The Powers of Genre: Interpreting Haya Oral Literature (Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics, 22)

THE POWERS OF GENRE

OXFORD STUDIES IN ANTHROPOLOGICAL LINGUISTICS William Bright, General Editor

Editorial Board Wallace Chafe, University of California, Santa Barbara Rcgna Darnell, University of Western Ontario Paul Friedrich, University of Chicago Dell Hymes, University of Virginia Jane Hill, University of Arizona Stephen C. Levinson, Max Planck Institute, The Netherlands Joel Sherzer, University of Texas, Austin David J. Parkin, University of London Andrew Pawley, Australian National University Jef Verschucren, University of Antwerp

Volumes Published: 1 2

Guntcr Senft: Classificatory Particles in Kilivila Janis B. Nuckolls: Sounds Like Life: Sound-Symbolic Grammar, Performance, and Cognition in Pastaza Quechua 3 David B. Kroncnfeld: Plastic Glasses and Church Fathers: Semantic Extension from the Ethnoscience Tradition 4 Lyle Campbell: American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America 5 Chase Hensel: Telling Our Selves: Ethnicity and Discourse in Southwestern Alaska 6 Rosaleen Howard-Malverde (cd.): Creating Context in Andean Cultures 7 Charles L. Briggs (ed.): Disorderly Discourse: Narrative, Conflict, and Inequality 8 Anna Wicrzbicka: Understanding Cultures through Their Key Words: English, Russian, Polish, German, and Japanese 9 Gerrit J. van Enk and Lourens de Vnes: The Korowai of Irian jaya: I heir Language in Its Cultural Context 10 Peter Bakkcr: A Language of Our Own: The Genesis of Michif, the Mixed Cree-French Language of the Canadian Metis ] 1 Gunter Senft: Referring to Space: Studies in Austronesian and Papuan Languages 12 David McKmgiu: People, Countries, and the Rainbow Serpent: Systems of Classification Among the Lardil of Mornington Island 13 Penelope Gardner-Chloros, Robert B. Le Page, Andree Tabouret-Keller, and Gabrielle Varro (eds.): Vernacular Literacy Revisited 14 Steven Roger Fischer: Rongorongo, the Easter Island Script: History, Traditions, Text 15 Richard Feinberg: Oral Traditions of Anula: A Polynesian Outlier in the Solomon Islands 16 Bambi Schieffelin, Kathryn A. Woolard, and Paul V. Kroskrity (eds.): Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory 17 Susan U. Philips: Ideology in the Language of judges: How Judges Practice Law, Politics, and Courtroom Control 18 Spike Gildea: On Reconstructing Grammar: Comparative Cariban Morphosyntax 19 Lainc A. Berrnan: Speaking through the Silence: Narratives, Social Conventions, and Power in ]a.va 20 Cecil H. Brown: Lexical Acculturation in Native American Languages 21 James M. Wilce: Eloquence in Trouble: The Poetics and Politics of Complaint in Rural Bangladesh 22 Peter Seitel: The Powers of Genre: Interpreting Llaya Oral Literature

THE POWERS OF GENRE Interpreting Haya Oral Literature

PETER SEITEL

New York Oxford Oxford University Press 1999

Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar cs Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan

Copyright

1999 by Peter Seitel

Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Catalogmg-m-Publicanon Data Seiiel, Peter. 1 he powers of genre : interpreting Llaya oral literature / Peter Seitel. p. cm. — (Oxford studies in anthropological linguistics : 22) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-511700-X 1. I laya (African people) — Folklore. 2. I-oik literature, Hay a — I hstory and criticism. 3. Oral tradition "-Tanzania. 4. Discourse analysis, Narrative—Tanzania. 5. I laya language History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series. CR356.72.n38 S43 1998 398.2'089'967827—dc21 98-47851

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY TEACHERS A GROUP THAT INCLUDES MANY TANZANIANS AND MANY LIBRARIANS AND ESPECIALLY RALPH RlNZLER.

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Preface A long time ago, when I was a graduate student at Penn studying with Kenny Goldstein, David Sapir, and Dell 1 lymes and working in the library, 1 once entertained an interesting request for assistance. It came from a man doing research on a Philadelphia inventor who had devised a perpetual motion machine, he said. Opening a leather portfolio, he showed me a schematic drawing of that machine. It had several figures with arrows connecting them. "This is the head," he said, "and this is the hand, and this is the heart." I nodded slowly. "You know," he said, "you have to live with this for a long time before you understand it." His words recur to me sometimes when I stand back from my own careful work. I also remember sitting in the bar at the Vatican City Hotel in Dar es Salaam in 1994, with my esteemed colleagues, Drs. Mulokozi and Kahigi, professors of language and literature at the University of Dar es Salaam. We were discussing oral literature and touched on the now-cooled controversy in ethnopoetic studies concerning the mode of definition of a "line" as the basic unit of analysis in oral narrative or poetry. Kahigi asked me to recount the dispute as I understood it, and 1 spoke about breath and silence as defining features on one hand and about adverbials and syntactic parallelism on the other. He was greatly amused. "I can't imagine how you can have a line in an oral tradition," he said. I begged him, "Hold that thought," and as the discussion continued we returned to it again and again. The Haya oral literature that appears later has no lines, although conventions of writing and the analytic methods based on them would seem to indicate that it does. What it really has is not lines but breath, voice, silence, parallelism, marked forms, fictional logic, and semantic contrasts performed all together,
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Preface

dence of connections between literary genres and traditions and other social formations. In short, genres—particularly their logical aspect, which Bakhtin calls composition—became for me an Archimedian lever with which I could move a world of data. And when I saw these things, as Hayas say, I came to tell you about them. Most gratitude for the opportunity to produce this work must be expressed first to my family, Martha, Jesse, and Elizabeth, who have supported me and this project for a decade. A nearly equal amount of gratitude must go to many people in Tanzania, a small fraction of whom are named herein; they generously provided me the wherewithal to make this happen. I am indebted to many colleagues who read previous drafts of this work or discussed aspects of it in detail. Some made positive comments, some negative, but all without exception were extremely helpful. Responsibility for choosing advice to heed and for hearing it accurately is of course my own. In this regard, I thank Herb Shore, J. David Sapir, Gilbert Sprauve, Richard Kurin, Roger Abrahams, Richard Bauman, Charles Briggs, Joel Sherzcr, Ivan Karp, Daniel Mato, Ken Bilby, Kamran Kahn, John Rutayuga, Mugyabuso Mulokozi, Junus Rubanza, Carla Borden, Diana Parker, Olivia Caclaval, William Hanks, Lee Ilaring, the anonymous readers for Oxford, William Bright, and Luise White. A group of designers patiently instructed, advised, and assisted me in the craft of typesetting; at Oxford—Suzanne Holt; at the Smithsonian—Linda McKnight, Kenn Shrader, Kristen Ferenekes, and Jennifer Harrington. I also gratefully acknowledge institutional support from the Smithsonian Institution's Center for Folklife Programs & Cultural Studies, the Institute for Kiswabili Research at the University of Dar cs Salaam, and the local and regional Offices of Culture in Kagera Region, Tanzania. P. S.

September 1998 Washington, D.C.

Contents

1 Introduction 3

Part I Style, Theme, and Composition in Genre 2 The Logic of Proverbs 35 3 Emergent Complexities and Complex Emergencies in Folktales 49 4 Heroic Society in Interlacustrme Africa 83

Part I! A Genre-Powered Reading of Kachwenyan/a 5 Stanzas Need No Rhyme 177 6 Significance Needs Time 196 7 Summary and Conclusion 222 Appendix A 227 Appendix B 233 References 237 index 241

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THE POWERS OF GENRE

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1 Introduction

Genre Nurtures Interpretation The goal of the analytic approacli described and illustrated in this book is a kind of literary interpretation. Its procedures and perspectives aim at nurturing creative understandings of verbal art—readings that are culturally and historically specific yet have the richness of abstraction and allegory; that place a single work within the "community discourse history" from which it emerged; that attend to the creator and his or her work with a deep and complex critical gaze; and that provide a framework within which indigenous and outsider knowledge can engage in an always unfinished dialogue about form and significance. This system of interpretation is based on the idea of genre as a specific, concrete, yet often changing body of texts, as a framework for creating and interpreting them, and as a "form-shaping ideology" through which both creator and critic enter into dialogue with the collective wisdom of a tradition. An analysis that harnesses the conceptual powers of genre aims at interpretations on several levels. These include the four levels of reading described by Henri De Lubac and cited by Fredric Jameson (1981) in formulating his own critical approach. The levels are: (1) the literal (i.e., attending to and making interpretive use of cultural and historical referents in the texts); (2) the allegorical (i.e., uncovering symbolic codes in the text that arc forms of cultural knowledge); (3) the moral (i.e., discovering the cultural rules for individual action in the text); and (4) the analogic (i.e., reading the text politically, as societal envisionings of the collective "meaning" of history; as Greek epics sing of the heroic age that underlies the development of nations, and as the Bible tells of both the beginning and the end of days). But following Jameson (and many others), an approach based on the powers of genre also sights a broader interpretive horizon, one defined by the creative \vork understood as a symbolic act performed in a particular social field at a particular historical moment. That rhetorical act is "equipment for living," 3

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The Powers of Genre

which, in addition to codifying important cultural commonplaces, enters into strategies of support and opposition with the acts (symbolic and nonsymbolic) of other social practices. Our interpretive goal is to view those rhetorical acts against that interpretive horizon, which is drawn in the broadest sense by the economic modes of production in a society, the social organization supported by them, and their transformation through history. An analysis based in genre engages individual works by attending to the larger classes to which they belong. Genres serve as "orienting frameworks" for both creation and interpretation. Shared generic features of style, theme, and composition guide perception to aspects of segmentation, symmetry, emphasis, form, and other textual dimensions in individual works that are otherwise unknowable. By harnessing the powers of genre, it will be possible to attain the same kind of detailed, penetrating, and comprehensive critical attention to the works of the Haya epic singers Muzee, Habib, and Mugasha that Jameson (1981:206-280) does for Conrad and that Bakhtin (1984:101-180) does for Dostoevsky. A generic framework orients not only texts to other texts but also the performance practices that produce those texts to other social practices. People use genres to enact characteristic strategies and/or portray them, and as such, genres are a conceptual locus of mediation between literature and the social field in which it is produced. Genres reveal to what extent literary "equipment for living" is prescribed or circumscribed by dominant institutions. The dual nature of genre as "form-shaping ideology" (Moreson and Emerson 1990: 282), which provides a basis for creating and understanding, and as discursive practice within a social field, makes it a powerful interpretive concept, one that can interestingly comprehend the dual nature of literature as symbolic code and symbolic act in the broadest perspective. This work develops a genre-powered interpretive tool composed of interrelated analytic procedures. Before it can be described and illustrated, however, several matters of orientation must be taken up, mostly concerning my use of key terms that recently have been the subject of significant and penetrating discussions. These include context as a locus of meaning, dialogue as a necessary feature of the creation and understanding of speech, and the notion of genre itself.

Context and Meaning Following Bakhtin and others, I distinguish operationally between theme and meaning. Theme emerges as the result of relationships perceived between the constituent parts of a work or utterance; the theme of a repeated utterance or work remains relatively constant. Meaning, in contrast, emerges as the result

Introduction

5

of relationships perceived between the utterance or work (in part or as a whole) and the context in which it is spoken or otherwise performed and received; the meaning of a repeated utterance or work changes with its context of performance and/or reception. In this light, the theme of the utterance "What time is it?" (Bakhtin's example) remains constant, whereas its meaning depends on how, where, and when it is spoken—varying in not only the hour on the clock to be given in response but also possible meanings such as "Let's leave," "I'm bored," and "Can we agree to move to the next order of business?" In this light, the themes in Don Quixote remain the same today as they were in Cervantes's time, but their meaning has changed because of transformations in a reader's historical context. Because the crucial distinction between meaning and theme depends on context, let us look more closely at what is intended by that term. One aspect of context: is what Hanks (1996:142) felicitously calls the "vivid present" of an utterance, the immediate interactional setting in which it is embedded. This aspect includes the participants; the multidimensional institutional and noninstitutional relationships that associate and divide them; and the topics, utterances, and acts that have gone before the work or utterance in question and those that are expected to follow. This "context of situation" (Malinowski 1923) is referred to and invoked through a linguistic process termed "contextualization" (Gumperz 1982), whose modes of expression include the entire range of possibilities of speech interaction: deictic references to the relative positions of participants, the use of terms of address and reference, and nonspoken gestures, to cite a few. Contextualization frequently occurs in storytelling performance, as when a Hay a narrator might say, "So when they arrived, it was like it ts now [about dusk]," or, "Among us whom can I compare [the prince's] beauty to? Perhaps the European woman, but no, he was more beautiful even than her" (see Seitel 1980). In proverb speaking, contextualization is a necessary component of logical form: A topic of conversation is described through metaphorical reference to the situation portrayed in a proverb text (see Seitel 1972). Hanks (1996:142) terms a second aspect of context "the broader horizon against which the immediate sphere takes place" (i.e., the broader social-historical context, a changing field of forces shaped by institutional practices, individual initiatives, and oppositions to them). As Hanks (170) points out, there is a linguistic component of: the "broader horizon" that includes genres. So just as utterances refer to people, topics, and other utterances in the vivid present, they also refer to people, topics, utterances, and genres in the broader horizon. As a component of context, genre is a mode of reference between one text and others like it. From a linguistic point of view, "genre is quintessentially intertextual" (Bauman and Briggs 1992:147). A form of reference analogous to contextualization in the vivid present,

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The Powers of Genre

genre provides information missing from, but referred to by, the utterance itself. Genres have distinctive \vays of completing the underspecified referent: Proverbs may point with elision; folktales, with ironic contrast; epics, with assumed knowledge of an epoch of historical transformation. When the power of genre is taken to be primarily contextualization in the broader horizon, generic textual features are to be interpreted as intertextual reference. This power of genre casts light on not only \vhether a particular performance follows generic forms artfully but also whether it stretches them, or ironically overturns them or mixes them with those of another genre to create various degrees of formal and semantic distance from its own generic origin (Bauman and Briggs 1992). Understanding genre as both part of the broader horizon of context and as quiiitessentially intertextual leads critical discourse down this interpretive path. The present approach, as will become evident, takes intertextual reference to be only one of genre's -powers and not necessarily the most efficacious one for literary interpretation— that being "form-generating ideology." The idea of context is not limited to relationships between utterances and what is external to them. Bauman (1992), for example, shows that in a single text containing two generic forms one can be said to "contextualize" the other. Arid Ellen Basso (1992) employs the term to describe the relationship between episodes in a single narrative. The important areas of analysis to which they point—relationships between genres and between episodes in a single text— are treated in subsequent chapters with a different set of concepts, and I use contextualizaton to refer solely to relationships between an utterance and its vivid present and broader horizon.

Context and Field Research The context of performance for most of the Haya texts offered as examples was affected in varying degrees by the presence of a researcher. Genres vary with their contexts of performance, and the methods of text gathering—the mode of insertion of the fieldworker into an interactional context—must take this fact into account. The performance of epic ballads (I justify my choice of name for the category in chapter 4) creates its own space and time. This artistic event is contracted for, clearly bounded, and the center of attention in its traditional clan and royal settings. Its standing is apparently not much different in its modern barroom incarnation, where its role seems similar to that of a jazz combo in a nightclub. To capture these performances, I seemingly merely had to be at the right place at the right time and to secure permission and cooperation. It turned out to be a little more complex than this. For the traditional contexts, I could

Introduction

7

only secure performances before royalty—once by booking a performer myself to play at a former prince's house (by leaving a letter and bus fare at a roadside cafe); another time when a former long graciously lent me a tape recording he had made of a recent performance in his throne room. The barroom contexts were somewhat more accessible and depended on my being notified of performance dates. To supplement this collection, I recorded at their homes several singers who had ceased to give public performances. In the latter sessions, where the canons of public performance are only selectively applied, divergences from generic norms can emerge. In one instance, the elder Kagombola—a farmer, healer of spiritually caused disease, and former epic performer—graciously recorded over three days a partly sung, partly spoken narrative I had been seeking for years, having come to believe in the ballad's existence trom other texts and interviews. Shortly after that he told a version of the epic ballad Raki^a (a translation of Justinian Mugasha's performance appear:, in chapter 4), of which I had already collected four or so sung versions. I Ic omitted what I now regard as a genredefining episode type, although in this ballad it is somewhat peripheral to the development of the plot. Perhaps complete as a narrative (p/ugano), his story was unfinalized as an epic ballad plot, and his good friend Abdallah Feza, a renowned epic performer present at the time, quickly corrected his omission. This interplay of generically informed intelligences is emblematic of the complex implications that genre holds for the collecting context. With this in mind, I was careful to record performances in contexts in -which audience members were native speakers of the Haya language and thoroughly familiar with the genre being performed. Many of the folktales on which generic interpretation is based were recorded by Sheila Dauer's interposing a tape recorder in a context in which a mother entertained her children, in which a renowned storyteller regaled her neighbors, or in which a women's group met under our sponsorship to be refreshed and to trade folktale performances with one another outside male purview. I collected other tales from long-term, paid research assistants, who narrated them to each other. Proverbs are another matter. I tried as an outsider to be present in contexts of usage, principally marriage negotiations, but was able to collect fewer than ten actual uses in this way. I had to rely on interviews that proceeded first from my being given a provisional understanding of the theme expressed in a proverb, the logic of its application, and some of its possible uses and then to my queries in the form of proposed hypothetical contexts in which the proverb might be spoken. The queries were constructed according to a descriptive "etic" system of possible permutations in the relationship between a proverb's theme, the vivid present of its usage, and the situations to which it might refer. To test my conclusions, I also used proverbs conversationally.

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The Powers of Genre

All the analysis of proverb speaking done in the following chapter is based on hypothetical uses whose correctness has been affirmed by indigenous proverb speakers. Valuable insights are possible using this system, especially when the perspective of genre is brought to bear, but the future of proverb studies clearly lies with indigenous social scientists who can more easily position themselves in local social interaction (see, for example, Yankah 1995 and Obeng 1996). These are the performance contexts of the generic texts that receive principal attention in this work. In each, native speakers thoroughly conversant •with the genre were not only speakers but also addressees and respondents (although in proverbs, because of my dual role as "student then speaker," a native speaker's speaking and a native speaker's response usually occurred in different interchanges). For this reason, it seems a reasonable assumption that the collected examples bear characteristic features of their particular genres. The discovery of these features occurred through a process of interpretation, which is as purposefully dialogic in form as the performances themselves.

Dialogue and Dialogics Although "dialogue" is not one of the analytic terms used to develop a genrepowered method, it docs encompass very important parts of the literary universe in which 1 work, and because of this and because the term has become current in critical discourse, I treat its relevance to interpretation through genre. Dialogics is a central theme in Bakhtin's writings on language, literature, and philosophy, and a full treatment of the topic is beyond necessity and possibility in this context. Instead, I discuss three pertinent areas: the dialogics of the utterance, the related dialogics of culture, and finally the dialogics of interpretation. Bakhtin continually asserted that language can be understood not by viewing it in ideal, abstract, analytic isolation but as it actually occurs in context, particularly as it answers and anticipates other spoken language. A speaker's utterance is crucially affected by the "already spoken." It is also affected by the "not yet spoken," or response to it in the form of immediate behavior, verbal answer, or delayed reaction. The importance of the already spoken is most clearly seen when one speaker quotes another, encapsulating his or her words in a new utterance. But it is equally present in speech attributed without quoting (so-called indirect quotation or discourse) and in other kinds of direct and indirect references to what has been said. This process of dialogic inclusion is pivotal in the study of genres. It distinguishes primary speech genres such as proverbs and greetings, which arose in conditions of unmediated verbal communication, from secondary speech

Introduction

9

genres, which include, absorb, and transform the primary genres in specialized forms such as epics, novels, and literary criticism. Through this dialogic process, secondary genres often experience "restructuring and renewal" (Bakhtin 1986:65-66). This "dialogue of genres" .(Bauman 1992) is taken up in our interpretation of Muzee's performance of the epic ballad Kachwenyanja in part II (in this volume). Dostoevsky's manner of dialogic inclusion—his accuracy in depicting the style of others' utterances—distinguishes his novels, according to Bakhtin, as truly "many voiced" and the highest achievement of the novelistic genre. At a more general level than quoted speech and included genres, dialogics defines a perspective in which all utterances address previous utterances even if they do not literally include them, a kind of reference that has been called intertextuality. As noted earlier, Bauman and Briggs take this form of dialogism to be the quintessence of genre, foregrounding the complex, multigeneric, intertextual references that can open gaps between theme and style, for example, to create parody. At an even more encompassing level, Greg Urban (1991) bases his ethnography of Amazonian cultures oti the eminently reasonable proposition that in a phenomenal sense utterances constitute much of what we call culture. Similarly, he proposes that dialogue constitutes social solidarity. As evidence, he points to symmetry, mutual strategic support, and cross-cultural correlation between forms of dialogue and social mechanisms for creating solidarity. I quote part of his conclusion at some length, for it clearly illustrates, in addition to this most general level of the dialogic perspective, another interpretive orientation relevant to the present project. Adapting Emile Durkheim's conceptual opposition between mechanical and organic solidarity, Urban invents the notion of "complementary difference" to characterize a kind of dialogic exchange in which actors jointly create a genre of speech. Urban does not use the term "genre" for this, preferring the more undifferentiated term "utterance": [I]he notion of complementary difference depends first and foremost on the concept of a single jointly produced utterance requiring contributions from distinct parts of society for its completion. These include the discourse of trade and negotiation, especial!)', in the case of the northwest Amazon, negotiation in regard to marriage exchanges. While from a materialist point of view it appears that cohesion anses Irom the exchange of actual human beings in the case of marriage or material items in the case of trade, from the perspective of discourse what is critical is that the configuration of utterances making up a culture in this type of society is reproducible only through such jointly produced utterances. Similarly, in the development in the West of what Durkheim called organic solidarity, the "contract" loomed large. Like the dialogical discourse of negotiation and trade, the contract is a type of discourse

10

The Powers of Genre that depends for its completion on the joint contributions of two or more parties, two or more parts of society. If Western societies emerged as organically solidary, from the point of view of culture as actually occurring discourse, they were able to do so in part because of the centrality of these cooperatively produced instances. (1991:175)

Dialogism's possible Utopian coloration should not mask differentials of power among individuals and institutions in what is often a complex and differentiated social field. Reflection on the nature of Western contracts suggest that this and other characteristic, socially constituting, recurrent exchanges of utterances need not be between social equals. In decidedly nonutopian dialogic exchanges, the expected response to an utterance might be loss of face, acknowledgement of subordination, fear, flight, self-incrimination, or death by magical means. This is not to criticize Urban, whose formulations provide ample space for a nonutopian perspective, but to signal the social hierarchy and heroic struggle that are characteristic of the Haya speech genres to be discussed.

Dialogics of Interpretation In yet another dimension, dialogism can be taken to define an important epistcmelogic difference between the natural sciences and the human sciences (Bakhtin 1986), the former being based on data from observations of mute objects, the latter being based on dialogues with speaking subjects. An important current in anthropologic, linguistic, and folkloristic practice depends on a growing consciousness of the implications of this difference. In the interpretation of oral literature, the work of Dennis Tedlock is definitive in this regard. As part of a larger project to create a dialogic anthropology, Tedlock, writing in concert with Bruce Mannheim, calls for an interpretive discourse that includes a multiplicity of voices: those of "natives, those of the writer in an earlier role as fieldworker . . . those of alternative interpretations or rival interpreters, among them native interpreters" (Tedlock and Mannheim 1995:3). Their goal is to produce a rich dialogic juxtaposition of critical perspectives, a polyphonic interpretation, as it were, not a monologic, authoritative description of a culture according to the disciplinary rules of the academy. If by interpretation we mean something that includes the "recognition of interconnections within the community discourse history" (Urban 1991), the present approach adds this voice. Through the multiple powers of genre, it discerns collective knowledge, which the artist may sing with in unison, oppose in counterpoint, or use to create polyphony with the voices of other traditions. The perception of this aesthetic knowledge cannot be an outsider's exclusive privilege, the raw data of a disciplinary, monologic description, for the outsider merely overhears the generic voice that performers constitute, address, and

Introduction

11

manipulate. Its description necessarily results from a dialogue between performers, indigenous critics, and outsider perspectives. In the always unfinished dialogue of interpretation, generic knowledge formulates observations, models, and queries about motivation, time, and scene. It creates a basis for common understandings on which the dialogue can proceed, framing the significance of pointed, unanswered questions (for example, "What made you crazy?" in "Blocking the Wind," later; see also the tales, "What Was It That Killed Koto?" and "Who Was the One Who Ate It?" in Seitel 1980), of recurring patterns of plot ("The Glistening One," later), and of marked stylistic elaboration (Muzee's Kachivenyanja in part II). This interpretive process necessarily provides nuanced transcriptions of verbal art, not limiting interpretation to a confrontation with my authorial voice but allowing the reader to "move around in the space between the voices of this author and those of a separate text—an available text" to formulate his or her own reading (Tedlock 1995:262). The dialogue of interpretation for the narrative genres represented here began for me in earnest with transcriptions of tape-recorded performances. These were done by native speakers and reviewed by me. My assistants made two longhand copies using carbon paper, writing the words on every other line. The carbon copy became the vehicle for explication. At the beginning of my tieldwork, an assistant would make interlinear Kiswahili translations of the Luhaya text, but after a while, my growing familiarity with the latter language made this step unnecessary. Next, the carbon copy became an object of exegesis for words and meanings unfamiliar to me and for a wide range of topics involving aesthetic representation and the linguistic medium itself. I had many teachers in this activity. I annotated these bilingual discussions in Kiswahili, Luhaya, and English on the carbon copy and later in a notebook. With only a single exception, I made no English translation at the time—to retain as much of the interpretive polyphony in my appreciation of the text as possible. The exception was an epic ballad text f translated and sent to my academic advisers. The next step was to analyze the narrative texts according to the method for discovering compositional (plot) patterns developed by Vladimir Propp. After several analytic sweeps through the texts, whose number had been augmented by the published folktale collection of Rehse (1910), I made a step that some may regard as scientifically questionable but I regard as sound: I used the Proppian analysis to redefine the analytic corpus (see Jameson 1981:120). I believe this is sound primarily because this step isolates more clearly a genre or subgenre within a larger tradition. This judgment is confirmed by the fact that a division made within each of the two narrative genres according to compositional form is congruent with a division made according to thematic content and historical provenance. The Haya folktales (engano) shaped in the manner described in chapter 3 are

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The Powers of Genre

those in which there is at least one human actor. (These include the thirty-four published in Seitel 1980.) Haya folktales that do not appear to be shaped by those features are fables in which all the characters are animals. The possible historical significance of this division is discussed in chapter 3. The Haya epic ballads shaped in the manner described in chapter 4, almost always sung to the accompaniment of a trough-zither called an enanga, are those probably composed before the decline of the indigenous kingship that occurred in the colonial era. (The eight I am preparing for a separate publication all fit the generic patterns described in that chapter.) Those written after the decline, in the period when most epic performances moved to bars, are not shaped by those features. They have apparently been influenced by the repertoire of a different tradition that has more current, topical themes and is often sung in bars to the accompaniment of the endingidi, a bowed single-string instrument. These narrative corpora, the folktales and the epics along with their associated commentary, became the analytic object of the approach described in these pages. Through its integrated methods, I developed readings of the individual performance texts: identifications of their abstract, culturally specific themes, of the ways themes combine to communicate significance, and of the stylistic elaboration that defines and enhances segments of the performance. Each narrative genre was analyzed separately, about ten years falling between the analyses: first the tales, then the epic ballads. I went back to I layaland in the mid-1970s and engaged in dialogues with a number of people about themes in specific stories, playing tape-recorded performances and then discussing the dominant themes that seemed to be communicated. I had the longest and most intense discussions with Winifred Kisiraga, who was my field assistant from my earliest visit in 1968, and Richard Mutembei, the director of education for the Lutheran Diocese of Bukoba and a published scholar on Haya culture (Mutembei 1993). Glimpses of these critical conversations appear in the collection of I laya tales, See So '['hat We May See (Seitel 1980). We did not always agree. Most often 1 corrected my reading accordingly, but sometimes 1 felt 1 could say that, although we interlocutors might disagree about the relative importance of themes in a text, we did agree on the underlying system of abstract, culturally specific categories that articulate them. The analysis uncovered the cultural categories in which themes are phrased, but because our dialogue always had a vividly present context, it was sometimes difficult to distinguish unchanging themes from changing meaning. In other words, we might agree on the themes in the text (the semantic significance of the symbols and the ways they are properly combined) but did not agree on their meaning for the present. In the complex tale "Blocking the Wind," translated later, Mutembei understood the answer to the narrator's repeated question "What made him crazy?"

Introduction

13

primarily as hunger and secondarily as sexual desire; I and most others reversed the significance of these motivations. As demonstrated, the social identities of the characters, the contours of the social spaces, the temporal dimensions of the action, and the depicted acts themselves could support either reading. Even where disagreements occur, the genetically based interpretive system has revealed the thematic articulations that make contextual .meaning possible. Based on these interpretive discussions, I created the abovenamed complex work that includes transcriptions, translations, interpretations, and some descriptions of the dialogues that underlie them. 1 followed the same basic analytic sequence for the epic ballads, which are a more intricate genre in many ways. Particularly, they required many more hours of explication of words, images, and depicted acts, for which 1 consulted a wide range of teachers. The subsequent analytic procedure led to results that surprised me. The thematic constellation of elements pointed to an age of heroes, champions in ethical conflicts arising from and defined by the growth of a centralized state. My experience analyzing folktales prepared me for more domestically oriented themes. The stylistic constellation of elements not only marked the rhetorical, logically related narrative units in epics, as style does in folktales, but also created local patterns that can justly be called stanzas. They are recurrent local stylistic forms with changing lexical content; the)' are related to, but independent of, the overall rhetorical form; however, unlike European and Arabic stanzas they are formed with nonphonetic features. These results and the broader complex of which they are part formed the object of dialogues held during a brief, two-month visit to Kagera Region in 1995. My interlocutors included Winifred Kisiraga and Richard Mutembei; Odilon Ruta, who is editor of Cumuli, a Catholic monthly journal in the Luhaya language, and a Bible translator; a renowned and long-retired epic ballad performer known as Abdallah Fcza; and Dr. Mugyabuso Mulokozi, professor at the Institute of Kiswahili Research at the University of Dar es Salaam, whose doctoral dissertation (Mulokozi 1986) is devoted to the epic ballads. Dr. John Rutayuga, a sociologist resident in Washington, D.C., who participates in the administration of several nongovernmental organizations active in Kagera Region, has been a longtime friend and interlocutor on this and other topics. Briefly, all agree on the primary thematic significance of ethical conflict surrounding the growth of a centralized royalist state. This thematic complex was not surprising in the least to any of them. All agree on the existence of stanzaic form, although none hacl noticed it before. Of course, the exchange of ideas and insights has been richly textured, but I feel actual accounts of this dialogue have a place in a planned work fully devoted to the epic ballads rather than to this description of an interpretive system. With this system, the interpretation of narrative genres, like that of proverbs, can be informed by an ongoing dialogue of explication, analysis, interpretation, response, and reinterpretation.

14

The Powers of Genre

Dialogue between Elements in a Work of Art In a sense, any artist's performance is the context for a dialogue between form, material, and technique. An artist's approach to and selection of one has consequences for each of the other two. The process of creation can be thought of as a series of exchanges between the three: short and simple or extended and elaborate, the exchanges end when the work is complete. For example, if a West Virginia woodcarver carves a bear for a tourist market, his or her idea of form probably docs not develop much from beginning to end. Dialogue occurs primarily between material and technique, consisting of fine adjustments in understanding and control. But if our wooden bear is to be marketed as art, the dialogue, more richly rewarded, can be more elaborate: An initial idea of form may change slightly each time the carver pauses to observe the effects of technique on material. Considered over the course of a career, from one carving or performance to the next, this dialogue can become intricate and even transformative, as say, technique alters form and new materials entail new techniques. This dialogue between form, material, and technique also occurs in performances of verbal art. At the level of genre, Bakhtin's names for these very dimensions (in English) arc composition, theme, and style. Among them, within a single work, a performer creates a living dialogue. The speech genre to which the individual work refers or belongs is in a sense a collective memory of past dialogues between the three dimensions, a library of rhetorical forms, symbolic content, and linguistic manners from which a performerborrows, to which he or she may make a memorable contribution, and in which an audience can find the wisdom it needs to complete and interpret its aesthetic experience. In the present context, a speech genre is the background against which we can better understand and appreciate an individual artist's work, including the practiced, nuanced dialogue he or she creates between composition, theme, and style. An outside critic uncovers the articulations of significance in a -work by eavesdropping on (or retracing the turns of) that dialogue between dimensions, rather than by discovering a unitary system of meaning-form covariance. In presenting examples of genrepowered interpretation, I address this dialogue.

Genre The interpretive powers of genre grow from its ability to name and provide a perspective on four conceptual spheres: categorization of texts, iiitertextual reference, performance in a social field, and "form-shaping ideology"—a framework for creating and understanding kinds of speech. As categoriza-

Introduction

15

turn alone, genre can never satisfy: insufficient to a literary critic as mere "typologizing" (Jameson 1981:141); inaccurate to linguists as a taxonomic exercise undermined by the "messy" openness of speech systems (Bauman and Briggs 1992:140). But as I have noted, definition and description of a corpus are not the end but the beginning of interpretation; they provide a focus for analysis, a rich topic for critical dialogue. Ignoring the place of a text in a generic corpus, interpretation can miss thematic irony, hierarchy, and other relationships; it can be too free to flit where fancy takes it. In a model of ethnopoetic practice, Dell Hymes elegantly demonstrates how recognizing a generic trickster tale in a Clackamas Chinook narrative and a specific generic form in its indigenous title can bring correct focus to a wandering critical gaze (Hymes 1981). Observing intertextual references is another necessary component of interpreting a work of verbal art with the powers of genre. Intertextuality is a part of Bakhtin's concept of dialogism, in which all speech answers and refers to other speech already spoken. In its use by Bauman and Briggs, generic intertextuality consists of rules. It is conceived not as "an inherent property of the relation between a text and a genre but the construction of such a relationship." Interpretation is one set of generic rules: In performance, for example, a narrative may slip over the boundary from "personal reminiscence" to "tall tale" when its themes strain the interpretive rules of the former genre and demand those of the latter. Stylistic visage is another set of rules for the construction of this relationship: Speech genres can be contrasted by their relative use of "contextualization" (internal references to the vivid present like deixis and personal pronouns) versus its opposite, "entcxtualization" (fewer references to context and greater use of internally sufficient stylistic features like syntactic parallelism and proper names). But these textual elements do more symbolic work than signaling the necessity of constructing a relationship to particular generic frameworks. They also enter into dialogue with one another to create a particular generic view of the world. The works of a genre contain the knowledge of this generically circumscribed world and of how it has been, and can be, expressed. More than the abstract elements and the rules they signal—although its description includes accounts of these (Morcson and Emerson 1990:283)—genre is a collective memory for how to do important, recurring things with language. The worlds charted in distinct genres diverge, even within the same society. The world of Maya folktales is not the same as the world of Haya epic ballads. Of course, the worlds share certain territories, but their horizons are dissimilar. Generic worlds differ because genres typically do different kinds of work at different points in a social field, entering into strategic relationships with other practices—discursive and nondiscursive, institutional and noninstitutional—-whose power infuses their site of performance. Genres are

16

The Powers of Genre

arenas of strategic interaction between artistic production and broader modes of production and organization. Understanding genres as (parts of) concrete discursive practices raises the question of "where" genres exist. Are they "out there," an identifiable if changing body of texts? Or is genre solely a type of linguistic reference, the application of a set of rules that connects a particular utterance to or distances it from other previous utterances? If they are form-shaping ideologies, repositories of artistic and other forms of communal wisdom, definers of worlds, the means to creative understanding of literary works, and (parts of) knowledge-creating discursive practices, where does all this information reside? For some linguists, genres are not part of discourse structure at all but are mental competences in the use of language, frameworks for interpretation (Hanks 1996). They are rules for particular kinds of entextualization (use of completed, self-contained stylistic features) applied so that a text can be decontextualized and then recontextualized in another generically appropriate context (Bauman and Briggs 1992). For them, genres are thus rules for a kind of cntextualization in the vivid present context and a kind of contextualization (reference to contextual elements) in the broader horizon. For a literary critic, genre is also collective wisdom: Interilluminating symbolic codes in a generic corpus form a basis for interpreting individual works. Genre is also "equipment for Living," recurrent types of symbolic acts performed in a historically defined social field. Content, form, and style found in concrete texts support interpretive practice. Genre is not just rules for managing relationships among texts and contexts—it is part of the real world, "out there" as a collection of works and the •wisdom that inheres in them. In addition to trying to integrate these linguistic and literary perspectives, the present interpretive approach attends to the dialogue between the dimensions of a literary work. Features that create entextualizatioii and signal intertextual reference are related generically as much to each other as they are to different kinds of contexts. For this reason, characteristic features of composition, theme, and style (analogous to the form, material, and technique of our woodcarver) are understood both internally within the -work as dimensions that relate in a generic and aesthetically pleasing way and externally in the world as components of symbolic acts in the vivid present of performance and in the -wider horizon of economic, social, cultural, and artistic relationships. 1 would submit that generic relationships are internal to discourse structure to the extent that composition, theme, and style relate to each other in generically characteristic ways. They are external to it to the extent that performers, audiences, and critics use and refer to the rules that construct and interpret commonly known texts and to the collective knowledge and worldly wisdom remembered in them. It seems genre is internal to discourse structure in the study of some phe-

Introduction

17

nomena and external to it in the study of other phenomena—rather like light, which behaves as waves or particles depending on the experiment. Genre is solid and "out there" in the form of remembered and/or collected texts, and it is also an ideological construct, one of the emergent processes we use to interpret our speech and enable symbolic action.

Fmalizatiori and Utifinalizability "Finalization" as a critical term refers to the sense of completion achieved in an artistic work. It is the awareness by performer arid audience that a work or some part of it is finished, complete. The concept plays a central role in Bakhtin's thinking about genre, but it is a very old critical tool for studying literature. Aristotle, for example, begins a section of his Poetics, "Now, according to our definition, Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is complete and whole. . . ." Baklitin developed the idea in several directions. Early in his career, he declared that an author's primary role is to create a finalized aesthetic whole (cited in Moreson and Emerson 1990:73). But later, unfinalizability emerged as the more important concept. Bakhtin observed that although the world created by the author is finalized, the world inhabited by the author can never be. An author's characters can be finalized, but living personalities are unfinalizable. Bakhtin's characterization of Dostocvsky as the first creator of the polyphonic ("many voiced") novel in which characters become personalities and his valorization of the carnivalesque in his work on Rabelais place unfinalizability as the highest form of artistic representation, for it imitates the dialogic quality of social life. Finalization produces monologue, a mode of discourse associated with centralized, coercive authority. Unfinalizability, on the other hand, produces dialogue, a mode of discourse associated with unofficial, unconstrained interaction. This set of conceptual dichotomies also contrasts entextualization (stylization with generic features) and contextualization (references to the vivid present), the former being associated with the finalization, monologue, authority axis; the latter allied to unfinalizability, dialogue, and informality. Kuipers's work (1990) on Weyewa ritual speech in Indonesia, for example, traces a continuum of generic speech events from less formal interactions that use contextualized speech to more formal events that use entextualizcd forms. Entextualization creates monologues of authority. He constructs the continuum with discrete events within an institutional practice of healing rituals from diagnosing to curing. Successive speech events move from contexualizing speech to entextualized speech, a change measured by diminishing numbers of such contextualizing features as personal pronouns and locutives and increasing numbers

18

The Powers of Genre

of entcxtualizing features such as semantic-ally formed couplets. This movement from dialogue to monologue in the construction of authority is similar, Kuipers notes, to the creation of authority in the practice of our own doctors and lawyers, who also proceed from contexualized, dialogic data gathering to entextualized, monologic, institutionally sanctioned pronouncements. The present interpretive approach views entextualization as the generic fmalization of style. Penalization is used extensively by the present approach and in illustrations of its capacity for careful, appreciative analyses of verbal art. Bakhtin observes that particular genres reach characteristic kinds of finalizations in the three dimensions of a literary work—composition, style, and theme. In this perspective, fmalization is an artistic achievement by the collectivity of performers in a tradition, whose fertile, shared, enduring patterns assist creation and interpretation. Finalization is also an artistic achievement by individual performers who, if they are proficient, almost always transform shared patterns to create generic artistic completion in seemingly infinitely variable ways. And fmalization is the achievement of engaged, informed audiences who cooperatively provide generically appropriate support for performances, which includes responding properly, supplying collateral understandings, and furnishing customary economic rewards. But in light of the foregoing discussion of finalization in contemporary linguistic analysis, how can I speak of any ftnalizations, even relatively benign literary finalizations, without constructing a system that unfavorably allies them with monologic authority and opposes them to the dialogic unfinalizability of free conversational speech? I think there are two defensible reasons for viewing finalization in a critically favorable perspective. The first is that unfinalizability can only be represented and conceived in contrast with finalization. The two are alternating energies that propel perception and insight. Revelatory artistic works and critically penetrating commentaries live on the edge of finalization and unfinalizability. They combine them, even if aspects of some, like Dostoevsky's novels, arc ultimately unfinalized. Finalization is not merely a lawyer's brief, a hamfisted bureaucrat's two-word decision, or a well-manicured vice president's report to the shareholders. It is the tool for creating and interpreting artistic visions of communal cultural potentials, for achieving individual and collective insight, and for formulating carefully phrased, historically situated commentaries on the human condition. There is a second reason to unreservedly explore ftnalization's specific generic forms, their interactions, and their implications for interpretation. Most forms of literary expression in the world still aspire to various kinds of finalization as their paramount goal. Dostoevsky's achievement of the polyphonic novel did not make all other forms of literary expression obsolete or

Introduction

19

even less worthy. To be accorded serious critical attention, works need not necessarily have this kind of polyphonic form or style. And conversely, to look for iiovclistic polyphony, unftnalixability, and contextualized speech in genres that aim at a different sort of finalization for their art is not to do them justice. Having made clear, then, what is meant by interpretation and genre, having indicated the usefulness of the latter to the former, having discussed the relevance to this project of the often used concepts context and dialogue, and having indicated the central role to be played by the idea of artistic finalixation, I proceed to demonstrate the interpretive engine powered by genre and illustrate its results. I draw representative examples from the genres of verbal art created and nurtured by generations of Haya performers and audiences whose historical situation and critical insight inform the analysis. An approximately 2,000-year tenure in the region west of Lake Victoria has produced, among other valued creations, a rich and vibrant literature. To continue the dialogue with this humane and heroic legacy, and to help others project it into the future, is also an aim of this work.

