The Anecdote as an Oral Genre: The Case in Igbo

Author(s): E. 'Nolue Emenanjo

Source: Folklore, Vol. 95, No. 2 (1984), pp. 171-176
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.
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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'something yet unpublished,'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unpublished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.