A STUDY ON

RIDDLES IN IKERE-EKITI
by

Kayode Faniyi (129013097)

Course: ENG 712: African Oral Literature Source: Mrs M. O. Omoboriowo Supervisor: Dr Ohwovoriole Date: 14th February 2014.

INTRODUCTION Ikere-Ekiti is a town in Ekiti State in South-Western Nigeria, which is the homeland of the Yorubas. Riddles in Ikere typically take the form of riddles everywhere else in Yorubaland except that it is delivered in the Ikere variant of the Ekiti dialect. And in Yorubaland, riddles are known as alo apamo, the other type of alo being the alo apagbe, which are tales in which songs are employed. These riddles may have travelled to Ikere along with the Oyo people who were scattered into the wind after Afonja led a successful invasion against the very core of the vast Oyo Empire in Oyo Town. However, this is mere speculation. In Ikere-Ekiti as indeed in the rest of what is now known as Yorubaland, riddle-telling is more often than not a nocturnal activity, an activity embarked upon for release after the days rigours, a social pastime, an activity to delight the senses. Riddle-telling therefore finds an overwhelming percentage of its audience among children although adults enjoy it too. The riddler is typically a much older person (usually a woman) than the riddlees who are typically children. Riddle-telling is usually deployed as part of an impressive arsenal of prose narrative forms and games deployed during a typical night of oral entertainment. Sometimes however, riddles are communally told when for instance the children congregate themselves for amusement, meaning that, different members of the audience can serve as riddler and riddlee. The children will typically regurgitate what riddles theyve heard and heard solved elsewhere. Riddles are typically observable phenomena codified into metaphorical language which might take the form of statements or questions that an answerer is required to decode and supply an answer to. The metaphorical question is of course analogous to the observable phenomena; this analogy is the source of both question and answer. In Oral Literature in Africa, Ruth Finnegan says of the form of the riddle: In a general way riddles are readily distinguishable by their question -and-answer form and by their brevity. However, a preliminary point must be made here. The popular

European or American picture of a riddle is of an explicit question to which a respondent must try to puzzle out the correctanswer. African riddles are not altogether like this. The question is usually not an interrogative at all in form but, outwardly at least, is a statement. An answer is expected but very often the listeners are not directly asked to guess but merely faced with an allusive sentence referring analogously to something else, which they must then try to identify. The point, furthermore, is normally in some play of images, visual, acoustic, or situational, rather than, as in many English riddles, in puns or plays on words (414). She continues: In these simple riddles, then, some generalization or some image issuggested and the answer involves pointing to the particular object implied.The answer here is the name of the object indicated, often just one word, andthe analogy is one of meaning; the respondent must recognize the similarityof situation, character, or behaviour in the statement and its answer (415). This metaphorical and sometimes poetic nature of the riddle is one of the reasons the riddle has gained its place as a type of oral literature in Africa despite conventionally riddle-telling [being] a social pastime, for amusement pure and simple (Finnegan: 415).

RIDDLES FROM IKERE-EKITI Riddle-telling has its formula: the opening, the riddle, and the affirmation or rejection that follows, depending on the correctness of the answer provided. It generally follows a call-and-response format. 1. Riddler: Alo o Audience: Alo Riddler: Mo gbo wara laja. Ke en? Riddlee(s): Emi Riddler: Kini o? Riddlee: Ojo Riddler: O gba o. E patewo fun.

Riddler: Alo o Audience: Alo Riddler: I heard a clatter on the roof. What it is? Riddlee(s): I do. (several riddlees may signal their intentions but the riddler has discriminatory powers and can choose whomever s/he likes) Riddler: What is it? Riddlee: The rain Riddler: She got it. Clap for her. If it so happens that a riddlee called upon supplies the wrong answer, the riddler says o si o which can mean s/he got it wrong or thats incorrect. However s/he got it wrong conveys the more appropriate sense of the riddler announcing the situation of things to the generality of the audience, as opposed to thats incorrect, which paints the picture of the riddler merely only addressing the riddle. As

continuation, the riddler simply picks someone else until a solution is found. If no solution is found, then the riddler supplies the correct answer by herself. This straightforward riddle is clearly an example of the deployment of auditory imagery, a particular strength of the Yoruba language and by association the Ekiti dialect. Since the picture of the riddle-telling process has been adequately painted above, it most probably amounts to unnecessary repetition to reproduce the same format for other examples deployed here. Therefore, I merely produce the main body of the riddle, answers, and their translations. 2. Opa tere kanle o kanrun Ojo A thin rod touching both Sky and Earth Rain This is an example of visual imagery in which rainfall is depicted as a continuous stretches from the sky to the earth. 3. Kee koja luwaju ule Oba kee koba? Agbara What passes in front of the kings house without paying homage? Flood