The I lay a

Over a million Haya people live in Kagera Region in northwestern Tanzania. They call themselves Ba/iaya (singular, Muhaya), their territory Buf/aya, and their language l^uhqya, which is one of the Bantu linguistic group, with its distinctive noun prefixes. Hayas are intensive agriculturalists, mulching, manuring, and otherwise tending plantain bananas as a staple and coffee as a cash crop in perennial groves that surround household dwellings. Villages are composed of clustered houses and their groves. Traditionally, men are responsible for cultivation of the tree crops. Women's work, in addition to the tasks associated with food preparation, household management, and child care, is primarily located in the fields surrounding the villages. In these outlying fields women break ground for, plant, tend, and harvest such annual crops as millet, groundnuts, and beans. On land adjacent to the treed plots that shares the latter's high fertility, women also grow yams, cassava, onions, peppers, and other supplements to the diet. Hayas also keep cattle, both the long-horned Ankolc type and the shorthorned Zebu variety. They use them for milk and meat and for manuring the plantain groves. Cattle ownership profoundly influenced the shape of traditional society in Hayaland, as it did in most of the other ethnic groups collectively known as the interlacustrine Bantu. In almost all these societies, social relationships formed in cattle keeping were instrumental in establishing a kingship and a state bureaucracy. The third principal economic activity, fishing, is said to have been the liveli-

20

The Powers of Genie

hood of the original Bahaya, who dwelt in fishing villages along the western shore of Lake Victoria. Their intrepid descendants still fish in dugout canoes among the often violent waves of the vast but shallow lake they call Ln>eru, "Great White." Their catch feeds their families and is traded farther afield in fresh and dried forms. As a group, fishermen traditionally held lower social prestige than cattle owners and agriculturalists. But the proprietary spirit they conceived to guide their work, Mugasha, also sacred to fishermen in other ethnic groups on the lake, once did epic battle with the cattle-owning Icing of gods, Wamara, and with the latter's grandson, the hotspur warrior, Kagolo, and he fought them to a draw. The fishermen's god, the embodiment of nonroyal values, intruded on the moral imagination of the state. Maya forms of economic production shaped the content of oral literature. As foundations of precolonial society, cattle keeping, agriculture, and fishing were the principal economic activities portrayed. In addition, the production, distribution, and consumption of these resources were regulated by ethical principles associated with and enforced by particular social institutions. This form of ethical knowledge shaped the economic practices, and it also shaped the thematic content of Haya literary representations. As in other interlacustrine Bantu societies, royal states in I layaland were constructed by integrating cattle keeping and agriculture within centralized and hierarchical institutional structures (B. Taylor 1969; Mafeje 1991). In this process, patrilineal clans, whose control of agriculture once enabled them to wield the sole economic, cultural, and political power in the region, became subordinated to a state built with the practices and ethics of cattle keeping. The processes of accommodation and subordination were still in progress in Hayalaiid when colonialism introduced yet other forms of institutional relationships. Clans were never completely subordinated to a state structure because they never lost the power to allocate land for agricultural production. Their success 111 retaining this power seems to have resulted from the alliances clans built with kings but also from the opposition they still could present to unstable kingships. The fact that clan practices were never totally subordinated to those of the state, especially in land holding, meant that the ethical knowledge of clans never lost its hold on economic practices or on the creative imagination. Especially in the oral genre of epic, the ethical knowledge that informs clan practices might stand in opposition to the ethics of the state. And, conversely, the state opposition to clan ethics never ceased to be an appropriate topic for literary art. The precolonial state and social organization in Hayaland were shaped by the same historical forces that built other interlacustrine kingdoms. By the fifteenth century in what is now eastern Uganda, Luo-spcaking pastoralists had established the Bito dynasty in the kingdom of Kitara, which began to spread its influence westward and then southward. By the seventeenth century, eight

Introduction

21

kingdoms had been created in Hayaland, one by the original Bito royal clan and the others by the Hinda, an offshoot of the Bito. A small number of royal clans also ruled the other interlacustrine Bantu states. It seems paradoxical that these states greatly resemble one another as products of similar techniques of statecraft, for the Luo who began the process apparently had no tradition of state building prior to their interlacustrine campaigns. The marked similarity among the states of this lake region seems to have resulted from the state builders' common use of cattle to create relationships of dependence between cattle owners and agriculturalists and from the relatively easy communication among the royal families, courtiers, and religious specialists of different kingdoms. The original Bito dynasty in Kitara is said to have displaced a mysterious and short-lived dynasty known throughout the area as the Bachwezi. Opinions differ about their origins, but many agree that when they died their spirits began to possess particular mediums, thus establishing a religious practice that spans in its many permutations the entire interlacustrine area. The transformation of the Bachwezi into possessing spirits also established a precedent for the spirits of more recently dead kings of the Hinda and Bito dynasties to possess their own ritual specialists. In this development, one begins to discern that interlacustrine religious discourse—in addition to the care it directed to the spiritually afflicted—was an instrument and an effect of political power (Berger 1981; Schmidt 1978). A legitimizing ancestral link to the Bachwezi and a royally sanctioned religion were common ideological tools of statecraft, but the economic and political foundations of Haya states lay in rulers' ability to orchestrate agricultural production and pastoralism in a territorial and hierarchical structure. The genius of this statecraft lay in the creation of mutually supportive state institutions. State building in Hayaland seems to have begun with two principal resources: large herds of cattle—productive, movable capital with instrumental (manure, milk, blood), exchange (bricleprice), and symbolic (prestige) values—along with the military means to control their distribution. With the lever of a warrior organization on the fulcrum of cattle, state builders ultimately moved indigenous populations to construct judicial, legislative, economic, and religious institutions. Both preeminent, powerful clans and the practice of cattle owning evidently existed in Hayaland and surrounding territories before the invasion of the Hinda and Bito. But the kin-based organization of the indigenous groups evidently could not mount an effective opposition to the invaders' economic and military strategies for creating territorial structures of dominance. Kimambo (1969) plausibly suggests that the process of creating a state based on inequality between rulers and ruled was not necessarily violent. The tactics of carrot and stick—cattle and warriorhood—seem versatile and effec-

22

The Powers of Genre

tive. They could overcome kernels of resistance in particular clan villages or in individual hearts perhaps with only the sporadic application of force, causing those kernels to be coated in layers of grudging acceptance, or converting individuals and their families to the historically progressive state ethic of subordination and reward. In the kind of cattle ownership introduced by the state, all rights in cattle were held ultimately by the king. This point is made clear in a summary of traditional Haya law written to inform colonial jurisprudence: In former times the Chief alone disposed of cattle. From the spoils of war, from his own herds etc. he distributed beasts among his relatives, favourites and prominent soldiers. Although for the last 50 years everyone has been allowed to own cattle, the original descendants of these recipients are still the richest cattle owners. (Cory and Hartnoll 1945:167)

A web of arrangements for parceling out rights of usufruct in milk and manure distributed cattle in society and confirmed the legitimacy of the king as ultimate cattle owner, or as Hayas call him, mukama, "milker." Cattle increased the fertility of one's land with manure, the health of one's family through milk, the prestige of one's bearing in leather clothing. And the only legal way to get this desirable resource was to enter into a contractual agreement that ultimately supported the state. A family could acquire cattle in brideprice, and if the marriage joined a woman from a nonroyal clan with a man from the king's clan (the opposite was not possible), the woman's family, her eihiga, took on a semiroyal status known as enfula. The term eibiga, "hearthstone," refers to a subsection of a clan, which can vary in inclusivencss and in generational depth. YLnfulstatus improved one's standing in various social spheres, but the resources needed to maintain its associated demeanor might be difficult to sustain, as witnessed by the literal meaning of the well-known Haya proverb, "An enjula who does not borrow shames his or her subclan." The proverb alludes to a yearning for inclusion that Mayas call kuboneka hamoi, "to appear together (with a person of high status)." The indigenous social organization of Haya agriculturalists was the patrilineal clan, an institution with much greater time depth and many more economic, social, and religious functions than the royal state. State builders, some of whom were surely members of indigenous clans, worked to incorporate this useful old institution in a centralized body. They did this in a number of ways. Certain functions remained primarily in clan hands: most of the procedures that govern marriage and inheritance, for example. Institutions were created to involve clans in the governing processes of the state: the baramata, an advisory council composed of commoners that was resident at the king's court; the balekwa ministers, who manned nodes of administrative power and

Introduction

23

intelligence in the royal bureaucracy; and a system of clan residences, clan occupational specialties, and clan obligations at the king's court. One clan practice was abolished (with less than total success)—the blood feud, which exacted justice according to the ethic of a life for life. A centralized judicial system gave the state a monopoly in the legitimate use of force. Patrilineal clans exercised economic power through their control over the disposition of land in inheritance. The state successfully challenged the clan monopoly in this area, achieving the right to dispose of some land according to a feuda!4ike system that confirmed the legitimacy of the state. On the evidence of the customary 1 lava laws of land tenure, as compiled by Cory and Hartnoll from the testimony of 11 ay a judicial elders, land was still an arena of contention between clan and state in 1945. The mixed quality of land tenure at that time reflects an ongoing institutional conflict between state and clan, the ethical dimensions of which are sometimes thcmatized in Haya literary art. Traditionally there were four types of land: the wilderness (ilungii), the fields surrounding villages that support annual plantings (liveyd), the land that can support perennial tree crops within a village but has not been so planted (kisf), and the land with tree crops of banana and coffee that surround the dwellings in a village (fmva(e'). Wilderness and fields were traditionally disposed in the same way, as were planted and unplanted land for tree crops, so the four types can for present purposes be reduced to two: land outside the villages and land inside the villages. The use of outside lands was controlled by particular clans through the agency of the muhalambiva, a hereditary ritual officiant belonging to the first: clan to settle a particular area. Outside lands were by and large controlled by clans, with few inroad:; by the state. Conflict focused on the highly fertile homestead land in villages, each plot of which was called a kibanja (plural blbanja). Rights of allocation for this valuable property could be held either by a patrilineal clan, which usually exercised its right according to the rules of inheritance, or by the king, through his appointee, who held land as part of a royal estate or nyarubanja. Traditionally, a tenant on a nyantbanja plot occupied his land at the pleasure of the nyarubanja holder, as the latter held his position at the pleasure of the king. The tenant was free to move elsewhere if he chose. All householders paid tribute to the king, but tenants also paid rent to the nyarubanja holder. Before the advent of the state, I would hazard a guess that all rights in homestead land were held by clans or by a clan-supported institution such as a spirit medium of one of the Bachwczi pantheon. Thus, it seems reasonable to gauge the extent and nature of the state's feudal-like dominance of agricultural production by answering two questions, one quantitative, one qualitative: How much of clan lands ultimately came to be controlled by the state? What were the mechanisms by which clan land could be taken over by the state?

24

The Powers of Genre

Comprehensive statistics have not been compiled from land registry records for Hayaland as a whole on the relative amounts of clan land and nyarubanja. But in one kingdom, the centrally located Maruku, Pnscilla Reining did such a compilation in 1954 and found that only 10 percent of household lands were held in nyarubanja, a significant acquisition by the state but by no means close to total control (Reining 1962). Although the proportion surely varied over the seven kingdoms (Karagwe had no nyarubanja), the likely picture is one of significant power in this crucial area retained by liaya clans. In regulating the inheritance and use of land, and in shaping the many associated economic and ritual practices, clans retained their moral force. Reflecting the somewhat royal bias of their sources, Cory and Hartnoll record the following about the traditional practices of land ownership: Originally the Chief and his subjects considered all land to be the property of the Chiefdom, since the Chief, in his capacity as Chief, had the unrestricted right of allocation and deprivation . . . The Chiefs probably still hold this view and certainly certain institutions which are still in force would appear to uphold it e.g. that of obuchweke, which holds that the landed property of a man who dies without male paternal relatives and without sons reverts to the Chief. . . . Since there is a possibility that any plantation in the Chiefdom might revert to the Chief, he must consider that in principle all cultivated land is the property of the Chiefdom, though the rights over it are very severely restricted and can only be exercised in certain circumstances. (1945:155) Whether the rights of kings in land are to be considered "unrestricted" or "severely restricted," it is clear that kings held them potentially. They could exert them only under certain circumstances. Cory and Hartnoll record in several contexts that the king of Ihangiro was trying to widen some of these royal prerogatives. In a sense, the state accjuired land principally by exploiting a negative aspect of women's status in patricians. The state was able to institute a rule whereby abandoned land became state property. Land was apparently abandoned because of spiritually caused misfortune in a household or because of an owner's death without a male heir (pbuchmke, cited in the preceding quote). Being cursed in either of these ways, the land was to be excluded from clan life. The absence of male kin was a spiritual blight on the clan, and in many cases may have also meant the marked and unwelcome presence of female offspring. Although females brought brideprice to patricians, they had no standing in the inheritance of property. Their marked presence was a curse on the land. But to the state, marked women were good fortune. When a man died without a male heir, the presence of women was an occasion for acquiring land. In

Introduction

25

the same situation, the women themselves might be acquired by the king as courtesans (banana, singular mn^ana, possibly from oku-^ana, "to play, as in a game," an institution that became defunct in the early twentieth century). The contrasting social values placed on •women in this arena of struggle between state and clan are evident in the four widely known Haya epics that thematize institutional conflict (three of which are dealt with in detail here). Of the four, the two that praise slate ethics portray courtesan-like women positively, whereas the two that have praise for clan ethics represent women in marriage roles negatively. This remarkable ideological contrast and correlation embodies cultural facts about gender relationships, state formation, and the representation of institutional ethics in literary themes. It is noted here in passing to indicate the kinds of intersection possible between Haya cultural history and the critical system to be developed. The precolonial domestic economy of Hayaland, then, was a combination of household agriculture conducted according to clan institutional practices, tenant farming governed in part by the practices of the state, cattle holding shaped by state-supporting exchanges involving rights in usufruct, and fishing. Having built a state with cattle and a warrior organization, the kings and their statesmen evidently were satisfied—or found it necessary to be satisfied—with asserting their total control of land in posse, while chipping away at clan holdings in esse through the clans' discriminatory beliefs and practices regarding women. Clans opposed the inequality among men on which the state was based. They asserted instead the ethic of' reciprocity between male equals, which ideally informed relations in a society of clans with equal standing. The clan ethic of reciprocity governed relationships outside the household, whereas the diffuse and enduring solidarity of kinship, shaped into a multitude of roles, ideally governed relationships inside the household. "Inside" and "outside" were relative terms; thus, for example, collateral and affinal relationships might be one or the other, depending on circumstances. But exchange between clans, consisting primarily of women in marriage, was ideally reciprocal and among equals. Similarly, in contacts between individuals ranging from greeting to trading of goods and services, the ideal was exchange among equals. When an "outside" relationship required the diffuse solidarity of kin, a fictive kinship could be formed. This was the case with trading associates, who would assist one another by regularly providing food and lodging. Host and guest would swear a blood brotherhood, easing their relationship by removing the ethic of strict reciprocity and allowing the enduring solidarity of kin ethics to even things up over time. Opposed to reciprocal exchange was the state ethic of subordination and reward. This institutionalization of inequality could be seen in the relationship between clan representatives and the king in the royal court, in the roles of individuals in new state institutions such as royal warriors and office hold-

26

The Powers of Genre

ers, and in the exchanges of daily life, such as women in marriage and salutations in greeting. Marriage became subject to the rule of hypergamy, by which women of commoner clans could marry men of the ruling clans—creating the enfula status described previously—but not vice versa. Men of commoner clans saw this as taking reproductive potential without giving any in exchange, an extraordinarily gluttonous consumption that could be likened to witchcraft: "They eat our children" was a way of naming this situation (Dauer 1984); the same ruler-commoner cannibal image is ironically embodied in a folktale "What Was It That Killed Koro?" (Seitel 1980). Asymmetry in greeting was also part of state practice and was resented by members of commoner clans. Ondamya! "Give me full respect in greeting!" was said to have been the battlecry of a peasant revolt in the Kihanja kingdom of Hayaland in the mid-1950s. Coffee growing has long been of social and economic value in Hayaland. Once the sole prerogative of kings, it was expanded greatly under German colonial rule in the early twentieth century, and it was systematized and forcefully promoted by the British in the 1930s. In 1950, the Bukoba Native Cooperative Union (BNCU, later the ECU) began as an indigenously run agency for improving coffee cultivation and for marketing the produce of individual growers (Raid and Raid 1975). Since Tanzania's independence from Britain in 1961, coffee has accounted for the majority of foreign exchange earned in this region. The cash economy in coffee has had good and bad years, determined primarily by weather conditions and international fluctuations in price. Unfortunately, the relatively good years of the early 1970s were followed by a decline which, combined with other factors, has brought difficulties to Hayas and other citizens of Tanzania. Increases in the price of oil and other imports in the mid-1970s was a burden placed on peoples in all developing nations. But hurtful in this region alone was the 1971 coup in Uganda by Idi Amin. The loss of life and limb and human dignity suffered in Uganda was shared by Hayas when in October 1978 the army of the military dictator invaded and briefly held the Kagera Salient, a northern sector of the Kagera Region where Hayas live. Major social and economic disruption issued from this shock and from the militarization of the region needed to push Amin's forces back in December 1978 and ultimately bring his defeat and overthrow in 1979. The burden of this military campaign and of the subsequent year-long occupation of Uganda affected the economy for years. Not until the mid-1980s did a modest economic recovery begin. Later in the 1980s, an AIDS epidemic spread to this region, causing added social stress. The 1990s have brought a modest economic revival in Kagera Region.

Introduction

27

Maya Verbal Art I try to be a good audience for Haya verbal art. It is part of my critical method. I have enjoyed listening to it, collecting it, discussing it and, in a limited way, performing it. I admire it—even in its diminished shape, frozen on audiotape or printed on a page—for the intricate cross-talk between its dimensions, its soaring individual performances, and its elegant way of speaking to historical experience. The full range of my appreciation shapes intuitions that guide analysis. I believe I see this in the oral literary criticism of others, whose work 1 greatly admire. I hope the reader will also be entertained by it, for involvement can enhance understanding. Monitoring and sorting out our own resonances is an important tool in analysis. A chord struck by sensational effects like a lover's penis taken as a battlefield trophy or a new bride's farts discussed in open court can lead to understanding of the cultural matrix from which such symbols came and of the interpretive methods that framed them there. Even more so can subtle amusement at seeing figurative meanings blurred or plumbed or ancient grievances comically enacted in the antics of a grotesque spirit. I also ask readers to entertain the examples of proverbs, folktales, and epics the way they would the utterances of an interlocutor. One hears in them an affirmation (or denial) of a critical assertion, and something more: a counterstatement, a qualification, an extension of topic. Queried about logic, a proverb speaks of ethics. Queried about plot and syntax, a folktale adds dynamics of voice. Queried about theme and history, an epic formulates its response in poetry. Of course, I believe the verbal art collected here confirms my critical conclusions, but there is always—in an individual text or in the collectivity of genre—an assertion of extra form or added significance that is not encompassed by the analysis as it now stands. Almost every rereading of a complex text or of items in a genre brings a new twist to light, creating the opportunity for critical nuance or the necessity for critical growth. As if listening to an interlocutor, we are not entirely certain what the texts will say—especially to a listener with greater cultural knowledge, linguistic skill, anthropological insight, folkloristic experience, or semiotic talent. But even for a reader who ultimately can see only as much as I can see and tell about these verses, tales, and metaphors, my hope is that the unheard harmonies and residues of significance will help create an entertaining conversation. For although the primary goal of this book is to describe and to demonstrate a genre-powered approach to verbal art, a secondary goal is surely to affirm the aesthetic pleasures offered by the texts.

28

The Powers of Genre

Three Dimensions of Genre Composition Generic compositional finalization creates the underlying logical form of an utterance, a section of an utterance, or an exchange of utterances. Compositional finalization shapes the plot of a story, the contrast and analogy of a proverb use, and the dialectics of riddling. Its discovery is modeled by Propp's functional analysis of Russian wonder tales. Propp identified the characteristic \vays that a body of recognizably similar tales become logically, or compositionally, complete. Beginning with episodes (van Dijk 1982) as constituent units of the tale, he classified them according to the function each performs with respect to the development of its plot as a whole. The resulting types are finite in number and consistently ordered and, when added together, describe an abstract plot: This is the generic compositional logic of the tales. The success of Propp's method suggests that compositional finalization in any discourse genre—narrative or nonnarrative— may be discovered by identifying abstract, functional, part-whole relationships in individual utterances and by viewing them across a significant number of generically similar utterances. In genres that are not so familiar or recognizably similar, the method of discovery is somewhat more intuitive initially, for at first (as when describing an unwritten language) the analysis cannot be confined rigorously to isolating a single kind of pattern. One often must consult stylistic markers and thematic significance to identify functional relationships and isolate compositional components. But once a generic compositional logic has been formulated, it can be systematically evaluated according to the number of utterances it accounts for, the degree to which compositional and stylistic finalizations coincide to make communication clear, and the degree to which compositional and thematic finalizations coincide to articulate important themes. The brief account of Maya proverbs in chapter 2 discovers compositional finalization in a nonnarrative genre, -where, as in narratives, composition provides an underlying logic for formulating and interpreting a kind of verbal art. Proverbial compositional logic is shown to consist of paired, parallel, and opposed propositions, one or both of which may be overtly expressed in a given text. The dominant theme in a proverb is consistently articulated in a ratio formed by four terms, two in each proposition. Proverbial compositional logic enables interpretation—once its expected contours have been divined in an often stylized syntax—by clearly isolating the semantic contrasts that articulate themes. In the narrative genres treated in chapters 3 and 4, as in proverbs, principal themes consistently appear in specific compositional units. This consistency

Introduction

29

brings a certainty of interpretation that is borne out in subsequent interviews with Hayas. In folktales, this unit may be signaled by the presence of a song or other form of stylistic elaboration. All songs in Haya folktales occur in the same genetically defined unit, the third in the series of five episode types. Similarly, among the eight units that create compositional fiiialization in epic, the second consistently demonstrates the rich thematic fit between a heroic mode of literary imagination and a historical epoch of state building. In both forms of narrative, simple compositional sequences are shown to be embedded in one another to form complex plots, in the way simple sentences are combined as clauses to form complex sentences.

Style

As composition refers to abstract logical form, style refers to concrete verbal pattcrnings. In Flaya proverbs, a lavish variety of stylistic symmetries represents a single compositional logic. In performance, this variable yet elegant relationship between style and logic sometimes creates a momentary puzzle that requires a culturally informed solution—the appropriate effect of a genre spoken to make educated speakers pause. In Haya folktales and epic narratives, the analysis of style uses a compositionally informed contrast-within-a-frame strategy combined with a concordance method. 1 lere "frames," or rigorously defined contexts into which various elements may be seen to be substituted, are the junctures between generic episode types. Linguistic elements occurring in these contexts are taken to constitute a set of features that can signify disjuncture. All occurrences of every feature in the set are then plotted in the manner of a concordance, to assess the range of the feature's functions (and the explanatory adequacy of the compositional segmentation). The complete, plotted distributions of features—represented in line-by-line "scores" (table 3.5 in chapter 3 and table 5.1 in chapter 5)—are a basis for understanding stylistic symmetry and function. Mapped in this way, the features are revealed to be clearly multifunctional The same element may signal junctures at various levels of importance in the plot; it may also emphasize continuities, specify temporal relationships among episodes, or merely mark die importance of particular lines; and it may perform these narrative functions singly, in separate occurrences, or in combination, in a single occurrence. Features seem relatively freely substitutable for one another: For example, voice modulation and temporal adverbs equally mark similar points in a narrative. These two aspects of the distribution—multifunctionality of elements and their substitutability for one another at similar junctures— describe a functional relationship between a relatively constant way of achieving compositional finalizatioii and a relatively variable, even playful, stylistic usage.

30

The Powers of Genre

To be sure, some constant relationships between style and plot do exist: Songs always occur in the same episode type in folktales, and opening and closing formulas always occur in their expected places. And stylistic predilections also can be found: Certain features tend to mark important compositional junctures in epics, and several features may cluster at such a narrative turning point. But, as can be clearly read in the stylistic scores, one-to-one relationships between particular features and particular kinds of junctures are not the rule. The relationship between plot and style in a text is thus one in which a repeated form (generic composition) is marked by diverse and relatively freely varying symbolic elements (verbal tenses, adverbs, voice modulations). The rule that generates this distribution can be described as bricolage, after LeviStrauss's description of totemic logic (Levi-Strauss 1966). Use of the term is meant to emphasize the systematic, if contingent, association between style and plot and the origin of this functional relationship in the culturally informed genius of the bricoleur, or craftsman/improviser. In contrast with Levi-Strauss's system, the underlying logic is cultural and generic rather than part of a universal, linguistic unconscious. As discussed in chapter 3, this approach to understanding the relationship of style to plot contrasts with purely linguistic, "bottom-up" approaches to narrative discourse, which seem to seek stable relationships of covariance between stylistic features and levels in a hierarchy of narrative organization, rather like the hierarchy in written discourse ideally signaled by marks of punctuation such as commas, semi-colons, periods, and paragraph conventions. In Haya epics, application of contrast-within-a-frame and concordance methods in stylistic analysis reveal, in addition to artfully marked disjunctions and continuities, a seeming excess of occurrences. These turn out to be part of another system of stylistic usage, one that creates poetic stanzas. Like Arabic, Swahili, and various Indo-European stanzas, Haya stanzaic patterns are recurring, locally finalized stylistic forms that create coherence between multiple poetic lines. But unlike the others, Haya stanzas are based on similarity and contrast between nonphonological features of speech (syntax, semantics, and lexicon) rather than phonological features (rhyme and meter). They also differ from the others in the flexibility of their forms and in the variety of stanza types present within a single text. The discovery of this system of stanzaic versification proceeded from a top-down analysis of style, which seemed to uncover an excess in distribution of the stylistic features defined by compositionally informed contrast-withina-frame and concordance methods. I believe this is the first description of nonphonological poetic stanzas larger than couplets.

Introduction

31

Theme

Theme refers to content, to the significance that is produced by relationships between symbols present or implied in a text. As in the works of Turner (1985), Hymes (1981), Beidelman (1986), Jackson (1982), and Todorov (1975), themes are understood to be abstract, culturally specific ideas articulated by semantic contrasts between symbols juxtaposed in such discursive units as narrative episodes or proverb images. Themes can only be identified through specific cultural knowledge, and once identified, they can be seen to form patterns, or finalizations, characteristic of particular genres. The present approach treats theme largely as style was treated, understanding it in a compositionally oriented, top-down perspective while using the same bottom-up method within individual texts that combines contrastwithin-a-frame and concordance strategies. It is possible in this way to identify a regular association between generic compositional logic and the themes that can be called dominant. As natives, we intuitively understand this regular association between theme and composition in particular discourse genres: We try to "get" the punch line in a joke, expect the "lead" not to be "buried" in a newspaper report, rank the sections of a job applicant's resume with a knowing eye, and enjoy the meaningful mayhem of the showdown in a Hollywood western movie. "Genetically favored" is how I name these compositional features that are the regular loci for dominant themes. Chapter 2 identifies the genetically favored unit in Haya proverbs, a ratio formed by terms in the pair of parallel and opposing propositions that constitute proverbial logic. The theme articulated by the symbols in this ratio is dominant in the sense that it is the principal one deployed to describe a given problem and to prescribe a solution. Other themes introduced by the connotations of particular symbols are subordinated to, and augment the rhetorical force of, the dominant theme. Chapter 3 identifies the gencrically favored unit in Haya folktales and demonstrates that it forms a template for elaborating a plot through encapsulated sequences and simultaneous laycrings of similarly configured symbols. As in proverbs, the hierarchy of themes in folktales is shown to depend on compositional logic; themes articulated in encapsulated and layered configurations are subordinated to those expressed in a tale's principal sequence. Chapter 4 makes clear the usefulness of the favored compositional unit both for interpreting a single text and for understanding the functional relationship between a genre and its typical performance context. Knowing the configuration of the favored episode enables one to sift through a multitude of thematic effects. In Haya epics, themes identified this way represent the ethical components of a heroic society: cultural identities created and maintained in active struggle; ethical values strongly differentiated according to social station; and a

32

The Powers of Genre

central conflict between state and prestate institutions. Through the medium of this compositionally informed analysis, Haya epic engages its global counterparts in dialogue not only on the stylistic synthesis of verse and narrative but also on the ethical dimensions of that poetic ideal we call the heroic society. Chapter 4 also compares the fit between dominant themes and performance contexts across genres. As one would expect for a society as complexly differentiated as the Haya, genres differ markedly in their ethical content. The practice of telling folktales, usually done at the domestic hearth, has a strategic relationship to the patrilineal clan, whose power permeates this sector of the social field. Epics, formerly sung at the royal court and at public receptions in the homes of prominent clan leaders, are a literary arena of ethical struggle between opposing institutions: an ascendant state and patrilineal clans insistent on their traditional power and the moral claim that goes with it. Proverbs, on the other hand, can be spoken almost anywhere: to demonstrate one's erudition at the royal court, to negotiate the niceties of a clan marriage, even to denounce in a whisper the selfishness of a relative or the ungratefulness of a royal patron. The typical performance contexts of proverbs are infused by various kinds of individual and collective power, and the variety of ethical perspectives expressed in them seems to reflect this. By concentrating on a single, complex narrative, chapter 6 amplifies and refines the methods of thematic analysis based on a compositionally informed, top-down and bottom-up approach to verbal art discourse. Central to this development is seeing the favored compositional unit as a generic paradigm— a recurrent set of symbolic categories that represent the world envisioned in a particular genre. This paradigm recurs in the majority of episodes in the narrative, creating an intense thematic coherence. The overall plan of the book, in short, is as follows. Chapter 2 defines, isolates, and explores compositional finalization by quoting proverbs from Haya tradition. What is meant by the central concept of ftnalization as a feature of generic discourse is explored at many possible levels. The uncanny generic relationship between theme and composition is established. Chapter 3 analyzes the playfully problematic relationship between style and composition and between simple and complex forms of compositional finalizations within a single narrative genre. Chapter 4 explores the question of thematic distributions within individual texts, within genres, and across genres within a complex social field. It also reveals the heroic society in classical Haya epics. This description adapts some of the concepts used by Michel Foucault (1978) in his treatment of the history of European discourse on sexuality. In part II, the interpretive powers of genre are used in a stylistic and thematic analysis of one of the epic ballads presented in chapter 4. A summary and conclusion suggests some of the implications for research of the demonstrated method of analysis.

Part I Style, Theme, and Composition in Genre

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2

The Logic of Proverbs

In this chapter, I begin to present and illustrate an interpretive method based in the powers of genre. Proverbs demonstrate that compositional finalrzation produces a logical form—the characteristic shape of truth in the world defined by a genre. This single, simple shape can be transformed in a number of ways to create a myriad of texts and to interpret them. It is the skeletal support of nonnarrative genres like proverbs as well as narrative genres and is crucial to interpretation in both. To an insider, it is a compass-rose that indicates dimensions within a literary horizon, showing the headings in which significance may lie. To an outsider, compositional form not only assists an initial sorting and classifying of texts but also, much more important, is both the Archimedean fulcrum that levers an understanding of an imagined world and the surveyor's transit that keeps an elaborate interpretive edifice plumb, level, and scjuare. Proverbs are a good place to start because the discovery of their compositional logic is clear evidence of the interpretive power of genre. The discovery completed an analytic exercise that began with my ethnographic description of Haya proverbial usage (Seitel 1972). I knew then there must be a definable underlying logic in proverbs that differentiates them from noiiproverbial utterances. Generic speech is differentiated by more than merely style: It implies an interpretive framework. But my attempts to specify the framework for the proverb texts—the unitary logic that indicates how sentences taken to be proverbs articulate significance differently from how other sentences do—could not move beyond identifying a number of possible forms that accounted for different parts of the corpus I had collected. I was not successful in this quest until I had first analyzed how Haya folktales articulate their thematic significance, then did the same for Haya epics, and finally found an overall heuristic approach to describing genres in Bakhtin through Hanks (1987, 1989, 1996). Then I knew I was looking for something that does in proverbs what plot does in narrative. Granted this perspective, I could generalize the multiple log35

36

The Powers of Genre

ical forms I was previously left with into a single proverbial mode of achieving compositional finalization at the level of the proverb text. (The matter of levels is discussed later) Generic modes of achieving compositional finalization recognized in one genre illuminate those in another. And understanding the dialogue between composition, theme, and style in one genre helps one comprehend it in another. Proverbs also aptly launch the treatment of interpretive method because their art is concise and easy to grasp. With a bit of explanation, a proverb text usually begins to make sense: It becomes whole in style, theme, and logic in a particular cultural context. As readers will see, several such wholes can be easily entertained in a relatively short space, revealing their underlying logic and its characteristic relationships to thematic significance and stylistic expression. Haya proverbs neatly display the hallmarks of their genre: explicit and/or implicit reasoning, distinctively stylized language, forceful thematic statement, a characteristic kind of contextualization combining reference to the vivid present and the wider horizon, and different forms of embeddedness in the syntactic and interactional structures of speech. The conciseness of their art also creates the interpretive space to walk around them to see if readers agree on matters of logic, theme, and style and to adduce more familiar proverbs for comparison, such as "A stitch in time saves nine," "A rolling stone gathers no moss," and "Business is business." In treating proverbs as a genre, the present approach takes a place in line with other perspectives in which proverbs become examples of particular communication processes. Proverbs have been seen as segments of speech whose use can be described by the ethnography-of-speaking protocol (Arewa and Dundes 1964), communally remembered sentences bound to particular conversations by rules of contextualization (Briggs 1988), fixed sentences that articulate semantic relationships of a generalizable sort, often by figurative means (Norrick 1985). These sample but do not exhaust the valuable treatments of particular aspects of proverb usage. This approach to proverbs begins with the utterance: The focal point in Bakhtin's perspective, it is a completed work, a speaker's turn, the unit on which conversations and more formal interchanges are built, and to which smaller structures contribute. A living proverb is always embedded in an utterance that is addressed to a listener, refers to what has been said before, and anticipates what an addressee will say or do afterward. In Hayaland this utterance usually includes a literal reference to the situation commented on by the proverb and an introductory phrase, such as "Hayas have a proverb; they say, . . ." Hayas name proverbs generically in a way that takes into account of its utterance as a whole and other aspects of its conversational context. A proverb can be classified in several ways: enfumo (a "conversation piece" from oku-fumola, "to converse politely") refers to a peaceful use of a proverb; omwi^o (an "aspersion,"

The Logic of Proverbs

37

from oku-tela ortnvisy, glossed as "to hit inside") refers to an unfriendly proverb use and also to some other unkind remarks; omugani (a "telling," from oku-gana, "to tell" or "to relate") refers neutrally to a proverb and also can refer to a tale. A particular quoted proverb can often be either enfumo or omwi^p, a peaceful or an antagonistic saying, depending on the utterance of which it is part. Enfumo and omwi^o are generic names for proverbs used in particular kinds of utterances. A living proverb is syntactically embedded in an utterance and semantically mediated by it.

Nine Ways of Looking at a Proverb Although Bakhtin seems to have been against the notion of system because of its inflexible and monologic connotations, what he says about speech genres can be abstracted to create if not an analytic system, then at least a commonsense, heuristic approach. According to Bakhtin (1986), finalization in generic utterances occurs on three dimensions—composition, style, and theme—at three levels: locally, at a subutterance level in textual units like verses or episodes; at the level of the entire work or utterance; and in the "global production and reception context in which the discourse is concretized" (Bakhtin 1986) (i.e., in the historical, cultural, and interactional context, taken as a whole—the vivid present combined with the broader horizon). For proverbs, the vivid present is dominant in understanding its usage: Combining topic of conversation (the situation commented on by the proverb) with relationships among participants, this context largely determines proverb selection and mode of use. In the following illustrative treatment, I consider several kinds and levels of proverb finalization, but the analytic focus soon shifts to a single level, the same one studied in the Haya narrative genres. Three kinds of finalization, each occurring at three levels, yield nine loci at which to observe the finalizations characteristic of a genre. The proverbs adduced to illustrate these finalizations were collected and described according to the research method specified in chapter 1: Although the described uses are all hypothetical, they have all been confirmed as correct by indigenous proverb speakers. Table 2.1 represents finalizations in Haya proverb speaking, in which levels are constituted as follows: 1. The local, subutterance, level is the quoted proverb itself. 2. The entire work is an utterance of which the proverb is part. 3. The context is an occasion on which the proverb is spoken, including the situation to which the proverb refers. At each level, th±ee kinds of finalization may occur: thematic, stylistic, and compositional.

38

The Powers of Genre

Table 2.1. Nine ways of looking at a proverb: I'malization in ITaya proverb speaking

A.

1. Local (quoted proverb) 2 J entire work

(proverb utterance)

3. Context

(performance)

C

B Style

Composition

care, necessity, ethical relativity

syntactic parallelism

logical forms

strategic naming of a situation

keys to invocation of generic frame

selection and sequence of segments of proverb utterance

exercise of rhetorical power amicably or antagonistically

contextuahxation: speech elements that address relationships among interlocutors

selection and sequence of proverb utterance with respect to elements of the conversation as a whole

Theme

Proverbs often express themes with contrasts that are implied rather than explicit. The theme articulated by the proverb, Yigenda mpoola enywage, "[The cow that] goes slowly drinks well," can be glossed as "taking care." The theme achieves completion at the local level (table 2.1, cell l.A, a cell designated by row and column) through an implied contrast between two cows. One cow goes slowly and arrives at a watering place after the others have finished drinking. By then, the mud they stirred up has settled, and so the cow drinks clear water. The other, implied, contrasting cow goes quickly with the others and drinks muddy water. This contrast—between going slowly and drinking \vell and going quickly and drinking poorly—articulates the theme, even though the latter elements are unspoken. The theme attains finalization at this level "when a listener supplies the needed contrast. (How a listener knows to do this is part of the compositional logic of proverbs and will become clear when the latter is described.) At the level of the entire utterance (table 2.1, cell 2.A) this theme is applied to a particular situation. The proverb might be spoken as part of brief advice and encouragement to a child who has brought a message from a neighbor but is in danger of garbling it in her haste to recite it. Here, as Burke (1957) points out, the proverb gives a name to the situation and urges a way to deal with it— Slow down! Be careful! The metaphorical meaning occurs when an analogy is understood to obtain between the proverb and the situation it describes. When this analogy is understood, thematic finalization at this level is achieved. The entire utterance would usually include a literal reference to the situation that the proverb refers to metaphorically. The neighbor might say, "Wait, slow down. Messages are important. Take time. You know the Haya have a proverb; they say . . ." At the level of the performance context (table 2.1, cell 3.A), the theme articulated in a speaker's entire utterance (by metaphorically linking the proverb with the

The 1 ,ogic of Proverbs

39

situation it refers to) achieves finalization when the hearer understands the entire metaphor applies to her. The neighbor uses the proverb in a benign way to advise the child on her behavior. Thematic finalization here both gives advice and confers a status of "knower" on the child by including her in an adult mode of conversation. The proverb user could instead have exercised the more literal and direct power of an adult. At this level of thematic finalization, particular social identities create discursive power by using particular symbolic forms to obtain the responses they desire. Finalization of style at the local level, that of the quoted proverb (table 2.1, cell l.B), is achieved by a nearly perfect syntactic parallelism based on repeated verb constructions: pronomial particle/zero tense marker/verb stem + adverb; pronomial particle/zero tense marker/verb stem/adverbial particle (E-genda mpoola e-nyiva-ge, literally, it/go slowly; it/drink/we 11). At the level of the entire utterance (table 2.1, cell 2.B), stylistic finalization consists of evoking the linguistic features characteristic of the proverb genre: the habitual aspect of the verb indicated by a zero tense marker, stylized syntax, and the phrase (if present), "Ilayas have a proverb . . ." These stylistic features mark the proverb utterance, keying (Bauman 1977) an interpretive frame in which thematic contrasts are applied metaphorically to a situation that is the topic of discourse. At the level of performance context (table 2.1, cell 3.B), proverb utterances achieve stylistic finalization through contextualization with features like pronouns, direct quotation, and deixis. These would usually occur in a portion of the utterance that refers literally to the same topic the proverb refers to metaphorically; this segment may introduce the proverb or be introduced by it. The contextualizing features may confirm, augment, or otherwise qualify proverbial references to persons, their discourse, and other aspects of context. The best treatment of this way of looking at proverb usage and of the contextualization of other genres as well can be found in Briggs (1988). Compositional components at the level of the entire utterance (table 2.1, cell 2.C) include a literal reference to the situation the proverb describes, an introductory phrase, and the quoted proverb itself. These can achieve finalization in several ways: Explanation can precede or follow a proverb text or not occur at all. The introductory phrase may or may not occur. The different configurations serve particular conversational strategies. At the level of performance context (table 2.1, cell 3.C), compositional finalization is achieved when a speaker inserts the complete proverb utterance into the overall contours of a dialogue: A proverb utterance can initiate a topic, continue it, or attempt to conclude it. Compositional ordering affects the thematic finalization at the level of context: Beginning a conversation with a proverb is usually benign even when it is used to criticize; concluding a conversation with a critical proverb is antagonistic. (Seitel 1972 treats this aspect of proverb use.) The final cell of the nine-part table 2.1 (l.C) refers to compositionalfinali^a-

40

The Powers of Genre

tion at the local level, smaller than the utterance (i.e., the quoted proverb itself). The hunt for the logical form that is the result of achieving compositional finalization at this level has already been joined by many imaginative thinkers, although they have not named their quarry in just this way. They have searched for a general semantics of proverbs, a limited number of logical relationships that underlie the myriad proverb texts. The use of logical categories to describe proverb semantics is part of a rich, international tradition of proverb study. Gr2ybek (1987) has reviewed this literature, especially the work of its most eminent practitioner, G. L. Permyakov. I commend readers to his discussion, whose breadth and complexity are beyond the methodological boundaries of the present approach. My discovery of a single, prepositional form with variations, rather than of a taxonomy of distinct (though in Permyakov's classification, related) forms, was guided by the insightful work of Hasan-Rokem (1982) and by Bakhtin's clue that compositional finalization should do for proverbs what plot does for narratives. I developed the unitary logical formula both deductively, searching for a nonnarrative logic analogous to plot, and inductively, using the style of analysis Propp used to discover the compositional logic of Russian wonder tales. A knowledge of Haya proverb usages gleaned through interviews and observations informed an analysis of the logical components in more than 100 Haya proverbs. Each logical component of the situation depicted in a proverb (cow, going slowly, drinking well, etc.) has a particular function with respect to a particular usage as a whole, that is, with respect to a hypothetical utterance in which a proverb could be spoken. These components and functions were isolated and analyzed for the proverbs in the corpus. Over the course of this analysis, characteristic relationships among components seemed to constitute types of finalization achieved at this level. Finally, it became clear that these types could be merged by generalizing and combining initial functional descriptions. In this way, although it took a long time, a single compositional finalization emerged. How comprehensive is the formulation? It fits most if not all Haya proverbs. It also fits other proverbs, a problem I address later. But this taxonomic question is nowhere as intriguing as one that can be formulated on the basis of the functional analysis of proverb components: If both proverb and narrative compositional finalizations can be discovered by the same method, does this imply the existence of functional relationships between composition, theme, and style that transcend differences between narrative and nonnarrative genres? That is, to what extent does proverbial logic really do for proverbs what plot does for narrative? The answer is that in both proverbs and narratives the same functional relationships obtain between compositional, thematic, and stylistic finalizations. Composition is the backbone of theme: It supports the distinctive shape of thematic paradigms in each genre and gives special prominence to particular parts. Its generic relationship to theme is con-

The Logic of Proverbs

41

stant: It shapes thematic finalization so that dominant themes consistently appear in expected forms and places. The generic relationship between compositional finalization and stylistic finalization, on the other hand, is more varied and problematic. One function of stylistic variation is to mark the contours of compositional form, but this is done differently in different genres. In proverbs, stylistic signs may be purposefully puzzling. Often serruopaque, proverbs can create a momentary pause in the conversation as a listener reasons from overt expression to underlying logic and then to thematic sense and situational meaning. Or the connection between style and composition may be more transparent, but equally varied, as in folktales. But in all genres, stylistic usage indicates the shape of compositional finalization and to this degree is conformed by it. Compositional logic ultimately conforms stylistic variation the way the space between diving board and swimming pool conforms high diving. There are many styles of take-off, gyration, and entry, but they all refer to the logical space defined by high-solid-pushing then middle-air-falling then low-waterstopping. Disregarding or trying to alter this logic could result in injury, embarrassment, or the invention of a new genre (e.g., bungee jumping). Proverbial logic illustrates these functional relationships of constancy and caprice. To be sure, style does more than indicate composition. It may refer thematically and novelistically to styles of speaking outside the text; it may represent a character's particular way of acting; it may refer solely to itself in elaborated gestures that embody individual or collective artistic achievement. Attention to compositional tmalization helps one sort out these stylistic functions, as becomes clear in the discussion of style in epic ballads.

Achieving 1 -ogical Form in a Genre The following examples support three sets of findings about finalizations of composition, style, and theme in proverbs and in speech genres in general. 1. The same kind of compositional finalization occurs in many different works. This generic logic—the shape truth takes in the world proverbs envision—consists of paired, parallel, opposing propositions. The oppositions, or contrasts, can be formed in several different ways but all are variants of the simple prepositional form. 2. The relationship between composition and theme is constant. In proverbs, semantic contrasts between elements in opposed propositions articulate dominant themes. A ratio of acts and conditions always makes the conversationally relevant point. 3. Although stylistic variation reflects compositional finalization, the rela-

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The Powers of Genre

tionship between style and composition is not constant. Markedly different forms of stylistic finalization may express the same underlying compositional logic. And identical stylistic forms may express logical relationships that, although the same at the most general generic level, nevertheless contrast at a crucial point (as in Proverb 7, "A single straw finishes the honey," see p. 44, this volume).

Implied Contrasts

In the quoted Proverb 1, "The cow that goes slowly drinks well," compositional finalization occurs in the contrast between two logical propositions, one stated in the proverb text itself and another implied and generated from it by double negation: A cow drinks well, going slowly and carefully, but the cow does not drink well, not going slowly and carefully. This pair of parallel and opposed propositions achieves compositional finalization at the level of quoted proverb (table 2.1, cell l.C). Theme is articulated by the ratio of "drinking well, under the condition of going slowly" to "not drinking well, under the condition not going slowly." This ratio of acts and conditions in the opposed propositions consistently articulates the dominant themes in proverb use. In many proverbs like this, only one of the contrasting propositions is overtly represented; the other is implied. In a particular usage of Proverb 1, the unstated proposition might remain understood, or it might be referred to conversationally as part of a proverb utterance warning about a future feared outcome or chiding about a past result of careless haste. Another example confirms the pattern of implied opposites. Proverb 2, "Not-being-able-to-reach-around-itself dresses a dog in its collar" (Obutegoba bttjwa^a embwa olukobd), can be used humorously to excuse oneself for not meeting a social obligation—to visit, to repay a debt, to make a loan—because of an intervening and unavoidable necessity. The dog wears his collar only because he cannot reach around himself to chew it off. If he could, he would, as the person referred to would be free to perform as desired—if he or she could overcome the obstacles. The compositional finalization of the quoted proverb creates contrasting parallel propositions: A dog wears a collar if he cannot remove it; a dog does not wear a collar if he can remove it. A speaker would be free to act if he had an impossible ability (i.e., he cannot, but would if he could). As in other proverbs, the theme is articulated by ratios of acts and conditions: wearing collarbeing unable::not wearing itbeing able. The paradox of being unfree to meet an obligation adds to the irony and comic relief that proverb speaking often affords. The following example, although stylistically quite different from the last, also compositional!)' implies a contrasting proposition to attain finalization.

