, proverbs being used, etc. However, I shall quote two of Dr. Creighton’s paragraphs and comment afterwards: “…Another similarity among races was the great deal of reluctance on the part of persons to talk about these traditions or even to admit knowledge of them.
“This self-suppression makes it difficult for researchers to get information and has already begun to contribute to the disappearance of narrative and oral poetry.”
In my opinion, it matters not what people refuse to talk about–ol higue, obeah, jumbies, comfa–the question is why they don’t want to talk. In some cases people may be completely ignorant of an oral traditions topic or have vague information. There are other cases where people’s ‘upward’ social status or religious beliefs may cause them to want to forget all about the oral traditions. (I saw examples of this as a folklorist in Guyana.) Some people’s religious beliefs, in particular, impact much of their behaviours towards the oral traditions.
So it may not be “self-suppression” which is why some Guyanese don’t want to talk about the oral traditions, but ignorance, social, religious and other reasons. Assuming that the three reasons given are good enough to cause researchers difficulty when seeking information, what is the English Department of UG going to do about them?
And, even if UG’s English Department could somehow leap over any hurdles in the path of its budding researchers, the preservation of the oral traditions is not about how much of it UG can save! Dr. Creighton did NOT imply that having the oral traditions sleeping in tomb-like archives is the way to preserve the oral traditions, but I should like to remind the entire nation that the best way to preserve the oral traditions is for people to tell and live the traditions.
Without telling and living these traditions will die, as masquerade, queh-queh, the ring games, Anancy stories, family moon-lit night story-telling sessions and a host of other traditions are dying or are already dead! The oral traditions depend on the present and future generations. If adults do not pass these to their children, can we prevent the death of the oral traditions?
My late friend, the great Guyanese folklorist Wordsworth McAndrew, often said that wherever lights appeared folklore disappeared. Who needs the oral traditions when there are televisions, all kinds of music and games that can be played on all kinds of fancy electronic equipment, computers and more? That is the challenge for UG-to get Guyana to talk and live the oral traditions (not just document them) in the face of ignorance, social and religious concerns and the dynamism of modern life.
A Guyanese traditionalist
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