4. Kee kan Oba luko? Abe What thing has the effrontery to rap the kings head? Blade

5. Kee bOba i jeun kee kewe? Esinsin What dines with the king without cleaning up after itself? The housefly Apart from the imagery deployed in these three king-related riddles, the riddles (3-5) are also a useful pointer to the culture of the Ikere (and the Yoruba at large): the king is a thing of awesome dread to whom no disrespect may be shown.

6. E loo, e lose, e gbomo titun i jo Pepe It has neither hands nor legs but dances bearing a baby A bed

7. Oke me yo gun omo tintini gun-un Erira This tiny child surmounts heights even I cant Ant

8. Kee lo i sOyo ko koju sOyo ko tun kohin sOyo? Ulu What traveller to Oyo both faces and turns his back to Oyo? The drum

9. O suyin rabata o fewe rabata bo Ofurufu It defecated awesomely and found a massive leaf to cover the faeces The Sky

10. Omo iya meta kee moju i kan ra ran Ahusa/ Asala Three siblings who do not see eye-to-eye Walnut

11. E loo, e lose, o be jiga sugbo Kelebe It has neither hands nor feet but it leaps acrobatically into the bush Phlegm

These six riddles (6-11) have personification (or at least animation) general to them. Inanimate elements have been given the characteristics of animate ones while in the case of the ant, a non-human actor has been personified, described in terms of a human actor, a child.

12. Ahe obi kan a je doyobo Ahon We eat this piece of kolanut to Oyo and back The tongue

13. Kee bo i somi kee dun tolo? Abere What drops into water without the slightest sound? A needle

14. Orukutinditindi, Orukutinditindi, Oruku bi igba omo o le tiro Beans What mystery is this? What mystery is this? Mystery bears two hundred children who wear mascara Beans Oruku translates literally as vapour, which if we explore its metaphorical trappings would suggest ungraspability, wondrousness, mysteriousness or simply mystery. The separate tinditindi following the first two instances of oruku with a variation in the pronunciation of the similar-looking words appears to be merely decorative, meaningless, something Finnegan assures us (via Bascom) is not out of place: The language of riddles certainly often contains apparently meaningless words. Puns and word play are not a significant aspect, but appear occasionally, for instance in Yoruba riddles (Bascom 1949: 5). []the language of riddles is also marked by a frequent use of reduplication, ideophones(423)

CONCLUSION It must be mentioned first that the natural classification of the two types of alo with each other validates the riddle as both an oral art worthy of literary criticism and a form of prose narrative. This validation is necessary for those who are worried or perhaps sceptical (if there are any left) about classifying riddles as a form of oral literature. If its prime function is amusement, riddling or riddle-telling finds other major functions in education. Because the riddle needs the participants in its unravelling to associate images auditory, visual, gastric etc., it is a very good early source of education in thinking-on-the-bounce, close observation, and metaphorical codification, as can be seen from the examples deployed here. Hear Finnegan: Besides entertainment, riddles are sometimes claimed to play an indirect educational role by training children in quick thinking, in intellectual skill, and in classification, providing, through their sexual or comic bias, a release from tensions imposed by the moral and social code (Dupire and Tressan 1955), or leading to a fuller participation in social life. And: Many riddles give vivid visual impressions, particularly those about the natural world, which often indicate close observation (Finnegan: 424). What better way to end this paper than to quote Ruth Finnegan again: Most of all riddle, however simple, involve a play of images, visual and acoustic, through which insights and comment can be expressed. In thisway, even this very minor form of art, with its own stylistic peculiaritiesin different cultures, has its part to play in the richness of oral literature inAfrican societies (Finnegan: 429).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Finnegan, Ruth. Oral Literature in Africa. Cambridge. OpenBook Publishers, 2012. World Oral Literature Series. Web. 13 Feb. 2014 Omoboriowo, Mariam Olabisi. Personal Interview. 14 Feb. 2014