The Logic of Proverbs

43

Proverb 3, "A single drum does not sound in the living room" (Eingoma emo tejuga omumulyango), can be used to advise someone that a particular undertaking cannot be accomplished alone; it requires help from others. The compositional form consists of parallel and contrasting propositions: A drum does not sound good alone; a drum sounds good together with other drums. In this example, as in the other proverbs, a ratio of particular components of compositional logic (acts and conditions) creates thematic finalization at the level of the quoted proverb. This ratio articulates the dominant theme, the one that has primary conversational relevance. In each example so far, proverb usage correlates a single imaginary agent (cow, dog, drum) with a person to whom a proverb utterance refers in a conversational context. This referent is the addressee in the first and third examples, the speaker in the second. The same compositional form characterizes quoted proverbs that establish relationships between two or more agents. The second agent may be overtly represented in the quoted text (as in Proverbs 4 and 6), or the second agent may be tacitly understood (as in Proverb 5). An important principle is embodied in Proverb 4, "They advise the one whose heart listens" (Bahana owo gulittiu, literally, "They-warn whom it-(heart)is-in"). This might be used to appeal to someone to act as an ethical person, or conversely, it might be used to dismiss someone who refuses to hear advice. Compositional finalization creates contrasting propositions: one can advise another if she "has a heart" (i.e., shares the speaker's ethics); one cannot advise another if she does not "have a heart." The following examples also speak about nonuniformity and relativity in social ethics: Proverb 5, "It's the ugly one who farts at a funeral" (Qtmtbi niive ayampa omulufu), and Proverb 6, "It's the one cooked for by a stepmother who eats too much" (Achumbilwa mukaishe niwe alya muno). Both alimentary offenses—farting and eating too much—violate a universally held Haya ethic of self-control. But as the proverbs note, relative social standing may determine who is accused of them. The proverbs can be used to comment on unfair accusation and exclusion one suffers because of disadvantage. The compositional finalization of these proverbs creates contrast between two propositions involving accusation and social disadvantage. The first proposition is stated, the second implied: One accuses another if he is socially disadvantaged; one does not accuse another if he is not socially disadvantaged. The dominant theme is finalized at this level through a ratio involving accusation and disadvantage. The two proverbs share a theme and style that differentiates them from the others, but like them, they articulate the conversationally relevant theme in a ratio of acts and conditions. The compositional form of yet another subtype of proverbs, like those akeady noted, requires an implied proposition to complete. But instead of doubly negating each other (as in Proverbs 1—6), the propositions here only singly

44

The Powers of Genre

negate each other. The overt proposition in these two proverbs (7 and 8) apparently violates common sense although it is deemed "true," whereas its implied contrast apparently validates common sense although it is judged "false." The proverb explicitly asserts the unexpected, thereby implicitly refuting the expected. Proverb 7, "One straw finishes the honey" (Akashwi kamoi kamala obwoki), describes a person using a single straw, dipping it again and again into honey and finishing the whole pot. One would not have thought it possible, the proverb implies. It can be used to praise the value of perseverance. Although composed of parallel and opposed propositions, its compositional finalization varies slightly but significantly from those previously described: the act, "finishing the honey," is negated in the contrasting proposition, but the condition, "if single" is not negated. Contrast between the propositions depends on single negation rather than double negation as in the six previous examples (e.g., Proverb 3, "A single drum does not sound in the living room"; implied: "several drums do"). But thematic finalization at the level of the proverb still is achieved by a ratio involving acts and conditions. This variation in compositional logic supports an understanding of "One straw finishes the honey" (implied: "And don't think it won't"; or "One straw doesn't finish the honey" may be expected and commonsensical but it is untrue). The singly negated compositional variation seems to be keyed by the semantics of the text—a direct assertion of the unexpected. The same structure is evident in Proverb 8, "The one who laments more than the mother is the one who killed the child" (/ikila nyina mwana okuchula niwe aba amwisile). It asserts that a woman showing great sadness may actually be the culprit who caused the loss through witchcraft. Its compositional logic opposes the propositions: Woman is child killer if she greatly laments; woman is not child killer if she greatly laments. As in Proverb 7, the singly negated compositional variation informs an understanding of "She who laments more than the mother is the one -who killed the child" (implied: "And don't think she didn't"; or "She who laments more than the mother didn't kill the child" is perhaps commonsensical but untrue). That these two proverbs are more similar to each other in the way they create significance than to proverbs with which they share stylistic form shows the problematic relationship between composition and style. Proverb 8, "She who laments more than the mother is the one who killed the child" (or "It's the one lamenting more than the mother that killed the child) is similar in style but not in logical form to 6, "It's the one cooked for by a stepmother that eats too much." In Proverb 6, the implied contrasting proposition is doubly negated; in Proverb 8 that proposition is singly negated. Similarly, Proverb 7, "One straw finishes the honey," is similar in style but not in logical form to Proverb 3, "One drum does not sound in the living room," or more precisely to the Haya proverb "One paddle leaves early." The latter's theme is articulated in a ratio

The 1 ,ogic of Proverbs

45

contained in two contrasting propositions: A canoe departs early (to arrive on time) if it has a single paddler; a canoe departs later (to cover the same distance and still arrive on time) if it has several paddlers. The proverb can be used to excuse the necessity of an early departure. The compositional finalization of canoe and drum proverbs requires double negation to generate the implied contrast; that of the straw proverb (7) requires single negation. This suggests that works sharing a general level of generic compositional form may diverge in particular variations, even when they are stylistically similar: "One straw finishes the honey" (implied: "One straw doesn't finish the honey" is untrue) differs logically from "One paddle leaves early" (implied: "Many paddles leave late") the same way, if not as minimally, as "John is eager to please" (implied: he pleases) differs syntactically from "John is easy to please" (implied: he is pleased). These parallel similarities and differences suggest that competence in underlying generic compositional structure is as crucial to interpreting literary works as competence in underlying syntactic structures is to interpreting sentences.

Explicit Contrasts Unlike the proverbs discussed so far, many texts explicitly represent both propositions of their compositional finalizations. In many of these, the paired propositions are opposed through double negation or similar contrast. Typically, the propositions specify two agents. As a group, these proverbs often articulate themes about reciprocal exchange, and their linguistic style is typically transparent, showing clearly the underlying logical form. Proverb 9, "She (or he) makes you travel at night—you thank her (or him) in the morning" (Akutivala ekilo omusiitna btvakeile), might be used to thank someone whose support in a difficult time or difficult task has been important. Although one does not like to be awakened in the dark to get an early start for a journey, an early arrival at one's destination is cause to show gratitude. The contrasting propositions can be phrased: One person makes another travel at night; the second thanks the first in the morning. Contrasts between propositions are generated by temporal and ethical sequences rather than by logical negation, as in previous examples. But here, as in the others, compositional finali2ation is achieved through contrasting parallel propositions, and thematic finalization is attained through a ratio of acts and conditions pointedly contained in those propositions. The text's stylistic structure is transparent. It mirrors its compositional form in parallel syntax: verb + adverbial, verb + adverbial, with reversing third person and second person inflections for subject and direct object. A similar transparency occurs in the following.

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The Powers of Genre

Proverb 10, "He hits you in the ear—you hit him in the eye" (Akutela omukutwi omutela omulishct), also thematizes reciprocity in social exchange, but of an antagonistic type. This widely known proverb embodies an institutional ethic that traditionally shaped reciprocity between patrilineal clans. A variant of this proverb forms the final poetic commentary in a renown version of the Maya epic ballad Mufashap. 165, this vo'ume). The proverb's paired compositional propositions are directly stated in the text itself. Blows are equal but opposite in their sequencing, direction, and sensory impacts. Like die physical blows themselves, ear and eye seem both equal and opposed. They are almost identical yet markedly different, an ambiguity that enhances the rhetoric of reciprocity in which acts are both equivalent and distinctive. As in Proverb 9, style transparently indicates composition and theme with parallel syntax: verb + prepositional phrase, verb + prepositional phrase, with reversing third person and second person inflections for subject and direct object. As a group, proverbs that thcmatize reciprocity (represented by 9 and 10) tend to lexical repetition and syntactic parallelism. This stylistic elaboration explicitly represents both opposing compositional propositions. But such associations between style, theme, and composition are only tendencies, as is confirmed by the next few examples. In this group of three proverbs, the paired propositions are overtly represented as in Proverbs 9—10 and generated by double negation as in Proverbs 1—6. But in these, the double negation of acts and conditions ironically generates a hyperbolic fallacy instead of a tautological truth. To foreground the blatant impossibility of the contrasting proposition, the latter is expressed as a rhetorical question. All three quoted proverbs are used abusively to belittle (okjt-saya)an adversary. Proverb 11, "It rots, not fallen on by rain; so what about if rain falls on it?" (Kyajunda kilateltua enjula; delo olivo enjula lyakitela?], may be used as a grave insult to a person's outward appearance or social performance. Its composition is finalized by two propositions: something rots, (even) if there is no rain; something does not rot, if there is rain (* = not possible). Can something that rots when there is no rain fail to rot when rain falls? Even entertaining the possibility that matters \vill not get worse is absurd. This conversational posture is embodied in the rhetorical question, which compounds the insult conveyed by "rot." The starred (*) form in the compositional finalization of the proverb indicates the absurd impossibility of the proposition. A similar absurd inference occurs in Proverb 12, "There are [real] women who lack children; so what about Nyante who doesn't even menstruate?" (Abali baka^i babulwa abaana; delo Nyante ata^ila?}. This can be used to belittle the opinion that an adversary has just expressed. The proverb is a purely ad bominem argument: Some speakers fail to conceive correct opinions even though, as knowing persons, they are capable of them; how can this adver-

The 1 ,ogic of Proverbs

47

sary conceive a correct opinion, when he is not even a knowing person? The proverb's theme is articulated by the ratio of acts and conditions in contrasting propositions: many women have no children, even though they do menstruate; Nyante has a child, even though she does not menstruate (* — not possible). The substitution of a new agent in the parallel proposition (women in the first become Nyante in the second) is yet another variation on the same generic pattern. In Proverbs 11 and 12, compositional form and rhetorical stylistic gesture implicate the presence of impossible acts (not rotting, not lacking a child) that completes the theme-finalizing ratio. These impossible acts are implied, but their conditions (falling rain, lack of menstruation) are overtly expressed. In the following proverb, this stated/implied relationship between style and composition is reversed: The prepositional condition is implied; the act expressed. Proverb 13, "The one coming from the forest says, 'It's [the spoor] of a leopard'; do you say, 'It's [the spoor] of a human'?" (Ayaluga akibila ati, "G' empisi";hve o-ti, "Cj'omunlu"?), can be spoken like the previous one to challenge an adversary's opinion. The rhetorical attack is based on a Haya preference for firsthand experience through travel (as in the thcrnatically similar proverb, "He who doesn't travel says, 'My mother cooks [best],'" whose implicit, doubly negated, contrasting proposition supplies its theme-articulating ratio). The compositional logic of Proverb 13 contrasts two explicit propositions: A person says what was seen is the spoor of a leopard, having been to the forest; you say it is the spoor of a man, not having been to the forest (not possible *). Proverbial logic implicates the missing condition (not having been in the forest)—the lack of firsthand experience that invalidates the adversary's opinion. These three quoted proverbs—11, 12, 13—like all the others, are made familiar and intelligible by a compositional finalization through parallel propositions. This generic logic isolates semantic contrasts that articulate culturally resonant themes. Peculiar to Proverbs 11, 12, and 13 is the explicit and ironic use of that generic compositional logic to convey insulting absurdities. These dozen or so examples do not exhaust the possible variations of the basic compositional formula. But they do indicate how a simple logical form can be used to create and interpret a large number of proverbs. As Bakhtin assures us, and the previous discussion corroborates, logical composition is as important to understanding discourse genres as semantic theme and syntactic style. Compositional finalization in Haya quoted proverbs enables finalization of themes by identifying dominant semantic contrasts. Theme emerges through a ratio of fictional acts and conditions in parallel and opposed propositions. Similar compositional components invariably articulate dominant themes, a finding consistent for all the genres I have studied. The relationship between style and composition is not as consistent. Al-

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The Powers of Genre

though in a quoted proverb it may be transparently simple and direct, as demonstrated, a variety of linguistic patterns may indicate a single compositional form. And similar patterns may express different permutations of compositional logic. To explore this relationship fully in the compact discourse of proverbs would require consideration of numbers of examples beyond the bounds of this volume. Fortunately, the generic relationship between stylistic variation and compositional finalization is more easily apprehended in the extended discourse of narrative, the subject of the following chapter. The analysis of proverbs has pursued three goals: (1) to isolate and to suggest that compositional finalizations are logical forms characteristic of every genre, even nonnarrative genres; (2) to document the flexibility of a generic compositional form that makes a variety of performances thematicalry intelligible with the same underlying logic; and (3) to begin the exploration of functional relationships in the artistic dialogue between composition, style, and theme. The remaining chapters pursue this last goal in a more familiar Eterary landscape of narrative and poetry. But before relocating there, I must digress briefly to indicate something about proverbial compositional logic beyond the borders of Hayaland. As many Haya proverbs do, the English proverb "A rolling stone gathers no moss" articulates its theme in a ratio created by implied, parallel, doubly negated, opposing propositions: a stone's rolling and not gathering moss contrasted with its not rolling and gathering moss. This ratio articulates the proverb's dominant theme whether a speaker is arguing for or against "gathering moss." To be sure, trying to find the same compositional form in "Many a mickle makes a muckle" (Mieder et al. 1992:410; A. Taylor 1962:140) can put readers in a puzzling muddle of too few mickles and unmade muckles. But the logic of this proverb does seem to be composed of parallel propositions opposed by only a single negative, just like "One straw finishes the honey" (Proverb 7): One would not expect the mickles, even though many, to make a muclde, but they do. These apparent logical commonalities raise the possibility of compositional universals, but that is beyond the scope of the present framework of genre analysis.

3 Emergent Complexities and Complex Emergencies in Folktales

Examples in the last chapter showed that compositional finalization of quoted proverbs creates the logical dimension of that genre. The proverbs' concise elegance established the simple shape and transformational capabilities of this logic and allowed readers to observe its functional relationships with the other two dimensions of generic creativity, style and theme, in a nonnarrative world. In folktales, I enter a narrative world of logic, aesthetics, and ethics to find a much wider range of simple and complex works. My genre-powered interpretive method treats the narrative discourse of folktales essentially as it did the nonnarrative discourse of proverbs: discovering generic forms of compositional fmalization at the level of the text, identifying ways performers can transform them to create a great variety of effects, and observing functional relationships between composition, style, and theme. But these findings appear quite different: (1) because the medium to which these analytic categories refer is linear narrative rather than prepositional and syllogistic proverbs, and (2) because the length of each work enables the inquiry to penetrate more deeply into relationships between composition and style and between composition and theme. Propp's functional analysis of narrative composition becomes an even more useful tool when joined with the contrast-within-a-frame technique and distinctive feature analysis borrowed from descriptive linguistics and anthropological structuralism. Contours of narrative composition guide the application of the techniques by defining a framework formed by a set of cultural expectations about plot sequence. Oriented by this framework, contrast within a frame discovers the set of stylistic features used in a text and the concordance method reveals the range of their use. The framework defined by composition orients the structuralist method by identifying the devices and sites in a text that express dominant themes. In proverbs, these are ratios of acts and conditions contained in pairs of parallel and opposed logical propositions; in folktales they are found in a particular type 49

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The Powers of Genre

of episode, marked stylistically, whose component parts form a characteristic, theme-generating paradigm. This genetically defined episode provides parallel, corresponding points in the architecture of folktales for a careful thematic comparison between texts. In sum, this chapter describes the narrative strategies for achieving compositional finalization in a Haya folktale genre and demonstrates how these form the basis for a deeper understanding of style and theme.

Compositional Finalization in Haya Folktales Generic compositional logic is simple and elegant in the following example, "Have You Not Seen Luhundu," a Haya tale of wifely devotion performed by a recognized master teller, Laulelia Mukajuna. Mukajuna's art often treated domestic relations, also the theme of the final tale in this chapter, and also performed by her. Tape-recorded in a performance before an audience that included community members, the tale is elementary, yet fully formed and artistically conveyed. It also serves as an example for a contrast-within-a-frame analysis of narrative style. This transcribed text and the two that follow retain certain features of the narrator's performance. "Normal" pauses, about a second in duration, are marked by a return to left margin. Shorter-than-normal pauses are marked by a downward displacement alone. Longer-than-normal pauses are marked with a circle (Q). Certain voice modulations are highlighted as LOUD and d-r-a-w-n o-u-t. Lines that form a series of rising intonations end in ". . ."; and a falling, finalizing stop is marked by a period (.). The numbers arbitrarily count only spoken lines bounded by a normal or a longer-than-normal pause. I apologize to those for whom the unfamiliar style of the transcription may be difficult to follow and also to those for whom aspects of it seem unmotivated and unworthy of scholarly discourse. I can only say that all but one of the textual dimensions spread out on the page is crucial to the stylistic analysis given later in the chapter. And I feel this style of presentation, inadequate as it is in conveying the real thing, provides a little more room to perambulate the text, see it from a few angles, and proof the reasonableness of the analysis. To be sure, pauses spread words wider and the reader's patience thinner than one might like. And in fact, pauses do not directly mirror underlying narrative logic. Phrasing, as it is called in singing, is an art. A performer blows life into a song and/or story with airy effects that do not have to bear the weight of linear or any other kind of logic. Its subtle rhythms may not be be very important for understanding the basics of traditional narrative style. But pauses do add the aesthetic dimension of phrasing, and I prefer not to take the breath out of these tales.

Emergent Complexities and Complex Emergencies in Folktales

Have You Not Seen Luhundu? as told by Mrs. Laulelia Mukajuna 1

W-e-1-1 t-h-e-n I went and I saw for you.

2

Long ago . . .

3

there was a man . . .

4 5

He m-a-r-r-i-e-d . . . a woman.

6 7

Now when he had married and lived with her three months, now then, three months, he left her and traveled to seek fortune.

8

He left her still a bride.

9

He didn't even say to her, "I'm going to trade

10 in this land. . . or in that. . ." 11 He just went. 12 He came to be delayed there three years. 13 H-i-s w-i-f-e w-a-i-t-e-d but the husband was lost. 14 Now when her care for him had taken hold of her she thought, "I'll follow him. I'll go and search for him." But she goes without knowing where . . . 15 the land he was in. 16 So she just went, saying, "If he is to be lost forever . . . let me perish. 17 If I am to see him . . .

let me come."

51

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The Powers of Genre

18 She threw herself into her journey. 19 The first one she met was a man. 20 Now she asked htm by singing. 21 She would sing like this: "You, man! You, man who's traveling, Have you not seen Luhundu? So dear to me and handsome, Adorned with beads in hundreds, Kalimpita na Kalanga, bojo, he's forbidden me my rest." 22 The man said, "I have never seen him." 23 She HITS the road. 24 She travels a LONG way, 25 in miles something like FOUR hundred. 26 She meets a woman there. 27 She sings to her. "You, woman! You, woman who's traveling, Have you not seen Luhundu? So dear to me and handsome, Adorned with beads in hundreds, Kalimpita na Kalanga, bojo, he's forbidden me my rest." 28 "No," she said. 29 She g-o-c-s a long way, about two hundred miles. 30 She comes upon a child 31 like this one. 32 She asks him, "You, young man who's traveling, Have you not seen Luhundu? So dear to me and handsome, Adorned with beads in hundreds, Kalimpita na Kalanga, bojo, he's forbidden me my rest."

33 THE CHILD SAYS, "I HAVE SEEN HIM. I KNOW LUHUNDWA.

Emergent Complexities and Complex Emergencies in Folktales

53

34 Let's go. I'll take you."

35 He takes her from THERE and brings her a distance LUCE TO MWANZA. 36 They go and reach . . . 37 her husband. 38 EH! EH! EH! SHE IS HAPPY TO BE WITH HER HUSBAND. HE IS HAPPY TO SEE HIS WIFE COME. 39 The two remain there. There are celebrations. There's a new wedding. 40 They pack their things and come home.

41 When his parents HAD SEEN THEIR CHILD WHO'D BEEN GONE THREE YEARS . . . 42 43 44 45 46 47

they were very happy . . . To the young woman they give cattle . . . They give goats . . . People of the village collect money. . . They give it to them . . . They are wealthy . . .

48 49 50 51

They build a house . . . They bear children . . . And never again . . . does the husband depart and leave her.

52 They are wealthy and they dweE there. 53 Well then, I finish you a story, I finish another. 54 The news of long ago. 55 I'm done.

Compositional finalization for this tale and for a large number of Haya folktales (all those included in Seitel 1980) occurs according to a sequence of five episode types: (1) Initial situation (2) Displacement (3) Attempted mediation (4) Successful mediation (5) Reward or punishment After an optional formulaic opening, an initial situation introduces characters

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The Powers of Genre

and settings -whose interaction produces a displacement: Something is outside and must be brought inside (to establish or reestablish social relationships); something is inside threatening to get out; something is outside threatening to get in, and so on. In attempted mediation the relevant inside/outside boundary becomes the locus of action when a succession of protagonists tries and fails to cross it, or a single protagonist successively tries and fails or succeeds by increments. Finally, in the successful mediation, the boundary is crossed, the plot is resolved, and an optional episode of reward or punishment results. This characteristic form of compositional finalization fits—allowing for degrees of plot complexity introduced by devices discussed in this chapter— all thirty-five tales in See So That We May See (Seitel 1980) and other tales that have human protagonists. It often does not fit Haya animal fables, an artifact, perhaps, of the latter's principal use in storytelling with younger children. As Haring (1972) points out, many animal tales in Africa have a "friendship made/friendship broken" plot form. This may represent the first socializing wisdom universally taught to children, or the ethics of a preclan, band type of social organization like that of hunter-gatherers, or some other widespread, institutionally based moral discourse. I have not discovered an answer to this question. Table 3.1 demonstrates that the short tale translated previously achieves compositional finalization in a way characteristic of Haya folktales with human protagonists. A newly married couple inside an old-fashioned, round-style Haya house, usually together with the husband's family, is a frequent initial situation in Haya folktales that treat of domestic values. The husband's overlong displacement outside the house, village, and Hayaland motivates the bride's loving pursuit. She attempts to bring him back inside, moving incrementally outward and singing to inquire about him. Finally, she is successful in finding and returning with her husband. The couple receives material rewards as a result of her desire, daring, and perseverance. This tale's elementary movement from equilibrium to disequilibrium and back could be described with various degrees of abstraction and with various

Table 3.1. Compositional finalixation in "Have You Not Seen l.uhundu" Lines

Compositional Segment

Description

1 2-5

formulaic opening initial situation displacement attempted mediation successful mediation reward formulaic closing

husband and wife together husband lost outside wife's quest and singing discovery and return recognition and wealth

6-13

14-32 33-40 41-52 53-55

Fimergent Complexities and Complex Emergencies in Folktales

55

interpretive systems. But the specific five-part formulation presented here has much to commend itself: It occurs in a great number of Haya tales, it has clear functional relationships to the shape and distribution of other features of narrative, and it embodies an important dimension of perception—inside/outside, which Hayas traditionally use to think about aspects of social life ranging from the landscape to individual psychology to family obligations.

Complex Plots from Simple Ones: F^mbedding and Layering

The simplest plot achieves fmalization in a single generic sequence, and more complex plots in the same genre tend to combine several such sequences. In his study of Russian wondertales, Propp (1928/1968) termed the complete sequences "moves" and described several possible ways of combining them. For my purposes, these may be reduced to three. The first, in which moves are added sequentially, appears only rarely in the Haya corpus. Scheub's (1975) description of compositional principles of the Xhosa ntsomi folktale tradition focuses on this additive form of plot development. Great ntsomi artists create seamless junctures and detailed symmetries that bind the moves together. In the second type, a full move performs the narrative function of a single episode in a larger move. As such, the smaller move can be said to be embedded in the overall plot, the way one full sentence can be embedded in another as a clause. Propp (1968) draws a different analogy to explain this narrative pattern: "[A]ny tale element . . . can, as it were, accumulate action, can evolve into an independent story. . . . But like any living thing, the tale can generate only forms that resemble itself. If any cell of a tale organism becomes a small tale within a larger one, it is built . . . according to the same rules . . ." (78). Propp's understanding of the replication of generic compositional patterns at the local level has been deployed successfully by Danforth (1983) in a study of Greek shadow-puppet plays. A third mode of combination occurs when more than one compositional sequence (i.e., subplot) moves toward fmalization within a single narrative episode. The single episode can be said to be layered with several distinct action sequences that unfold together. This form of compositional elaboration supports greater thematic complexity. Both second and third types of plot constructions, enmeshed within a basic generic sequence, can be seen in the following tale told by Winifred Kisiraga entitled "The Glistening One."

56

The Powers of Genre

The Glistening One, as told by Mrs. Winifred Kisiraga 1 2 3 4 5 6 I 8 9 10 I1 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19

I give you a story. Audience: I give you another. It's done. Audience: The news of long ago. I -went and I saw. Audience: See so that we may see. I see young g-i-r-1-s . . . nine of them. They were in a group. Now, they were spending time together playing. NOW AMONG THE NINE, there was one comrade whom they didn't like. She was a foolish one. She was of our clan, a Mukulwa. NOW, ONE DAY THEY DECIDE. "BOJO," THEY SAY, "LET'S GO CUT WALKING STICKS." THEY PLAN THE TRIP WHEN DAWN CAME ON THE PLANNED DAY, THEY DRESS FOR A JOURNEY. THEY SAY, "WHEN WE GO INTO THE FOREST . . . " they say, "no one should have her eyes open. Everyone should shut them." THEY SAY, "AFTER EACH PERSON SFIUTS THEM . . . then she'll cut a walking stick. BUT WHOEVER CUTS A DEFORMED STICK . . . cannot stay with us."

20 So now that one, the poor thing, was foolish. They go, and when they arrived in the forest,

21 "HAVE YOU ALL SHUT YOUR EYES?" "We've shut them." "HAVE YOU ALL SHUT YOUR EYES?" "We've shut them." 22 She closes her eyes. 23 The other children keep theirs open. 24 They go and look for a good walking stick. Each person cuts one. 25 "ARE YOU ALL FINISHED?" They say, "We've finished." 26 "LET'S LEAVE." "Let's leave." 27 They go outside the forest.

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28 "OPEN YOUR EYES." 29 "We're opening them." The cliildten open them.(general laughter) 30 Now the foolish one returns. 31 WHEN THEY JUDGE THE WALKING STICKS, "PUT THE WALKING STICKS DOWN." THEY PUT THEM THERE. 32 WHEN THEY COME TO LOOK AT HERS, 33 LOOK, 34 it's as twisted as an eight. 35 They say, "We can't stay with you any more." 36 "BOJO, TAKE ME, THERE AGAIN." They say, "Why should we go back?" 37 "BOJO, TAKE ME." They say, "Not us. 38 If you didn't cut a good walking stick, you have no right to go with us." 39 She says, "I'm going back." 40 She turns back. They go on. 41 When she had gone . . . 42 and entered the forest . . 43 she meets in there—a leopard. 44 The leopard says, "What are you searching for?" She says, "I've come to cut a walking stick." He says, "Where have your comrades gone?" "They left." Leopard grabs her. 47 After it grabbed her, it puts her into a big sack that it had. 48 It goes along. 45 46

49 50 51 52 53 54

It leaves from about here, and when it arrived around Lyamahoro, it meets women harvesting groundnuts. IT SAYS, "MOTHER," IT SAYS, "GIVE MIL A FEW GROUNDNUTS. I'll sing for you." They give it groundnuts Some it eats. Others it puts in its sack. (whispers) "Sing! Or I'll kill you." [The child sings from inside the sack.] "I was going to take a walking stick in the Glistening One. I meet the Incarnation-of-ripe-bananas in the Glistening One. He jumps and catches me in the Glistening One He throws me in a sack in the Glistening One Our home is Kikonjwa. In the Glistening One, my clan is the Apportioner and the Cattle-Hater."

58 55

The Powers of Genre "EH?"

56 They say, "The Leopard is singing. It has a singing sack." 57 THEY SAY, "BRING MORE GROUNDNUTS." THEY SAY, "BRING GROUNDNUTS AND GIVE IT SOME." 58 So 59 Now then, they call to one another from afar. 60 "YOU, YOU WHO ARE CULTIVATING IN NYAKIMBIMBILI! DON'T LET THAT LEOPARD PASS YOU BY WITHOUT GIVING IT SOME GROUNDNUTS." 61 when it arrived there . . . 62 About Nyakimbimbili. . . 63 it meets women.

64 Now then. THE CHILD, 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

her home is like Kafunjo. It travels along. Nyakimbimbili. They give it groundnuts. It sings for them. It travels along and arrives in Lushenye. WHEN IT ARRIVED IN LUSHENYE . . .

72 it meets someone like Wini [the narrator], 73

74 75 76 77 78

79 80 81 82

"Eh?"

She says, "That VOICE, doesn't it seem like own child? The one who is lost." SHE SAYS, "LET ME GIVE YOU SOME MORE GROUNDNUTS." SHE SAYS, "BRING A BASKET." SHE SAYS, "I'LL GIVE THEM A SPECIAL MEASURE." SHE SAYS, "I'LL MEASURE FOR THEM WITH MY OWN BASKET" She gives it to Leopard. It's pleased. It eats. Again it puts some in the sack. (whispers) "Sing! Or I'll kill you." "I was going to take a walking stick in the Glistening One. I meet the Incarnation-of-ripe-bananas in the Glistening One. He jumps and catches me in the Glistening One He jumps and catches me, baba, and throws me in a sack in the Glistening One.

Emergent Complexities and Complex Emergencies in Folktales

83 84 85 86

87

88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

96 97

98 99 100 101 102 103 104

105

59

Our home is Kikonjwa In die Glistening One, my clan is the Apportioner and the Cattle-Hater." "Eh?" The woman listens and her hair stands on end. NOW SHE SAYS, "YOU SHOULD GO ... " SHE SAYS, "AND WHEN YOU REACH TO ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF KITAHYA THERE . . . " SHE SAYS, "YOU'LL FIND OTHER WOMEN." SHE SAYS, "THEY ARE HARVESTING GROUNDNUTS." SHE SAYS, "DON'T PASS THEM BY." IT GOES ALONG PRAISING ITSELF AND FEELING THE WEIGHT OF THE SACK. It goes and arrives there. It speaks to the women. They give it groundnuts. It puts them in the sack. The child sings again. Now then, her father's sister was there. EH? SHE SAYS, "MY! YOUR SACK SINGS VERY WELL." SHE SAYS, "NOW COME WITH ME. I'LL SHOW YOU THE WAY. I'LL TAKE YOU TO SOME OTHER WOMEN, MY COMRADES." SHE SAYS, "AND TLIEY WILL NOT JUST GIVE YOU GROUND NUTS." SHE SAYS, "THERE ARE, WOMEN WASHING SWEET POTATOES," SHE SAYS, "THEY'LL ALSO GIVE TO YOU." It says, "Okay." They go. When they arrived at the Keirusha stream . . . they meet some women washing sweet potatoes and others with groundnuts . . . They give it groundnuts. Now the child's mother was (here . . . and people from her home . , . They give him more groundnuts. THEY SAY, "NOW LET'S GO HOME." THEY SAY, "WE'LL GO AND GIVE: YOU NICE THINGS," THEY SAY, "SO YOU'LL SING FOR US THERE"

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106 It goes, and when they reached home . . . 107 they say, "Now we'll give you other things . . . 108 We'll also give you some meat." 109 They say, "But first, please fetch us some water. 110 WHEN YOU ARE THROUGH FETCHING WATER . . . 111 COME AND CARRY AWAY YOUR THINGS." It says, "Okay." 112 They give it a wide-weave basket. 113 It goes to the river. (audience laughs) 114 IT SCOOPS UP. 115 The water won't stay in. IT SCOOPS UP. 116 The water splashes out. IT SCOOPS UP. 117 The water splashes out. 118 IT GETS SOME MUD. 119 IT SPREADS IT ON. 120 BUT THE WIDEWEAVE BASKET WONT WORK. 121 "EH?" 122 IT'S CONFOUNDED. 123 NOW THE PEOPLE, WHEN IT LEFT THE HOUSE . . . 124 take out the child. 125 They bring stones. They bring stumps of banana plants. They bring all sorts of things. They put them in the sack and close it up. They take the child and hide her and then they hurry off. 126 AFTER IT AFTER IT HAD SCOOPED AND THE WATER RUN OUT, it says, "I'm leaving here and going." 127 IT COMES. 128 WHEN IT ARRIVED, IT FINDS TPIEY ARE NOT IN. "EH?" IT SAYS, "I'M REALLY LUCKY THEY'RE NOT HERE IN THE HOUSE." [because it had failed in the required task] 129 IT GRABS ITS SACK. 130 "EH? IT'S HEAVY" 131 It says, "I'm going." 132 It throws down that no-good wide-weave basket, (audience laughs) 133 WHEN IT ARRIVED . . .

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134 TO WHERE ITS HOME WAS . . . 135 136 137 138

it invites its leopard friends. It says, "We'll have a feast." It says, "I have some meat . . . that will taste really good."

139 IT SAYS, "YOU ALL COME, GATHER LOTS OF FIREWOOD," 140 141 142 143

it says, "so we can eat the meat." They all work hard. The leopards cut wood, bring it and pile it up there. Now they light the fire. They bring the sack and put it on.

144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152

POOH! [sound of something steaming and bursting in a fire] "There's an eye." POOH! "There's the head." POOH! "THERE'S THE BELLY." POOH! "EH?" THEY SAY, "WE PUT IT ON THE FIRE LONG AGO. THOSE

THINGS HAVE ALREADY BURST. IT MUST BE DONE IN THERE. 153 Now all there is to do 154 is unwrap it and eat." 155 They unwrap it.

156 157 158 159

WHEN THEY UNWRAP IT, LOOK AT THE STONES! IYO! THEY SAY, "WHEN WE GATHERED FIREWOOD YOU TRICKED US. YOU'VE EATEN THE MEAT AND WRAPPED THE STONES FOR US!"

160 They grab Leopard . . . 161 They eat it. 162 Now then . . . 163 When they had eaten i t . . . the girl was at home recovering. . . 164 Now from that day . . . 165 they say, "If you are among people . . . first open your eyes and see what the people are doing.

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166 STOP SAYING, WHATEVER THEY DO . . . 167 WE'LL DO,' BEFORE YOU'VE UNDERSTOOD." 168 NOW SAYING, "WE'LL DO," ALMOST killed the girl, but her kinfolk saved her. When I had seen this for you, I said, "Let me go and report to them."

Kisiraga's tale was performed at a meeting of a local chapter of a women's self-help group. The meeting was expressly held for the purpose of telling tales to each other and was sponsored by Sheila Dauer and me, who provided refreshments. Kisiraga was our field assistant at the time and was under some peer pressure because of her unusual, knowledge-based occupation in an otherwise exclusively farming community. Two details added by Kisiraga speak to this situation: the walking stick "twisted as an eight" and the meaning she interprets from the tale's events: ". . .open your eyes and see what the people are doing. Stop saying, 'Whatever they do ... we'll do,' before you've understood." These indirect references to literacy and a willingness to break with convention and engage new ideas are the kind of contextualrang details a performer may add. But her choice of the story itself, with its themes of female solidarity and its lack, intellect and its lack, and the comic gaining and losing control because of appetite, bears the principal message. The overall plot is similar to that of the first example. Its logical development is represented in table 3.2. A young girl is tricked by her peers to exclude her in the initial situation. This sequence of events results in her being captured and stuffed into a sack out in the forest by the leopard. This creates a displacement both inside (the sack) and outside (her home village). The leopard's appetite creates an opportunity for the girl to attempt escape by communicating her plight in the hope of rescue. The

Table 3.2 Compositional finali/ation in "The Glistening One" 1 ,me

Compositional Segment

1-6 7-40 41-47 48-84 85-132 133-163 164-168

formulaic opening initial situation displacement attempted mediation successful mediation punishment closing

Description girl expelled by peers girl in leopard's sack girl sings to communicate women dupe leopard leopard becomes food narrator's moral

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leopard cannot penetrate the meaning of the highly figurative song the girl sings in an attempted mediation. Successful mediation begins when a woman hears the girl's song and understands the situation. It continues as the woman and her female kin lure the leopard into their house, dupe him into temporarily abandoning his sack, rescue the girl, and make substitutions for her weight. The leopard's inability to penetrate appearances again makes him vulnerable as he invites his carnivorous peers to a feast, cooks an imaginary hu-man, and is eaten by the enraged guests as punishment. The first and last segments of the tale—initial situation and punishment— each achieve finalization as a five-part generic sequence. In the initial situation, the heroine's unwanted presence in the peer group is a displacement. In the attempted mediation all girls except the heroine take straight sticks from the forest. The "successful" mediation is the heroine's failure to take a straight one and her expulsion, which is also her punishment. The distribution of stylistic elements coincides with these compositional units. "Now" (mbwenii) marks three of the four junctures between embedded segments; the fourth juncture, the beginning of the punishment segment, is marked by a brief return to a stylized LOUD-soft, LOUD-soft, call-response dialogue pattern, which also unifies and elaborates the embedded attempted mediation. In the punishment episode of the major plot, the leopard's mistaken report to his carnivorous friends that there is human flesh in the sack creates a displacement—a plot-propelling tension between what is truly inside the sack and what he thinks is in there. The attempted mediation is an elaborated LOUD-soft, call-response pattern of counterfeit signs and erroneous interpretations. Explosions of steam evoke the leopard's commentary—"POOH! 'There's an eye' . . . POOH! 'There's the belly' . . . " Thematically, these symbols and readings echo the figurative lyrics of the song in the attempted mediation of the principal plot. Stylistically, they echo the call and response of the attempted mediation embedded in the initial move (the girl expelled by her peers). Successful mediation is the discovery of the true vegetable contents of the sack. The leopard's punishment is to be eaten. Stylistic features mark compositional contours in the punishment move: Displacement begins with the adverbial marker Ka- plus the past perfect tense, "When [the leopard] had arrived . . ."; attempted mediation begins with "Now" (Mbn/enu); successful mediation begins with a weaker use of the adverbial particle Ka- in conjunction with the unmarked narrative tense; punishment begins with a marked shift from loud to regular voicing and the beginning of a pattern of rising and falling intonations.

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Table 3.3 Components of the attempted mediation episode in the tale of the leopard's sack ("The Glistening One") Boundary

Controller

Mediator

Mediated

Main plot:

sack

the leopard

women

girl

Subplots:

images in song

girl

women

account of plight

village

leopard versus women

women

leopard and girl

Layering of Finali^ations

In addition to compositional embeddings, the tale contains layered sequences of finalization. As in many other Haya folktales, subplots develop simultaneously in the attempted mediation episode. When the girl sings from inside the leopard's sack, one subplot is involved with whether her figurative speech will be correctly understood, and a second with whether the women's food will lure the leopard into their domestic domain. Although both involve attempted mediations, they do not constitute complete generic sequences, like the embeddings in the initial situation (the heroine expelled by her peers) and the punishment (the leopard's banquet gone awry). They are rather compositional layerings that augment and modify the main plot. Because of their analogous composition, the subplots in this episode can be described by similar sets of features, namely, an inside/outside boundary, contenders for control of the boundary, and an entity to be mediated (see table 3.3). The thematic significance of these overlapping paradigms of action is discussed below. A final example, "Blocking the Wind" by Laulelia Mukajuna, completes this sketch of Haya narrative compositional finalization. Through a combination of elaboration, elision, and wit, the teller attains a level of artistic intensity at which narrative composition seems to change state from linear sequence to semantic field. The tale demonstrates that when crucial elements disappear with the wink of a narrator's eye, -when genre seems only obliquely implied or becomes sumptuously involuted, creative understanding is still well served by attending to the processes of generic compositional finalization.

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Blocking the Wind, as told by Laulelia Mukajuna 1

Now, my lord, long ago I saw for you that there came a season of hunger.

2 3 4 5

Now at the time that the hunger came . . . an unmarried girl had a brother , . . but the brother had a wife. Now the girl had cultivated millet . . . A LOT OF IT. Now the hunger GREW G-R-E-A-T-E-R

6

7 The girl takes up . . . 8 Three debe's of millet . . . [five gallon measures] 9 She brings them . . . 10 To her people [the brother and his wife].

11 12 13 14

Now . . . The sister-in-law would grind the millet . . . stir it into porridge, and they would eat, She grinds, she stirs, and she eats with her husband. 15 Now when she saw only a little remained . . . about one and a half debe's . . . 16 She devised a plan to deprive her husband. 17 She said, "The wind has become great . . . " 18 She said, "Go and block the wind . . . so I can grind the millet . . . 19 for the millet is blowing away." 20 The man picked up a wicker screen 21 and went into the fields to block wind.

22 HE BLOCKS IT 23 LOOK OUT, IT'S GETTING THROUGH THERE! LOOK OUT, IT'S GETTING THROUGH THERE! LOOK OUT, IT'S GETTING THROUGH THERE! LOOK OUT, IT'S GETTING THROUGH THERE! LOOK OUT, IT'S GETLTNG THROUGH THERE! LOOK OUT, IT'S GETTING THROUGH THERE!

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The Powers of Genre

24 AT HOME THE WOMAN GROUND, GROUND, GROUND, THE MILLET . . . 25 SHE STIRRED, SHE ATE and for her husband, she left a little. 26

(tired voice) He came home weak from exertion. She said, "You blocked the wind badly.

27 WHILE YOU BLOCKED AT LYAMAHORO . . . WIND WAS COMING FROM KAMULENGERA. 28 NOW WHAT HAVE YOU ACCOMPLISHED? 29 LOOK, THE LITTLE THAT'S LEFT IS THIS. YOU EAT IT. 30 I'll do without." 31 THE DAY DAWNED. 32 She said, "Run and block the wind." 33 Now he went to Kamulengera where she had told him to go.

34 OUT IN THE FIELDS WITH THE WICKER SCREEN LOOK OUT, IT'S GETTING THROUGH THERE! LOOK OUT, IT'S GETTING THROUGH THERE! THE WOMAN ground and ground the millet, 35 she stirred it. 36 SHE ATE IT. 37 She left a little. 38 Her husband came and she gave it to him.

39 She said, 40 "All of the millet is gone, taken by the wind. I told you, 'BLOCK THERE 41 AT LYAMAHORO.' BUT YOU BLOCKED OVER THERE. Now the millet is ruined. Look at the little that's left. I'll go hungry." 42 SHE RAN HIM ALL OVER THE PLACE . . .

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43 THEY CALLED THE YOUNG MAN CRAZY . . . THOSE WHO SAW HIM IN THE FIELDS BLOCKING WIND . . . 44 BLOCKING NOTHING AT ALL WITH A WICKER SCREEN . . . 45 They said he was crazy. 46 NOW THE SISTER WHO WAS CULTIVATING MILLET THERE.. . CAME TO HEAR OF THESE THINGS. 47 What the sister-in-law had done . . . 48 to her brother. 49 SHE KEPT STILL. SHE DIDN'T SHOUT ACCUSATIONS. 50 She waited for the season of hunger to pass. 51 Now that sister-in-law had not borne a child. She hadn't been pregnant yet. 52 The sister went and prepared a small calabash about this big [3 inches]. 53 She stopped it up and brought it along. 54 When she had come 55 she told the sister-in-law "The hunger is over now, but" 56

she said,

57 58 59 60 61

"this little calabash . . . I've been to a diviner . . . I've come to give you a fertility medicine, and if you are to bear a child . . . you must regularly deposit into it—farts. WHEN IT'S FULL . . . I'll come to give you other medicine."

62 The girl put the calabash near the cooking fire. 63 Whenever one comes upon her, she unstops the calabash and sh—sh—sh— she farts into it. 64 SHE STOPS IT UP! 65 Whenever one comes upon her in the banana grove, SHE RUNS BACK WITH A TIGHTENED ASSHOLE MMH-MMH-MMH TILL SHE REACHES THE CALABASH SH—SH—SH—

68 66

The Powers of Genre SHE FARTS! (audience laughing)

67 When she had done this for about four months . . . 68 unstopping the calabash and looking inside, she finds it's as white as white can be—there's not a thing in there. 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

"Hii!" She says, "Well now, in there the calabash, I could fill it for five years, ten years, and there wouldn't be a thing inside." She is confounded. When she felt confounded, she said, "I'll go and tell my mother about this."

76

She doesn't ask anyone. She just gets dressed and goes home.

77

She goes and lays the matters before her father and mother.

78 "EH YEH! YEH! YEH! YEH!" 79 80 81 82 83

84 85

THEY ARE DUMBFOUNDED! THEY SAY, "THAT WOMAN IS A SORCERER." THEY SAY, "SHE'S WHO KEEPS YOU FROM CHILDBEARING." THEY SAY, "FARTS ARE WIND. IF SHE HAD TOLD YOU URINE. IF SHE HAD TOLD YOU TURDS. BUT SHE SAYS FARTS! WHO HAS EVER SEEN A FART? SURELY WE: SMELL THE ODOR AND HEAR THE NOISE 'BWI!'—IT'S NOTHING! ARE THEY SOMETHING TO PREPARE A CALABASH FOR? Let her come here."

86 The husband goes to ask why his wife was there. They say; "You have a case on your hands." 87 "What kind of case? 88 Since the woman came to live with me, we've never fought." 89 They say, "She fought with your sibling. Go and bring your sister."

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90

He goes and tells the sister. She says, "Sit yourself down. It's a small matter. 91 Just wind and wind." 92 93 94 95 96

THEY INVITE . . . THE WOMAN AND THE MAN . . . THEY FILL THE HOUSE COMPLETELY. THEY'VE COME TO LAUGH [derisively] AT THE WOMAN . . . at how she caused their child to fart those farts.

97 98

She comes and enters the house. They welcome her and greet her. Now, they open the case.

99 100 101 102

That sister-in-law begins . . . LIow this sister-in-law brought a small calabash . . . and said, "You should fill it with farts . . . Then I'll have some medicine made so you can bear a child."

103 She continues . . . 104 "NOW I FARTED IN THERE, FARTED IN THERE TILL A MONTH PASSED. A SECOND PASSED. A THIRD PASSED. A FOURTH . . . 105 THERE WAS NOT EVEN ONE SMALL FART IN THERE. I UNSTOPPED IT AND FOUND THE CALABASH AS WHITE AS WHEN SHE BROUGHT IT. 106 THAT IS WHAT CONFOUNDED ME AND BROUGHT ME HERE, RESPECTED ONES. 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115

That's my case." Now this sister-in-law begins her side. She says, "I, my lord, saw the season of hunger coming." She says, "The hunger struck." She says, "I cultivated my millet." She says, "It ripened." She says, "I brought them my debe's, four of them. I said, 'They're yours to grind and eat. So the hunger will be finished.'" She says, "She made my mother's child crazy." She says, "She made him block the wind." She says, "You, do you block wind when you grind millet?

