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BENIN-LITERATURE-TRADITION-CULTURE,FEATURE
Once upon a time… preserving folk tales in Benin
COTONOU, Aug 20, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Dusk settled on Sainte-Cecile square and
the oil lanterns cast a soft yellow light as a storyteller took to the stage
and bound the audience with a magic spell of words.
The tale was about a naughty little girl who disobeys her parents and
whistles at night — a way of summoning evil spirits.
She is attacked by fierce beasts but is saved from death thanks to the
courageous intervention of her neighbour, a hunter.
Djimada, a teenage high-school student, was among those who were captivated
by the centuries-old story.
“I was always told never to whistle at night but never understood why,” she
said. “Now I know.”
The tiny African state of Benin is perhaps best known to the world as the
cradle of voodoo.
But this is only part of a rich cultural history that includes a seam of
folk tales, many of them handed down from generation to generation by walking
storytellers known as “griots.”
Each year, a festival is held in Cotonou, the capital, to honour the proud
tradition.
For two nights in mid-August more than 30 communities from across Benin
held the event organised by a Franco-Beninese association, Memories of
Africa, that is now two decades old.
Amelie Armao, a professional storyteller from France, came to steep herself
in Benin’s oral treasures — an extraordinary but vanishing catalogue of
spirits, talking animals, magical creatures, kings and queens, heroes and
villains and witches.
“I started my career telling African stories,” Armao said. “I find them
steeped with meaning, humour and philosophy”.
Like Djimada, this was the first time many people in the audience were
hearing the stories, a sobering reflection of the reality that oral
storytelling has been losing its cultural prestige.
Chris-Mael Tonoukouin, a private school teacher in Cotonou, came to the
square to relive his childhood memories.
“In the good old days, we sat on the floor around a kerosene lamp,” said
Tonoukouin.
“We were listening to our grandparents tell these funny stories between
humans and animals.”
– ‘African wisdom’ –
Tonoukouin can be forgiven for feeling nostalgic.
The oral tradition is being lost little by little, said Raoul Atchaka, a
representative of Memories of Africa.
“We must act so that the African wisdom is not forgotten in the tombs of
the old people who die,” said Atchaka.
The point of the festival, whose tales are recounted in French and a local
language, Fongbe, is get younger people to hear them, “and then teach their
children,” he said.
To do this, the association held a storytelling contest in 2000.
More than 1,000 young people took part in the contest to help create
several books containing over 1,500 stories.
Getting the stories on paper is critical for Beninese author Carmen
Toudonou, who says the future of African fairy tales is not under trees but
on pages of books.
“I encourage writers here to be more interested in this genre, to be able
to offer our children stories through which they can identify,” Toudonou
said.
“We must create African heroes to stand alongside Snow White and Little Red
Riding Hood,” she said.
“Then the parents have to read to them very early to make them later lovers
of beautiful stories, lovers of reading.”
Transferring this knowledge is important to preserving Africa’s heritage,
said Patrice Toton, a Benin storyteller based in France.
“Storytelling is for us a perpetuation of the knowledge, languages,
practises and history of peoples,” Toton said.
“It plays a role of conservation of heritage, history, knowledge and
perpetuates the identity of peoples.”
He hopes that 100 years from now a child in Benin will still know not to
whistle at night, when wild creatures are lurking in the dark.
BSS/AFP/MRI/1024 hrs