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116 Do you set up at the chair and put a wicker screen over there? Or do you go to block in the wilderness? 117 IS MILLET GROUND HERE . . . AND WIND BLOCKED AT LYAMAHORO? 118 IS MILLET GROUND HERE . . . AND WIND BLOCKED AT KAMULENGERA? 119 WELL, MY OWN MOTHER'S CHILD RAN ABOUT IN THE FIELDS AND BECAME CRAZY LOOK OUT, IT'S GETTING THROUGH THERE! LOOK OUT, IT'S GETTING THROUGH THERE! AND THOUGH SHE WAS MAKING IIIM BLOCK THE WINDHAD SHE CULTIVATED THE MILLET? 120 I CULTIVATED MY FOOD TO FEED MY MOTHER'S CHILD AND SHE GOES AND MAKES HIM BLOCK WIND. 121 AND THAT'S WHY I MADE HER BLOCK THE WIND OF THE ANUS. 122 AND LET HER BLOCK IT, IF WINDS CAN BE BLOCKED!" 123 The people, my lord, gave out a cry of laughter. They laughed at that woman. 124 They observed, "IS THIS WHAT BROUGHT YOU HERE BEFORE US, TO COME AND BRING US SHAME?" 125 "YOU, MISTER, WHAT MADE YOU CRAZY?" 126 "WELL, I SAW HIM TOO." AND ANOTHER SAYS, "I SAW HIM. I CAME UPON HIM IN THE FIELDS AT SUCH-AND-SUCH A PLACE AS HE WAS BLOCKING." AND ANOTHER SAYS, "AND I SAW HIM TOO." 127 The wife was defeated . . . 128 She had to pay . . . 129 for the millet of her sister-in-law 130 A WHOLE COW on the hoof. 131 I finished you a story. I finished you another. At your mother's brother's they're eating beer bananas and bean leaves. At my mother's brother's the bananas growing fatter and fatter.

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Table 3.4. Compositional tinali/ation in "Blocking the Wind" I vine

Compositional Segment

Description

1-10 11 --45 46-91 92-122 123-130 131

initial situation displacement attempted mediation successful mediation punishment formulaic ending

famine; sister gives millet brother runs outside sister fools bride case won; [couple inside] tine imposed

Table 3.4 outlines the logic of the tale—the way it achieves compositional finalization. The plot develops from displacement outside a newly formed household (driven by uncontrolled appetite: a bride's gluttony and a groom's anxiousness to please) to successful mediation back inside (managed by control: sisterly cleverness). This trajectory is similar to the one in the simple tale by same teller, "Have You Not Seen Luhundu?"—the first narrative example discussed in this chapter. The collective wisdom of genre directs interpretation to an appreciation of the sister's clever, humane, and successful defense of domestic boundaries against the disruptive bride's uncontrolled appetite. Generically, the sister's primary accomplishment was to have saved her brother's marriage; her Chaucerian revenge was subordinated to that goal. Her extraordinary achievement can be even better appreciated with the knowledge that spousal gluttony in Haya folktales almost always leads to a dissolution of marriage (see Seitel 1980: chap. 8). The tale's layered complexity is created by the many interrelated agents and entities that cross depicted boundaries: a young husband, a young wife, and three winds—that of the dry season, that of the gut, and that of public opinion. Subplots are driven by symmetries of containers (empty stomachs, empty calabashes, empty wombs, and empty houses), of the motivations that impel protagonists to fill each one of them, and of the rhetorical summation in a climactic interclan dispute. But although the subplots are aesthetically ascendant, they are all ethically subordinate to the generic logic of the story and to the dominant theme it supports. The compositional finalization of "Blocking the Wind" proceeds from the brother-husband's displacement out of a proper domestic arrangement; his sister's elaborate attempted mediation eventually reintegrates him in a properly reordered home. The significance of this overarching movement becomes visible in compositional perspective, even though a segment that embodies a successful mediation—the return of the couple inside—does not actually appear in the text. The event is not present; nor is an answer to the pointed question, "What made you crazy?" (line 125) a characterization of the brother made no fewer

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The Powers of Genre

than five times. The narrator elides both these details, one compositional the other thematic, leaving them to be completed by the genetically informed creative understanding of the audience. As a group, the disparate tales illustrate generic unity and variation in Haya folktales. The plot of the lost husband's tale attains an elemental form. The leopard's sack adds embedding and layering: The first five and the last five segments of this tale reproduce locally the logic of the tale as a whole; and the tale's central episode is an elaborate, layered, genetically imagined action involving boundaries of sack, opaque speech, and village. "Blocking the Wind" demonstrates even greater complexity through embedding, layering, and elision. This progression begins to show that generic composition is a subtle and powerful tool in creating and analyzing folktales. Its usefulness as an instrument of interpretation grows when it is allowed to inform an analysis of performance style.

Style A performer uses speech style to make plain the logical form of his or her utterance. This seems self-evident; at least it provides a reasonable beginning hypothesis. Not that style's only function is to reveal logical form; it can mark individual points of thematic interest; it can be elaborated solely for its own sake, as a form of aesthetic expression; or stylistic elaboration may be only obliquely related to an underlying logic, a partial opacity that makes a listener pause to process and understand, as demonstrated in proverb use. But anyone who has performed a story knows that style mostly conforms an utterance to make evident the shape of its thematic truth, and hence to convey its meaning in a particular context. The necessary connection between linguistic patterning in a text and the latter's meaning is an axiom of the most analytically powerful paradigm for understanding style in narrative, the ethnopoetic criticism of such anthropological linguists as Hymes (1981) and Sherzer (1990). Following Bakhtin, the present method understands the utterance to be the basic unit of analysis rather than the line, which is the primary unit in ethnopoetics. My initial approach to style differs accordingly, but my ultimate goal is to develop a unified method that yokes the analysis of genre with the analysis of speech, one that is both informed by generic logic and sensitive to linguistic usage. The stylistic features selected for analysis are termed "metalingual" because they are elements of language that refer to language itself. In a folktale, these elements index aspects of narration (Babcock 1977). To understand their usage, compositional units become "frames," or analytic contexts, in contrast-

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within-a-frame and concordance methods (Hymes 1962). These methods identify stylistic elements and plot their distribution in the text, which reveals the range of functions each element performs as well as any compositional junctures not initially predicted. In an exemplary work of ethnopoetic criticism, Hymes is led by two generic compositional features in a Chinookan tale to a radical reinterpretation of its thematic structure and the ethical knowledge it represents. Quoted discourse that embodies this knowledge serves as the title for his landmark collection of critical essays, "In Vain 1 Tried to Tell You" (Hymes 1981). The two compositional features are the traditional title of the story itself, which indicates thematic hierarchy, and the paradigmatic actions of the "villain," which, through intcrtextual comparisons of plot contours, identify him as trickster. Development of the present approach can be understood as an attempt to routinize and consolidate insight such as this. Most structurally informed ethnopoetic analyses, like most of Hyrnes's work in this area, however, are based solely on linguistic features. Intertextual comparisons of generic compositional features like those just noted are rare. Instead, interpretation is built bottom up from the elementary unit of the line, defining narrative segments and then groups of them according to a variety of linguistic features. The textual structures discovered in this way are usually called rhetorical (Hymes's "covert pattern[s] of rhetorical coherence" 1987:22) and are shaped in accord with "pattern numbers of the culture" into progressively more inclusive units (e.g., verses, stanzas, scenes, acts, parts, and wholes). In many texts, these rhetorical, linguistically identified structures would be largely congruent with those that are called compositional in this chapter, but there are several interesting points of difference. Rhetorical structures are constructed bottom up from the principal unit of the line, and they exist in, and emerge from analysis of, individual texts. Compositional forms are identified top down from the principal unit of the utterance, a narrative text as a whole, and they exist in, and emerge from analysis of, collections of texts (i.e., genres). But rhetorical patterns and the compositional finalizations both rely on symmetries, discontinuities, and continuities created by linguistic features— although at different analytic moments. Moreover, both are based on generic intuition informed by intertextual comparison. As Hymes (1987) emphatically declares, "I cannot stress too strongly that there is no mechanical way to discover the verses [i.e., rhetorical segments] of a text" (21). The present approach affirms the role of generically educated intuition in identifying the logic of narrative. Joining Propp's functional analysis of plot with contrast-within-a-frame and concordance methods and distinctive feature analysis strengthens the intertextual comparison on which such critical insight depends. The following analysis of style: in "Have You Not Seen Luhundu?" proceeds according to the methods outlined. It is intended as an illustration of the

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approach and a sketch of stylistic usage in Haya storytelling. A more extensive and revealing stylistic analysis of this sort appears in chapter 5 (in this volume). Deductively based on generic plot patterns, the approach becomes a dialogue between style and plot that begins at predicted junctures and continues at other sites. Stylistic elements occurring at plot junctures constitute a set, and their every occurrence is mapped throughout the text in the manner of a concordance. When the identified elements occur outside predicted junctures, further compositional analysis determines whether these occurrences indicate additional compositional segmentation. If there is further segmentation, then other, analogous compositional junctures may identify additional elements. If occurrences between predicted junctures do not reveal further segmentation, the individual element is understood to perform other functions in addition to disjunction. Table 3.5 represents the line-by-line distribution of stylistic features in "Have You Not Seen Luhundu?" They were selected by their occurrence at the plot junctures predicted by compositional analysis. The table shows that the narrator marks junctures between units in a variety of ways, most often by more than one feature. A narrator always signals boundaries that have generic importance, but she is relatively free in her choice of elements with which to do so. This rule is generally true for Haya folktale narration. Performances that follow this rule may be as well formed, varied, and entertaining as Mukajuna's or they may be repetitious and plodding in style—but if their junctures are correcdy marked, they will be intelligible as Haya folktales. It seems to me the process of relatively free stylistic selection that signals underlying narrative logic is a species of bmolage, used by Levi-Strauss (1963) to describe the intellectual process that creates constant paradigmatic relation-

Table 3.5. I ,inc-by-linc distribution of stylistic features in relation to composition (plot) LINE NUMBERS

10 20 30 40 50 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 12345

FEATURES

(Well) Mpaho x (Now)Mbwenu \: X ^ past perfect distant past x x LOUD line LOUD (part) Intonation XX v XXX XX N-o-n-final x COMPOSITION FO (1) (2)

X

X

X

X

X

x

XX X

X

XXX

X XXX

XX

X

X

X

xxxxxxxxxx

X

P)

(4)

(5)

I<'C

KEY

x i ;

— feature present — plot juncture predicted by genre ~ plot juncture discovered by analogy

FO — formulaic opening PC = formulaic closing

(1) = initial situation (2) = displacement (3) — attempted mediation (4) = successful mediation (5) ~ reward/punishment

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ships in totemism and myth with disparate symbolic elements. But stylistic bricolage differs from its totemic counterpart by describing how a syntagmatic code, not a paradigmatic structure, is created, and more important, by naming the active agency and improvisational performance of the brimkur herself. Three kinds of elements signal junctures: adverbs, marked verbal tenses, and voice modulations. Some are drawn from conversational usage, some are peculiar to narrative, and some are devised by the individual performer. As table 3.5 shows, adverbs and tenses are more strongly associated with generic plot junctures than voice modulations are: all fourteen occurrences of adverbs and marked tenses are associated with generic plot junctures. But not all transitions are so marked. The feature that marks a most significant narrative juncture between attempted mediation and successful mediation (line 33) is voice modulation alone. The narrator uses the same feature to mark the same transition in "Blocking the Wind" (line 92).

Adverbs Mpaho, translated as "well then," is a strong marker of conversational junctures. It accentuates both the formal opening and the formal closing of the tale. Also used to punctuate conversations, mbwenu ("now" or "today") occurs four times in "Have You Not Seen Luhundu?" beginning two of the compositionally predicted segments (displacement and attempted mediation). But in the displacement, "now" is also a unifying feature: At the beginning of lines 6 and 7 it marks the segment that generates the essential dramatic tension of the story. (In Mukajuna's "Blocking the Wind," the adverb marks and unifies six of the sixteen lines of the initial situation.) These varied uses indicate the multifunctionality of even the strongest markers. A fourth "now" in "Have You Not Seen Luhundu?," amplified by the distant past: tense, occurs at a place not predicted by the generic sequence (line 20), the beginning of a segment composed almost entirely of songs. Lines 14—20 can therefore be construed as an unpredicted compositional unit.

Tenses The usual, unmarked tense of folktale narration is formed as personal prefix + 0 tense marker + stem. In conversation, this form would signify the habitual aspect, but in folktales it is used simply to create an unstopped narrative flow. Contrasting tenses used in narration—principally, the distant past and the past perfect—create junctures. In conversational narrative the unmarked tense is usually the near past, and for the first twenty-one lines of "Have You Not Seen

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Luhundu?" Mukajuna so employs it. After the first instance of the song (line 22) she switches to the genetically more appropriate zero tense marker. The adverbial prefix Ka- coupled with the past perfect tense marks the beginnings of three generic segments: displacement (line 6), attempted mediation (line 14), and reward (line 41). Strongly associated with segmentation, it is the most frequently used syntactic device for "metacommentary" or "emplotment" (Ricoeur 1984) to specify relationships among episodes. The distant past tense switches narrative focus between the world of the story and that of the performance. It occurs in lines 1 and 3, where it performs this shift and temporally unifies the formulaic opening (". . . I went and I saw . . .") and the initial situation (". . . there was a man . . ."). The narrator again uses the tense in lines 41 and 42, where it breaks off a long sequence of narrative present tenses (23^1-0), resituates the represented time, and begins the reward episode. The use of the tense in conjunction with the adverbial "now" (20) has been previously discussed.

Voice Modulations Vocal volume and intonation are frequently stylized to create disjunction or cohesion in narrative flow. Of the four kinds of voice modulations identified here, three mark compositionally predicted junctures. The fourth, a pattern created by alternating loud and normal words on a single line or on adjacent lines (LOUD [part] in table 3.5), occurs at a juncture (lines 23—25) analogous to one (line 29) marked by an element (intonation) that does punctuate generically predicted junctures. Loud voicing of an entire line marks the juncture between attempted mediation and successful mediation (line 33). It is equally disjunctive and unifying. Recurring a few lines later, lacking the surprise of its initial use, loudness divides the part of successful mediation that involves discovery and additional travel (33—37) from that which involves the wife's reunification with her husband (38—39). The final occurrence of a loud modulation completes a triad of lines that represent the denouement of the dramatic action; wife learns of husband (33); wife is reunited with husband (38); husband's parents are reunited with husband (41). Loud voicing both marks the lines as junctures and unifies them as a series; it seems a useful, dramatic, and somewhat playful element. Rising and falling intonation patterns unify the entire initial situation and reward segments (lines 2—5 and 41—51). The narrator also employs the figure to define smaller units of action or information within larger segments: lines 9—11, the husband does not specify his destination, echoed in 14—15; 16—17, the wife poetically declares her intention, like a warrior before battle; 36—37, the wife reaches the husband.

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Sentences that contain d-r-a-w-n o-u-t words and phrases, always in a nonfinal position, reinforce the completion of predicted compositional junctures three times (lines 1, 4—5, 13). The narrator also uses the figure (29) within the attempted mediation unit to divide the second occasion (26—28) on which the song is sung from the third (30—33). A juncture analogous to this, between the bride's first (19-22) and second (26—28) singing, is marked by a pattern formed by a single loud word on succeeding lines (23—25). The same pattern, executed within a single line (35) divides the wife's learning about her husband (marked by a full loud line, 33) from her reunification with him (also marked by a full loud line, 38). All songs in this and other Haya folktales fall within the attempted mediation episode. In tales without songs the attempted mediation episode is usually elaborated stylistically in some other way. This remarkable convergence of composition and style also indicates the narrative moment when a third element of generic distinctiveness emerges: a dominant thematic paradigm. This topic is taken up next. In each genre of verbal art, features of everyday speech, genre-specific usages, and individually created patterns form a repertoire of stylistic devices. To a performer, this repertoire is like an artist's palette of colors or a stonecarver's collection of tools. The artist or craftsperson deploys these features to realize his or her vision, to depict forms and events in time and space. The same feature or tool in an artworker's repertoire can be used to create different effects, and the same representational need can be fulfilled by a variety of features. In Haya storytelling, the best performers seem to use their repertoires in a clear yet differentiated and playful way to engage their audience's genrebased ability to envision events. A greater variety of stylistic patterns and markers characterizes performances of the best storytellers, and as one might expect, a smaller set and regular repetition characterize the performances of younger tellers (see the tales, "Open and Let Them Come In" and "Kyusi, Kyusi, Good Dog!" in Seitel 1980). To a critic, a generic repertoire of style is like a valued interlocutor whose observations lead to more subtle understandings of narrative logic. Stylistic patterns confirm or deny the accuracy of compositional analysis, and they suggest revisions.

Genetically Favored Segments: The Narrative Locus of Dominant Themes

The critical leap from generic plot and linguistic style to cultural theme is accomplished with the help of similar observations made independently by Todorov (1975) in his study of the fantastic literary genre and by Labov (1972) in his study of a narrative genre of African-American adolescents. The impli-

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cations of their discovery for the study of verbal art become evident when it is integrated with our developing approach to genre. Both Todorov and Labov discovered that a single episode or a particular relationship among episodes contains the central thematic concerns of a narrative genre. For the fantastic, the defining episode looks like this: In a world which is indeed our world, the one we know . . . there occurs an event which cannot be explained by the laws of this same familiar world. The person who experiences the event must opt for one of two possible solutions: either he is the victim of an illusion of the senses, of a product of the imagination—and the laws of the world remain what they are; or else the event has indeed taken place, it is an integral part of reality—but then this reality is controlled by laws unknown to us. . . . The fantastic occupies the duration of this uncertainty. (Todorov 1975:25) For Todorov, the ambiguously framed episode is the defining feature of the popular genre. Bauman (1986) gives a similar reading to the narratives that describe the playing of practical jokes. Like Todorov, he describes devices that establish and maintain alternate ways of understanding the same depicted action. In stories of practical jolting, contrasting interpretive frames are embodied in different protagonists and produce dramatic irony and humor; in stories of the fantastic, contrasting frames are embodied within a single protagonist and entertain a reader with metaphysical vertigo. Labov's study of adolescent narrative (Labov 1972) addresses a genre formed by answers to an interviewer's question, "Were you ever in a situation where you were in serious danger of being killed, where you said to yourself—'This is it' ? "Labov divides the resultant stories into segments and categorizes the latter, as did Propp, according to their function in the narration, that is, for Labov, according to whether and how particular segments recapitulate a temporally ordered past experience. Collectively, the categorized segments compose a generic sequence: (1) abstract (or summary), (2) orientation, (3) complicating action, (4) evaluation, (5) result or resolution, and (6) coda. The fourth segment type, evaluation, conveys "why the events of the narrative are reportable," that is, why they can be considered answers to the question that motivated the telling. This is the favored segment of this narrative genre, the one that articulates thematic answers to a social need— here an inquiry by an interviewer. The ceiitrality of the thematic content in the evaluation is indicated stylistically by what Labov (1972:375) calls "departures from basic narrative syntax" (i.e., by the use of marked syntactic forms); moreover, most occurrences of these features are closely linked to the evaluation, which occurs in the segment of that name. Labov's treatment of marked syntactic features thus discerns a pattern analogous to the

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distribution of songs in Haya folktales: Stylistic elaboration is associated with a single, functionally defined segment, which contains dominant, socially useful themes. If we generalize the scope of Labov's and Todorov's discovery, we may hypothesize that in each discourse genre there is a particular compositional feature that, within the world represented in the genre, embodies a definitive form of logic. In the case of the fantastic, this characteristic feature is an ambiguous episode and the duration of a character's (and a reader's) hesitancy in choosing between interpretive frames; in the adolescent narratives Labov recorded, the characteristic is an evaluation that situates the narrative as an answer to an interviewer's question. In Haya proverbs, as illustrated, the favored feature is the parallel and opposed propositions whose contrast articulates thematic significance relevant to the conversation. In Haya folktales, the attempted mediation episode is composed of paradigmatic elements that embody generic understandings of causality and human motivation. Its favored status is indicated stylistically in song and compositionally by the elaborate layering of simultaneous plots and subplots that are defined by represented boundaries—sack, village, and figurative speech in "The Glistening One" and house, village, womb, and calabash in "Blocking the Wind." A genre-powered methodology for identifying dominant themes thus begins with discovery of a favored compositional feature. As in the analysis of style, this favored formation can then be treated as an analytic frame which serves to identify a set of similar elements. These elements can then be analyzed as combinations of shared semantic components in the manner of distinctive feature analysis. Together the semantic components describe the world of a particular genre. Oppositions and associations between components juxtaposed or otherwise compared in particular instances articulate themes, and the distribution of themes in a genre can be read in variations of components and frames. In addition, and especially in longer works like the epic in part II, the generic paradigm of components can be identified and interpreted throughout the text, in the manner of a concordance. A brief, concrete example illustrates how the method works. A full analysis of narrative theme forms chapter 6. Table 3.6 arrays the elements that constitute the attempted mediation episode in the three tales discussed previously. Only principal attempted mediations are represented, not those subordinate ones such as those involving crooked sticks, figurative song, steaming vegetables, or various winds. The latter have been omitted for reasons of brevity and simplicity—they can easily be arrayed in the same paradigm. This same kind of distinctive feature analysis can be done with all attempted mediation episodes in Haya folktales. Themes can be interpreted in this way as oppositions and associations among components, such as love with persever-

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Table 3.6. Thematic elements of the attempted mediation episode in three ITaya folktales Elements in Attempted Mediation

"Have You Not Seen Luhundu?" (lost husband)

"Blocking the Wind"

"The Glistening One" (girl in leopard's sack)

Boundary

Hayaland

house

sack, village, house

Entity mediated

husband

brother

girl

Mediator

wife

sister

kinswomen

bride

leopard

love for brother, integrity of clan

love, kinship

gluttony

gluttony

Opponent Appetite (motivation) of mediator

care, love

Appetite (motivation) of opponent Agency

song

ruse of calabash

food, images in song

Ethical knowledge or virtue that informs action

perseverance

self-control, cleverness

bravery, cleverness

ance, gluttony versus love, gluttony with brides, and self-control with clan. The distribution of themes in thirty-five Haya folktales and their confirmation in subsequent interviews with Haya speakers are described in Seitel (1980). The manner in which these and other themes are instruments and effects of power in Haya society is explored in the next section. Together themes describe a world of concentric activity spaces centered at the three-stone hearth in the middle of a traditional, round Haya house. The boundaries in this map—between inner room and outer room, inside the house and outside the house, village and fields, fields and forest—situate the action. Character types inhabit the world: mostly consanguineal and affinal kin along with colorful, abstract combinations of semantic features such as leopard— male, beautiful, strong, stupid, gluttonous. Motivations impel characters across geographical or moral boundaries: passions such as love, gluttony, wanting-tobe-seen-with-people-of-high-prestige, the complementary appetite for exclusion, and sexual desire. Ethical knowledge is represented in the perseverance of characters or in its opposite, the loss of self-control to appetite, fear, or the deceit of another. This world is equipment for living, a tool for understanding social processes as these are viewed by keepers of the tradition, who are primarily women performing at the hearth. The approach's semantic distinctive feature analysis resembles that of structuralism, but it differs in what precedes the analysis: the formal identification of genre and of a single, significant point of intertextual comparison. It also differs in what is subsequent to the semantic analysis: understanding

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themes as instruments and effects of power, as knowledge that has developed at particular places in a social landscape. This chapter sketched aspects of Haya folktales to demonstrate the dimensions of genre's power to interpret verbal art. Linguistic contrast-within-aframe and concordance methods calibrated by generic composition illuminate the connection between plot and style. A definitive favored unit situates contrast-within-a-frame and subsequent distinctive feature analyses to reveal the world that genre creates. The favored unit embodies dominant themes: It is the point of application of discursive power, a guide to interpretation, and a crucial locus of comparison. As both simple and complex rales suggest, attending to the processes of achieving compositional finalization provides a critical way into a text, indicating logical hierarchies between its episodes, defining its set of stylistic features, and indicating where its dominant themes are to be found. Another interpretive power of genre emerges in the next chapter, in which dominant themes are seen in their historical and interactive context. This perspective results from integrating aspects of Foucault's understanding of discursive practice, guided as with the other disciplinary methods by generically distinctive patterns of compositional finalization. Before proceeding to this wider horizon I would like to answer one of the questions that may be in the reader's mind, to wit, is there one and only one compositional component in which dominant themes are articulated? This can be asked and answered at two levels: at that of genre and at that of the individual text. At the level of genre, isolating a single compositional component or relationship as the favored one is based primarily on stylistic elaboration and thematic fit. Throughout the folktale genre, stylistic elaboration—often including song—marks the favored status of attempted mediation. As noted, such elaboration is also evident in the episode type when it is embedded in logically subordinate narrative sequences. In proverbs, on the other hand, evidence for the locus of the favored component is predominately thematic. The compositional ratio between acts and conditions articulates the proverbial theme that is predicated on a conversational topic. Given the way the themes of particular proverbs are glossed by Haya speakers, I can see no competing locus of the dominant theme. At the level of genre, then, dominant themes are always articulated in favored components. At the level of individual performance, the question of the unique association between dominant themes and favored compositional components can be rephrased: Can a performer articulate a theme in a nonfavored component to convey his or her principal meaning? The answer is yes. Any performer might thematize any aspect of an aesthetic utterance to create a particular effect or meaning (i.e., thematic finalization) in the performance context. A narrator also might append a moral lesson to his or her utterance that is only tan-

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gentially related to the dominant theme articulated in the favored compositional episode. Dominant generic themes represent collective ethical knowledge, but an authoritative performer can modify, append, and even oppose them. If this happens frequently because situations seem to demand it or a preeminent performer in a tradition wants it that way, a genre changes; the manner in which it reaches finalization shifts on all three dimensions.

4

Heroic Society in Interlacustrine Africa

Themes are the motivations and causalities that animate an imagined world. Themes mediate between that world and everyday life: They are fictionalizations of the knowledge that informs real social practices. These points have already been made with respect to proverbs, but they bear repeating. In the 11 ay a proverb, "He who doesn't travel says, 'My mother cooks (best)'" (Atagenda ati, 'Mae achumba'), insufficient experience and deficient judgment are implicitly contrasted with adequate experience and judgment to articulate a theme more blandly expressed as "experience teaches." The proverb's theme creates meaning in conversation. Thus, from my analytic point of view, the theme of the quoted proverb is the causal relationship between experience and judgment rather than mother, child, nurturance, or any archetypal constellation of these symbols. Themes are culture-specific, abstract categories; they entail semantic associations and contrasts; they create meanings when used in performances. Equipped with this proverbial wisdom, genre-powered interpretation approaches thematic finalization in this chapter at the levels of utterance and context, distinguishing in the latter die vivid present of performance and die broader horizon of historical epoch. The three analytic tools—Proppian functional analysis, contrast within a frame, and distinctive feature analysis—combine to illuminate theme in context. With them I explore the connection between epics and what has been called heroic society and, more generally, the relationship between verbal art and institutional power in a heterogeneous social field. The historical distmctiveness of epic points to genre as a concept that can relate individual works to a historical context. This interpretive energy of genre flows in two directions: inward from generic frameworks to individual works to illuminate their thematic content; and outward from generic frameworks to historical context to comprehend their characteristic usefulness in the social situations in which they arise. Through these analytic powers of genre, literature reveals what Jameson calls an "ideology of form," the social 83

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The Powers of Genre

contradictions expressed both in works of literature and in the historical context of their production. In achieving generic modes of finalization, a literary work becomes both model of and model for particular kinds of social thought and action. Epics necessarily evoke the broader historical horizon to create meaning in performance, in contrast to proverbs and folktales. Proverbs certainly, and folktales almost certainly, depend on unique aspects of the vivid present for components of their meaning. In proverb use, achieving thematic finalization at this level has an immediate didactic or hortative purpose. In folktale performance, this immediate intent is often also present, seen in the educational spin Kisiraga put on the story of the girl in the leopard's sack and in Mukajuna's multiple explorations of domesticity. In comparison with warm proverbial exchanges and interactive narration at a cooking hearth, epic's performance context is often cool and contemplative. A professional singer entertains a mostly adult audience; unless there is another professional or the context is very informal, there is no exchange of narrative turns. The invited audience characteristically sits, sips millet beer, and listens, and although there are ways of showing approval, they are much less constant and intense than the nodding and eye contact that encourages performers of folktales and proverbs. The experience of epic performance is of longer, more complex stories sung in allusive poetic language. The achievement of thematic finalization in context creates resonance between institutional process and social differentiation in an archaic world and similar categories in the present. Epic utterances, as Bakhtin might say, envision a delayed response, a confirmation or change of attitude, rather than the more immediately active behavioral response to a proverb or folktale. Response to epic performance in the present is mostly limited to exclamations of pleasure and bestowing of material reward. I call them epics because they are relatively long narratives (though not as long as many African epics) that depict action in a heroic society. I call them ballads because they are story songs composed in recurring stanzaic patterns. Haya epic ballads are a good vehicle for exploring thematic finalization in historical context, for they depict ethical conflict: Contrasts creates sharper focus. These epics also speak to a now-ancient controversy in the study of African literature, on the existence or nonexistence of the epic genre in Africa. The issue was decided (if it was ever in doubt) in favor of existence, and a summary of the arguments can be found in Mulokozi (1983) and Johnson (1986). Proofs of epics' existence have cited formal evidence of narrative length and poetic style. The present treatment adds heroic society to the list of universal epic features indigenous to the continent. Haya epic balladry is set within the moral horizons of a heroic age, in which a nascent state struggled and prevailed against, and also made accommodations with, the ancient power of patrilineal clans.

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Thematic Penalization and Representation in Genre Themes achieve completion at the level of performance context when they fully model human behavior as this is understood within the world of genre constructed by performers and audiences. Thematic finalization thus requires the mediation of genre between imaginary themes and lived social experience. That is, an understanding of meaning, the finalization of theme at the level of context, entails a critical theory of: genre as the link between literary representation and social life. According to Voloshinov (1986:18), the connection between a particular thematic element (say, a particular epic character) and the social reality it represent can be understood first by comparing it with similar elements within its own utterance, then by comparing that utterance with similar utterances within its genre, and finally by comparing the genre to other genres in society. The necessary connections between social organization and literary forms can be read in this final comparison between genres. This chapter follows that trajectory. Bakhtin (1981) describes genres as "the drive belts from the history of society to the history of language" (65). They mediate between the engine of social change—economic modes of production and the social organization supported by them—and changes in language itself. In a sense, language is collection of tools configured by genres and driven by this mighty social engine. Michael Foucault would reject this industrial metaphor because it implies that power derives solely from social and economic nondiscursive sources. In his view, the social field that contains discursive practices is suffused by power generated within as well as outside of them: "power is everywhere, not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere" (Foucault 1978:93). Power is exercised from innumerable points and is immanent in social relationships in which knowledge is created, transmitted, and deployed. For Foucault, a particular form of discourse, a genre, "can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a point of resistance, a starting point for an opposing strategy" (1978:101). My approach to genre sees the play of institutional power and resistance in thematic finalization as Foucault sees it in the strategies of discursive formations. Foucault's "rule of double conditioning" (1978:99-100) asserts the importance of maintaining an analytic distinction between large and small parts of the social field that are homologously structured and seemingly governed by the same relationships of power. Each has its own practices that create power and knowledge. The smaller is not to be understood as a miniature of the larger or as merely its functional appendage—for example, understanding the father in the Victorian family as emulating the English monarch's role in inculcating a sense of duty. But at the same time, these larger and smaller practices support one another in overall strategies and particular situational tactics. Each set of prac-

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The Powers of Genre

tices is doubly conditioned, first as an instrument and effect of power in its own regime and second by its strategic relationships with other practices in a heterogeneous social field. In this, Foucault envisions the paradoxical nature of artistic performance, which is meaningful and powerful in itself at the same time that it may articulate and serve institutional power. Before surveying the large territory discerned in this perspective, I should pause to note that themes are not the sole source of power in aesthetic discourse. Sometimes the very enactment of a genre, item, or style can assert power (e.g., the recitation of a credo or a healing chant, the performance of music or dance forbidden by a colonial administration, or the mere use of a proverb by a junior to a senior). Moreover, the power of particular themes is modulated by the occasion and style of performance and by the identity of the speaker. But insofar as symbolic representation is an instrument and an effect of power, it is theme that counts in aesthetic genres. This approach to theme and power in performance can aptiy be explored through the discourse of Haya epic ballads. The complexity of their patronage, of the epoch they reflect, and of their literary style can test any approach that tries to comprehend artistic performance in context. Haya bards have sung heroic epic ballads in several venues: royal courts, wedding celebrations, public bars, and private homes. With few exceptions, only the last two of these are viable today. In precolonial Hayaland, epic singing was a tradition supported by both royal and nonroyal audiences. Classic epic ballads honored the ethics associated with two often competing institutions, the kingship and the system of patrilineal clans. A large number of epics were composed for and about kings, and although these are not as widespread as the narratives discussed here, they are a major part of epic tradition and reflect the strong ties to royalty enjoyed by many bards. Haya epics are set in an heroic age and reflect a period between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, during which Haya cultural identity was developing under the influence of institutional conflict and accommodation between the centralized political power of kingship and the decentralized authority of patriarchal clans. An ascendant state's ideology of subordination and reward fought for individual loyalties against conservative clan ethics based on symmetrical exchange among kin groups. In this heroic era, individual social identities could be chosen, proclaimed in word and deed, and defended with heroic virtue. The kingship ultimately dominated, but the institutional conflict and accommodation between king and clan, between asymmetry and symmetry in symbolic exchange, between state subordination and clan equality, have shaped the character of social life in profound ways. In epics, Haya bards reconstruct an age of heroes in which these ethical forces contend. The Haya epic ballad genre favors a narrative episode, the call—an address to a protagonist that motivates the principal narrative action. In responding to

Heroic Society m Interlacustrme Africa

87

it, he or she acts in a manner that thematizes institutional ethics or opposition to them. The call motivates subsequent encounters and frames them with thematic significance. Calls come in many ways: the royal war drums' roar heard by a loyal warrior, a weak kinsman's plea to a clan patriarch, or the insult that probes unwilling subordination. Calls invariably refer to dominant institutions and the ethics that inform, support, and defend their practices. Bird and Kendall (1980) report that in Mande epics also, principal narrative emphasis is placed on the cultural frame within which combat occurs rather than on the battle itself. In the Mande tradition, that frame consists of the acquisition and use of magical power; in Haya epic balladry that frame is ethical choice. By their nature, calls require a distributive system of ethics, one in which individual rights and obligations vary according to social status and role. If there is only one ethical code, choice is not an issue, merely perseverance, as in the world of Haya folktales. But the obligations of an epic warrior differ from those of a king, a clan patriarch, or a common fisherman. Each social standing responds to particular calls with distinctive virtues. This type of thematic system places Haya epics in heroic society, as this literary and ethical paradigm has been understood in world comparative literature. Among the many attempts to isolate the essential characteristics of heroic society, Alasdair Maclntyre's seems most useful. It directs critical focus away from previous euhemerist reconstructions of an archetypal heroic social structure to questions about the literary representation of a moral system. He defines the essential characteristics of heroic societies by generalizing M. I. Finley's (1956) classic account of the society represented in Homeric epics, in which social station, values, rights, and duties were prescribed and closely associated: What Finley says of Homeric society is equally true of other forms of heroic society in Iceland or in Ireland. Every individual has a given role and status within a well-defined and highly determinate system of roles and statuses. The key structures are those of kinship and of the household. In such a society a man knows who he is by knowing his role in these structures, and in knowing this he knows what is owed to him by the occupant of every other role and status. . . . But it is not just that there is for each status a prescribed set of duties and privileges. There is also a clear understanding of what actions arc required to perform these and what actions fall short of what is required. For what are required are actions. A man in heroic society is what he does. . . . By performing actions of a particular kind in a particular situation a man gives warrant for judgment upon his virtues and vices; for the virtues are just those qualities which sustain a free man in his role and which manifest themselves in those actions which his role requires (Maclntyre 1981:115). [For the sake of simplicity, I have not added the feminine pronouns in brackets even though they are required to make the argument complete.]

One can agree completely with Maclntyre's observation that ethics differ-

88

The Powers of Genre

entiated by social station are characteristic of epic discourse and that they are embodied in depicted acts. But heroic society implies wider social structures than kinship and household. As Paul Zumthor observes in a survey of oral epic poetry, "a connection indubitably exists between the epic and some form of the state "(1990:94). An ascendant state is the horizon for the action in the three Haya epics discussed here. Among the most widely known in Hayaland, their dramatic force derives from ethical difference. Institutional powers of state and clan infused the social field in which this tradition developed, and the aesthetic and ethical power articulated by epics tactically supported or opposed them.

Compositional Finalization in Epic Ballads The compositional logic of Haya epic ballads is achieved by a sequence of eight episode types. These, like all narrative compositional components, are defined by the manner in which they develop the plot as a whole. 1. Qualify: a segment that introduces, enriches, and modifies the portrayal of principal protagonists. 2. Call: an address made to a protagonist that motivates action. 3. Prepare: verbal orders or acts that ready the protagonist for action— weapons for battle, food and drink for travel, clothes for marking social roles, farewells and instructions to household members, consultations with diviners, etc. 4. Travel: a journey that often relates narrated action to real time and space by depicting movement from landmark to landmark along actual roads in Hayaland. 5. Engage—disequilibrium (-): an encounter (or series of them) that produces disequilibrium: combat, request, etc. 6. Reveal/discover: introduction of a new character or information. 7. Engage—equilibrium (+): a repetition or transformation of the encounter in episode 5, which produces equilibrium. 8. Comment: speech or action after the principal conflict is resolved. This form of finalization characterizes the eight epic ballads that I am editing for publication, making allowances for the kind of elaboration and genreinformed authorial license described in this chapter. These epic ballads are Kachivenyanja, Ruki^a, M.ugasha, Kajango, Kaiyula, Mbali Oluga Niyo N^alwa, Kitekele, and Kaitaba. Epic ballads are a complex genre: They are adult poetic fare, self-consciously sophisticated in their use of language; they often plumb the depths of performers' and audiences' cultural knowledge with obscure epithets and

Heroic Society in Interlacustrine Africa

89

allusions. Their compositional fmalization is not as easily approached as that of folktales, in which a "way in" could be found with increasingly more complex examples of the same basic logic (from the tale of "the lost husband" to the tale of "the girl in the sack" to "Blocking the Wind"). Alas, there are no relatively simple epics to begin with. The principal form of compositional elaboration in epics is embedding like that in the first and last episodes of "the girl in the sack" tale, in which, as Propp (1968) says, a single episode "becomes a small tale within a larger one . . . built . . . according to the same rules"(78). This device can be seen in apparently the most popular Haya epic, whose hero is called Kachwenyanja in most kingdoms but Kilenzi in Kiziba (Mulokozi 1983). In the next chapter Kachwenyanja will be the subject of a detailed stylistic analysis featuring an intricate and rarely described kind of poetic stanza. For this reason, the text appears in line-by-line translation in both Luhaya and English accompanied by two kinds of annotation: notes on cultural dimensions of the text and notes that describe poetic figures. The latter result from the kind of analysis explained in the next chapter, and I suggest readers peruse them later to understand this aspect of the bard's artistic talent. The other epic texts presented in this chapter appear only in English translation. And although they are composed in the same kind of stanzaic forms, descriptions of the latter have been omitted. These poetic structures have been taken into account whenever possible in formulating the translation. Words and passages of praise are set in italics to differentiate them and assist the reader in following the narrative. Pauses are marked by a full return to the left margin. Indented margins signify the bard sang that poetic line without pausing for breath. Arbitrarily, lines preceded by pauses are numbered in an overall sequence; numbers of lines not preceded by a pause are derived: for example, 1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2, 3, 4, 4.1, 4.2 . . . numbers a passage in which the bard paused four times, including his initial silence and in which the first and the fourth lines were composed of several poetic lines articulated without pauses between them.

90

The Powers of Genre Kachwenyanja

Gwa Nsheshe akaluga Kailongo l^uhunga akaluga Mugajwaale. l^uhunga, Mugajwaale, Kakolonto na Kabwenge.

1 2

Oli w' ebilalaaka by' eilungu. Nsbesbe. Piky' amaino kwela,

3 4

Yingino ^amwilagwile.

5

Akaluga Nshesbe na Kailongo.

6

\Mhunga akaluga Mugajwaale, Kakolonto na Kabwenge. Oli tmvaana iv' ebitalaaka by' eilungu.

Baaba, Akaba aina abakazi babili. Omoi nibamweta Ngolwa. Nkwanzi, Nkwanzi, Nkwanzi kalukombabaile elya kikombe iwe!

1 8 9 10 11

Akaba aina Mukabalinda mukazi muto. Akaba obukazi nayesiga eikaiba. Mukabalinda muto.

12

Ogwo akaba nayesiga eiganzi. Nkwanzi mukazi mukulu. Obukulu bwa wenene ayesiga eiganzi.

14

Owa Nsheshe,

16

13

15

1-2.2, 6-6.3. Part of the hero's ely'ebugo, or self-praise recitation. The bard quickly establishes the identity of the royal warrior-hero by naming his place of origin, Nsheshe, a group of islands in Lake Victoria, and by describing his physical appearance. In contrast, the identity of the clan warrior-hero in Ruki^a (p. 127 in this volume) is created with kin relationships. Place of origin and individual identity were important principles in state warnorhood, as recruitment into battalions was done by locality, and rewards accrued to conspicuous individual warriors. Hpic bards deftly place their heroes within classic, intentionally archaic, opposing ethical systems of the heroic age. In the presence of royalty, a warrior would declare his identity by a spirited recitation of his self-praise or boast, eby'ebugo. The series of place names in Kachwenyanja's self-praise (1—2.2) recurs throughout the epic, emphasizing the force tins poetic genre exerts on the composition and theme of the epic narrative. 11-15. Differences between the hero's cranky wives anticipates their collective contrast with the ideal dream of the feminine that is about to emerge. Thematic comparisons create rhetorical power in bardic discourse.

Heroic Society in Interlacustnne Africa

91

Kachwenyanja By the road to Nsheshe, he came from Kailongo. In Ljthunga, he came from Mugajwaale. l^uhunga, Mugajwaale, Kakolonto and Kabwenge. You are a child of the unbroken wilderness. Nsheshe. Of the white teeth, Dark gums. He came from Nsheshe and Kailongo. In l^uhunga he came from from Mugajwaale, Kakolonto and Kabivengs. You are a child of the unbroken wilderness.

My friend, He had two wives. One they called Ngolwa. (No! they called hcr)Nkwanzi, Nkwanzi, (praise of Nkivan^f. not translatable. )

Then Mukabalinda was his junior wife. Then as a woman, she put her faith in co-wife's conflict Mukabalinda, the junior wife. The other, then, put her faith in husband's favor. Nkwanzi, the senior wife. As the senior, she put her faith in husband's favor. The man of Nsheshe

1-6.3. viiRSE in AHA formed by contrast between near identical STANZAS (A'S: 1-2.2, 6-6.3) and an intervening STANZA (B: 4-6); the identical stanzas are formed in AAAB by contrast between lines that include place names (A'S: 1, 1.1, 2, 2.1 and 6, 6.1, 6.2) and lines that include a place description (B'S: 2.2 and 6.3); the intervening stanza is formed in ABB by contrast between two lines composed as body part + color description (B'S: 4, 5) and a single line that echoes a previous one (A: 3). 12-15. MIRROR VERSli of two STAN7.AS (12—13, 14—15) each formed in ABA. Lines composed as personal name -I uxonal status contrast with lines composed as "she put her faith in" + domestic strategy; the repeating line type in the first stanza (A'S: 12, 13) becomes the intervening line type in the second stanxa (B: 14.1), and the intervening line type in the first stanza (B: 12.1) becomes the repeated line type in the second stanza (A'S: 14, 15).

92

The Kpic Ballad of Kachwenyanja as Performed by Muzee

Yanyama na Mukabalinda mukazi muto. Ekilo eitumbi lya mwenda,

17

Mbali ekibi kigendela, Mbali otnuntu akabila atahimbuuke,

\8 19

Mbali omulungi abuganganilwa ondijo, Mbali ohulila omu kikale bagwihya bn/oli, Lyanyaama lyafumbatana. Kunyaama, Omushaija yashagalwa ekigono. Omukazi yantaho akahi.

20 21 22 23

"Mukazi! Nikwo isho na nyoko bakulagiile?" "Waitu, tinakuteza ka bubi. Nahulila wanyaama wahunizibwa,

24

Waitu."

26

"Naloota ninshwela. Ninshwela omukazi Ntuuwa. Namwihya omu bikika by' eibanga."

27 28 29

Ahi, "Kabulakya mukazi wange,

30

Onchuundil' ekilele." Yakichuundila okukyata.

31

Amaalwa yantelamu gake ag' okulangaiza.

32

Namuloota nimushwcla 'nye. Yazotelela okuzookya.

33 34

Olw' obwile bwakeile, Yantelamu amaalwa ag' okulangaiza.

35 36

Eichumu nata ogwa bulyo,

37

25

28. Crested crane, with her tufted head and long, graceful neck, embodies the beauty of royalty—ideally tall and thin, with slow graceful movements. Crane gives her name to a bride's special hairstyle. Her literary opposite is akaiba, "ring-necked dove"—also the word for "co-wife's conflict" (Iincl2.1). This negative vision of clan domesticity contrasts with the tale about how a common dove bested a royal crane in knowing how to treat a husband (Seitcl 1980: 168-170). 30—36. A moderate portion of beer completes the statement of domestic resistance begun by an over-scoured calabash and over-scented clothes. Giving, sharing, or denying beer confers social solidarity or defines social division. The flow of beer from to wives to husbands, from kings to warriors, from hosts to guests, between in-laws, and among other statuses in 1 layaland witnesses interdependence and solidarity (Carlson 1991). A healthy flow symbolically confirms shared ethics. Beer is a metaphorical vehicle in several proverbs that comment on social divi-

Kachivenyanja

93

Slept with Mukabalinda, the junior wife. In the early morning hours, about three, When evil roams, When a person faints and does not revive, When one lover meets another, When you hear them in the royal mansion finally disperse,

They lay, they embraced. Lying there, The man was escorted off by snoring . . . The woman struck me with her palm! "Woman! Is this what your father and mother taught you?" "My lord, I didn't hit you meanly. I heard something make you wimper as you slept, My lord." "I dreamed of marrying. Of marrying the woman, Crested crane. I carried her away from the foot of a mountain." He said, "When morning comes, my wife, Scour out my calabash for me." She scoured it near to breaking. Beer she poured in just a bit for sipping and relaxing. I dreamed of marrying her, I did. My clothes she smoked with incense near to burning. When morning had come, She poured in beer for sipping and relaxing. A spear I took in my right hand,

sion; for example, "Speaks-not-with-children brews beer by himself (i.e., without help)" and "Brewed by the tattered, drunk by the well dressed." Beer is also a pregnant image in epic ballads. 18-19.2. STANZA in AAAB . IJnes composed as adverbial conjunction + noun . . . (A'S: 18, 19, 19.1) contrast with a line composed as adverbial conjunction + prepositional phrase (B: 19.2). 24-26. STANZA in AABA formed by contrast between lines with an initial term of address (A'S: 24, 24.1, 26) and a line without one (B: 25). 30-36. MIRROR VF.RSR of two STANZAS (30-32, 33-36) of lines composed of adverbial clauses (30, 35) of parallel syntax (31, 34) and substantially the same wording (32 and 36). 37-39. STANZA in A AW. Lines composed as direct object + "I took" + left or right (A'S: 37, 38) contrast with a line that begins with a subject (B: 39).

94

The Epic Ballad of Kachwenyanja as Performed by Muzee

Omuholo nata ogwa bumosho, Omwaana enyuma kyagil' omweeyo.

38 39

Naija Nsheshe. Naija omuli Kailongo. Luhunga naija Mugajwaalc.

40 41 42

Nakwata omu bkalaaka by' eilungu.

43

Amaalwa nkagaihya Milama. Ndama, Ndama Nasooka Kabilizi. Omuli Migala nalabamu.

44 45 46

Empalo nkatembela omwa Galeeba Nyakabanga.

47

Naija Kahyolo ka Mpembe.

48

Lugasha Iwa Mukama.

49

Nashabuka Kyenguzi na Nziba. Kanyamukule aha kabanga k' omwa Marimba nakwata Kyabilanja.

50 51

Empalo nkatembela omwa Muhuumuza ya Atainake-Tainakc ya Mashobe.

52

"Ondage amaalwa.

53

Hutila! Icbumu ly' eman^i Lwitila omu mbuga. y\^ilinga omu miyonga eikwilagula. "

54 55 56

Muhuumuza ati, "Olw' abakama batabulilwa, Olabe Ilogclo omwa Kayango, Kayango ka Kamala-mpaka,

57

Kamala-mpaka ka l^y'olugano, By 'olugano bya Nyabwilu,

59 60

Rtvilu bwa Kabange, llmpungu echwekiie amabele %zi Buhaya. "

61 62

58

52. He-who-hasn't-his: this personal name echoes a common proverb, atainake ta^induka, "He who hasn't his doesn't travel," which can be used to curtly refuse a request. 54—56. Blackened grass can be found between villages on the fallow land burnt annually to keep it clear. The object of the verb "rolls" is presumably enemy corpses. 57.1. Kayango represents an archaic, indigenous kingship. The name derives from the Bayango, a pre-1 finda dynasty in the kingdom of Ihangiro, where the epic is set (Cory n.d.:35). 58. Dispute-ender is the name given to the third child, if male, born after twins. 62. Literally, "hawks died-without-male-issue, breasts, of (a possessive referring to hawks) 1 layaland." I lawks may refer to royalty, as they do for the non-Hinda Bankango rulers of

Kachwenyanja

95

A hafted knife I took in my left, A child behind, to bear my calabash with woven cap. I came to Nsheshe. I came into Kailongo. From Luhunga I came to Mugajwaalc. I took to the unbroken wilderness. My beer I got out at Milama. At Ndama, Ndama village I descended to Kabilizi. Through Migala I passed. By the low road I ascended to Galeba's in Nyakabanga. I came to Kahyolo village of Mpembe. Lugasha village of Mukama. I crossed Kyenguzi and Nziba streams. At Kanyamukulc village on the hill at Marimba's, I went toward Kyabilanja. By the low road I ascended to Muhuumuza's of Mc-who-IIasn't-his-Hasn't-his of Mashobe. "Please direct me to some beer. Hear! Spear of warriors

That kills on open ground. He rolls them in blackened grass. " Muhuumuza said, "Because the kings lack nothing Go by Ilogelo to the royal dwelling of Kayango, Kayango of Dispute-under, Dispute-ender of By 'olugano, Tty'olugano of Nyabmlu, Nyabivilu of Kahan^e, Childless .Hawks oj 1 layaland. " Kyamutwala kingdom, whose mu/umuna, or totcmic "clan brother," is the hawk. Hawks arc distinguished from non-carnivorous birds by their diet, just as royalty was distinguished from commoners. Childlessness may signify Kayango's dynasty did not reproduce. Kaijagc (1971) gives infertility as the reason sovereignty passed from an indigenous clan to the invading I linda in Kymutwala. 40—43. STAN/.A in AAAB formed by contrast between lines composed as [place name] + "I came" + place name (A'S: 40, 41, 42) and a single line composed as "I took" + place description (B: 43). 45-52. VERSE in AHA of MIRROR STAN/AS (A'S: 45-47 and 50-52) composed by parallel syntax (45, 50—verb initial; 46, 51—verb (nearj final) and lexical repetition (47, 52); a pair of lines (B: 48, 49) intervenes between the stanxas to create the ABA pattern. 58—62. STANZA in AAAAB formed by lines of praisenames linked by chained repetitions (A'S: 58,

96

The E'pic Ballad of Kachwenyanja as Performed by Muzee

Nakwata gumoi.

63

Naija Nyamukazi. Omuli Lwakayanja akashozi, Omwa Kamuhaabwa, Naija Kazilango. Omwa Kayango nagobamu.

65

Ngya nshanga alimu ka Byolugatio. "Waitu, Enshongole malama, Ishe abashaija!" Ahihyaya!

66 67 68

"Enshongole malama, Ishe abashaija! Nalamya eky' engonzi n' obutini.

69

64

Natekaho eky' obwegula-mwoyo. Lugaba, nyina eliho lingi." Yantelamu kyaijula.

70 71

Namilwa ogwa Enjelu. Nayekuba omwa Bilaze owa Jooje.

72 73

Kamachumu Milama —Ekaba etakabaile mugini— Nakwata akachulo ka Kamilabala.

74 75

Omwa Bukende omu ilembo,

76

Nakwata Nyazilo.

77

Kakila omwa Njwanga, Nasooka Nyamilyango. Nkashangaho abaisiki Nshangaho enyaluka ibili. Bakaba mbaihya obunyasi Bali omu bikiika by' eibanga.

78 79 80 81

"Mwagila bwihi bamaawe!"

82

59, 60, 61) and a final line of praisenamcs not so linked (B: 62). 69-71. STANZA in AAAAB. Lines of the warrior's quoted speech (AS: 69, 69.1, 69.2, 70) contrast with one line of the king's narrated response (B: 71). 76—77.2. STANZA in ABAB formed by contrast between lines composed as zero verb + preposition + place name (A'S: 76, 77.1) and lines composed as verb initial + place name (B'S: 77, 77.2). 78—81. STANZA formed in three overlapping structures: in ABAB by contrast between lines whose initial verb is in the distant past (a's: 78, 80) and lines whose initial verb is in the narrative present (b's: 78, 81); in AABB by contrast between lines in which the verbs are in the first person (A'S: 78, 79) and lines in which the verbs are in the third person (B'S: 80, 81); in AAAB by contrast between lines composed as transitive verb phrase + direct object (A'S: 78, 79, 80) and a single

Kachivenyanja

97

I took the road directly. I came to Nyamukazi. In Lwakayanja on the hill At Kamuhabwa's, I came to Kazilango. At Kayango's royal mansion I arrived. I go and find he's in, the scion of By'olugano. "My lord, Long life to the Fearless one, leather of men!' Ahihyaya! "Long life to the Fearless one, Father of men! I salute you with a greeting of love and fear. I add one to buy life. Provider, I have a great thirst." He poured it 'til it filled. I was swallowed by the road to Enjelu. I turned at the house of Bilaze of George. In Kamachumu village at Milama —It hadn't yet become a town— I went toward the spring at Kamilabala. At Bukende's at the forecourt, I went toward Nyazilo. In Kakila at Njwanga's, I descended Nyamilyango mountain. I met girls there I meet two noblewomen. They were gathering straw They are there, at: the foot of a mountain. "Straw gathering's work, my mothers!"

line composed as verb "to be" + prepositional phrase (B: 81); the last reading foregrounds the uniqueness of the final line, which thcmatically fulfills a dream promise (29). 71. This episode, completed with a generous pouring of beer, introduces the royal institutional setting of the narrative. The warrior is a well-spoken, well-regarded supporter of an authentic king. 74—75.1. These anachronisms—Kamachumu is now a relatively large town; "George" is a Christian name—assist the audience in following the route taken by the traveler. 82—87. These salutations communicate status. In general, greetings index and confirm aspects of social relationships. Being first to greet is a way of conferring status on the addressee. The warrior's opening statement of observation (82) is not a greeting but is the kind of utterance sometimes used to induce an addressee to greet first—and thus admit lower status. But when the

98

The Epic Ballad of Kachwenyanja as Performed by Muzee

Bainuguka baikiliza Omuganda gw' obunyasi baguntelaho bwangili . . .

83 84

Nakunda nagwtkalila. "Enshongole malarna!" Bati, "Nkushula waitu Byabantu."

85 86 87

"Inywe bakazi inywembili, Mukunde, nabashwela." Yayanga Nyakaandalo.

88 89 90

Ahi, "Waitu nikizila. Abakazi babili tibashwelwa izooba limo. Oshwele mulumuna wange, Inye ndaluga enyuma nkuzilimile.

91 92

Angili oshwele 'nye, Mulumuna wange alakuzilimila."

94 95

"Nakushwela Nyakaandalo!" "Iwe mushaija yanshwela, oil muki? Omu maisho gawc wanshobcza.

96 97 98

93

Kibanja kolaba otali Muhinda, bakama bange, Nokuniliva Kabale oli Munkango. " "fvlaawe, omwaitu ni Nsheshe. Maawe, omwaitu ni Kailongo. Nkaluga Lithunga na Mugajwaale.

99 100 101

Nkaluga Kakolonto na Kabwenge. Ndi mwaana w' ebitalaaka by' eilungu. Eishoke ikimbisi^e olwejo.

\ 02

Hulila! Ichumu ly' ernan^i

103

women "agree" to greet (83), by straightening up from their back-bending work and even providing the warrior a clean place to sit, he greets first (86), giving the women almost the same greeting he gave to the king himself (67). 92. Two women: Nyakaandalo's assertion about this somewhat obscure marriage custom is correct. She shows herself an expert in clan affairs but outside them, since she can be married without negotiations or payment of bridcwcalth. I Icr mastery of clan affairs is repeatedly demonstrated over the course of the narrative. 98.1, 98.2.Hinda and Munkango are the ruling clans in their respective kingdoms, Kihanja Kyamtwala. The latter's royal dwelling is in Kabale. She praises the warrior's regal appearance. 99-104.2. The two recurring parts of Kachwenyanja's praise appear together, joined by another detail about his distinctive appearance. Praise becomes more and more central to the plot and character motivations. Here it wins Nyakaandalo's admiration and consent. The warrior's hairiness is a conventional sign of strength and easily aroused anger.

Kacbivenyanja

99

They straightened up; they agreed. A sheaf of straw they placed for me or ... I obliged; I sat upon it. "Long life to the Fearless one!" They said, "I greet you, my lord, Wealth-of-the-People.' "You two women, Consent and I will marry you." She refused, Nyakaandalo. She said, "My lord, it is forbidden. Two women are not married beneath one sun. Marry my sister, And I will come behind to bear a wedding gift. Or marry me, And my sister will bear the gift." "I shall marry you, Nyakaandalo!" "You man who'd marry me, -who are you? Before you I'm amazed. In Kihanja if you are not a Hinda, my kings, You are honored in Kabale as a Nlunkango. " "Mother, our home is in Nsheshe. Mother, our home is in Kailongo. I come from \jubunga and Mugajivaale. I come from Kakolonto and Kabn>ense. I am a child of unbroken wilderness. My hair dulls any ra$yr. Hear! Spear of warriors

82—87. COMPOUND STAN/A of three couplets, each comprising an action-reaction sequence, formed in AAB. Couplets that depict prc-grecting exchanges and are marked by double verb constructions in their second lines (A'S: 82—83, 84—85) contrast with a hnal couplet that quotes the exchange of actual greetings (H: 86—87) 88-92. COMPOUND STANZA, 2 + 2 + 1, formed in AAB by semantic contrast between line pairs that request and refuse (A'S: 88-89, 90-91) and a single line that explains (B: 92). 92.1-95. STANZA in ABAB formed contrast between lines composed as "marry" + direct object (A'S: 92.1, 94) and lines composed as ". . . bring a gift" (B's: 93, 95). 99-101.2. COMPOUND STAN/A, 2 + 2 + 1 , formed in AAB by couplets (A'S: 99-100, 101-101.1) that cohere by parallelism and repetition contrasted with a final line that has a distinct composition (B: 101.2).

100

The Powers of Genre

llulila! Ichumu ly' eman^i Ljvitil' omu mbuga."

104

Ahi, "Tata wanshwela Byabantu." Nkakunda namushwela.

105

Namwalika ebilo binai.

106

Ekya katanu enyailiya yayaluka. Ekya mukaga nkaba mufumbasile . . . Mpulil' engom' ezayema Nsheshe. MpuliF ezayema Kailongo.

107 108 109

Mpulil' eza Luhunga.

110

MpuliF eza Mugajwaale.

Ill

Mpulil' eza Kakolonto na Kabwenge.

112

Mpulil' ezayema omu bitalaaka by' eilungu.

113

Nkaba mufumbasile, nagalama. Ahi, "Mushaija wange wabaki?"

114

"Nahulila engoma zagamba: Ezayema Nsheshe,

115 116

Ezajuga,

117

Zanjuga omu nda." Ahi, "Natabaalakwo.

118

Mukazi wange, onkol' entanda."

119

"Entanda nkol' eya? Tinashweilwe kitende na mpambo."

120 121

"Ogende ose obulo." Ahi, "Waitu bwalagalwamu enseiso."

122 123

"Ogye onyihile ekilai kyange."

124

107. On the fifth: the custom is to seclude an already married woman for only four days. 108—150. In this episode the warrior receives a call to uphold the ethics of his social standing by acting with its virtues. lie must choose between his king and his dream-sent wife. The call episode provides a thematic paradigm that structures most of the action depicted in this epic. Ethical knowledge associated with particular institutions motivates and is articulated by events. The warrior's self-knowledge makes his body reverberate with the king's drummed summons (117.1). With wifely knowledge Nyakaandalo tries to keep him home, he suspects (136.1). The status of the couple's union outside clan is underlined by Nyakaandalo's lack of "storage sack and seeds" (121), which a clan sanctioned bride brings to a new home, and by the symmetry of their address, "dear one" answered by "yes, dear one" (146). These arc the thematic building blocks: —two kinds of knowledge: of self (okiv'-emarya), which binds one to to the ethics of a social role; and that of other (aku-manya), with which one transforms and manipulates. —institutional bases for knowledge: state, clan, and a romantic place outside of clan. —richly symbolic speech: symmetrical endearments and poetic praise; —richly symbolic extra-linguistic codes. —bodies inscribed with institutional meanings.

Kachmnyanja

101

Hear! Spear of warriors That kills on open ground. "

She said, "Father, you have married me, Wealth-of-the-people." I obliged, I married her. I secluded her four days. On the fifth the already married one emerged. On the sixth I had embraced her . . . I hear drums that stand at Nsheshe. I hear those that stand at Kailongo. I hear those of Luhunga. I hear those of Mugajwaale. I hear those of Kakoronto and Kabwenge. I hear those that: stand in unbroken wilderness. 1 had embraced her lying on my back. She said, "My husband, what is it?" "I hear drums speak. Those that stand at: Nsheshe, Those that roar, They roar within me." He said, "I must go to war. My wife, make up provisions." "Provisions of what sort? I did not come in marriage with a storage sack and seeds." "Please go and grind some millet." She said, "My lord, the grinding stone has dropped into it." "Go dig my large white yam for me."

These thematic dimensions appear in most episodes, creating overarching patterns of significance in the work as a whole. 108—113. S'l'AN'/.A formed alternately in AAAAAB by contrast between lines that end with a place name (A'S: 108—112) and a single line that ends with a place description (B: 113) and in AABBBA by contrast between lines that contain a relative verb (A'S: 108, 109, 113) and lines that substitute a possessive particle for it (li's: 110, 111, 1 12). 114.1-118. COMPOUND STAN/.A in ABA. Couplets of independent clauses (A'S: 114.1-115,117.1-118) contrast with a couplet of relative verbs phrases (B: 116-117); the passage can also be seen as an annular structure ABCCBA: locutivc + quoted speech (114.1)/ [drum] + verb (115)/ relative verb (116)/relative verb (117)/ [drum] + verb (117.1)/ locutivc + quoted speech (118). 119-136.1. COMPOUND STANZA in AAAAAAAB formed by contrast between exchanges initiated by the warrior (A'S: 119-121, 122-123, 124-125.1, 126-127, 128-130, 131-132, 133-135) and a single exchange initiated by his wife (B: 136—136.1).

102

The Powers of Genre

"Eky' olugulu kyaraalwa entole. Nashanga cky' okuzimu olwazi Iwabamba."

125

"Ogende ogye onyihilc ekongo." "Waitu ebigenge natuma," "Mpelcza obutai bwange." "Lugaba obugunga bwatemwa empanami." "Obwo ompelezc nteho ekyai. Mpeleza eichumu." Ad, "Olubango Iwabungwa." "Ompelezc Lugaba . . . Mpelcza ekilele kyangc ekyo."

126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134

"Waitu kyakwatwamu olububi.

135

Oyoshe! Byona byona byashula amahano." "Iwe mukazi, wantckaho ak' enyailiya."

136

Oiva Nsheshe Kailongo, Luhunga aluga Mugajivaale, Kakolonto aluga Kabwenge. Mivaana w' elritalaaka by' eilungu.

137 138 \ 39

Ati, "Ompeleze. . ." Nkahulila ekishuniko yaihyaho yakikanjula. Yamuheleza obuta. Yataho akai.

140 141

Kanatulukile omu ilembo, "Muka^iwa nkwebugile:

142 143

Manli nkusbweile juba 'nye, Maba nyina engonsi n' olushusho. Eibala lyawe tinkalyatwile Nonyetaonyela, 'V>aaba,' ninkiveta, 'Baaba inya.'

144 145 146

Agokba nolima, .Akababi kakakugiva omu maishorm, Obi, 'Kalaba ataita yasbonga.'

147 148 149

Natabaala Mbogo. "

150

Kayagobile omu Lugongo,

151

141.2. Banana bast makes a poor bowstring, and its use seems to express the warrior's determination to answer the call at any cost, even if he must go poorly equipped. The same banana bast on i.tttlcman's bow (166.6) is a sign of low status. 148. The leaf seems to be death omen, but it seems the warrior thinks only of triumph. 149. First strike: When a hunting party kills a large animal, two hunters are rewarded with spe-

Kachivenjanja

103

"The leafy stems outside are eaten by bugs. I found the root inside blocked off by solid rock." "Go dig for me enkongo yams." "My lord, I've cut and piled only rotten chunks." "Hand me my bow." "Provider, its string's been cut by rats." "Hand it to me. I'll use banana bast. Hand me my spear." She said, "Its shaft's been eaten away." "Please hand me, Provider . . . Hand me that calabash of mine." "My lord, it's been taken over by a spider. Don't go! All, all signs foretell unnatural wonders." "You, wife—you show experience in marriage." I \e of Nsheshe and Kailongo, in ~Liihunga he comes from Mugajwaaic, In Kakolonto he comes from Kabwenge. Child of unbroken wilderness.

He said, "Hand me . . . I heard him break off a piece of cooked porridge and chew it. She handed him his bow. He strung it with banana bast. When he left the forecourt, "My wife, I would recite my praise to you: For I married you but a few days ago, And I have love for you and long to sec your face. Your name I have not yet pronounced. You call me, 'Dear one'; J answer, 'Yes, dear one.' When in your strength you cultivate, If a small leaf should fall before you, Say this: 'If he did not make the first strike, surely he made the kill.' 1 go to war, the Buffalo. "

When he reached Lugongo field,

cial portions, the one who makes the first strike and the one who strikes attcr htm and makes the kill certain. The warrior's self-praise recitation creates poetic associations between hunting, war, praise, and reward that will reverberate throughout the epic. 144—146.1. STAN/A ill AABA. Lines whose positive verbs occur in unmarked word order (A'S: 144, 145, 146.1) contrast with a line whose negative verb markedly follows its direct object (H: 146).

104

The Powers of Genre

Yakwata Kashalala Lutenge. Omu Lugongo ashanga emanzi zona.

152 153

Engabo, waitu, ikaba ikwataine. Yakunda yaishomoza.

154

Akab' aliho omushaija ndigonza kunywaana.

155

Ati, "Enshongole malama!" Ahi, "Wagwa, 'Enshongole malama!'"

156

Ahi, "Bwanyu bwakya bwolo!" Ahi, "Milembe, naimuka eli milembe." Yaishomoza Mbogo.

157 158

Yamwita yamwegamba. O\va kabili yamwegamba. Owa kashatu yamwegamba.

159 160 161

Owa kana yamushuntamila bwoli.

162

Kayaimukile,

163

Yatamu etaaba. Yatamu yakola omutana gw' emwani. Yaimuka kulwana Mbogo.

164

Akaba alimu akashaija. Akashaija kashumikize olubugu.

165

Obuta bwa wenene kitatelante,

166

Manti kabuleegize ekyai. Kakunda kamweta. "Iwe mushaija alikwela iwe!

167 168

Kihanja kolaba otali Muhinda, Olakuniln/a Kabale oli Munkango.

169

155.1-157. In this interchange, the first and last quoted lines (155.1,157) are spoken by the enemy warrior, the middle two (156—156.1) by the hero. Kachwcnyanja rejects the desired blood brotherhood (155), a kin-baaed bond so markedly respected by the clan hero in Ruki^a (96—98.1). Kachwenyanja receives the very same deference in greeting he bestowed upon his bride-to-be (86) and his long (67), but he twists the salutation to an insult and hurls it back. Unlike his enemy, the hero has cast aside all kin-like caring on the battlefield. 162. The warrior sits upon an enemy corpse as one would a stool in an act of personal display, lie elevates himself for special notice through another's death. Thus begins a scries of meaningful exchanges wrought with human bodies, like the mutilations in Rtiki^a (126, 132.1). 164.1-166.1. Little man, aka-shai/a, is derived from omu-shaija, "man." The little man is poorly dressed, poorly equipped, and of meagre stature. But he is unexpectedly dangerous, like the similarly described clansmen in Rxki^a (24—34.1). 155.1-157, STANZA in AB13A formed contrast between the friendly greetings of the enemy warrior (A'S: 155.1, 157) and the antagonistic replies of the hero (B'S: 156, 156.1).

Kachwenyanja

105

He took the road to Lutenge in K.ashalala. In Lugongo he finds all the warriors. Their shields, my lord, they'd walled together. He obliged. He taunted one out. The man there wanted blood brotherhood with him. He said, "Long life to the Fearless one!" He said, "You've already fallen, 'Long life to the Fearless one!'" He said, "The sun arose on your misfortune!" He said, "In peace, I awoke in peace." He taunted one out, the Buffalo. He killed, he boasted of him. The second, he boasted of him. The third, he boasted of him. The fourth, he sat down upon. When he stood up, He used his tobacco. He used his packet: of coffee berries. He stood up to fight, the Buffalo. At that place, there was a little man. The little man had tied a cloak ol barkcloth on. His bow, a Hits-not-cattle plant, And he'd strung it with banana bast. He obliged and called out to him. "You man, the light-skinned one, you! In Kihanja if you are not a Hindu, You 'II be honored in Kabale as a NLunkangp.

159-162. STANZA in AAAB formed by contrast between lines that end in "boasted of him" (A'S: 159, 160, 161) and one line that ends in "sat down upon him" (B: 162). 163-164. STAN/.A in ABUA formed by contrast between lines whose verb is "to get up" (A'S: 163, 164) and lines whose verb is "he used" (B's: 163.1 163.2). 164.1-166.1. STAN/.A in AABA formed by contrast between between lines whose verbs have the same subject (A'S: 164.1, 165, 166.1) and a line that has no verb (B: 166). 168-172. Two STAN/AS in ABB formed, respectively, by lines composed as place name + verb "to be" + clan name (li's: 169, 169.1) contrasted with a line of address that begins and ends with "you" (A: 168), and by duplicate lines with initial subjunctive verbs (B'S: 171, 172) contrasted with a single line with an initial future indicative verb that has subjunctive force (A: 170). 144—173. VERSK PASSAGI'. of four sets of line groups, each finalized by a single line formula, initial verb + praise name. The passage is formed in AAAB by sets of two line groups + a formu-

106

The Powers of Genre

Olandugila omu buta. Oleke ntakuzaalila amahano. Oleke ntakuzaalila amahano."

170 171 172

Yayanga F^chumu ly' eman^L

173

Kagya kaguhongolola. Kamuchumita omu ibele.

174 175

Akaba all manzi Kachwenyanja.

176

Yagunyukula yagwenyunya! Ahi, "Bahincla nalibw' embwa.

177

Mulcke ngye nteme akashaija."

178

Kayagilc kutema akashaija Kachwenyanja, Katema ebikya. Byalagala.

179 180

Kamwitila omu bilikwela. Kamuzilinga omu miyonga eikwilagula. Kamwitila omu bilikwela.

181 182 183

Kamuzilinga omu miyonga ekwilagula. Omuhamba katema ogwa bulyo. Nkabon' ez' omuganguzi akola. Weyeyeyeye

184 185

Mbali yalugile enyurna Omukazi ain' omwaana. Mukaziwe aina Nshekel' okunianya. Nti, "Maawe obumanyi bukuli omu nda."

186 187 188

Ahi, "Chwekela omushaija wange.

189

Agenzile Lugongo."

laic line with the praiscnamc "buffalo" (A'S: 144-146.1 + 147-149 + 150; 151-154 + 155-157 + 158; 159-162 + 163-163.1+ 164) contrasted with set of three line groups + a formulaic line with the praiscnamc "spear of warriors" (B: 164.1-166.1 + 167-169.1 + 170-172 + 173). 170-171. The little man's words arc weak, like that of the would-be blood brother (155.1). They express clan values of caring and reproduction, a weak response to the state warrior's act of self display and to the clansmen's deaths, which call for vengeance. 181—182. Movement from white to black underscores the hero's dishonor. The lines echo his self-praise (55-56), which, like his recent boast (177-180), has been reversed. 184. The taking of the "right hand," or penis, is a mutilation that answers the hero's use of enemy dead for self-display and inscribes (reproductive) weakness on the warrior's body. 184, 184.1. A Muhamba is a native of Kihanja kingdom. Buganguzi is a village in Ihangiro kingdom that is famous for the fierceness of its fighters. 187. The bard says "child," but the maidservant is a mu^ana, a female domestic slave or courte-

Kachwenyanja

107

Flee my bow. Let me not sire misfortune for you. Let me not sire misfortune for you." He refused, the Spear of warriors.

He's gone, he's let one fly. He's pierced his breast. The warrior he was, Kachwenyanja, He plucked it out; he sucked the wound! He said, "Hindas, I've been bitten by a dog. Just let me go and cut the litde man in two." When Kachwenyanja tried to cut the little man, The litde one cut his throat. It spilled out on the ground. He killed him on white earth. He rolled him in blackened grass. He killed him on white earth. He rolled him in blackened grass. The Muhamba cut his right hand off. I saw that deed the Muganguzi warriors do. Weyeyeyeye In that place he'd left behind His wife has a maidservant. His wife has I-laugh-knowingly. I answer, "Mother, knowledge is within." She said, "Go and receive my husband. He's gone to Lugongo."

san. One could become a mu^ana when a father died without male issue or sent: a daughter to the king as payment for a fine, for an allotment of land, or for food in time of famine. Although of low social status, courtesans were renowned for their mastery of verbal art and other stylized practices of the palace- A king might bestow a courtesan on a follower as a wife in reward for service, or as in this story, to serve domestically. A mu^ana was summoned and had to answer according to the whim of her superior; the verbal exchange might allude to a situation significant to the life at the court or at home. The bard assumes her point of view, answering in the first person (188.1), perhaps assuming the mantle of her verbal artistry. 174—176.1. STANZA in AABA formed by lines of double verb patterns in the near past tense (A'S: 174, 175, 176.1) contrasted with one line whose verb is inflected in the distant past (B: 176). 179-184.1. COMPOUND STANZA of four line paks, formed in ABBA by contrast between pairs that repeat "cut" (A'S: 179—180, 184—184.1; the latter pair includes an aside) and repeated pairs com posed as verb + preposition + color term (l)'s: 181-182, 183-183.1). 186-188.1. STANZA in AAAB. Narration (A'S: 186-188) is finalised by quoted discourse (B: 188.1).

108

The Powers of Genre

Yajunga omulamba. Yataho omulilo. Omutaana gw' emwani. . .

190

Kayaizile omu Lugongo, Abuganganwa Kabwengo. "Waitu waiyukayo!"

191 192 193

Ahi, "Waitu waiyukayo! Ndaga omushaija wange." "Waitu ali enyuma oku nafunya eminyago.

194 195 196

Lwona kalaba ataita, alaba yashonga." Agya abuganganwa Nkunzile.

197

Ahi, "Tata waihyukayo! Ndaga omushaijawa Mbogo. " Ati, "Ali enyuma nafunya eminyago." Ahi, "Kalaba ataita, alaba yashonga."

198 199

Nkulu mbi etwalwa mugenzi.

200

Agya abuganganwa Omuziba. Bailukile bamusigile ali enyuma.

201 202

Nashaimula empita. "Iwe mushaja waihyukayo!" Ahi, "Waiyukayo lugaba! Ndaga omushaija wange."

203 204 205

Ati, "Omushaija nashana ata?" "Aina amatalila aina n' empembwe.

206 207

On>a Nsheshe akaluga Kai/ongo, l^uhunga akaluga Mugajwaale, Oma Kakolonto na Kabwenge.

208 209

Ormvaana n>' ebitalaaka. by' eilungu. "

Ati, "Omushaija bamwita! Bamwitila omu bilikwcla. Bamuzilinga omu miyonga elikwilagula.

210 211

189.2-190. Banana mash, fire, berries: This is a display of knowing domesticity by Nyakaandalo. 196. Plunder of war: cattle and other livestock. 200. The proverb suggests kin arc not truthful, being afraid to bring disorder. 201. Muziba: a native of a northern kingdom of Mayaland. 189.2—190. STANZA in AAB by contrast between lines composed as initial verb + noun (direct

Kachwenyanja

109

She pressed out sweet banana mash. She brought fire for his pipe. A packet of coffee berries . . . When Nyakaandalo came to Lugongo, She met Kabwengo. "My lord, you've travelled far!" She said, "My lord, you've travelled far! Direct me to my husband." "My lady, he's there in the rear, herding the plunder. Be assured: If he did not make the first strike, surely he made the kill." She went further and met Nkunzile. She said, "Father, you've travelled far! Direct me to my husband, the Buffalo" He said, "He's in the rear herding plunder of war." He said,"If he did not make the first strike, surely he made the kill." Bad news is brought by a traveller. She went further and met a Muziba. They'd fled. He'd fallen behind. He wiped sweat from his face. "You, man, you've travelled far!" She said, "You've travelled far, Provider! Direct me to my husband." He said, "What does your husband look like?" "He has sideburns and a beard. He of Nsheshe came from Kailongo, In Ljthunga he came from Mugajwaale, He of Kakolonto and Kabwenge. A child of the unbroken wilderness. " [Stop to change recording tape] He said, "They have killed your husband! They killed him on white earth. They rolled him in blackened grass.

object) (A's: 189.2, 189.3) and a line composed as zero verb + noun (li: 190). 191—209.1. VERSE PASSAGE in AAB formed by contrast between two substantially similar line groups (A's: 191 196.1, 197 199.1) and one that begins similarly but ends differently (B: 200-209.1). 210—217. VERSE PASSAGE in ABAC formed by contrast between repeated couplets (A'S: 210—211.1, 214-215) and line groups that advance the narrative (B and C: 212-213, 216-217).

110

The Powers of Genre

Bamwita, bamwita.

212

Yaitwa akashaija kashumikile olubugu. Kamwitila omu bilikwela. Kamuzilinga omu miyonga elikwilagula. Omuhamba katema ogwa bulyo. Nabon' 02' Omuganguzi akola. Kayayanga kamwihyaho enshembe."

213 214 215 216 217

Ahi, "Ngilc ntai?" Endulu yatamu emoi.

218 219

Aba Lutenge olugulu tibahulila.

220

Ahi, "Bakama bange!" Ahi, "Nkas' obulo Abakazi bas' obulo, Bakama bange Ntula aha Iwazi, Ns' amalogo!" Ahi, "Bekola omubazi. Kilo ckya mb\venu nayekola Omwabya!

221 222 223

\-lulila! Ichumu ly' emansi,

226

Huhla! ]_jvitila omu mbuga, Nasglinga omu miyonga elikwilagula. "

227

Ahi, "Mwaana wange cntanda yata," Ahi, "N' emwani onage." Ahi, "Naganaga."

228 229 230

Ahi, "Naga. Enda yangila okwehoola." Xl/z, "Omushaija wange yafa all omoi,

231

224 225

232

Kyonka aligiiwalams' omwenda.

219. Wailed but once: a traditional wife would have wailed many more times. Lamentations announce death in a village and mark the arrival of each relative to the house of a family in mourning. The heroine once again acts outside of clan-guided practice. She has already begun to plan. 224. They "do" themselves: women use sweet smelling herbs in preparation for lovcmakmg. 226-227.1. The heroine pronounces the hero's praise (54-56), reclaiming it from its reversal in a narrative of dishonor and restoring it as a poetic invocation of his warrior ethic. 232—232.1. Nine: In constructing her own self-praise, the heroine chooses a number (omtventld) that puns on okiv-enda, "love." It is an abiding love, like that of a mother for her child or a wife for her husband. It is also a number frequently used in ritual. 221-223.3. COMPOUND STAN/A, 2 + 2 + 2, formed in AAU by contrast between two couplets composed as "my kings"/ ". . . grind millet" (A'S: 221-222, 223-223.1; lines reversed in second)

Kachwenyanja

111

They have killed him. They have killed him. Fie was killed by a little man whose cloak was barkdoth. He killed him on white earth. Fie rolled him in blackened grass. The Muhamba cut his right hand off. I saw that deed the Muganguxi warriors do. When it did not oblige he took lu.s penis for a trophy." She said, "What shall I do?" She wailed but once. The people of Lutenge up above could not hear her. She said, "My kings!" She said, "I ground millet Women grind millet, My kings But I sit at the rocky outcrop, I grind sorcery!" She said, "They 'do' themselves with herbs. But today I 'did' myself with the Destroyer! / lear! Spear of warriors, 11ear! Thai kills on open ground, He rolls them in blackened grass. " She said, "My child, break open the provisions," She said, "And the coffee berries scatter." She said, "Scatter, scatter!" She said, "Scatter. From inside me I am driven to revenge." She said, "My husband died as one, But he'// make nine go along.

and a couplet whose second hue concludes ". . . grind sorcery" (b: 223.2-223.3). 221—225. STAN/.A m AISAJS formed by adding another pair of lines to the previous figure (221—223.3), thus contrasting lines composed as "thcy"|women| + verb + unmarked direct object (A'S: 223, 224) with lines composed as ''!" + verb + marked direct object (B'S: 223.3, 225). 226—227.1. si'AN/.A in AAB lormed b\r contrast between lines that begin with the imperative "Hear!" (A'S: 226, 227) and a smsile line that does not (B: 227.1). 228—231.1. COMPOUND STAN'/.A, 2 -t- 'i + 1, formed in AAH by couplets with iocutivcs and with commanding verbs (subjunctive or imperative) that stand alone or follow their direct objects (A'S: 228—229, 230—231) contrasted with a single line that has a verb in the indicative snood and an unmarked word order of subject, verb, object (B: 231.1).

112

The Powers of Genre

Ontege ekishule.

233

Mbe mwisiki." Ahi, "Cheke maawe wakayukile. Oleke nkuteme enkogoto.

234 235

Okwate oluhimbo Iwawe Kalamaiio. "

236

Ati, "Ogesige kiizi,"

237

Ati, "Ogesige kiizi,"

238

Ati, "Empu zikukwate."

239

Ati, "Tugende Ihangiro kwehoola."

240

Ahi, "Yafa all omot. "

241

Ati, "Omushaija alitwalana n'omwenda."

242

Ahi, "Yafa all omot. Ihangiro agittvalanise ormvmda."

243

Kanagobile omu Lugongo,

244

Mbali omushaija bamwidile, Nahenda ekiti.

245 246

Nasiga nakimujugunyaho.

247

Nti, "Mushaija wange nasiga naziika.

Kyonka n>afa oli omoi, Ihangiro nsitivalanis' omivendai. "

248

Nakwata gumo omu Lugongo.

249

Nshangaho omushaija azemeile. Ahi, "Iwe mukazi nakushwela Byabantu." "Ekya mbele obanze onyebugile."

250 251

233-236. COMPOUND STAN/A, 2 + 2 + 1, formed in AAB by couplets composed semantic-ally as hairstyle/age group (A'S: 233-233.1, 234-235 with the order reversed in the latter) contraste with a single line that completes a style of self-presentation. 237-240. STANZA in AABA formed by contrast between lines with an initial verb (A'S: 237, 23 240) and a line with a final verb (u: 239). 244-247.1. COMPOUND STANZA, 2 + 2 + 1 , formed in AAB by couplets of narration that cohere as lines composed of adverbial clauses in the past perfect and lines with initial verbs, respectively (A'S: 244-245, 246-247) and a single line of quoted speech (li: 247.1). 228-248.1. VHRSi- PASSAGE in AUCBDB formed by contrast between paired lines of Nyakaandalo's praise (B'S: 232-232.1, 241-243.1, 248-248.1) and stanxas or compound stanxas that further the narrative (A: 228-231.1; c: 233-236, 237-240; D: 244-247.1). 249-283.1. VERSI-; PASSACK in AAAB formed by three repeated passages (A'S: 249-254, 255-260 261—267) and a single passage that shares some line types (268, 274, 276, 277) but furthers the

Kachivenjanja

113

Shave a line around my head. I'll be a young woman." She said, "No, Mother, you've matured. Let me cut a full circle. Take your walking staff the Prattling one." She She She She

said, "Rub butterfat on like water," said, "Rub butterfat on like water," said, "Enough t.o make your leather skirt cling." said, "We go to Ihangiro to take revenge."

She said, "He died as one. " She said, "The man will take along nine. "

[Interruption—bard adjusts calabash resonator] She said, "He died as one. In Ihangiro may he make nine go along. "

When I came to Lugongo, The place they killed my man, I broke off a twig. I cast it on him. I said, "My husband, I leave you buried. Although you died as one, In Ihangiro I'll make nine go with you. "

1 straightaway took the Lugongo road, I met a man there guarding cattle. He said, "Woman, 1—Wealth-oi-the-people—have married you." "Before that, begin: recite me your self-praise."

narrative (ll: 268-283.1). 233. Changes in hairstyle once marked changes in an individual's life cycle. Today only the bride's "crested crane" and shaving the head in mourning are widely practiced. 236. Prattling one: Katamaijo, a walking staff used on celebratory occasions, from oku-lamaija, "to say many words, to make many steps, almost to a frenxy" (See Mugasba'. 5.3). 237. Butterfat was traditionally used to make the skin glisten beautifully. 239. A leather skirt was a sign of prestige, showing access to cattle. 251. The women's courtly stratagem proceeds from manipulating feminine surfaces to using words tactically to identify the enemy and penetrate his home. Self-praise (ebj'cbugo), which began the epic, brought the heroine her mate, and foretold his death, again becomes a narrative focus as a tool of revelation. Suitors trv to increase their stature by praising animals they have killed in the hunt (a form of praise elaborated in the call sequence of the epic of Kiteke/e). But

114

The Powers of Genre

Ecyoo Ahi, "Nkaita akasa Nyamus' eilungu. " Ahi, "Lekelela aho naiwe twazilana." Nakwata omuhanda Kyandai. Nshanga omushaija azcmeile. "Iwe mukazi nakushwela." "Ekya mbele obanze onyebugile." "Nkaita embogo Kihembe Nyakatan^i. " Ad, "Olekelel' aho twazilana."

252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260

Nakwata omuhanda. Ngya ndalamila obugwa izooba. Kanogobile Nshamba ya Igabilo, Nshangaho omushaija azemeile. "Iwe mukazi Nakushwela Byabantu." Ati, "Ekya mbele banza onyebugile." "Nkaita enjoju Mukulu w' eilungu. " Nti, "Olekelel' aho twazilana."

261 262 263 264 265 266 267

Nalalamila obugya Kabale.

268

Kabale Ibangiro ni nyinsii. Aliyo Kabale ka Mwamaali, Omutaitiina wa Migongo. Tiguba mpuuta bakugwekomile enda.

269 270 271 272

Aho ente zataha bwoli. Mbuganganwa omushaija iyobobo. Akaba ashumikile olubugu. "Iwe mukazi nakushwela Byabantu." "Ekya mbele obanze onyebugile."

273 274 275 276 277

[Neigolo omu Lugongo ikwatame] Ahi, "Nyeigolo omu Lugongo, Naita omushaja nqyela, Ain' amatalila ainamu empembwe. F^ibala ni Kachwenyanja.

278 279 280 281 282

the women perform a symbolic sleight-of-hand by interpreting the named animals as though they had the kind of totemic significance that regulates and could prevent a marriage. Primary, marriage-regulating totems (nri^iro, "prohibitions") occasionally arc mentioned in self-praise, and secondary totems (inulumuna, "clan brothers") appear regularly. But killing a woman's clan's totem of either kind would never lead to a prohibition, as sharing the same primary totem could.

kacbivenjanja

115

Eeyoo He said, "/ killed an antelope, the Pulveriser of the wilderness. " She said, "Stop right there. We are prohibited." I took the Kyandai road. I meet a man guarding cattle. "Woman, I would marry you." "Before that, begin: recite me your self-praise." "1 killed a buffalo, dreaf curved horn, the Hanging-noose. " She said, "Stop right there. We arc prohibited." I took the road. I go. I sight the setting sun. When I arrived in Nshamba village of Igabilo, I meet a man there guarding cattle. "Woman, I—Wealth-of-the-people—have married you." She said, "Before that, begin: recite me your self-praise." "/ killed an elephant, lilder of the wilderness. " I said, "Stop right there. We are prohibited." I sighted the direction of Kabale. The Kabale's in Ibangiro kingdom are many. There is Kabale of Mivamaali, The Fearless Hunter of Migongo. It's not a belt that they can tie around the n/atst. By then the cattle were all returning. I meet a man. His cloak was barkcloth. "Woman, I—Wealth-of-the-people—have married you." "Before that, begin: recite me your self-praise." [false start] He said, "Yesterday at l^ugongo, I killed a man with fair skin. He had sideburns and he had a beard. His name is Kachwenyanja.

253. Pulverizer: from okit~sa, "to grind" as millet is ground; as an antelope's swift hooves grind the savannah dust. 270. Mwamaali is said to have been a man who lulled many, then committed suicide and became a possessing spirit. 272. It's not a belt is metaphorical praise of the road; it may look like a belt stretching off into the distance, but to travel it is another matter.

116

The Powers of Genre

Habuka! Ichumu ly' eman^i. Namwitila omu bilikwela. Namu^ilinga omu miyonga elikivilagula. "

283

"Hulila! Ichumu ly' emanzi. Iwe mushaija iwe."

284 285

Ahi, "Namwila namwikyaho embembe. " Ahi, "Mbwenu wanshwela \vambandashana."

286 287

Yakunda yanshwelakwo. Akanyalika cbilo bibili

288 289

Bibili binai.

290

Ekya katanu enyailiya yayaluka. Ahi, "Nakushwcla Byabantu."

291 292

Kayaboinc nayaluka. . . Ihangiro nomanya okwo banywa. . .

293 294

Nti, "Mushaija wange . . ." "Iwe mwisiki . . ." "Mushaija wange . . ." Ahi, "Yalenga kunyeba. Kil' eki nagonza kwchoola" Ahi, "Nagonza kwehoola."

295

297

Twagcnda omu mwata. Nak\vata n' omuhyo gwange

298 299

296

Nahyola Nalenga Engcmu yakumba. Omugogo nagukunula.

300

Akaba agenzile omu malwa.

301

282.1—283.1. The hnal appearance of this section of Kachwcnyanja's self-praise underlines again the importance of the poetic form to the plot. Similar words first declared the hero's identity to the heroine, winning her love and her hand in marriage. Their reversal in the depicted action (181-182) of the hero's death and dishonor calls the heroine to act (211-211.1, 214-415). She soon quotes the words, adding the virtues of his warrior identity to her own (226—227). As praise, the lines include the imperative "Hear!" (Hu/i/af), which indexes the generic addressee of such speech—the king or other person of high standing. Warriors had license to command attention and to promise deeds of valor that would gain royal reward. When Nyakaandalo quotes the words she seems to address them to the spirit of the dead hero, signifying that her relationship to him has become like that of a warrior to a king: she will perform fell deeds on his behalf. This analogy is confirmed in her brief address to his corpse, in which she makes a

Kachu'enyaya

117

Hail! Spear of warriors. 1 killed him on white earth. I rolled him in blackened grass. "

"Hear! Spear of warriors. You, man, it's you." He said, "I killed and took from him a trophy. "

She said, "Now you've married me and you've truly possessed me too." He obliged and married me. He secluded me two days And two make four. On the fifth the divorcee emerged. He said, "I—Wealth-of-the-people—have married you." When he saw I had emerged . . . In Ihangiro you know how they drink . . . I said, "My husband . . ." "You, young girl . . ." "My husband . . ." She said (within), "He's almost lost to me. This day I want revenge." She said (within), "I want revenge." We went out among the weeds (to cultivate). I took my knife. I sharpened it. I tried it. The banana tree fell with a single blow. From the stump ] removed the pith. He'd gone for beer.

promise that becomes her own self-praise (247.1—248.1). I [er boast, unlike the hero's, is not reversed. It completes the logic of its genre, being voiced both before and after its achievement. When Littlcman appropriates the hero's praise, he changes the imperative from "Hear!" to "Hail!" (Habukal), a word characteristically addressed to a king, but by his retinue, deferentially, to welcome him as he entered and took a position of preeminence. The substitution articulates Littleman's commoner, clan-based ethical knowledge. He evokes the regal identity of the fallen warrior, adding it to his own social persona with the intonation of a low-born clansman who has gladly slam his social superior. 287. Possessed: as a spirit does a medium, as a lover docs a lover. 300. Pith is the central part of a banana plant stalk, which is used as a washcloth.

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The Powers of Genre

Yaija aganyoilc. Akaba ah muturm w' cnte.

302 303

Nakunda nanabisa amagulu.

304

Nafuka twalya. Namutaho amajuta.

305 306

Yanyaama bwoli. Nanyaama naniuhondcla. Narnwoleka ekimooma likrina amayengo nk' enyanja.

307 308 309

Amalemw' agamwihil' aho,

310

1

Olwo yashagailw ekigono, N amwimuky a Amalaka nakinda.

311 312

Olw' obwile bwakeile,

313

Nagambila abalurauna, "Ihangiro nikwo muganywa? (.)wange agenale omu malwa nyeigolo, N' enyungu y' ebitoke ndaile nayo. Kalabula mbwcnu mulankyamiliza."

314 315 316

Kanabaile ndiho Nyechula omulamu.

318

Omulamu yazinduka. Nti, "Mulumuna nkwaaganywa? Ngu yasiga bibili kwija."

319 320 321

Omulamu ahi, "Kanyimukc aha nataha." Kanabaile ndiho

322 323

317

304. Washed his feet: I Icr act embodies womanly care in its full extension. 308. The grasshopper is an ekimooma, which is brown at rest hut jumps and flies to reveal its magenta wings. This is praise for a depilated vulva and labia minora. 312.1. The slashed voice box is a statement in a discourse of violence that began with Kachwenyanja's killing of enemy soldiers and using one corpse to sit upon in self-display (162). f i e made the man into a stool, a tool to elevate ins position in an ethical system of individual recognition and reward. Little-man answered by killing the hero and and cutting the penis off his corpse. The symbolic aet articulates clan power to regulate reproduction. Nyakaandalo's way of finali/ing this dialogue asserls a power and knowledge that transcends the symbolic practices of state and clan. I ler severing ot the clansman's voice box (amalaka, "larynx." from the plural of eilaka, "voice") symbolically cuts off his power to speak, to praise himself, to be remembered, to attain the immortality conferred by rituali/cd speech. The destruction of the instrument of remembrance asserts the virtue of the bardic institution itself. She demonstrates this virtue in the very next episode by constructing a poetic memorial for her slain lover with the nameless

Kiichivenyanja

119

And he came home having drunk it. He was a cattle herder. I obliged; J washed his feet. I served out food; we ate. I rubbed him with oil. He lay completely down. I lay down, I followed him. I revealed to him the grasshopper That has waves like a lake. When languor carried him away, And he'd been ushered off by snoring, I raised him up. The voice box I slashed. When dawn arose, I said to his brothers, "In Ihangiro is this how you drink? My man went for beer yesterday, And I slept with the plantain pot. If he's still gone today, come look in on me.' While I was there I was surprised to see my sistcr-m-law. Sister-in-law paid rne a visit. I said, "Is this how your brother drinks? They say it'll be two days before he comes." Sister-in-law said, "I'll be going now." While I was there

corpses she has taken. The markedly gruesome acts build a violent, ethically meaningful exchange, a local thematic sequence that enhances the design of the entire epic. 316. Plantain pot: To preserve pots of < ooked plantains for the expected return of a husband was traditionally the act ol a dutiful and loving wife. 317. Come look in on: as one would with a sick friend or to maintain a friendship, but here with ambiguous intent. 304-309. Two STAN/.AS in AAB (304-306.1, 307-309) each beginning with a double verb formula; the first is formed in AAAB by contrast between lines with 1st person initial verbs (A's:304, 305 306) and a line with a 3rd person initial verb (b: 306.1); the second is formed in AAB by contrast between 1st person verb initial lines of narration (As: 307, 308) and a line of praise (li: 309). 307-353. VKRSK PASSAGli in AAB formed by lexical repetition and variation in passages in which men are killed and subsequent visits are made (A'S. 307—325, 326—343) and a final passage in which both men and a woman, are killed (344-353).

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The Powers of Genre

Nyechula omulumuna bwaigolo. "Boojo olankyamiliza."

324 325

Nayala twanyaama. Nagya namwolcka ekimooma F-tkiina amayengo nk' enyanja.

326 327 328

Amalemw' agamwihil' aho, Agonasiga yashagalwa ekigono, Namwimukya. Amalaka nakinda.

329 330 331

Nshuba ngambila abalumuna bukeile, "Nikwo muganywa Ihangiro? Owange akagcnda ijo omu malwa. Bojo, enyungu 2' ebitoke zaba inai. Kalabula mbwenu mulatukyamiliza, Angili mutuleke—twataha. Tulimu abakazi babili."

332 333 334

Ahi, "Nangu otahangaalwa. Ihangiro tugila ebilalo Buligi. Atwetwe amailu g' cnyailiya. Alaba all Buligi bwa Mwoogo.

338 339 340 341

Kalaba atakuleteileyo nzaile, Angili takulemelweyo kimasha." "Kalabula mbwenu munkyamilize."

342 343

Bakunda baija bombili. Kil' ekyo, Yashuba omulamukazi yazinduka.

344 345 346

Olwo bamazile kwija, Ogu yanyaama na Nshekel' okumanya, Ogu lyanyaama na Kandaalo. Boona baboleka ekimooma.

347

Amalemw' agabaiP aho, Abashaija boona bashagalwa ekigono. Bamwihyaho. Amalaka bakinda. Bakwata omu mulyango omulamukazi,

335 336 337

348 349 350 351

552

324. Brother: a woman has a joking relationship with her husband's brother, and sex between

Kachivenyatya

121

I was surprised by his brother at dusk. "Come look in on me, child." I made the bed and we lay in it. I revealed to him the grasshopper That has waves like a lake. When languor carried him away, And I saw him ushered off by snoring, I raised him up. The voice box I slashed. Again I said to his brothers at dawn, "Is this how you drink in Ihangiro? My man went two days ago for beer. Child, the plantain pots are four. If he's still gone today, come look in on us, Or leave us alone—we'll go back. We are two women here." He said, "Don't be a bit concerned. In Ihangiro we have cow byres on Buligi island. He's ruled by desire for his divorcee. He's sure to be at Buligi of Mwoogo. If he doesn't bring you a cow that's calfed, He won't fail to bring you one for slaughter." "If he's still gone, today, come look in on me." They obliged and both came. On that clay, Again my sister-in-law paid a visit. When the brothers had come, One lay with I-laugh-knowingly, The other lay with Kandaalo. Both revealed to them the grasshopper. When there was languor, Both men were ushered off by snoring. They raised them up. Voice boxes they slashed. In the front room they seized the sister-in-law,

them, while not prescribed, is not regarded as ineest (as it would be with a husband's father).

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The Powers of Genre

Na wenene amalaka bakinda.

353

Baihyayo obuta b\va Kachwcnyanja.

354

Baihyayo olw' cngiitu n' ebebo libyo yabaile atnwakile nshembe. Bagya baihyayo n' ekilele.

355 356 357

Omukazi kayaizile ornu Lugongo,

358

Mbali kamwitile,

359

Ati, "Oivo naisile mbele

360

Nikwo kunshdela,

361

Qkivo yanyihile omu bikiika by' eibanga. " Ati, "Omushaija wa kahili, "

362 363

Ahi, "Nisy ngon^i n' olusbusho. " Ad, "Omushaija ma kashatu,

364 365

Ibala 'lyonabatle ntakannvativile:

366

Nanyeta, 'Baal?a,' nimweta, 'baaba inya. Ati, "Omushaija wa kanai, Mivoyo gw' omnshaijawa Kacbwenyanja!"

367 368 369

Ati, "Omushanka^i wa katanu,

370

Kinyumanyumi ky' omushaija wange. " "Inyive baka^i baita abashaija, Mulangambila okwo muchula. "

371 372

Ahi,

373

"Waitu kaba nailagula, "

Ati, "Mujumbigiv' enjul' egmle. "

374

Ahi,

"Kaba nayela omubili, "

375

Ahi, '^Kagaaju k' olusa live la,

376

360. The epic's concluding commentary is framed as Nyakaandalo's address to the corpse of the royal warrior, it is her victorious self-praise (ebj'dnigo) spoken before her avenged lover, like one in which a victorious warrior might have asserted his identity before a king. Her soliloquy recounts her heroic accomplishments as a warrior might (360—370.1) and then add lines of women's traditional elegiac praise (371—379). Thematically the speech resolves principal oppositions that were introduced and partially resolved before. The opposition between clanstyle domesticity and an ideal, royal manner, expressed in terms of beer and wifely strategies, is locally resolved in favor of courtly ways. The thematic contrast is re-finalized in the heroine's speech by merging: she assumes two roles in honoring the hero—a courtly, royal warrior whose brave deeds honor the kmg-hkc hero and a wife whose intimate praise memorializes his beauty. The dramatic opposition between love and war, locally resolved in favor of war by the royal warrior, has been finally resolved by their combination in the courtesan's stratagem—making war by making love—and in the careful, poetic equation of the pieces of their short-lived love with the pieces of her revenge. Finally, the opposition between life and death in battle, between honor

\\achwenyanja

123

And slashed her voice box as well. They got Kachwenyanja's bow. They got his leather kilt and his cloak That he had taken with the trophy. They went and got his drinking calabash. When the woman came to Lugongo, The place that he had killed him, She said, "The one I killed first

Was for his courting of me, Was for how be carried me away from the foot of a mountain." She said, "The second man, " She said, 'Was for his love and his longing to see my face, " She said, "The third man, Names not yet pronounced: His calling to me, 'Dear one,' and my calling to him, 'Yes, Dear one.'" She said, "The fourth man, The soul of my husband, Kachivenyanja!" She said, "The fifth, The shadow of my husband. " "You women bereaved of men, "Tell me how you mourn. " She said, "If he is dark complexioned," She said, "Dark clouds after rain has fallen. " She said, "If he is light, " She said, 'M tan cow with large, white marks,

and dishonor, locally resolved in the death and dishonor wreaked upon the royal warrior, is transformed by her poetic speech to death with honor, combining enemy corpses heaped in tribute to his memory with praise: of his physical beauty and loving ways. With these syntheses of opposing themes and male and female voices, the bard achieves the immortalizing power of his craft. 370. The fifth victim: the bard sang Omushanka^i, which is not a [Taya word. It is apparently a combination of omushaija, "man," and nkazi, a female marker. It refers to the sister-in-law 354—357. STANZA in AABA. Lines comprising independent clauses composed as [. . .[ "they got out" + direct object (AS: 354, 355, 357) contrast with a line comprising a relative clause (B: 356). .360-370.1. STANZA 111 ABBABABBAUAB: Lines in a numbered sequence (A'S: 360, 363, 365, 36 370) contrast with aspects of the heroic couple's romantic love (n's: 364, 366—367, 369, 370.1). 373-376. STANZA in AUAB: Conditional clauses (A'S: 373, 375) contrast with images of prai (B's: 374, 376).

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The Powers of Genre

F^nkukulu j' amasknke. Obwigamo biv' enjula, Obuhungo bn>' omushana.

377 378 379

Inye naita ekitaitwa. Naibim ekyo ntatake.

380 381

Naita omushatja atabaile.

382

Inywe aba Nsheshe na Kailongp. Hulila! Ninduga lhangiro kwehoola.

383 384

Omushaya wange akaja ali omoi, lhangiro nagitwalamsa omwendai."

385

380. lost: literally, "killed," i.e., "been bereaved of." 380-382. STANZA alternately in ABA formed by contrasts between lines composed as "I have lost" + noun phrase (A'S: 380, 382) and lines composed as "I have been robbed of" + noun phrase (B: 381); in AAB formed by contrast between lines composed as verb + substantive relative clause (A'S: 380, 381) and a line composed as verb + direct object + adjectival relative clause (B: 382).

Ktichwenyanja

125

s\ white haired plant. Shelter jrom the rain, Shade from the sun. ] have lost what must not be lost. I have been robbed of what cannot be spoken. I have lost my husband who went to war. You of Nsheshe and Katlon^o. Hear! I come from lhangiro with revenge. My husband died as one. But in lhangiro I tnade nine go with him.'

The following is my interpretation of the way compositional finalization is achieved in Kacbwenyanja. QUALIFY: How the hero and his heroic bride are married (1—104,2) Qualify: The hero and his present wives are described. (1—15) Call: A dream calls the hero to find a new wife. (16—29) Prepare: His wives reluctantly prepare his journey. (30—39) Travel: Hero travels, stopping for beer at the palace. (40—77.2) Engage (-): Hero meets and proposes to two women; one refuses and asks him to choose. He chooses her and she asks him to identify himself. (78-98.2) Reveal: He recites his self-praise. (99-104.1) Engage (+): She consents to marriage. (104.2) CALL: In a few days, drums sound. The hero must go. (105—118) PREPARE: Omens foretell disaster. (119-150) TRAVEL: The hero sets out and reaches the battlefield. (151-152) ENGAGE (-): How the hero is killed. (153-185) Call: The hero taunts enemy warriors. (153—158) Engage (-): The hero kills four enemy warriors. (159—164) Reveal: Littleman appears. (164.1—173) Engage (+): Littleman kills the hero. (174—183) Comment: Littleman takes the hero's penis as trophy. (184—185) REVEAL: How the heroine learns of the hero's death. (186-217) Qualify: A domestic servant is introduced. (186—188.1) Call:0 Prepare: Nyakaandalo prepares to receive the hero. (189—190) Engage (-): She asks returning warriors but they lie. (191—199.1) Reveal: She meets a stranger from another kingdom. (200—205)

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The Powers of Genre

Engage (+): She learns the truth from him. (206—217) ENGAGK (+): How the heroine avenges the hero's death. (218-357) Call: Nyakaandalo responds with grief. (218-227.1) Prepare: She plans revenge and dresses. (228-243.1) Travel: She goes to enemy territory, pausing at the battlefield to honor the hero's corpse. (244—248.1) Engage (-): She receives proposals but the men's recited self-praise disqualifies them. (249—267) Reveal: Littleman's proposal reveals him; she accepts. (268—287) Engage (+): They marry and she murders him. She and her servant kill his siblings, then return. (288—357) COMMKNT: The heroine's soliloquy at the hero's grave. (358—385.1) The core of epic logic is the call, which motivates and ethically frames a protagonist's pursuit of a two-part confrontation. Muzee's performance of Kachwenyanja easily achieves the compositional finalization of a classic Haya epic. As illustrated in chapter 7 (in this volume), which contains a detailed exegesis of this ballad's theme, the bard greatly elaborates its compositional form by weaving into it that of another genre, the self-praise recitation. But that is a level of complication best left for that context. The bard does omit the call in the reveal segment. The predicted omen of the hero's death (line 148) never arrives. I believe the omission is purposeful: Nyakaandalo's devoted love motivates her quest to know. The interpretive power of genre is founded on the achievement of similar patterns of compositional finalization in a large number of texts. The epic ballad Ruki^a also involves an important woman and the death of a socially prominent man, but they act: on the ethical precepts of patrilmeal clans rather than those of the royal state. It is also widely known in Hayaland.

127

Ruki^a I begin to play the epic of Rukiza. Mugasha Ibibi. I am Mugasha, Justinian Mugasha. Listen to Ibibi. Listen to Mugasha. Listen, let me tell you. Be listening, let me tell you. Be listening, let me tell you.Let me tell you of Rukiza Mbibi, Splitter of tnukoni wood; it dries. Rukiza's father orphaned him still in the womb. I lis mother carried him within. He developed, Rukiza. Fie was born, the Muganga. He nursed and he was weaned, the Muganga. He played with the children. My friend, my friend, my friend, my friend, As he played with the children, Mbibi, As he grew, he began to think, "I'd like to go and see The cattle that my father left me and The place that they were pastured."

1

2 3

4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11

Coming to the fallow fields he found The fields pressed in And the cattle overstepped their bounds.

12

He turned homeward; he returned. He spoke to his mother. He said, "Mother I must emigrate. He said, "I found my cattle lack a proper pasture."

13

4.1. Mbibi is the name of the hero's mother or hts father's mother according to singers and many critics. The name often accompanies or substitutes for Rukr/.a's name. According to Cory and Ilartnoll (1945), it is the name of the (male) founder of the Baganga clan. 5. Mukoni wood is used in walking sticks (enkoni) and implies strength and violence. 7.2. Muganga (pi. Baeanea) is Rukixa's clan.

128

The Powers of Genre

His mother said, "You should not go before you've married, Ijong-lived-one" They were done; they made a marriage pact.

14 15

He married, the Muganga. When he had completed the marriage ceremonies, And when the wife had emerged from seclusion, the l^ong-lived-one, He said, "Mother, I spoke of emigrating." He said, "Let us emigrate and go." His mother refused.

16 17

He left her eight hundred cattle. Bulls, he left her one whole hundred.

18 19

He left her herders too. He emigrated, the Muganga of Ilundu.

20 21

He came with Baganga, And the Baganga were many, The Baganga of Ilundu.

22

With Honey-bee, a Muganga,

24

23

14. Long-lived-one: Nyakutununta, related to entununsi, a beating heart (see below, line 151), epithet for a living person who sustains and is sustained by family. The hero's identity takes shape within a web of kinship. We learn of his father, his mother, the other children of his lineage, and in another version, his grandfather as well. Kin attachments also introduce Mugasha (below, p.l 47), who, like Ruki/a in another version, miraculously speaks to his mother from inside her womb. This initial emphasis on kin contrasts with the opening of Kachwenyan/a (1—6), in which the hero is described territorially, using place names and descriptions. Divergent ways of qualifying heroes place them in disparate ethical spheres and create different expectations and rationales of action. Cattle appear within a matrix of kin: the hero inherits herds from his father—contrary to actual practice in the traditional liaya state. His concern for their needs in land and food echoes kinship principles, which regulated the distribution of these resources through the institution of the patrilineal clan. The king's ethics of cattle are portrayed quite differently (86) and are consonant with the structures of the state. 18. The symbolic combination of kin and cattle continues in Kuki/a's generous bequest to his mother and his continued care for the herds still in his charge. 24. Clansmen's names evoke aspects of home and family. Honey-bee (24) insect society represents domestic unity, as in a folktale in which bees rescue a woman who has been driven from her home by wild animals (Seitel 1980: 219-224). Elephant-grass (26), a type of bamboo, and yojwe grass (28.1) are used in house construction, the former in framing, the latter as periodically changed carpeting. The magical connection between person, house, and family later becomes central to the plot (149). Private family matters are revealed in Impotence (30.2), with his cohorts, Does-not-penetrate (30.1) and Water-of-yam-leaves (30), which is food eaten to stave off starvation. Proclaiming them as personal names seems a strategic

lluki^a

129

He departed Ilundu of Lukaile. With Elephant-grass Nyakilika, himself a Muganga, He departed Ilundu of Lukaile. My friend, my friend, With Yojwe grass Ilolwa and Stinging-flies of Buhunga, Herself a Muganga woman of Oundu,

25 26 27 28

He came with many Baganga. With Water-of-yam-leaves, With Does-not-penetrate, With Impotence, Themselves Baganga. They departed Ilundu of Lukaile. My friend, and with Water, Herself a Muganga woman of Ilundu, With Squash plant, a Muganga woman, He departed Ilundu of Lukaile.

29 30

My friend, my friend, He came to Karagwe. He found wilderness spread before him; He finds lions roar. He says, "I'll not build here Lest lions eat my catde." Pressing on, he migrated. In Ruhija in Kihanja He finds. . . Villages push against each other. He lacked a place to pasture cattle. He migrated on, Mbibi.

31 32 33 34 35

36 37 38

39 40 41

When he reached Ihangiro of Nkumbya,

form of self-presentation known as "making oneself small." Such a public stance implies that the speaker represents an unexpected but powerful threat to anyone who would contend with him. This is the posture of subjugated clans in a royal state, and it is also reflected in the figurative comment at the end of the epic, "Shoju grass sticks the foot when short./ When it grows, it thatches a house. . ."(202—202.1). Water (32) can likewise be a symbol of weakness, but can also be powerful (as in Mugasha); like clans, it is associated with agriculture and reproduction and is ubiquitous, a theme also articulated in concluding commentary (194—195). Squash plant (34) evokes associations of fertility and bodily desire (as in the ballad Kaiytila: 1.3) and seems another expression of unpretentious strength. 1 am unable to supply associations for Stinging flies (28.1). 41. Mbibi refers to Rukixa; see note to '1.1. Nkumbya is the founder of Ihangiro kingdom.

130

The Powers of Genre

He finds pastures unfold and multiply. My lord, my father,

42 43

When he reached Kabaale he inquired. He said, "By whom is this land ruled?" They said, "It's ruled by Ruhinda." Mounds-for-him-raised, the iUder, Spits in a bulls born, s\nd Semiroyai ones of Ihangiro wash all night,

44

45 46 47

He then took cattle. He then took four-and-four, eight bulls. He added two milking cows.

48 49

He said, "Go on my behalf, salute Ruhinda,

50

Mounds-for-him-raised.

Say, 'He has emigrated, Rukiza of Kilomba

51

LJon of the Muganga, Cures-others cures not himself? Say, 'He seeks a place to settle.'"

52 53

They came and they brought those -words. They greeted his presence with them and they spoke them truly.

54

He asked them, "Where is he?"

55

They said, "My lord, he is in Kabaale." He said, "Let him dwell at Kabaale in Mubunda. Be that place his for cutting banana leaves."

56 57

44.2. Ruhinda: The Bahinda dynasty ruled a majority of prccolonial Maya kingdoms. This King Ruhinda may represent Its founder in the kingdom of Ihangiro. 45. Mounds-for-him-raised is a praise name that refers to great amounts of royal tribute. 46—47. Spits . . . wash all night: This praise is said to represent adulation evoked by the king, as do mounds of tribute. Horns arc said to have been used as royal water vessels held by servants. Royal saliva would be protected to prevent its use by sorcerers. The sign of spitting conveys a status relationship here, as it does in Mu&asha (99), there with an insulting meaning. Semiroyai status (pbu-fuld) accrues to the meir.bers of a subclan that gives a bride to the king. Semiroyalty could practice forms of etiquette and self-display denied to commoners. 52. Cures-others cures not himself is a proverb used to praise the ethic of care embodied by Rukiza. It turns on the pun oku-ganga "to treat (for illness)" and Ba-ganga, the name of Hukiza's clan. Rukixa's name itself may be a pun on oku-ki^a "to cure or make well." 57. Cutting banana leaves is a metonym for domestic hfc based on the many homely uses the leaves serve—plates, platters, cups, cooking vessels, and others.

llukisy

131

My friend, drums sounded from the Calling-place.

58

People gathered.

59

He said, "Go, and return when you have built cow-byres And dwellings for the l^ong-lived-one" They came to Rukiza, Rukiza Mbibi. They constructed houses for the Long-lived-one. Cattle-byres they built. The work was done. When they happened to go and cast their eyes— One happened to go and cast his eyes—

60 61 62

63

He went and he saw Rukiza's sister. My friend, my friend, They traveled and they went, They reported to King Ruhinda. They said, "But at Rukiza's We saw a maiden— Perhaps his daughter Perhaps his sister— But she was not beautiful— Only as the sun!" King Ruhinda, Mounds-for-him-raised, sent matchmakers. Rukiza addressed them, saying, "She is my sister.

64

65 66

67 68

If he wants to marry her, Let him furnish cattle. Let him furnish calabashes of beer: four-and-four, eight of them Let him present mead: two pots." They brought them to the luong-lived-one. He said, "Return and tell him this: Address him, say, 'Go and give four cows in milk. Return and present two steers. My friend, then you've made the bridal payment, then you've completed it.'" He made the bridal payment, he completed it.

69 70 71 72 73 74

58. Calling-place: lhangiro's royal drums were sounded at the ljubungo, literally, "dung heap," the same word used to describe the place of Rukiza's imaginary transgression (84). I am not sure how these closely juxtaposed uses are associated; perhaps they are as royal assets (manure and drum) that proclaim themselves from afar (by smell and sound). 66.4. Only as the sun! is a hyperbole that reveals the irony in the previous line. 70.1. Mead is beer made from honey. In requiring beer and cattle in bridcwcalth and then more beer for the prenuptial fete (kasikf) Rukiza enacts his status of clan patriarch.

132

The Powers of Genre

But he returned to this, Rukiza; He said, "When the moon is new, Let him bring beer, Four-and-four, eight calabashes." He said, "Let him present mead, Four-and-four, eight pots." He said, "Let them come and stay the night at the prenuptial fete. At sunrise let me come and bestow my sister And let him marry her, all you Baganga!" They went and they ripened it.

75

76 77

78

79

It fermented, and they brought it. They stayed the night at the prenuptial fete. The sun rose and he married her. It had been one year since the bride was married. My lord, my father, she emerged from her seclusion.

80 81

They came and accused him behind his back. They said, "But father, King Ruhinda, Mounds-for-him-raised, Rukiza oversteps the bounds. Rukiza oversteps the bounds.

82

To show how he oversteps the bounds, Rukiza— Milk, he pours on the dungheap.

83 84

Butter, he plasters on the walls."

85

Ruhinda grew angry. He said, "And those, the ones my father left me! And father never poured milk on the dungheap. Butter, he never plastered on the walls."

86

He said, "Go sound the drum at the Calling-place." It spoke.

87 88

78—78.2. Rukiza's zeal in enacting clan-regulated wedding ceremonials represents the concerns of a clan patriarch. It is surpassed only by the careful preparation of a grotesque wedding party to arrange and complete a marriage in Mugasha (lines 121—124). Both heroes represent and defend the ethics of clan. 82—87. The actions Rukiza is wrongfully accused of offend royal ethics of cattle holding. His profligate acts deny symbolic, exchange, and use values of cattle and their products, which support patronage and, in some degree, the state itself. Note the ethical and linguistic parallelism: the (false) report of Rukiza's exceeding the bounds evokes the king's defense of the royal ethics of cattle ownership; while Rukiza's observation of cattle exceeding the bounds (12.2) evokes the patriarch's kin-like ethical concern for their welfare. Both are calls to action; they motivate and frame the events that follow

Ruki%a

133

He said, "Tomorrow seize them all, The long-horns and the spotted ones, The blacks and the grays."

89 90 91

My mother, my mother, One man went out from among them He traveled in the night. Before dawn, my lord, my lather, He found them milking. They were at the cattle fire.

92

The little man was poorly dressed, My lord, his leather cloak was badly tattered. His penis, he covered with his fingers. "You man, where are you going?" He said, "I'm going to see Rukrza." They said, "Rukiza has some tie with you?" "Rukiza is my blood brother." "A blood brotherhood! Where did you pledge it?" He said, "At Lukokwa and Lulambili."

94 95

93

96 97 98

They tried to think of what to do with him but couldn't. One among them left. He went and told Rukiza.

99

Rukiza had not yet risen. He slept with his wife Luhunge, Forbids-the-hafted-knije Arm that embraces undaunted warriors.

100

90—91. Long-horns, spotted ones . . . are part of an extensive set of terms for describing cattle. 93.2. Cattle fire is a campfirc whose smoke is used to fumigate the animals, reducing the number of their insect pests. '['his episode is the second part of epic's principal call. Ruki'/a grants the man's request to sec him, although the basis of his claim is never verified. I Its assertion of blood brotherhood—a voluntary, socially created form of kinship—is sufficient to touch the patriarch's ethical sense. In some versions of Rukixa, the man's presence is announced by laughter of children, for whom nakedness elicits amusement. As an instrument of the ethical appeal, children embody kinbased, clan ethics, as the drum that summons a warrior to a king's service embodies the royal state in Kachwenyanja. 99. Rukiza's clansmen cannot resolve the: contradiction between the man's apparent low status, which argues against letting him see Rukiza, and his claimed blood brotherhood, which argues for it. The patriarch upholds the precepts of kin without question. Note that Rukiza leaves the embrace of his praiseworthy wife to answer the call, as does the royal warrior in Kachtvayanja (108-118).

134

The Powers of Genre

My lord, my father, They told him. I le arose and he stood outside under the eaves. They brought water to wash and they left.

101

He said, "Quickly, go and bring him to me." When he saw him at the gateposts, He said, "Bring a leather kilt and cloak and dress him."

102

"You sir, how came you?" He said, "How to tell you, Father Rukiza?" lie said, "I left them saying you overstepped the bounds,"

104

He said, "saying butterfat, you plaster on walls. Milk, you pour on the dungheap. He said, "Ruhinda Mounds-for-bim-raised He said, "has ordered all the drums to sound."

103

105 106

Rukiza Mbibi

107

Took Water-of-yam-leaves, He said, "Go and set the shoju grass aflame." He said, "If he is a Muganga Let him grow today." He set the flames, my lord. Wherever fire passed, my lord,

108 109 110

The shoju grass was growing. My friend, he took Honey Bee, The Whiter, He said, "If you are a Muganga,"

111 112

He said, "If they strike you, bite them." He said, "If they flee you, buzz them, all you Baganga."

113

He took Water-of-yam-leaves and Docs-not-penetrate and Impotence, He said, "Surround them on each flank." He said, "Be it there you intercept the cattle of the Ijong-lived-one."

114 115 116

Cattle went to pasture and they returned. Himba appeared on the opposite river bank.

117

They watched the cattle descend. The invaders came to seize Rukiza's cattle.

118

108.1. Set the shoju grass aflame: After being burnt in seasonal fires that control vegetation on intervillage lands, shoju grass begins to grow again and pricks the foot (sec line 202). 117.1. Himba are clans whose occupational specialty is cattle herding. They are allied with ruling I Imda clans in several interlacustrine kingdoms.

Rnki^a

135

Sboju grass covered their legs. My friend, Honey Bees buzzed and killed them.

119

He himself stood on a hilltop, Mbibi.

120

When he put one arrow to the string, It killed four hundred and ninety-eight. The second killed three hundred and seventy-two. The fourth killed one hundred and five. And Water-of-yam-leaves' men were also killing.

121

There remained one man.

125

122 123 124

From that man he took an eye, He said, "Go and tell Ruhinda. Go and tell Ruhinda, Mounds-for-him-raised Say, 'Send a few, and he'll kill them. When you send many, then •we'll fight!' All you Baganga!"

127

Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh

128

He went and he told Ruhinda, Mounds-for-him-raised. Ruhinda sounded the drum at the Calling-place. They also returned, and they made drums speak, the men of the Long-lived-one. My lord, they truly made the spears and arrows fly.

129

126

130 131

There remained one. He cut off his hand. He said, "Go tell Ruhinda, Mounds-for-him-raised, Say, 'Send a few, he'll kill them. When you send many, then we'll fight!' All you Baganga!"

132

They went and told Mounds-jor-bim-raised. One man stepped forward, an elder.

134

He said, "Oh king, do you wish to rule the land, Or do you wish to rule its people?"

135

133

118.1. Sboju grass covers their legs, lacerates them, and impedes their march. 125.1. Ruki/a's mutilation of the remaining royal warrior is a statement couched in a violent discourse of the body. Sparing the enemy's life, he inscribes him with a defiant message to the king. A similar message framed in the somatic discourse of clans, but seen from the opposite side of the battleground, appears reprehensible and ethically foreign in Kachmenyanja. 184—184.1, 216—217). 129.1—131. The king and the clan patriarch summon more troops. 135—135.1. The king's advisers at the court, the balarnata, were drawn from commoner clans. In clan-accented discourse here, as m 1 lava folktales, they appear as voices of moderation. Separati

136

The Powers of Genre

He said, "I wish to rule the land." lie said, "Then let Rukiza of Kilomba be, Lest he finish off the land And finally come and kill you as well."

136

He let him be, Ruhinda did, Mounds-for-him-raised. A year passed. The woman became pregnant.

138

She bore a child.

139

137

She bore a second child. A third child She bore—the royal heir.

140

That child, When he was weaned,

141

Ruhinda said, "Now tell me truthfully, my wife: That Rukiza, My men—how was he killing them?" The woman said, "Now, I would tell you," "But I refuse to tell, lest you kill Rukiza."

142 143 144 145

She said, "And on him who kills Rukiza, Before twilight of that day will I take revenge." He answered, "But we two have children, my wife. Rukiza—why would I kill him? Now that so many years have passed."

146 147

She said, "That Rukiza, Rukiza Mbibi, My friend, Rukiza's heart is in the roof peak of the house. The other is in the fire of die Spotted bull. The beating flesh alone dwells in Rukiza's breast."

148 149 150 151

the control of land from the control of people articulates a division between clan and state. The state is founded on the control of capital in land and cattle. Clans regulate behavior that maintains properly balanced relationships between groups of people, between living and dead, and between society and the natural environment. The advisers remind the king. 140. Kxogamy and patriliny can make women dangerous mediators of clan boundaries, as producers of children for potential rivals and conveyers of inside information that could bring harm to their clans. This concern appears here in a context defined by clan and state. 149—150. Ruktta's magical hearts arc located in places that proclaim the association of home, cattle, and body within the unity of clan. The roof peak of an old-style 1 laya house (msonge) is formed by the top of the central pillar of the round dwelling, the apex of its conical or onion-shaped roof. At the base of the pillar is the hearth and central living space, the most interior space in family life. Rukiza's heart lies at the core of family. His other magical heart lies in the cattle kraal in the fire that warms the herdsmen before sunrise (93.2) and keeps the cattle healthy and free of insect pests.

Ra/ki^a She said, "If they would let an arrow fly, And it fall into the roof peak of the house, And another fall into the fire of the Spotted bull Then Rukiza you have killed."

137 152 153

Women, women are betrayers.

154

When dawn's first rays appeared,

155

They opened chickens, and they found it's in the roof peak of the house. The other is in the fire of the Spotted bull. 156 My lord, my father, they augured hard.

157

They studied entrails and they found it's in the roof peak of the house. The other is in the fire of the Spotted bull. My lord, my father, he did not sound the drum. They sent the message by word of mouth, oh l^ong-lived-om.

158 159

He said, "You two, 160 Go, arrive there in the early morning before they've unlocked the doors. Let fly and let it fall into the fire of the Spotted bull, 161 The other let fall into the roof peak of the house." My friend, they came early. Behind them were many others. They let fly and it fell into the roof peak of the house.

162 163

The other fell into the fire of the Spotted bull. My friend, they stood at the fence. They called him.

164

When he did arise, Mbibi, My lord, and come into the hearth room, He collapsed and fell.

165 166

There, under the eaves, my father, with his bow, Putting arrow to string, Letting fly—

167 168

154. Betrayers: This proverbial statement articulates a male view of a result of the contradiction between exogamy and patriarchy. It is used as an aside here. 155-158. Augury was one of the duties performed by particular clans at court. Here chicken entrails are consulted. 159. The lung does not use the drum to summon his subjects lest Rukiza be warned by its roar. 166. In a version of this epic sung by the bard Kishwa, the clan patriarch recognises the imminence of his death and orders his followers: "Spread my leather cloak for me in the forecourt,/ Ix:st they pierce me and I spill out upon the ground./ Bring fresh milk for me,/ 1-cst they pierce me and I spill out blood." I le enriches the social and symbolic embodiment of nonroyal cattle ownership.

138

The Powers of Genre It did not reach the gateposts of the forecourt.

One standing there, my friend, at the gateposts of the forecourt Shooting an arrow—

169 170

My father, and it fell. My friend, it fell into his chest, It fell and severed his life serpent, My friend, and his heart it split.

172

Rukiza Mbibi collapsed and he fell.

173

His cattle they seized and they brought. They found those of king already pastured, already settled down.

174

171

The wife, my father, as she stood there, And happened to cast her eyes, Passing beyond the fence, She went and she saw the grays.

175

She did not cry a lot. She did not speak. She was still. She thought, "Truly, I spoke And the king killed my father's child."

176

177

She made the bed and she lay down. The moon had reached its fullest phase.

178

She thought, "Now . . ." She thought, "my husband . . . Rukiza . . .

179

Ruhinda, Mounds-for-him-raised—" She thought, "let me tell you—" She thought, "he killed my father's child."

180 181

171.1. The word for life serpent is enkorantima, which also refers to a black, poisonous snake. An individual's spiritual essence or soul is envisioned as a snake (en/oka), which is an agency of thought (Kitekek: 209) and desire (Kitekele. 210.1, Kaiyu/a: 284) and feeling (Kayulcr. 379). Snakes are associated with spirits and may be used as vehicles for praise of another (hfcbali Oluga: 38) or of oneself (Kaitaba: 496). A snake is born in each individual person, dwells within, motivates feeling and action, and dies with him or her or separates from the mortal body as an immortal spirit, according to some. It is often called lugondo "spotted one" (Kaiyula. 284, 383), which is the same word for "spotted bull." These meanings converge in Ri/ki%a (150, 153, 156, 158,161, 163) when the 'T'ire of the Spotted Bull" becomes the dwelling place for the hero's heart. 175.3. She saw the grays: Seeing Rukixa's cattle mixed in among the king's, the woman infers the events that brought them there. The cattle, like the woman herself, have become vehicles for information, public and private. Cattle and women move through society in symbolically rich exchanges of productive value. The virtues they embody can construct, alter, and ultimately destroy ties between social groups. The orbit of this woman's life, like Rukixa's, is defined by cattle.

Rukiza "Now I would go and would incise you magically. Come, rule Kihanja, Rule Zinzaland, Rule Karagwe.

139

182

And Bugabo w^ill you rule, and Kiziba."

183

He agreed Ruhinda, Mounds-jor-him-raised He walked out to the bath enclosure, \jong-lived-one. She cut him all over, on every segment. She said, "Lie back,

184 185

I would also cut you on the throat."

186

When he'd lain back His voice box she took from him whole. She slipped through the fence. She came to Rukiza's dwelling. She said, "How shall I tell them?"

187 188

She found him, Rukiza, not yet buried. They buried him the entire night. She said, "Wander, O Baganga." She said, "King Ruhinda murdered

189

My father's child. And I in revenge I left him murdered."

191

My friend, the Baganga wandered.

192

On the river, and today • . •

193

190

181.1. Kukixa's sister lures the king into a vulnerable position. She entices him with the magical means to rule more land. Her identity as a clanswoman has been reestablished by her brother's murder and her decision to pursue revenge through blood feud. Note that she influences the king through his desire for land, similar to the way the clan advisers (balamatd) influence him to stop sending men to their death (135). In a contrasting set of events, the widow of a state warrior lures clansmen to their doom through their desire not for land but for sexual pleasure (Kachnienyanja. 304). Seen through the clan eyes, kings are land hungry. Seen through the eyes of the state builders, clansmen arc ruled by base appetites for pleasure and reproduction (this is also an underlying theme in the ballad Mbali Qlugd). These ethical judgements seem to be based on conflicting institutional practices governing land tenure and marriage. 186.2. Voice box: Slashing or cutting out the larynx (amalaka, plural of eilaka—voice) seems to be a formulaic way of slitting the throat. See Kachivenyarya: 312.1, 331.1, 351.1, 353. 188. This rhetorical quandary about bringing bad news echoes the words of the near-naked messenger to Rukiza (104.1). 189—191.1. Rukixa's sister made good her promise to exact revenge before sunset on the day of his death (146—146.1). The Baganga engage in ritual lamentation all night.

140

The Powers of Genre

There's no place where the sboju grass won't grow, And still it wanders, All you Baganga. There's no place where the elephant-grass won't dwell And still it wanders. Honey-bees, And still they wander, Baganga. Their wandering so, And the king's killing Rukiza— Happened because of women. Happened because of his sister.

194

195 196

197 198

For women are betrayers. It was one who killed Rukiza Mbibi. It was one he used to kill the Splitter of mukoni wood; it dries.

199 200 201

Shoju grass pricks the foot when short. When it grows, it thatches a house. All you Baganga!

202

194-196.2. Sboju grass, elephant-grass, honey-bees arc symbols of house, family, ubiquitousness, and strength of the downtrodden.

Heroic Society in Interlacustnne Africa

141

Rukiza achieves compositional finalization by repeating certain episode types; these adjacent segments have parallel narrative functions. In the epic ballad genre, this kind of repetition most often occurs with qualify segments. Composed of embedded narrative moves, they seem to be optional in performance; a bard may thus begin his tale at several points: at the beginning of an initial qualify segment, at the beginning of a second, a third, or (infrequently, but possibly) at the call itself. This version of 'Rukiza, sung by Justinian Mugasha, has multiple qualify and call episodes, as do all versions of the epic known to me. Its doubled call emphasizes opposing ethical systems: one call is addressed to a king, and the other to a clan patriarch, Rukiza. QUALIFY (1): How Rukiza and Ruhinda become neighbors. (1-62.1) Qualify: Rukiza is born and grows. (1—8.1) Call: As a youth, he finds his cattle lack pasture. (9—12.2) Prepare: His mother will not emigrate, so he leaves her with cattle and servants. (13—21) Travel: He sets out with many clan members. (22—34.1) Engage (-): The pastures he comes to are unsuitable. (35—41) Reveal: Pie finds good land; it is Ruhinda's. (41.1—47) Engage (+): He sends gifts; the land is given. (48—62.1) QUALIFY (2): How Ruhinda married Rukiza's sister. (63-79.3) Call: Ruhinda is told of Rukiza's sister. 63—66.4) Engage (-): He sends matchmakers. Rukiza requires cattle. They are given. (67—74.1) Engage (+): Then he demands drink for a prenuptial ceremony. Ruhinda agrees and the marriage occurs. (75—79.3) CALL (1): Ruhinda's men slander Rukiza, saying he treats milk and butter as of little worth. The king decides to confiscate the cattle. (80—91) CALL (2): One man comes to warn Rukiza. He is in tatters and claims blood brotherhood with the clan leader. (92—106.1) PREPARF: Rukiza deploys his clansmen. (107-116) ENGAGE (-): Rukiza defeats the king's raiding parties. (117-137) REVEAL: After several years, Rukiza's sister reveals the secret of his invincibility: his magic hearts. (138—154) ENGAGE (+): Archers pierce Rukiza's hearts and he dies. (155-173) COMMENT (1): How Rukiza's sister avenges his death. (174—186.2) Call: Rukiza's sister sees his cattle mixed with Ruhinda's. She surmises his death. (174-177) Prepare: She plots revenge by offering magical medicines to her husband. (178-183) Engage (-): She incises his body. (184—185.1) Reveal: Ruhinda reveals his throat. (185.2-186.1)

142

The Powers of Genre

Engage (+): She slits it. (186.2) COMMENT (2): She returns to Rukiza's house and participates in the burial. Rukiza's clan becomes landless. (187—192) COMMKNT (3): The bard comments on landlessness and betrayal (193-202.2) The request by a destitute, half-naked man on the basis of claimed blood brotherhood does not seem as central to the action as the principal calls in other epics; for that matter, it does not seem as central to the action as the slanderous call (1) addressed to the king. It is nevertheless absolutely obligatory to a performance. Other bards see some of the details in this episode differently. In one version of Rukiza, the man appearing in the cattle kraal has come as a traitor. He ultimately marries Rukiza's sister and conveys the secret of the three hearts to the king. In the present one, like most others, he betrays the king, warning Rukiza of the impending attack. But all bards see his clothes in tatters. lie stands in the cattle kraal covering his penis with his hand. In most versions I know of, he claims to be a blood brother of Rukiza—though not in the one in •which he marries the clan head's sister. The patriarch grants him an audience and provides for him, but his standing as a blood brother is never confirmed in any version. In most versions (but not in this one) the half-naked man's presence is announced by the laughter of children, another evocation of the reproductive function of clan. The call to the clan patriarch frames the principal conflict with the theme of kin-based alliance. The battles—Rukiza's immediate victories and his ultimate defeat—are set in motion by the erroneous report to the king and the latter's outraged response. Each call propels its protagonist into confrontation. And each call articulates ethical knowledge: the value the royal state places on cattle that maintain alliances and the value a clan-based society places on assisting kin, no matter how distant they may be. One might challenge my compositional interpretation of the vengeance sequence as comment, when I have treated a similar move in Kachwenyanja as engage (equilibrium). This seeming inconsistency in fact indicates the creative flexibility in compositional logic and its functional interdependence with theme. Rukiza's sister's murder of Ruhinda could have been construed as the second of two confrontations, the one that leads to narrative resolution— engage (equilibrium). In this alternate analysis, the sister's seeing and interpreting the presence of Rukiza's cattle in Ruhinda's herd would become a revelation of Rukiza's death (reveal), rather than the call of a move embedded in the comment episode, as it is now. If this analysis is possible why do I not choose it? I construe the move as comment first because of its function with respect to the plot as a whole, in which it does not significantly alter the narrative res-

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olution but merely qualifies or adds significance to it. As comment rather than the achievement: of narrative equilibrium, Ruhinda's death is less significant to the narrative than that of Rukiza. Compare the manner and significance of the death of Littleman and his kin with that of Kachwenyanja: these seem more nearly equal in weight. In its present form, the narrative does not elevate the king's death to thematic parity with that of the clan head. The central, heroic themes of cattle, clan, and king arc finalized with Rukiza's death, which brings state monopoly in cattle ownership and landlessness for the clan; Ruhinda's death seems only a matter of personal and family revenge. A second reason for construing the vengeance sequence as comment rather than as confrontation that leads to equilibrium is its nonobligatory status. The four versions of Rukiza in my collection suggest that the sequence is, if not wholly optional, at least reducible to one or two lines. The possible ambiguity of the king's death does not call the generic compositional pattern into question, for both possible constructions are based on its logic. The ambiguity is rather an additional tool for exploring the narrative and thematic significance of particular acts. Compositional ambiguity also occurs in some proverbs. In these too, thematic emphasis changes with alternate ways of construing compositional logic.

Distribution and Hierarchy of Themes in llaya Epics The world of epic narrative is a symbolic projection of social reality, often through inversion, metaphor, hyperbole, or other acts of aesthetic imagination. Social practice is not necessarily represented directly in narrative action. What is represented in themes is the knowledge that informs and is developed by social practices. And in narrative as in life, knowledge that directs action has cognitive, ethical, and affective dimensions. By manipulating fictional elements, imaginative discourse can reproduce both understandings and feelings associated with institutional practices—or opposition to them. These institutionrelated themes are dominant in epic discourse, and they are invariably to be found in the call. Much of my approach to theme developed through proverbs, folktales, and epics is gratefully acknowledged to have been adapted from the distinctive feature analysis of structuralism and related approaches—except the part relating to the genetically favored compositional unit. As the locus of dominant themes, this favored unit anchors the analytic method to systematically chosen points of contrast within the analytic universe of a carefully defined genre. The favored episode identifies a locus for a contrast-within-a-frame analysis comparing thematic content between texts, just as the segmentation

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of compositional form defined loci for contrast-within-a-frame analysis of stylistic usage. The role of institutions in shaping aesthetic representations has been attended to at least since Malinowski's (1948) conception of myth as "charter." Modern critics whose approaches vary as widely as those of Beidelman (1986), LeviStrauss (1967), and de Rougement (1956) have all observed and commented on die close association. The present method identifies institution-related themes by combining analytic methodologies, and it reveals thematic hierarchies by applying a simple rule of thumb: Genetically favored episodes articulate dominant themes; the same episode type in embedded moves articulates subordinate themes, which modify dominant themes and lend them symbolic force. For example, a dominant theme is articulated by the royal war drums in Kachjvenyanja's principal call, which invokes warrior ethics in a state military. Institutionalized warriorhood provided crucial support for the monarchy and weakened the power of clans. The king conscripted warriors into battalions by region rather than kin group, and he rewarded individual valor with battle-won booty and other royal beneficence. Warriors proclaimed their individual deeds and identities—the basis of reward—in poetic recitations (eby'ebusp) before the king and at other high-spirited occasions. In warriorhood, the state gained a monopoly in military power, which patrilincal clans formerly shared and used against one another in blood feuds. The call of war drums articulates the epic's central theme. Ethics thematized in other calls complement and enrich it. The warrior's response to the call of the dream in the opening scene marks him as a knower, one who can interpret significant messages. But more than that, the dream qualifies his future marriage: Based solely on romantic attraction, the protagonists' union will occur outside the institutional practice of clans. As opposition to clan ethics, the dream-marriage complements state warriorhood. A successful warrior has the virtue of ekitimva, "fearedness," a reputation for strength and valor in service to the king. Instilling fear can be a public verbal display, as when Kachwenyanja taunts enemy warriors at the beginning of the battle scene. This secondary call magnifies the hero's social persona and sets the stage for the battle that follows. His rejection of blood brotherhood here articulates an antikinship ethos. Nyakaandalo's response to the call of the hero's death enriches the thematization of the bond between king and warrior. The killings she commits on Kachwenyanja's behalf are like those he performed for the king. She becomes a warrior's warrior. The metaphoric ratio of these allegiances indicates the fierce loyalty of their heroic romance and also connotes a warrior's affection for a king to whom he dedicates his life. What is implicit in the Muzee's version, the conflict between monarchy and clans, is explicit in the version by the bard Habib Suliman in a performance of

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the epic cited by Mulokozi (1983). In that text, the king's call summons the famed warrior expressly to put: down a clan revolt. The same institutional strife is articulated in the doubled principal call of Ruki^a, but the conflict is between property owners rather than warriors. A slanderous call to King Ruhinda evokes the ethics of royal cattle ownership by decrying their desecration. The clan leader's alleged profligate treatment of milk and butter flaunts their value; it hyperbolically denies scarcity as the basis of their exchange in state building. The king must find these imagined practices morally offensive, threatening, and worthy of punishment. The call to the clan head articulates ethics of kin-based solidarity with similar hyperbole. It comes from a character personifying social disadvantage—a man destitute, nearly naked, found in Rukiza's cattle kraal. His pitiful plea bases its standing on the most tenuous km attachment, the fictive tie of blood brotherhood. Haya blood brotherhood was both metaphorically and metonymically consanguine—it instituted exogamy between the children of blood brothers and was established by each man's swallowing a drop of the other's blood applied to a coffee berry. The clan patriarch Rukiza readily accepts responsibility to provide for the lowliest of persons who claims to be of his blood, no matter how tenuous the link. Note that truth is absolutely not an issue in either call. The appeal itself is sufficient. King and patriarch are ever ready to enact the virtues of their roles. This, Maclntyre (1981) reminds us, is heroic society. The three secondary calls in Rukiza deepen the significance of the primary calls and sharpen their ethical contrasts by portraying cattle in different institutional frameworks. In the first call of the epic, the clan leader sees his herds exceed their pasture and responds by planning a quest to find them room, even though it means leaving his mother and homeland. His treatment of the herds embodies the ethics of familial care; he acts as a parent, a good shepherd; his virtue is to provide for their needs, as he will provide for the naked, tenuously related kinsman calling from his kraal. The king, on the other hand, receives a call about the beauty of Rukiza's sister that implicates, and soon leads to, an exchange of cattle in marriage. The narrative sequence affirms the royal practice of exchanging cattle and commoner women to build alliances. The king sees this practice threatened by the clan leader's imaginary desecration and devaluation of milk and butter. The final subordinated call comes to Rukiza's sister when she sees her brother's cattle mixed with husband's, and she thereby knows the clan leader is dead. The semiotic function of these cattle in the narrative action as exchange and communication parallels her own role as token and unwitting informer. This brief comparison of two well-known Haya epics reveals a hierarchy of thematic significance built according to a simple rule: The principal plot of a narrative is framed by its central themes. Generic composition directs informed

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interpretation to the episode where a plot's dominant, framing themes are clearly articulated. It is the same rule at work in proverbs, where a ratio articulated in parallel and opposed propositions finalizes the conversationally relevant theme. This simple, commonscnse convergence of dominant themes and favored compositional elements will become the basis for an analysis of the degrees to which different genres develop, apply, resist, and are penetrated by power. But before addressing this question fully, I wish to introduce the symbolically fecund and enlightening figure of Mugasha, the fisher god, lord of wind, rain, and aquatic animals, and a prominent spirit in traditional religion, mythology, and epic balladry. His passionate career teaches entertaining lessons about institutional hegemony in narrative genres; it probes profound and creative social differences in traditional society; and it shows how genre can chart the effects of these differences on artistic expression.

Mugasha in Two Generic Worlds The basic plot of the epic ballad Mugasha is substantially reproduced in one particular myth, and a comparison between plots—actually, between their contrasting final episodes—provides a clear way into understanding differences between genres in the characteristic ways they achieve thematic finalization. This epic, like Kachwenyanja and Ruki^a, is well-known in all Haya kingdoms where bards perform. Its eponymous hero—apparently a much-beloved deity, the personification of productive energy and peasant style—is also a protagonist in several myths in Hayaland and its neighboring states. The epic call addressed to the fisher god Mugasha insults him, and he responds with indignation. In Mugasha and in other epic ballads, like Ruki^a, the affront can be called oku-saya, "to belittle, to treat something as low status." In the favored episodes of both epics, a principal protagonist is called on to redress an attack on his social identity. Conflicts about social status may occur a within a single system of value, when parties wrangle over matters of degree. Epic indignations, however, arise from the clash of ethical systems. Mugasha's anger represents unresolved resentments, and the ballad exults in the lowly god's victory—even if it is only partial—over his social superiors.

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Mugasha Bahyoza, Hear the Epic of Bitankwama, IJttle Feet of the Kafun^i Bird,

1

Nyabule^a, the Never Envious, Kashasila, Restrains the I'irst, Thorns Block, Pathways, The Wrathful, Majambwe, Bull of the Heart-Tormenters, Speaks from the Womb, Comes from Mutoi^i,

2

Defter of Mediations. Water's Surge Smashes Everything, Surges in the Wood, Slnd as well Surges in the Tree of Menstrual Pain, Makes Bellows Breathe on Great I^ake l^welu. He refused: "I do not make my bellows breathe in town. " Go slowly, Majambwe, Bull of the Heart-Tormenters. That day I saw: He spoke to Nyambubi, "Mother, push. Give me birth. But fear, and I'll burst your side

3

4

The Defter of Mediations."

1—1.4. Ilabib Suliman addresses the Bahyoza, the name for residents of the Kyamutwala kingdom, where the famous bard from Ki/iba often performed. Lines 1—3 are praise names associated with Mugasha and other spirits. They are quoted from the self-praise poetry (eby'ebugo) that spirits recite with characteristic styles when they possess mortals. Bards use and conserve this knowledge. L'/ven though there is an organisation of spirit mediums, the names and praises of spirits are not standardised. Bitankwama: possibly "Thcsc-(insulting words)-do-not-botherme," a name that fits Mugasha's style. Nyabuleza and Kashasila are female spirits, whose relationship to childbearing is probably invoked here. Never Envious (of another's child), contrasts with Mugasha's aunt (78). Restrains . . . and Thorns Block Pathways are images of difficult childbirth. Ishumi (1980) reports a new mother is traditionally congratulated "there are no thorns." Bull of the Hcart-Tormenters signifies the strongest of the Bachwexi spirits who possess humans; it is praise for Mugasha. 2.6. A mugege, or Tree of Menstrual Pain, is used in medicine for vaginal bleeding; engege is menstrual pain. The tree is also used to make charcoal for ironworking. 3. Lwelu is the [lava name for Lake Victona/Nyan/a, probably from okw-ela, "to be white" referring to the reflection of sunlight and sky in the water. Lines 4—10 describe Mugasha's difficult birth, from his speech inside the womb to the midwife's unsuccessful treatment.

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Nyambubi pushed. But it had no effect. She rushed here and there. Nyambubi was jerked into a frenzy.

5

Those around her said, "Get midwives." They brought Galengaine, Pretty packet, }^ong necked calabash from Mugunda. The healer picked Whitener and Benefactor at the fence.

6

She spoke to Nyambubi: My child, bear down. Give him birth. The one -who -will end your childlessness is Mugasha." On that day Nyambubi pushed. But it had no effect. She rushed here and there. On that day, she was jerked into a frenzy.

7

On that day I saw The healer left the hearth room, Her right hand holding as she came a hornful of tobacco. Her left is busy too as one who makes kilangi extract. The healer was confounded, "What shall I do, my child?"

8 9

10

11

She said, "Bear down harder still." 12 They applied all the birthing medicines But they had no effect. The kind to lick and the kind to sniff, The kind whose leaves they strip and throw in the hearth's flames, the Kin of the Peaceful. On that day they did them. But they had no effect. The healer was confounded, "What shall 1 do my child?"

13

I saw her on that day:

15

14

5.3. Frenzy: Mugasha's mother's state is like being jerked about in a lively dance. 6.2. Pretty packet, Long necked are praise for the midwife's appearance. Lines 11—18 describe mother's plight and midwife's despair. 12.4. Kin of the Peaceful is a praise name for women, people associated with Nyakalcmbe, "The Peaceful," a women's agricultural spirit and the wife of Mugasha.

Mugasha

149

She left the hearth room,

Her right hand holding as she came a hornful of tobacco. Her left is busy too as one who makes kilangi extract. She said, "My powers! My powers! My powers!" On that day the healer stood confounded, "What shall I do? My powers!"

16 17 18

We said, "Elder, what has happened?" She said, "My children, hurry! Quickly, quickly! Pray at a spirit shrine for help, my children.

19

Go to Wamara, Swaying One of Nyante, Long of neck, with rings of wrinkles, Set Right by Tribute, Tiny Egg of hndisa Bird, He came from Zin^aland. Pray to He grows not weary when resolution is far, Tired in the back, It carried those who don't drop down, Relentless one, Sheep of the White Region, my children." She said, "Go to the Swaying One of Nyante, Long of neck with rings of wrinkles" We took gray goats and white sheep.

20

On that day we brought tribute to Wamara, Swaying One of Nyante, Long of neck imth rings of wrinkles. Set Right by Tribute We brought tribute to the Brother of the Hindu, Arm that Conquers,

21

22 23

24

In linos 19—23 spiritual means are sought to birth Mugasha. Although Wamara eventually assists in this, the high god's praise expresses semantic opposition to Mugasha. His swaying gate and long neck -with rings of wrinkles evoke the style and appearance associated with aristocracy, as Mugasha's style and appearance evoke the peasantry. Wamara is Set Right by Tribute as a king, while Mugasha pumps his bellows (3) as an artisan. Wamara's appetite for tribute is punningly proverbial: Wamara tamanva "Wamara is never finished" (cited in Shmidt 1978). Wamara comes from the south, in Zinxaland, while Mugasha comes from the north in the Sessc Islands of Uganda. Nyante is Wamara's mother, 21—21.2. These praise names for Wamara are said to refer to serpents associated with him, who carry one another on their backs, as mothers do children. Lines 24—24.4 suggest that the bard augments Wamara's praise names with those of other spirits. Arm that Conquers and Embracer of Warriors echo feminine praise in another context

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Hmbracer of Warriors, Buttocks [Billed with Sweet banana Mash, Sewing A-ivl. On that day the healer was confounded, "What shall I do? My powers!" I saw on that clay: The Sivaying One of Nyanle said, "My children!" He sent Harbinger, child of Kayango, By Misfortunes cursed. Fie said, "Go and fell a rnusharnbya tree, the Stretcherbearer. Carve from it small paddles nine. Fell the well-placed mulinzi tree. Carve from it a small canoe. Put these in a spirit house," He said, "For the child fisherman of Ishulaine Bugunda" The healer on that day brought them quicldy, quickly. They made the payment. I saw: He was born, Nyatende. He came down. He chanted his praise. I le brought it from within. He said, "Hurry to Kishanje of Kalasha at Mutailenge's Go to Ibebe's at Bwcza. Go tell Uncle Food-for-thc-road Never-arrives He should hurry quickly, quickly To Nyatende Mugasha." He said, "Uncle Food-for-thc-road Never-arrivcs Run quickly, quickly

25

26 27

28

29 30

31

32 33

34

(Ruki^a: 97) and Buttocks . . . (24.3) echoes praise for the spirit of Rain (in the epic ballad Mu hater. 212). 27—30. The ritual preparations for Mugasha's birth construct and equip his spirit house, or shrine. Wamara speaks through a spirit medium. Harbinger, literally, "preccder," is Wamara's helper and guardian of the boundary between Bachwe/1 and living mortals.

29. The child fisherman is Mugasha. 31. The miraculous child speaks at birth. One of Mugasha's names, Nyatende (31.1), is also that of his mother's sister. It refers to sheaves of crops, apropos of his association with fertility. lines 33—37 suggest ;m episode developed more fully in a version from southern Ilayaland (in Muloko/i 1986). In the southern version, Mugasha journeys to the Sesse Islands to reclaim his rightful kingdom from the usurper Katanda ("I''ood-for-thc--road")bcforc returning to marry the high god's daughter.

Mugasha

151

I would send you to Kiziba. Go for me to Ntumwa Magembe at Nipelasho's in Kaigoma." He said, "Have them transport for me a canoe of eight seats. The ninth is horn." They went and set it down at Nyakilembeka landing. When they had set it down at Nyakilembeka landing— I saw on that day— He said, "Uncle, run quickly, quickly."

35

His uncle came and spoke to the child in his cradle. He left.

37

The child went and he sat among the pillars of the antechamber. fie raised his hand. I saw the Trapper on that day When he had raised his hand,

35

38

I saw all the people were confounded. He said, "Give to me my paddles nine, carved as I was being born." They brought nine paddles. He clutched one paddle. He said, "This paddle's mine. I'll make a crossing."

39

He emerged into the forecourt, They said, "He'll fall." They saw him walking everywhere. That day the child reached the cattle road. His mother Nyambubi emerged that day as well. She stood amazed. People left the village. They went ululating and singing, Answering one another, the Kin of the Peaceful They sing, "The joyful one grows joyous." They respond, "She grows joyous in her reign." When they had walked with him to Nyakilembeka landing, The child summoned Rushing Water of the Lake,

49

41

42

Whirling Child of Urn b-Twister.

37.4. Trapper (of fish) is a praise name for Mugasha. 40. A cattle road is located at least 30—40 yards from a dwelling, at the end of a forecourt. It is wider than a footpath. 41.2. Kin of the Peaceful are women. 41.3. "The joyful one grows joyous . . . " are words of a women's song at weddings.

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He said, "Whistling Wind Blower-of-cold, I-never-miss-a-doonvaj,

43

Silent Runner Lightning Flash." He summoned Thunder. He called the winged Nshungu wind of Lwabulungu, Great horns lie back across the shoulders, Bad news brought by a traveler, Puller-of-fish-lines.

44

He said, "This very day I'm wanting to be traveling. This day on Great Lake Lweru, I would go and fish enkuyu, Big eyes skyward like a forgetful debtor" He said, "Empala fish, the Long-horn mkoma mujungwi^i, I'll catch this very day. I'll catch bukeije and bukokalongp"

45

I saw the Trapper on that day.

47

I saw his canoe float out into the middle of the lake. His mother Nyambubi clapped her hands. She spread her palms. She summoned the Sun I-have-shone and the Sun He-who-creates. She said, "My child roams, and I await what comes like upper teeth." I saw: The canoe came back to Nyakilembeka landing.

48

Out in the middle of the lake Mugasha spent eight years. In the ninth he summoned Rushing Water. He said, "I^ake-Diveller, Puller-of-fish-lines, I'm wanting: I would go to where I first set out, I would travel and see my mother, who gave birth to me, I would see her, who pushed for me." When they had paddled on that day, the Trapper, He said, "I would go and see my mother, who gave birth to me.

46

49 50 51 52

53 54

43.1. Silent Runner praises lightning, which in traditional belief is silent and relatively harmless; thunder is thought to make noise and do damage. 44. Nshungu is a strong seasonal wind that brings cloud formations resembling the long horns of Ankole cattle. 45.2. A forgetful debtor avoids looking his creditor in the eye. 46. Empala is a catfish whose whiskers swing about like the long horns of an aggressive bull. 49. Mugasha's mother invokes the Sun in two personas: the heavenly body and the Creator's child. 49.1. The emergence of the upper teeth of an infant before the lower is an extremely unfortunate sign. It becomes an image for any grave misfortune that may befall a child and its mother.

Mugasha

153

I would see her, who pushed for me." From out in the middle he saw rune women.

55

They were drawing water at Nyakilembeka landing. He said, "Among those women I cannot tell the one who gave birth to me.

56

I cannot tell the one who pushed for me, Mugasha." He was confounded on that day, the Trapper. He sat there confounded.

57

When he saw the nine women,

58

He made a man's plan. He jumped from the canoe. He threw himself into the lake, Mugasha. He threw out his arm.

59

He called, "Come save me—-water's swallowing me!" That day they were confounded. On that day, Nyatende and Nyambubi: There was a woman they call Nyatende, The sister of Nyambubi iyo o

60

A woman they call Nyatende, Sister of Nyambubi

61

That day she spoke to Nyambubi, "Child of my mother, ancestral spirit Help me place my feet for mercy's sake! Let me grab hold of my child iyo-o." She said, "Let me grab hold of my child, This very day, me myself. You know if an only child should die:

62 63

57. I have substituted the word "Trapper" for omukaikulu, which means "elder woman" (referring to the midwife) and which is apparently a mistake here. 59.1. Mugasha's being swallowed by the water is a laughable ruse. . . . The dotted line marks a splice between two versions of Ilabib's Mugasha. The Tracy recording contains a non sequitur caused by the singer's merging the two test incidents that immediately follow one another. To present the full story, I have inserted the missing episode from a recording of ITabib made by Mukama Lukamba. 60. Mugasha's childless aunt starts out as though she will succeed in becoming known as his mother, but her dedication is not sufficient and she fails. The women argue. 61.3. Child of my mother and ancestral spirit are terms of address that convey both intimacy and respect. Mugasha's aunt asks her sister's help in a difficult task.

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It kills the one who bore it; It brings us haunting; It returns and brings us nightmares." Mugasha's aunt, my mother, waded out into the water. It reached the nipples of her breasts. That day the woman backed out buttocks first. The woman raised her hand like one who curses. 1 saw her speak to Mugasha. She said, "It was not I who gave birth to you, O dear, not I, who pushed for you. The water shall not swallow me, Mugasha!" The woman backed out buttocks first that day. Because Mugasha had no one to take him from the lake that day, lie left the lake himself And returned to his canoe. When it reached the shore They were fighting over fish, the Kin of the Peaceful. Kin of Squatting and iron, You know, Kin of the Hoes Ruled by Kabagala, They came to fight. They quarreled over an enkuyu fish, IMg eyes skyward like a forgetful debtor. This one said, "It was I who gave birth to him." That one said, "It was I who pushed for him." This one said, "If you're the one who gave him birth, then when he fell into the water. Why didn't you grab hold of him?" That one said, "And when you went to grab him, Why did you back out buttocks first?"

64

65 66

67 68

69

70

liwewe yo-o

71

63—63.1. This belief about the unsettled nature of a deceased child's spirit is commonly known. 65. Mugasha's aunt's gesture, hand raised with palm outward, usually requests a spirit's help in redressing a wrong. 69. Squatting or sitting with knees raised is women's characteristic posture for such gender-related acts as giving birth, lovcmaking, urinating, cooking at the hearth, and doing agricultural labor. 69.1. Kabagala is a small, heart-shaped hoe that women use to weed crops. It is regarded by some as the earliest form of hoc and therefore the ruler of other hoes. This praise is frequently used about women.

Miigasha

155

Wamara happened to be there that day. He gave them the copper spear of Kagolo.

72 73

Missile of Despair, Speaker of Angry, Dry Words, With Stiffened Elbows." Adorned with beads all over except the palm,

74

Of the Left-handers, Of the Water Oracle; He drank it—he spilled it, lie built it—he burned it, Confronter of Warriors, Wamara said, "You nine women, as you are here, Decide this, my children," He said, "If a warrior woman comes arid spears Mugasha and kills him

75

76 77

I'll give her nine children." I saw: The women all fell into bewilderment. Mugasha's aunt said, "Just let me impale Mugasha and kill him. They'll give me nine children. These cannot be outweighed by Nyambubi's one child."

78

When she raised the spear above her head, Nyambubi seized her arm from below.

79

She said, "This thing won't kill my child for me! It wasn't I who brought it childlessness." That day he was astonished, Majambwe the 'Trapper. I saw those present.

80 81

In lines 76—81.3, Wamara offers nine children to whoever will kill Mugasha with a copper spear. Mugasha's childless aunt accepts and tries to hurl the spear, but Nyambubi prevents her, revealing that she is Mugasha's real mother. 73. Kagolo is Wamara's son. Mis praise alludes to his hot-headed and warlike behavior, whic spirit mediums embody when they are possessed by him. 74.1. Dry words are strong and effective, as opposed to 'wet' words, which are weak. /4.2. Stiff Elbows probably reflects his demeanor as a possessing spirit; it seems to reinforce in gestural language his extreme and immoderate behavior. 74.5. The water oracle (Byantabu^i) is associated with this spirit (its name comes from oku-tabula, "to make water bubble up or forth"). Byantabu/i also echoes the name of the place where Kagolo acquired his characteristic way of talking (154.3). 75. Drank it, spilled it, built it, burned it, refer to the episodes of myths about Kagolo and Wamara.

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They said, "Nyambubi, you win the case. There is no woman who'd kill the child she bore. Nyambubi, the child is yours." They gave her an enkuyu fish, Big eyes skyward like a forgetful debtor. They said, "Mother's sisters should not leave empty handed." I saw them give her bukeije and bukena fish.

82 83

On that day, Nyatende, Trapper, Water-dweller. Mugasha.

84

When he had found the mother who had borne him, the Trapper, He returned to Great Lake Lweru. He took hold of his canoe. He passed by Kishanje village of Kalasha at Mutailenge's house. He alighted at the home of Ibebe at: Bweza. I saw: he passed Rubafu at the waters of Nyamataba. At Kanyabagwa beach, Nyatende, the Trapper. I saw: he passed Kyahu island of Nyakwezi. He cast his eyes towards Bitterness Marsh, Mugasha.

85

That was when he saw eight maidens. The ninth was Lwanyaibungo, Eull of the Pretty Kalaito. The maiden was the daughter of Wamara, Swaying One of Nyantc, Long of Neck with Rings of Wrinkles, Set "Right by Tribute. She'd gathered straw: four and four, eight bundles; The ninth she clutched in her hand; The tenth she pressed underfoot. The child was surprised by Whistling Wind, Elower-of-cold, 1-nevermiss-a-doorway. That straw, the Wind strewed and strewed about.

86 87 88

89

90 91

82. I'or Big eyes . . . forgetful debtor sec note to line 45. 84. Nyatende refers to Mugasha. 88.2. Bull denotes leadership and preeminence and is used in praise of the maiden—she is the most pleasing among maidens, like deep red wild figs, the kalaito fruit. Her stature is parallel and opposed to that of Mugasha, who is called the Bull of the Heart's Tormenters—first among the Bachwczi possession spirits (1.6, 94.1). 88.4-88.6. Praise of the god Wamara, sec notes to 19-23.

Mugasha

157

She pressed and pressed it together with her skirt. But it had no effect. She sat down on the ground. She swore, "O father! Swaying One of Nyante." The maiden on that day was confounded. Her companions ran, they left her. She sat there confounded.

92

93 94

She'd not gotten the words out of her mouth

When suddenly Nyatende appeared, Bull of the Heart-Tormentors. Speaker from the Womb, Comes from Mutoi'^i,

95

Defter of Mediations. Fie said, "I am the only child. / ended my mother's childlessness. "

96

The maiden on that day sat there confounded. "Maiden, I would court you, I would marry you."

I saw: She said, "You are not one to marry me, Litde fisherman of Ishulaine Bugunda." She said, "Die without issue! You stink!" That day Mugasha had tied on his cloak of dried minnows. I saw on that day. The maiden spat. Spittle scattered. She said, "I swear to you Mugasha: Rather than have you marry me I'd sleep with my mother's child, Kagolo." She said, "Of the Spirit Shrine, Of the Water Oracle,

97

98 99

100

Lyanyaibungo has been gathering straw to place on the floor of a dwelling. Work of this kind comes under the category of "to make things pleasing" a knowledge especially associated with marriageable young women. The call in the principal plot of the epic. Mugasha meets Lyanyaibungo, identifies himself with praise, and proposes to her. She answers him with language and gesture that signals her contempt for his low status. For her, the defilement a union with him would bring is tantamount to sibling incest. Mugasha vows he will marry her, implying that the shame of his failure to do so would be tantamount to maternal incest. 99.5. Mother's child is a way of referring to one's sibling (here, a brother) with affection.

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Missile of Despair, Speaker of Angry, Dry Words, With Stiffened lllbows. " She said, "Adorned with beads all over except the palm,

101

Of the "Left-handers, Of the Water Oracle. " The maiden on that day sat confounded.

102

I saw on that day: He spoke, Nyatende,

103

Little Feet of the Kafun^i Bird. He said, "Maiden, this very day

104

If I should fail to marry you I'd lie with my own mother, Nyambubi." He summoned Rushing Water. He said, "Rushing Water of the Lake, Whirling Child of Umb-Tivister," He said, "Go inside the Mugoma rocky outcrop. Sound my great drum—They-die But-they've-been-told." lie \vent and sounded They-die But-they've-been-told,

105

106

Roaring Di-di-cii, Roaring De-de-de. Roaring Di-di-di, Roaring Dc-cle-de. I saw that day They-die But-they've-been-told, Roaring Di-di-di, Roaring De-de-de. I saw it speak, They-die But-they've-been-told, Roaring Di-di-di. There attended on that day nkuytt fish, Big eyes skyward like a forgetful debtor.

It said, "You marry her, Mugasha!" There attended eel.

107 108

109

110

105. They-die-but-they've-been-told is the name of Mugasha's drum. 106.1. Roaring translates ngu, a conjunction sometimes used to introduce indirect discourse. I fere its repetitive use seems onomatopoetic. Mugasha's drum brings his minions. Uach praises itself and endorses his marriage quest They help him plan the wedding. For each ritually prescribed article the aquatic minions mention, Mugasha proclaims a substitution. The wedding party then proceeds to Wamara's palace, frogs leading the way.

Mugasha

It said, "You marry her, Mugasha!" I saw on that clay. I saw the empala fish, \jong-horn enkoma mujungn^i. It said, £CYou marry her, Trapper!" Hippopotamus Smasher of 1 j>ng Canoes Old Man of (be Waves, It said, "You marry her, Mugasha!" I saw frogs and bukena minnows Saying, "You marry her, Trapper!"

159

111

112

Up and spoke the nsenene grasshopper. It said, "I am \jvakymge and } aga^a My head is a thin straw; my foot is njulujunga. I'll fall four and four, eight days in Kyamutivala. The ninth will be a time for bushel baskets. You marry her, Trapper!"

113

Thunder, lELssential Warrior, He said, "You marry her Mugasha!" He said, "If you didn't marry Lyanyaibungo, Mugasha, Where could we go, Trapper?" I saw on that: day. He was confounded, Mugasha.

115

I saw on that day. He looked at the empala fish, }jong-horn enkoma mujungwi^i, And at bukena minnows. I saw on that day: The enkalongo fish as well, It said, "You marry her, Mugasha!" I saw on that clay. Up spoke the locust, He said, "/ am the sharpening stone, I-aver of the Mountain Pass." On that day I saw

114

116

117

118 119

120 121

113. Ensenene grasshoppers arc caught, dressed, cooked, and eaten as a great delicacy that comes once a year, during the short rainy season. They arc usually caught singly with the hand. The tasty grasshopper boasts that there will be so many as to be scooped up in large baskets. 116.1. Where could "we go is a question that speaks to the virtue and shame invested in the events. The lowly fisherman acts on behalf of many.

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He asked them . . . I saw on that day . . . He said, "You who've come, tell me—to marry at the Swaying One of Nyante's, what kind of brideprice do they give?" That day they told him, "They give cattle, my lord." He said, "Take hippopotami." They said, "But my friend, what about sheep?" He said, "Take crocodiles." On that day, Mugasha. I saw him say, "But my friends, what else do they do?" That day they said, "Butterfat for the bride." He said, "Take bukena minnow scales. Fill a snail shell with them." They said, "Bring a bedsheet for the mother's sister." He said, "Strings of dried bukanda fish." I saw that day. They said, "Iron pruning tools?" He said, "Bring large perch." I saw that day, Mugasha. They said, "Cattle?" He said, "Bring hippopotami." They said, "A sheep?"

122

123

124

He said, "lake a crocodile." That day he sat confounded, Nyatende Bull of the \\eart-Tormenters, That day, the Swaying One of Nyante was surprised by frogs, jumping and jumping. They sang, "They'll tell of this." They said, "They'll tell of this. They'll tell of this. They'll tell of this." They said, "What did I say to you, Father Grunter?

126

I said, 'Free me from a trap and I'll free you.' What did I tell you my blood brother? 1 said, 'Free me from a trap and I'll free you.'"

127

125

121.3—124.3. Cattle are used for brideprice. A white sheep la usually to be sacrificed to a clan spirit. Butterfat is spread on a bride to make her shine with beauty. A bride's mother's sister receives a gift also, as was alluded to above (83). 124.4-127. The frog's song and the events it alludes to apparently come from a folktale, but 1 have not been able to find the one.

Mugasha That day when I looked into the antechamber, I found the enkolongo making a courting speech.

161 128

The spear that enkolongo held on his shoulder, Is the spike that's now stuck on his back. The maiden of the hafted knife was eel. She'd spread on so much butterfat for sleekness That today to grasp an eel, you first must pat some mud. The elder who made the courting speech was enkonlongo.

129

130

The spear he held on his shoulder, Is the spike that's now stuck on his back. I saw on that day:

131

The Swaying One of Nyante He said, "Before I'd give a daughter to Mugasha, I'd drink from the spear of Ndekezi." He sent all these things. But they had no effect. I saw Mugasha on that day: He sent Hailstones, child of Earthquake. On that day I saw Warnara,

132

Swaying One of Nyante: He said, "Give her to him. Let her go and marry him, The bull of Nyambubi." When they handed her over to them, They set her down on Nyakilembeka landing.

133

There they met Nyatende Mugasha.

134

He said, "And you, welata, Rushing Water of the Lake, (ljuller)-of-fish-lines"

135

The aquatic wedding party is treated roughly by Wamara, who vows his daughter will never marry the fisherman. Mugasha sends large hailstones and buries Wamara to the armpits (a detail from Ilabib's later version). Wamara hands over his daughter. The water animals take the bride to Mugasha. 128.1. On the day before a bride leaves home to live with her husband's family, an elder representative of the husband's clan comes bearing a spear to make a speech. The fish who performs this act here is a kind of catfish, whose spear Wamara fused to his back. 129. The maiden of the hafted knife is a young girl who accompanies the speech-making, spear-bearing elder. I ler cultural butterfat becomes natural slime by the power of Wamara. 131.3. Drink from the spear of Ndekezi is a proverbial expression for committing suicide. The phrase refers to a poison ordeal administered by a medium of the spirit Kimuli. 132.8. The bull of Nyambubi refers to Mugasha.

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He said, "Whirling Kamengo of Umb-TivisterKabantende, I welcome you from your journey, welata." They said, "Indeed."

136

He said, "And when you got there, did you meet Kagolo, Of the Spirit Shrine, Of the Water Oracle, Welata?" They said, "We did not meet him there, my lord." He said, "Paddle swiftly! Don't you know Kagolo's coining to churn the lake up, With the children still in the middle, Welata?"

137

Ya-ya Ya-ya Ya-ya Ya-ya Ya-ya Ya-ya

139

He went and he married her. He stayed inside with her four and four, eight days. Then suddenly appeared (at Wamara's palace)—Kagolo, Of the Spirit Shrine, Of the Water Oracle, Missile of Despair, Speaker of Angry, Dry Words, With Stiffened Elbows.

140

On that day when he had come, He said, "Where is she, our child Lyanyaibungo?" Her father said, "The Trapper took her." I saw his father confounded on that day. He said, "My child, I have nothing, Nothing to compare it to." Kagolo said, "Give me my bow."

138

141 142

They gave him one of the mushambya tree, Stretcher Bearer. They gave him one of the coffee tree.

135-138.3. These lines are spoken in a rapid recitative. Welata is supposed to be a word in the Ganda language. Mugasha speaks Ilaya with a Ganda accent and uses some Ganda vocabulary, because he comes from the north, from the Sesse Islands of Uganda in Lake Victoria/Nyanza. Mugasha takes his bride home and stays inside with her for eight days. Then her brother Kagolo returns. lie arms himself and goes to fight Mugasha. 139. These vocables arc sung in the melody of a fisherman's paddling song. 142-142.1. I have nothing, nothing to compare it to, a confession of defeat: Wamara's rhetorical inability to make comparisons is equated with his lack of physical mastery. 142.3-142.8. mushambya . . . coffee tree . . . mukanshe . . . In the later version, Habib

Mugasha

163

He took it. He strung it. He took a bow of the mukanshe tree. He went with eight arrows in his quiver. The ninth went in his hand, saying clacking words. In the places where he passed were plantain banana plants. They became raphia palms. When he reached the main road, Mushunshu plants became bijeela.

143

On that day I saw: Kagolo came to the great lake Lwelu.

144

He called, "Mugasha, corne carry me. I would go and see our child Lyanyaibungo Bull of the Pretty Kalatto." Mugasha looked over with one eye. He said, "There is Kagolo of the Spirit Shrined He got a cloud of lake flies and hid inside.

145

Kagolo let fly eight arrows. They fell into the lake. The ninth caught Mugasha in the leg. He was startled: "I've been pricked by the spike of an enkolongo"

146

I saw Kagolo on that day. Confounded was he, Of the Spirit Shrine, Of the Water Oracle. I saw on that day: He was confounded, Kagolo, Of the Spirit Shrine, Of the Water Oracle. Missile of Despair, Speaker of Angry, Dry Words, With Stiffened Elbows.

147 148

I saw on that day: His own leg—the Trapper lopped it off.

149

150

151

describes how Kagolo tries an even greater succession of bows, but each one breaks under his strength. 143-143.3. Kagolo's power to alter natural species recalls that of Wamara. 145. Looked over with one eye. To look at a person briefly, with the head turned making one eye prominent communicates an unfriendly disposition.

164

The Powers of Genre He threw it in the lake.

He went inside the Mugoma rocky outcrop. He took out Lyanyaibungo, ~Bull of the Pretty Kalatlo. He said, "Come I'll take you. Your people have followed you. I cannot marry you. I've been disfigured in my leg, Nyatende (Rutt of) The Heart-Tormenters. " I saw on that day:

152

Mugasha paddled. That day swiftly, swiftly. When he had paddled about two miles: He saw that day— There he stopped, confounded. He felt great pain. I saw on that day: His leg, the '1'rapper— He summoned Thunder, Ussential Warrior, that day. He said, "Be quick! I would meet Kagolo at the landing. He'll have nothing to compare it to." [False start: When he let loose a single bolt that day He hit him on the head with an oar] On that day he let loose a single bolt. Kagolo plunged into Kabyantabuzi rock. I saw him sink down that day, his legs and backside . . . When only his head was left above the rock, When Mugasha came, He said, "You, Kagolo," He said, "I—Nyatende—have come. An only child, I ended my mother's childlessness. " He said, "I—the Ashy-colored one—have come, One who jumps about."

153

154

155

156 157

154—154.1. [When he let loose. . . |: apparently a mistake, quickly corrected. 157—157.1. Ashy-colored one . . .who jumps about arc praise names of Mugasha. The dominant criteria for a good appearance are the opposite: a smooth, well oiled skin and a smooth, unhurried gait. These negative values are a style of self-praise which "makes oneself small" using un-heroic descriptions with ironic intent; this is consistent with Mugasha's social status.

Mugasha

165

And he said, "I—Kagolo—have come, Of the Spirit Shrine, Of the Water Oracle, Missile of Despair, Speaker of Angry, Dry Words, With Stiffened Elbows. Adorned with beads all over except the palm, Of the Left-handers, Of the Water Oracle." I saw that day: Kagolo had nothing to compare it to.

158

159

160 161

He said, "You, Kagolo! Get up, let's fight." He refused. He said, "Ti ti ti ti ti ti ti ti." The paddle hit Kagolo's head. He said, "Come out, let's fight I—the Trapper—have come."

162

He said, "Ti ti ti ti ti ti ti ti." I saw on that day: Majambive, 'Bull of the Heart-Tormenters, Speaker from the Womb,

163

Pie comes from M.utoi^i, 'The Trapper. His paddle hit Kagolo's head. Kagolo flew out of Kabyantabuzi rock. He told him, "Whoever hits your eye—you hit his nose." Mugasha had one leg to stand on. But to this day Kagolo never has found a word to say. Nyatende Mugasha.

165. Whoever hits your eye . . is a well-known proverb.

164

165

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This text is a compilation of two performances by Habib Suliman. Lines 1-59.2 and 78-165.3 were recorded by Hugh Tracey (1950), and lines 60-77.1 were recorded by Mukama Lukamba in 1980. The inserted lines correct a mistake by the singer in the earlier recording. The wording of many lines in the two performances is remarkably similar. The singer's 1980 performance began with a line almost identical to 59.1, "Come save me—water's swallowing me!" The compositional logic of Mugasha has a number of optional qualify sequences. In other versions of this epic there are even more than the three in this performance QUALIFY (1): Flow Mugasha was born (1-31.2) Qualify: Mugasha's praise. (1—3.2) Call: He calls from his mother's womb for birth. (4—5.3) Prepare: A well-known midwife is summoned. (6—6.3) Engage (-): She works but without result. (7—18.1) Reveal: Wamara reveals the necessary ritual acts. (19—30.1) Engage (+): They are performed, and Mugasha is born (31—31.2) QUALIFY (2): How Mugasha, it seems, began to reclaim a kingdom. (32—50) Call: (apparently missing) Prepare: Mugasha orders canoes prepared. (32—39.4) Travel: The infant toddles to the shore. (40—46.2) Engage (-): His mother objects, but he sets out. (47-48) Reveal: She prays to Kazoba. (48.1-49.1) Engage (+): Mugasha returns. (50) QUALIFY (3): How Mugasha found his forgotten mother. (51-104.2) Call: Now grown, Mugasha -wants to know who his mother is.(51—54.1) Engage (-): Feigning drowning, he calls for help. Flis aunt starts to save him but backs away in fear. (55-70.3) Reveal: Wamara proposes that any woman who spears Mugasha will be given nine children. (71-77.1) Engage (+): The barren aunt tries to kill him, but Mugasha's mother stops her, revealing her identity. (78—80) Comment: Fish are distributed according to kin relationships. (81—84.3) CALL: Mugasha meets, greets, and proposes to Lyanyaibungo; she refuses and insults him in return. (85—104.2) ENGAGE (-): flow Mugasha married Lyanyaibungo. (104.3—139) Call: Mugasha summons his minions. (104.3—109.1) Prepare: They attend and prepare wedding gifts. (109.2—124.3) Engage (-): The animals propose a marriage to Wamara but are abused by him. (124.4-132.1) Reveal: Mugasha sends the weather he controls. (132.2—132.3) Engage (+): Wamara agrees to the marriage. (132.4—132.8) Comment: Mugasha worries about Kagolo. (133—139)

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REVEAL: Kagolo, Lyanyaibungo's brother, returns to Wamara's house from a journey. (140.2 -140.7) ENGAGE (+): How Mugasha fought Kagolo. Call: Kagolo learns of his sister's marriage. (140.8—142.1) Prepare: Kagolo obtains a weapon. (142.2—142.8) Travel: Kagolo travels so fast he changes nature. (143—143.3) Engage (-): He shoots an arrow into Mugasha's knee. Mugasha cuts off his own leg and sends the new bride back. (144—152.8) Kngage (+): Mugasha beats Kagolo until he cannot speak. (153—164.1) Comment: Mugasha's proverb and the bard's comment. (165—165.3) The principal call consists of two proposed exchanges that are rejected by the high god's daughter—greeting and marriage; for many Hayas these exemplify the conflict between king and clan. Clan ethics specify symmetry in exchanges of salutations in greetings and women in marriage. But state etiquette prescribed that royal relatives receive greater deference from commoners in greeting (Dauer 1984). The exchange of women was also asymmetrical: Men of ruling clans could marry women of nonruling clans but not the reverse. This moral strife flashes at the horizons of this epic world. Mugasha and Wamara are both Bachwezi, mythical rulers who disappeared just prior to the Hinda and Bito dynasties, the royal families in several eastern African societies well into the twentieth century. Having disappeared from the earth, Bachwezi became subjects of a possession cult found in these same societies. Earlier interpretations saw Bachwezi as actual historical rulers, but Berger (1981), -working from sources drawn from the entire interlacustrine region, has convincingly portrayed the Bachwezi as the ideological component of religious institutions that articulated indigenous resistance to state-building invaders; the latter ultimately prevailed and established themselves as the Bito and Hinda dynasties. Schmidt (1978) notes the same conflict between Haya religious and dynastic institutions. Working from primary archaeological evidence, oral history, and structural analysis of myths from royal sources, Schmidt establishes that early state builders embraced Mugasha's cult to gain ideological support for the state. The royal sources portray Mugasha solely as an ally of the Bito and Hinda throne. But epic ballads about the fisher god portray him as a robust projection of peasant ethics and aesthetics. His early co-option as a royal cult figure seems clearly an attempt to control an autochthonous and independent peasantry, which, perhaps like the epic realization of the unruly god, was sometimes allied with the state and sometimes with clan-based religion, and sometimes opposed to them. Semantic opposition between Mugasha and Wamara is strongly expressed in epics. Mugasha comes from the Sesse Islands in Uganda to the north; he sometimes speaks Luganda. Wamara comes from the south—from Zinzaland in the

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epic Kabundu Gulikiile; and Sukumaland in one version of Kajango. Mugasha rules the water; Wamara, the land. Although in some senses a king, Mugasha is also a commoner. The episode in which Wamara's daughter refuses to greet him makes this point in the strongest possible way; and her out-of-hand rejection of his proposal, "You cannot marry me, you little fisherman. . . . Die without issue. You stink," hyperbolically represents the ethics of endogamy for royal women. Mugasha associates with commoners, frequently appearing in epics as a laborer. He fishes, he chops firewood, he plants squash, and he is praised as a "bellows pumper" and a "friend of potters." His ignorance of courtly custom marks him as an omukigemu, literally, "a person of the banana grove"—what we might disparagingly call a "bumpkin" or a "hick." His unconcerned ignorance and his easy substitution of grotesque for polite forms indicate that he is not only a commoner at heart but a comic and heroic commoner, the kind of hero Bakhtin sees emerging in the interethnic and interclass confrontations of the medieval marketplace. Mugasha is a grotesque of the type Bakhtin ascribes to Gargantua in his study of Rabelais' work. Compounded of diverse occupational and ethnic languages and values, he is an upwelling of rural peasant sensibilities in an urbane setting, a complex embodiment of linguistic babble and belly laughter. Not only does Mugasha resemble the gargantuan type on a point-by-point basis; but he also indicates probable similarities in the contexts that made possible these literary forms. Mugasha is the hero of social difference. Although a ruler of the lake and of water-borne natural phenomena, he is a commoner by craft and by the treatment he gets from Wamara's daughter. He is strongly associated with fertility through his wife, Nyakalembe ("Peaceful-one," patron spirit of women's agricultural ritual), his embodiment of rain itself, and his oft-repeated boast to have ended his parents' childless state. He cuts a grotesque figure, with his cloak of dried minnows, his wedding party of aquatic animals, and, in one version, the fish intestines and fish oil he uses to adorn his royal bride, instead of marriage beads and butterfat. He is a transformer, creating springs and watering places and knocking over great trees. He greets the emissaries of the legendary savior-king Lugomola Mahe (in the epic ballad, Omuti Muhatd) with great bursts of laughter. Yasheka %amn>ata—"He laughed till it burst him." They had found him on the lake shore dancing. Themes that inform these imagined events seem hyperbolically and ironically to represent an ethics of interchange in a secular royal court. This was the vivid present of precolonial epic ballad performance, where disparate groups met and intermingled—royalty and commoners, courtiers and farmers, travelers and locals. Speech heard at court included regional Haya dialects, the languages of traders and settlers from neighboring societies, allusive rhetoric in

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formal recitations and in friendly or snide remarks, traditional forms of joking, narrative, and poetry. To all this, Mugasha is a hick, an interloper, a robust champion of iionroyal ethics and noncourtly style. The bard, licensed by the ambiguity of art, sang tales that entertained the gathered audience with images of its own heterogeneous and emergent social organization. Although the peasant-king Mugasha is ascendant in the epics, he is ultimately circumscribed by the military power of Kagolo, Wamara's warrior offspring. Mugasha's final comment thematizes the ethic that enabled the diverse members of the audience to accommodate to one another: the old-fashioned, clan-based reciprocity explicit in Mugasha's proposition/'Whoever hits your eye—you hit his nose."

Mugasha in Myth The Mugasha epic ballad is one of several narratives recounted about the fisher god in Hayaland and neighboring societies. In the Haya myth that corresponds to this epic, Mugasha's unwelcome marriage is resolved differently: at the end, he becomes a servant at the palace of his father-in-law, Wamara, creating the ideological charter for a royal cult that assisted in state building. These charter myths (Lwamgira 1949; Schmidt 1978) come from northern Hayaland, the kingdom of Kiziba, where the ascendance of the kingship over local clans seems to have been most secure and where the cult of Mugasha served, for a time, as part of royal ritual (Schmidt 1978). But the fisher god never accepts subordination in any of the epic versions of the narrative I know. These narrative and thematic differences, of course, are created by the differing contexts of performance in a heterogeneous social field. In a religious narrative tradition infused by state power, performed within palace walls near the cultic practice it affirms, the story of Mugasha acquired (or retained) an ending that thematizes subordination. The Mugasha of bardic tradition occupied a different site in a social field of power relations. Not as tightly bound to royal institutional ideology, the epic ballads were more entertainment than didactic instruction. Its patrons, audiences, and performance sites were both royal and common. In this field the bards could envision a more dynamic narrative equilibrium, one of balance and reciprocity rather than subordination. Contested power in epics mirrors a society in which the state was not entirely secure. While it did control the military, the bureaucracy, and cattleholding, it never gained exclusive or even majority right to distribute prime, plantain-producing, homestead land, in spite of its efforts to create feudal landholdings. Clans by and large controlled ownership of this land through inheritance, and they controlled almost all the intervillage land used for annual

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crops. Except for the state practice of hypergamy, commoner clan ethics regulated domestic relations and the process of human reproduction. Clan power was clearly circumscribed by the state, and epics reflect this. Clans never triumph conclusively in epics. Rukiza's victories over King Ruhinda are followed by his defeat. And even if Rukiza's sister kills the king in revenge, the kingship will live on, perhaps in the very son the sister bore him. Ruhinda's dynastic line, the Hinda, will rule for centuries, while Rukiza's clan, having lost their land, will wander. Similarly, Mugasha's victory over King Wamara is not the final act. Epic ballads envision a Haya heroic society through the genre-supported creativity of a bard, a privileged performer at royal courts as well as clan weddings and other nonroyal settings. His well-wrought calls draw listeners into a complex moral landscape, and with the literary license his immortalizing talent commanded, he portrays kingship as he knows it: politically dominant, but not hegemonic. Although challenged, it survives, and in the end, it still rules. The world of a Haya audience was not that of the epics, just as the world of sixth-century Athens, where the Iliad w&s performed, was not that depicted by Homer. Heroic ages are literary and ethical constructs by which complex societies contemplate their moral order. As Maclntyre (1981) observes, "classical and Christian societies . . . understood themselves as having emerged from the conflicts of heroic society . . . and defined [themselves] partially in terms of that emergence"(123). For a Haya audience, conflicts between clan and king no longer erupted into military encounters, as they do in epics, but ethical disagreements grounded in the practices of the two institutions were present in Haya society even in the late 1960s when I began my fieldwork. Haya epic themes reproduce these differences.

Comparing Other Genres Proverbs As Mugasha myth and Mugasha epic indicate, genres vary in the way they are instruments and effects of institutional power. Characteristic thematic finalizations reflect variations in the sources and levels of power in a heterogeneous social field. Haya proverbs are less bound than epics to sites in the social field that are infused by the power of particular institutions. They have been useful for clansmen arranging marriages and courtiers conversing learnedly. One can declaim them in open meetings, share them good-naturedly in informal conversation, whisper them conspiratorially, or even say them silently to oneself. Accordingly, they articulate a wide range of ethical knowledge, both supporting and resisting institutional power.

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Proverbial counterstatements often point ironically to discrepancies between institutional ethics and actual social practice. The proverb, "When the ant kills is when he sees his relatives," whispered to me with a laugh by my principal proverb teacher, Godfrey Ngaiza, could be used to critici2e one's own relatives for acting on the basis of self-interest. It shows how appetites can overturn the ethic;; of kinship. The thematic ratio between present food, present family and absent food, absent family articulates an ethic of kinship that can be deployed conversationally by a man of stature in almost no context at all. The proverbs, "They love the wood; they hate the woodsman" and "The salt is tasty; the Abashomwa (those who gather it) stink," portray the failure of reciprocity in exchange relationships, as many proverbs do. But in both proverbs, the ratio of acts and conditions contrasts acceptance in exchange and rejection in hierarchy: A accepts B in an enactment of exchange, but A rejects B in an enactment of hierarchy. Both proverbs point to a lack of reciprocity, the "external" ethic of clans that purportedly informs relationships with non-clansmen, just as "When the ant kills is when he sees his relatives" questions the "internal" ethic of unconditional solidarity associated with consanguinity.

Folktales

The teller of a Haya folktale usually sits near the hearth, the heart of the household (one of Rukiza's three magical hearts was located directly above), and the center of clan practice. I'blktale discourse is usually thoroughly permeated by clan power. Discussion of the proverbs just cited confirms that inside/outside is an aspect of the ethical knowledge associated with clans. As an absolute distinction, it separates outside, nonclan persons, with whom reciprocal exchange is expected, from inside kin, who can count on help from one another on the basis of family ties. As a relative concept, it is useful in attributing degree of familial closeness and obligation. Not surprisingly, then, inside/outside is the primary dimension on which action occurs in the genetically favored attempted mediation episode in folktales. It locates actual clan boundaries in a small group of tales (Seitel 1980: chapter 8) in which a husband in a time of famine kills his wife's mother or his wife's brother. The victims are outside the husband's clan but people with whom a wife feels strong obligations to share. Their peripheral standing, the scarcity of food, and the husband's shameful gluttony cause their deaths. But the boundaries mediated in tales are more commonly physical—the person, the house, the village, Hayaland—and they stand in analogical relationship

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The Powers of Genre

to one another and to the social boundaries of clan. These boundaries and the narrative themes articulated at each one fictionalize the kind of institutional knowledge used to judge whether a particular person is included within a relevant kin-defined circle of interest—and therefore whether he or she may marry, inherit, be avenged, or receive assistance and support or other applications of clan power. The boundary of the individual body in folktales is a locus for action that thematizes self-control or its absence in gluttony or lust. Self-control is basic knowledge for acting as a responsible clan member. If not controlled, appetites destroy group solidarity. One overcomes them with perseverance. Loss of selfcontrol in the tales brings failure, separation, shame, and even death. In tales the household boundary provides safety from physical danger and from the prying intelligence of neighbors whose awareness of secret, family affairs could cause shame. Villages were originally founded and organized by particular clans. They are islands of human control. Outside this boundary, animal appetites threaten, and human appetites controlled inside the village may emerge—competition among brothers may become murder; love between brother and sister may become incest. Folktales also represent the ethics of the mother-child relationship. The latter is nonclan in a patrilineal society but is encompassed by clan structures. In the tale of the girl in the leopard's sack discussed earlier, as in most tales, the power of the maternal relationship does not oppose that of clan. But it does in "I Shall Be Drinking From Them," a tale of a mother's defense of her unusual offspring from a father, who wants to avert clan misfortune by expelling the "unnatural wonder" (eihano). But opposition to clan ethics is not frequently thematized in Haya folktales. The ethics of the royal state appear in folktales, accented in ways that reflect the inequality, struggle, and accommodation between clan and king. A young son avenges the royal execution of his father by killing the king responsible for it in the tale, "Lusimbagila Bestows on All." The title comes from a repeated song, which sings of a future reciprocity between royal beneficence—actually, execution of the boy's father—and the boy's revenge: ethical ironies in exchange and in the way manslaughter is situated by the two institutional practices (execution and revenge). In several other tales, the king's advisers (baramata, representatives of commoner clans) repeatedly implore, "Stop killing people!" as kings order the deaths of messengers who bear seemingly unbelievably news. But several plots turn on how—in a series of attempted mediations—a young girl is brought to the palace to marry a prince or a king: a thematic affirmation of hypergamous marriages that accorded semi-royal status to wife-giving subclans. In sum, literary themes can be read tactically as instruments and effects of, or as oppositions to, institutional power that suffuses the point in the social

Heroic Society in Interlacustrine Africa

173

field where genres are regularly performed. The distribution of themes between genres reveals differing outside sources of power and differing degrees of penetration, ranging from a royal charter myth, to a hearthside clan folktale, to a bard's epic ballad, to a whispered proverb. Haya epics thematize ethical conflict between king and clan in the call, a dramatic moment of challenge and choice. Haya folktales represent clan ethics and the motivations that support or subvert them in the attempted mediation episode. Both narrative genres develop knowledge for institutional strategies of role definition, alliance formation, and exercise of coercive force. In Haya proverbs, a semantic ratio formed by parallel and opposed propositions defines themes that serve pragmatic, conversational needs: They can be used to support, oppose, or ignore the ethics of dominant institutions.

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Part !! A Genre-Powered Reading of Kachwenyan/'a

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5 Stanzas Need No Rhyme

In this chapter, the interpretive power of genre is applied inwardly, from the collectivity of classic epic balladry to an individual performance text. Reading outwardly in chapter 4 from genre to social organization revealed the ethical construct known as heroic society. Here, the inward application of genre's power reveals an unexpected and valuable insight: the existence of stanzaic patterns. In applying the power of genre in either direction, the fulcrum that provides interpretive leverage is compositional finalization. Generic plot development provides a supporting framework to an oral performer's creativity by making clear the logical points at which elaboration assists listeners' understanding. Generic plot also keys an audience's engaged imagination: It suggests converging patterns of depicted action and linguistic style that produce textual coherence and aesthetic enjoyment. This chapterbegins, therefore, by observing the association between stylistic usage and narrative plot. As in the study of style in the folktale "Have You Not Seen Luhundu?" interpretive method begins with generically predicted junctures in the text, the local finalizations of compositional elements discovered through Proppian functional analysis. These provide the points of application for a contrastwithin-a-frame analysis that identifies a set of stylistic markers. The distribution of this set of features is then plotted throughout the text in the manner of a concordance. This two-part analysis measures the congruence between generic compositional finalization arid the bard's stylistic usage. It tests our construction of generic plot logic and reveals marked junctures other than those predicted by genre. It also reveals uses for particular features other than those directly related to plot, including the creation of the locally completed stylistic elaborations called stanzaic patterns. In the dialogue between plot and style that begins at compositionally predicted transitions, the bard responds to my analytic construction by indicat177

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The Powers of Genie

ing through usage his own ideas of aesthetic unities. I believe the best way to represent this dialogue is in the chart in table 5.1, the result of contrastwithin-a-frame and concordance procedures applied at points indicated by a Proppian functional analysis. It indicates the location of every occurrence of the set of stylistic features that occur at compositionally-defined junctures in the text. Each strip of the chart represents about fifty sung lines of Muzee's performance. Apostrophes (') that hold places between numbers represent segments within sung lines that comprise poetic and syntactic units in themselves but are not preceded by pauses, as sung lines are. They are numbered as subunits of sung lines, for example, 6, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3. At the bottom of each strip we note how the performance as a whole is compositionally finalized: the segments of the overall, principal plot and the segments of embedded moves. These divisions correspond to those made in the interpretation of Kachwenyanja's plot in chapter 4. Solid vertical lines mark junctures discovered by Proppian functional analysis. Dotted vertical lines represent additional plot junctures revealed through the concordance method: segments marked by the bard, but unpredicted by my compositional analysis. Occurrences of each feature are indicated by an x, except for those in one row, which follow a key given at the bottom of the chart. In this epic ballad, every transition predicted by generic compositional finalization is clearly marked by the narrator. In addition to those predicted segments, the bard sometimes defines smaller passages: repeated actions that together fulfill a narrative function, a descriptive introduction to an episode's main action, or some other division of a represented action into logical parts. When a feature occurs where there is logically no narrative juncture, it may have a solely descriptive, referential function. The distant past tense of the verb, for example, is often the preferred form for narrative asides, which in themselves may or may not be used to mark a juncture. Sometimes, however, the distant past regulates the narrative flow by creating a contrast in a succession of unmarked verbs, as it does in prose narrative. In epics, some members of the compositionally identified set are used to create stylistic finalizations that are more ornate than necessary to indicate contours of plot. These locally completed forms also involve other elements of style. They will be fully described after the plot-marking function of the features is noted. Analysis reveals that most features can perform two kinds of functions: Referentially, in their literal or conversational sense, they describe aspects of events depicted; metalingually, they act as generic conventions to indicate aspects of the construction of the narrative itself. Most usages combine both functions. Analysis also reveals that the same feature may signal boundaries at

Table 5.1. Line-by-line distribution of stylistic features in Kachwenyanja LINE NUMBERS FEATURES adverbial past perfect distant past double verb locutivc praise other

XX XXX,

X X

X

XX

X

X

X

X X

XXXXXXXXXXX

X

a

XXXX

50

XXXX

aa a

qualify QUALIFY

COMPOSITIONAL SEGMENTS LINE NUMBERS FKATURES adverbial past perfect distant past double verb locutive praise other

10 20 30 40 50 "789 12'34'567'89" 1234'56789' 123456789 123'456789

1'2'3456

' call

travel

prepare

60 70 80 90 100 1234567'89 123'4"56789" 12345'67"89 123456789 12'345678"9

x

x

x x X

X X

xxx

COMPOSITIONAL SEGMENTS

'

xxxxx v

X

XX XX

a

travel QUALIFY

engage (-)

reveal

110 130 120 140 LINE 100 150 1 "234 "567'89 1234 '567 '89 12345 '6789 123456 ',789' 1 '23456 '789 NUMBERS FEATURES x X adverbial >, past perfect X X ; x distant past X ^ x double verb X X x x locutive X <XXX XX praise xxxxxxx XXXX X nnn other COMPOSITIONAL reveal oi»« SEGMENTS QUALIFY CALL PRKPARIi

:

LINE NUMBERS

150

FEATURES adverbial past perfect distant past double verb locutive praise other COMPOSITIONAL SEGMENTS

160 170 180 190 200 123'45'6'789 123"4'56'789' 123456789 123'4'5678'9'" 123456'7'89' x x

x x

x

x x x x

XX

X

x

X

\

XX

X

X

x

>

>;

NX

engage(-)

reveal

rmnn KN C1AGR

,\

x

X

X XX

XXXX

a (-)

x

x X

xxxx

call

x x

a\

engage (+)

T

cj'ty prep engage(-) l tKVFAi,

KEY: other features: n — number sequence, v — vocable, p ~ proverb/saying, a - aside = generically predicted boundary; i — discovered boundary, compositional segments: PRINCIPAL PLOT SEQUENCE; embedded plot sequences

reveal

Table 5.1. continued I.INF. NUMBERS

200

features adverbial past perfect distant past double v.erb locative p raise other

210 220 230 240 250 12'345678'9',1'23456 > 789 123"'4567'89 1'2'3'456789 123'4567'8'9 ' XX

x

x

XX

xx

XX

x

X

XX

X

XXXN XX

COMPOSITIONAL reveal SEGMENTS REVEAL

X

X

XXXX

X

XX

X

XXXXXXX

XX.

XXX

engage (+)

X

call

X

prepare

travel engage(-)

EX GAGE (+\

UNI;. NUMBERS 250 260 270 280 290 300 123456789 12345'6789 123456789 12'3'456789 12345"6'789'" FEATURES adverbial past perfect distant past double verb locutive praise other

^

X

x

X

X

X

xx x v

COMPOSITIONAL SEGMENTS

x x

X

x

XX

X

X

X X

x

XX

XXXXXXXXX

XX

X

aaaa engage (-)' reveal ENGAGE (-f) continu jd

X X

X

X

nnn

a

engage (+)

ONE NUMBERS 300 310 320 330 340 350 123456789 123456'78'9 123456789 1234'56789 12'34567"89 FHATURHS adverbial past perfect distant past double verb locutive praise other

XX X

X

x

X

X

X

XX

X

X X

X X

X

X

X

XX

a

X

X

X

COMPOSITIONAL SHGMKNTS

LINK NUMBERS

X

X

XX

'.\

engage (+) l-:NCiAGh; (+)

350 360 370 380 123456789 123456789 '123456789 12345'

I'liATURUS adverbial past perfect distant; past: double verb. locutive praise other COMPOSITIONAL engage( [-) SHCiMHNTS K N C A C i K (-)-}

XX XX

X

XXX

X

X

xxxx ^

nnnnnnnnnnnn ;ia

X

xx

XX XX

XX

1

COMMENT

KHY tilhcr f'catLirc^: n — number sequence, v ~ vocable, p — proverb/saying, a — aside — genencally predicted boundary; I = discovered boundary, compositional segments: PRINCIPAL, PLOT SFQurNCLi; embedded plot scque-nces

Stanzas Need No Rhyme

181

different levels of organization. And finally, it reveals that most features can be disjunctive or unifying, depending on their usage: e.g., they create disjunction when used singly but conjunction when used in patterned multiples. Metalingually, oral stylistic features simply indicate continuity or transition; logical hierarchies in the plot emerge through generically informed compositional fmalization supplied by performer and audience. This ambiguity and multifunctionality in linguistic usage is an aspect of an aesthetic practice that is rich, complex, necessarily participatory, and in some degree authorially playful.

Verbs and Adverbials The first three recurrent stylistic features noted on the strips in table 5.1 are aspects of verbal syntax, similar to those charted in table 3.5 of the folktale example. In the present analysis, all adverbs and adverbial prefixes are grouped together. As before, only verbs and adverbials used in narration are counted— not those framed as quoted speech. Tenses and adverbials in narration metalingually relate segments of a bard's tale to one another and to the time of performance. When used in quoted speech, these same forms do not refer to temporal contours of the narrative as a whole; rather, they construct frameworks of temporal reference that are centered on individual characters. This quoted speech is encompassed by, and understandable in terms of, the overall framework constructed by the narrative passages. The recent past is the unmarked tense in epic—the one most often used, which adds increments of action to establish a narrative flow. The past perfect tense is generally a strong segment marker. It seems strongest when coupled with the prefix ka- "when" or with separate adverbs such as olwo "when" or mbali "when" or "where." Here the hero completes his farewell to his bride: ". . . . If a small leaf should fall before you, Say this: 'If he did not make the first strike, surely he made the kill.' I go to war, the Buffalo." When he reached Lugongo field, He took the road . . . (148—152)

As in prose storytelling, this usage interrupts the narrative flow, pausing both to reflect and to anticipate. The bard notes an accumulation of significance at the same time he impels the hearers' attention forward to another verb, which often moves the tale in a new direction. The past perfect tense is a frequently used marker. No other feature marks as many plot transitions. Yet its very first occurrence, on line 35, clearly does

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The Powers of Genre

not begin or end a narrative segment. When first encountered, the power of this feature helps finalize not plot but a local stylistic figure. Its strength as a marker can be seen in the fact that all thirty-nine occurrences of adverbials and/or past perfect tense have metalingual significance (including the poetic use on line 35). The distant: past, used to indicate a topic's greater remove from the present in conversation, often refers in epic narration to the gap between performance and depicted action. Its significance makes the distant past the preferred tense for asides. Addressing his audience outside the narrative frame, the bard may use the tense purely referentially to reassert the remoteness of epic events and comment directly on a character's temperament or on other topics that clarify depicted action (12, 12.1, 14, 75, 176). Of these, only the use on line 75 is unequivocally purely referential. In the midst of the hero's journey: In Kamachumu village at fvlilama —It hadn 't yet become a town— I went Toward the spring at Kamilabala . . .

The other counted usages have some metalingual, or discourse-shaping, force. When an aside occurs at or near a point of narrative transition, its use combines referential and metalingual functions (as in 8, 184.1, 301, 303). When used metalingually, the relatively weak distant past often occurs together with other markers. It creates a juncture in the narrative flow to begin compositional segments in six instances (78 and 80, 105, 164.1, 275, 289) and to finalize them in five (107.1, 114, 141, 153.1, 155). Two of its occurrences seem purely for the purpose of finalizing a local stylistic pattern (47 and 52). Double verb syntax characterizes a line beginning with, or consisting solely of, two verbs without intervening nouns or adverbials. Infrequently (two of the fifteen occurrences) the bard adds a single substantive to complete the sung line. Often (eight of the fifteen) the next line also begins with a verb, creating a longer figure: three contiguous verbs, the second separated from the third by a pause. Useful in condensing and speeding the flow of narrative action, the double verb syntax sometimes also appears in folktales. Double verbs mark compositional segments at the beginning or less frequently at the end (20-21, 105-106, 154, 159, 167, 174-175, 176.1, 201-202, 247, 262, 288, 304, 332, 344). The following example combines double verb syntax with a distant past verb ("obliged") and a number sequence to mark the hero's internal narration of the beginning of the epic's principal call: / obliged, I married her. I secluded her four days.

On the fifth . . .(105-107: in Haya the first line consists of only two words) The bard Muzee also uses double verbs to create stanzaic form, as in the fol-

Stanzas Need No Rhyme

183

lowing two stanzas. Although the figures vary in their total number of lines, the first two lines in each are formed as double verb followed by initial verb, as in the example directly above. The passage is part of the heroine's internal narrative of murderous revenge: I obliged; 1 washed his feet. I served food; we ate. I rubbed him with oil. He lay completely down. 1 lay down, I followed him.

I revealed to him the grasshopper That has waves like a lake. (304-309) Double verb syntax apparently always performs a rnetalingual function. The locutive is similar to a verb in that this form has a subject prefix. But unlike a verb, it has no inflections to indicate tense, mood or aspect; for example, nti "I say," oti "you say," ati "he/she says," bati "They say," eti "it (the leopard) says," guti "it (the tree) says," etc. Using a locutive seems an optional way to introduce a character's quoted speech. Its optionality makes it a useful rnetalingual tool in articulating patterns. Used disjunctively, the locutive accents beginnings and endings of plot segments. The first occurrence of a locutive in the text, corning after seven lines of quoted speech, signals the transition between the hero's dream-sent call to find another wife and his preparation for travel: "I dreamed of marrying. Of marrying the woman, Crested crane. I took her from the foot of a mountain." Pie said, "When morning comes, my wife, Scour out my drinking calabash for me." She scoured it near to breaking . . (27-31)

Used in several adjacent lines, locutives unify a compositional segment or stanzaic passage. For example, here is part of the heroine's response to the news of the hero's death, in lines that can be construed as a figure composed of a pair of couplets whose lines all begin with locutives, completed by a single line. She said, "My child, break open the provisions," She said, "And the coffee berries scatter." She said, "Scatter, scatter!" She said, "Scatter. From inside me I am driven to revenge." (228—231.1)

The locutive is used metalingually in fifty-five of its sixty-five occurrences. Used purely refereiitially, locutives sometimes emphasize the association between a speaker and his or her quoted speech. Six of the ten purely referential

184

The Powers of Genre

uses seem wholly and markedly to create this characterizing effect: 91 and 123 (the heroine's wise responses), 177 (the hero's battlefield boast), 210 (the honest stranger's revelation), 247 (heroine's loyal address), 250.1 (a desirous proposal). Two (132 and 140) seem to be mistakes, possibly the singer's own error or perhaps his characterization of a protagonist's prebattle nervousness. The two remaining apparently nonmetalingual uses (57 and 322) are the only locutives in the text that occur in nonimtial position on a line. They may be instances of characterization, but this is not clear to me. A strong marker, having metalingual significance in 85 percent of its occurrences, the locutive can stand alone to mark a plot juncture.

Other Elements in Bardic Style Praise poetry is central to the style, theme, and plot of Kachwenjanja. Praise verses (eby'ebugd) lyrically introduce and conclude the epic as a whole. Praise shapes the plot not only in the sense that the hero's eby'ebugo eerily foreshadows his unlucky fate but also in that the heroine seeks the killer by inveigling enemy warriors to recite their self-praise. Including opening and closing lines, about three-quarters of the occurrences of praise have metalingual significance (multiple, contiguous lines of praise are counted as a single occurrence). The thematic and compositional dimensions of praise in Kachwe-nyanja are taken up in chapter 6 (in this volume). Number sequences—like the one that introduces the principal call (106— 107.1) "I secluded her four days./ On the fifth . . ./ On the sixth ..." — occur four times in this text (106-107.1, 159-162, 289-291, 360-370.1). Each occurrence marks the beginning of a generically predicted compositional unit. Asides and vocables seem to have relatively weak metalingual strength. When they do mark compositional units, they are part of a cluster of features. Only one proverb occurs, and it is also part of a cluster. After all the markers that were identified by contrast within a frame at compositional junctures have been plotted, and after the loci of achieved compositional finalizations have been confirmed, adjusted, or amended to include unpredicted narrative junctures, there is a remainder of unexplained uses. Even the strongest markers sometimes appear far from predicted narrative transitions, in contexts where they neither shape the plot nor convey a marked referential meaning. Double verb syntax, for example, which has no referential meaning in itself and signals compositional transitions in eighteen of its occurrences, occurs seven more times. This excess of style revealed by a deductive, compositionally informed method is the critical irritant around which a pearl of discovery has formed: stanzaic pattern.

Stanzas Need No Rhyme

185

Style to Spare: Nonphonetic Stanzaic Patterns Once stanzaic patterns are pointed out, they seem obvious. I have shown them to several indigenous Haya experts—including an epic ballad singer, a cultural historian, a bible translator, and a literary scholar—and all agree: They are obvious. But despite the fact that many had listened to, transcribed, translated, and even analyzed the epic ballads, none had seen these poetic patterns. I myself did not begin to see them until I performed the deductive analysis of style that begins at compositional boundaries. And when one sees stanzaic patterns formed with the strong metalingual markers—past perfect tense combined with adverbials, double verb syntax—the poetic function of other features emerges as well. Ultimately, one finds the same kinds of patterns formed with lexical and semantic features, in addition to the predominantly syntactic markers first identified. It turns out that most of Kachwenyanja is composed in poetic stanzas. These stylistic frnalizations at the local level—repeated patterns formed by contrast and similarity between lines—are characteristic of all the classic Haya epic ballads. But part of what makes them difficult to recognize is the fact that they differ radically from European, Arabic, and Swahili stanzas, in which phonetic features create syllabic rhyme and meter. Haya epic stanzas are created with nonphonetic features—lexical repetition, syntactic parallelism, and semantic contrast. Then why call them stanzas at all, these products of such a different poetic practice? These discrete, coherent line groups are stanzas because they regularly form a limited number of stylistic figures and also because, like all stanzas, they frame novel content in recurrent poetic patterns. That stanzas exist at all in sub-Saharan African epic poetry is relatively rare. And stanzaic forms based on nonphonetic features are even more rare. Cope (1968) reports poetic forms he calls "Shakan stanzas," which had a brief florescence in Zulu Izibongo praise poetry. He does not analyze the devices that create these stanzas, but a cursory glance seems to indicate that they are constructed at least somewhat similarly to the Haya. Finnegan (1977) notes the existence in African poetry of parallelism between lines and the similarity of these patterns to biblical verse, but she does not report any instance of lines associated by these principles being formed into stanzas. Biblical criticism has developed a rich literature on parallelism but has not discovered, to my knowledge, any recurrent, multiline patterns formed by similarity and contrast between parallel lines. Critical commentary on African epic has mostly remained within the paradigm of formulaic composition (Lord 1960), which focuses its analysis on lexical repetition in the sung line rather than a variety of features in groups of lines. Examples of this are Johnson's study of the Son-jara epic (1986) and

186

The Powers of Genre

Opland's (1983) on Xhosa oral poetry. Okpewho's survey of the epic in Africa (1979) employs the concept of oral formula as a "verbal matrix" but does not treat its expansion into stanzaic form. The present approach is closest to that of Kunene's (1971) analysis of Basoto heroic poetry in attending to interlinear parallelism in lexicon, syntax, and semantics.

Stanzaic Types in Haya Epic Balladry The following principles describe the formation of stanzas in classic epic ballads. They specify, respectively, (1) the kinds of linguistic elements that are manipulated to create poetic figures, (2) the shapes of figures I have identified, and (3) the devices bards use that create stylistic variation within these shapes. 1. Stanzas are formed by combinations of noiiphonetic features.

2. Stanzas seem to have six principal shapes. 3. Stanzas vary within these shapes by virtue of three syntactic devices: 1. interpolation of words

2. interpolation of lines 3. extrapolation of shape, which creates ascending levels of organization: 1. stanza

2. compound stanza 3. verse 4. verse passage

1. Combinations of nonpboneticfeatures. In Kachwenyanja, the bard creates stanzas with lexical repetition, syntactic parallelism, and semantic opposition, employed singly or in combination. Moreover, in contrast to a writer of quantitative verse, who combines rhyme and meter to follow a single stanzaic type throughout an entire poem, the Haya bard creates a variety of types in a variety of ways within a single poem. 2. Stanzaic shapes. Six stanzaic types are represented in this version of Kachwenyanja: aab, abb, aba, abab (with related shapes abac and abcb), aabb, and a "mirror" shape, in which the configuration of features in one coherent line group is replicated in another immediately or proxinially following it. In stanzaic patterns of aab, abb, aba, abab, or aabb, a's are associated with other a's and opposed to b's by combinations of syntactic, lexical and semantic features. 3. Syntactic deuces. Three syntactic devices help the bard integrate his narrative and poetic designs by adjusting stanzaic forms to strengthen story lines, provide evocative details, and create dramatic contours in the narrative. The devices are called syntactic in that each of the three manipulates relationships between adjacent segments. Each does so at a different level of textual organization—word, line, and passage. For the bard, the three devices adapt poetic

Stanzas Need No Rhyme

187

figures to the narrative thrust: of epic. For the critic, the devices introduce greater variation in the concrete expression of stanzaic shapes. 3.1. Interpolation of words adds extra words to a poetic line beyond those necessary to form a particular stanzaic pattern. Nonquantitative verse and flexible line length make this formally possible. Interspersed among the key words and phrases that define stanzaic pattern, interpolated words may indicate affect, reveal necessary details, embellish or emphasize a topic, or even create a contrapuntal pattern. In the following excerpt the hero's -widow expresses her consternation and grief. Using semantic contrast, lexical repetition, and syntactic parallelism, the bard creates a stanza in abab. 221 Ahi, "Bakama bange!" 222 Ahi, "Nkas' obulo— 223 Abakayy has' obulo, 223.1 Bakama bange— 223.2 Ntula alia Iwazi, 223.3 Ns'amalnap!" 224 Ahi, "Beko/a omuba^i. 225 Kilo ckya mbwenu nayekola Onnvabya! 221 She said, "My kings!" 222 She said, "1 ground millet— 223 Women grind millet, 223.1 My kings— 223.2 But I sir at. I he rocky outcrop, 223.3 I grind sorcery F' 224 She said, "They 'do' themselves with herbs (perfume). 225 But today / 'did' myself with the Destroyer! (herb for sorcery) schematically: Women gnnd millet/1 grind sorcery/ They 'do* themselves with herbs/ 1 'did' myself with the Desrroyer

Only the words in italics formulate the abab stanza itself. The others are interpolated to increase the richness of the figure (223.2) and the portrayal of the wife's disturbed state. The first group of lines, 221—223.3, including the interpolated words, actually form a compound stanza; see the notes to the text. 3.2. Interpolation of lines adds poetic lines equivalent in type to those that form a stanza; it is simply the reiteration of line types. For example, aab appears as aaab in the following. 18 Mbali ekibi kigendela, 19 Mbali omuntu akabila atahimbuuke, 19.1 Mbali omulungi abuganganilwa ondijo, 19.2 Mbali ohulila omu kikale bagwihya bwoli . . .

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18 When evil roams, 19 When a person faints and does not revive, 19.1 When one lover meets another, 19.2 When you hear them in the royal mansion finally disperse . . . (18-19.2) This stanza is formed in aab by contrast between three syntactically parallel lines, which are composed as adverbial conjunction + noun + 3rd person verb . . . (a's: 18, 19, 19.1) and a single line which is composed as adverbial conjunction + 2nd person verb + prepositional phrase . . . (b: 19.2). The stanzaic grouping changes quantitatively but not qualitatively with the interpolation of a similar line. In a like manner, a stanza composed as aaba (354-57) can be seen as a variant: of aba; a stanza in ababbbb (373-79) as a variant of abab. Stanzaic forms most frequently appear in these expanded configurations. Interpolated words and line types give oral stanzaic patterns the flexibility die bard needs to construct his epic narrative. 3.3. Extrapolation of shape creates stanzaic patterns at more inclusive levels of organization. Groups of lines, rather than single lines, combine to form passages. Extrapolation of stanzaic shape creates local stylistic wholes larger than stanzas; these can be called compound stanzas, verses, and verse passages. 3.3.1. A stanza is composed by similarity and contrast between poetic lines. An epic ballad line can be defined in two ways: musically, as the words sung between pauses, and poetically, as a string of words that coheres with similar strings in stylized patterns. Poetic lines usually contain a complete syntactic unit; they can stand alone as sung lines, and often do. But sometimes several poetically defined lines arc sung without pause; thus, one musically defined line may contain several syntactic units. To my knowledge, there is no indigenous Haya critical tradition that names a poetic line and specifies its formation. The first five poetic lines of Kachtvenyanja are a stanza in aab. They are a portion of the hero's self-praise (eby'ebugo) used to introduce him. 1 Gwa Nsheshe akaluga Kailongo. 1.1 Luhunga akaluga Mugajwaale. 2 Luhunga, Mugajwaale, 2.1 Kakolonto na Kabwenge. 2.2 OH w' ehitalaaka by' eilungu. 1 By the road to Nsheshe, he came from Kailongo. 1.1 In Luhunga, he came from Mugajwaale. 2 Luhunga, Mugajwaale, 2.1 Kakolonto and Kabwenge. 2.2 You are of the unbroken wilderness. The contrast between lines containing two place names (a's: 1, 1.1, 2, 2.1) and one containing a single place description (b: 2.2) creates an aab figure,

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actually aaaab, the basic pattern having been expanded by interpolating similar lines. The unique second-person verb in the last line, "You are . . ." intensities the finalization syntactically. In the changes he will ring on these opening lines, the bard provides a primer on the artistic extrapolation of poetic form.. At particularly important junctures in the epic, stylistic elaborations may flower in a rich simultaneity of stanzaic shapes and even levels of organization. These intensely wrought passages are like architectural forms that, seen from different angles, reveal contrasting symmetries, but they are really more like polyrhythmic drumming that combines contrasting patterns in a single, complex whole. In the following extract the same semantic series of the opening lines becomes embedded in syntactic parallelism of a different sort. The hero's poetic praise uncannily begins to emerge in narrative action as royal drums summon him: 108 109 110 111 112 113

MpuliT Mpulil' MpuliT Mpulil' Mpulil' Mpulil'

108 109 110 111 112 113

I I I I I I

hear hear hear hear hear hear

engom* ezayema Nsheshe. ezayema Kailongo. eza Luhunga. eza Mugajwaale. eza Kakolonto na Kabwenge. ezayema omu bitalaaka by' eilungu.

drums that start up at Nsheshe. those that start up at Kailongo. those of Luhunga. those of Mugajwaale. those of Kakoronto and Kabwenge. those that start up in the unbroken wilderness.

In a group of lines that all begin "I hear," and in counterpoint to the semantic series that, as before, describes a pattern of aab in place names finalized by a place description, syntactic parallelism creates a stanza in aba. The form is realized as aabbba, having been expanded by the interpolation of equivalent, syntactically parallel lines. Each line of the type a (108, 109, 113) contains a verb inflected as a relative (e^a-yema, "that: start: up") in a clause that qualifies the direct object "drums." Each line of type b (110, 111, 112) contains an inflected possessive particle (e%a, "of") that also qualifies "drums." Alternation of syntax creates the aba pattern. In the passage that immediately follows this one, other repeated verbs inflected as relatives create another pattern of aba. 3.3.2. A compound stanza is composed by similarity and contrast between groups of lines. In a compound stanza, adjacent line groups combine to form a pattern (most often aab). In this they differ from stanzas, which combine individual lines, not groups, as their smallest units. In the following passage, the hero addresses a part of his self-praise (eby'ebugo) to his prospective bride:

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99 "Maawc, omwaitu ni Nsheshe. 100 Maawe, omwaitu ni Kailongo. 101 Nkaluga Luhunga na Mugajwaale. 101.1 Nkaluga Kakolonto na Kabwenge. 101.2 Ndi mwaana w' ebitalaaka by' eilungu. 99 "Mother (polite address), our home is Nsheshe. 100 Mother, our home is Kailongo. 101 I come from Luhunga and Mugajwaale. 101.1 I come from Kakolonto and Kabwenge. 101.2 I am a child of the unbroken wilderness. The stanza that opens the epic ballad (the example in 3.3.1, above) has been transformed into a compound stanza formed in aab; its lines are grouped as 2 + 2 + 1 . The a's that form the aab pattern are couplets. The first one (99—100), coheres by repetition ("Mother, our home is . . ."), which creates a parallel syntactic function (predicate nominative) for the single place name in each Line. The second couplet (101—101.1) also coheres by repetition ("I come from . . ."), which creates a parallel syntactic function (direct object in the Haya) for the two place names in each line. The final line (101.2) lacks place name, parallelism, and paired companion. It stands alone. In this compound stanza, the a's contrast with b by virtue of these lexical and syntactic features. 3.3.3. A. verse is composed by similarity and contrast between groups of lines, some of which are stanzas in themselves. A verse resembles the compound stanza in that its smallest combinatory unit is a group of lines, but it differs in that some of its units—the recurrent ones, like the a's in aba—are necessarily stanzas. The figure marks the beginning of the epic: 1 Gwa Nsheshe akaluga Kailongo. 1.1 Luhunga akaluga Mugajwaale. 2 Luhunga, Mugajwaale, 2.1 Kakolonto na Kabwenge. 2.2 Oli w' ebitalaaka by' eilungu. 3 4 5

Nsheshe. Eky' amaino kwela, Bngino zamwilagwlle.

6 Akaluga Nsheshe na Kailongo. 6.1 Luhunga akaluga Mugajwaale, 6.2 Kakolonto na Kabwenge. 6.3 Oli mwana w' ebitalaaka by' eilungu. 1 By the road to Nsheshe, he came from Kailongo. 1.1 In Luhunga, he came from Mugajwaale. 2 Luhunga, Mugajwaale,

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Kakolonto and Kabwerigc. You are of the unbroken wilderness. Nsheshe. Of the white teeth, Dark gums.

6 lie came from Nsheshe and Kailongo. 6.1 In Luhunga he came from from Mugajwaale, 6.2 Kakolonto and Kabwenge. 6.3 You are a child of the unbroken wilderness. The first two sung lines, discussed previously as an example of a stanza in aab, are substantially repeated in lines 6-6.3, where they are sung in one breath instead of two. Three lines intervene between repetitions; thus the entire passage can be considered a verse in the pattern aba. The intervening lines (3—5) themselves form a stanza in abb: two lines composed (in Haya) as body part + color modifier (b's: 4, 5) contrasted with one line that consists of a familiar place name (a: 3). Closer examination reveals even greater complexity. The first five poetic lines can be seen as a compound stanza formed in aab and grouped as 2 + 2 + 1. Two pairs of lines (a's: 1—1.1 and 2—2.1)—the first pair almost identically composed as place name + "he came from" + place name, the second pair as place name + place name—are contrasted with a single line (b: 2.2) that has an entirely different syntax. The bard's mercurial talent creates involuted poetic ambiguities with the flexibility of generic stanzaic form. Initial lines of epic ballads are often stylistically complex. 3.3.4. Verse passages are composed of similarity and contrast between a number of line groups which are substantially repeated and incrementally varied. The line groups are not necessarily stanzas, although they may be. The processes of repetition, variation, and alternation create stanzaic patterns. The following excerpt illustrates the abab pattern in a verse passage. The heroine, having just learned of her husband's death, reacts to the news, prepares to exact revenge, and travels to the site of his death. She gives orders to her domestic slave: 228 Ahi, "Mwaana wange entaiida yata," 229 Ahi, "N' emwani onage." 230 Ahi, "Naganaga" 231 Ahi, "Naga. 231.1 Enda yangila kwehoola." 232 Ati, "Omushaija wange yafa all omoi, 232.1 Kyonka aligitwalanis' omwenda. 233 Ontege ekishule. 233.1 Mbe mwisiki."

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234 Ahi, "Cheke Mawe wakayukile. 235 Oleke nkuteme enkogoto. 236 Okwate oluhimbo Iwawe Kalamaijo." 237 238 239 240

Ati, "Ogesige kiizi," Ati, "Ogesige kiizi," Ati, "Empu zikukwate." Ati, "Tugende Ihangiro kwehoola."

241 Ahi, "Yafa ali omoi." 242 Ati, "Omushaija alitwalana n' omwenda." [slight interruption] 243 Ahi, "Yafa ali omoi. 243.1 Ihangiro agitwalanise omwenda." 244 Kanagobile omu Lugongo, 245 Mbali omushaija bamwitiile, 246 Nahenda ekiti. 247 Naslga nakimujugunyaho. 247.1 Nti, "Mushaija wange nasiga naziika. 248 Kyonka wafa oli omoi, 248.1 Ihangiro ngitwalanis' omwendai." 228 She said, "My child, the bundle, break it open,' 229 She said, "And the coffee berries scatter." 230 She said, "Scatter, scatter them!" 231 She said, "Scatter them. 231.1 From inside me I am driven to revenge." 232 She said, "My man died as one, 232.1 But with him he'll send nine. 233 Shave a line around my head. 233.1 I'll be a young woman." 234 She said, "No, Mother, you've matured. 235 Let me cut a full circle. 236 Take your walking staff, the Prattling-one." 237 238 239 240

She said, "Rub butterfat on like water," She said, "Rub butterfat on like water," She said, "And make your leather skirt cling." She said, "We go to Ihangiro for revenge."

241 She said, "He died as one." 242 She said, "The man will take nine with him." [slight interruption] 243 She said, "He died as one. 243.1 In Ihangiro may he send nine."

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244 When I had come to Lugongo, 245 The place they had killed my man, 246 I broke off a twig. 247 I cast it on him. 247.1 I said, "My husband, I leave you buried. 248 Although you died as one, 248.1 In Ihangiro I'll make nine go with you."

This verse passage contains four stanzaic figures: one simple stanza (237— 240) and three compound stanzas (228-231.1, 233-236, and 244-247.1). All are aab in form. Lines that become the heroine's self-praise punctuate the section three times. First (232—232.1), the lines follow the compound stanza in which the heroine destroys her dead husband's food, symbolically breaking their worldly relationship. Second (243—243.1), they follow the stanzas in -which the heroine constructs her new social persona. Third (248—248.1), they follow the heroine's symbolic act of burial. Together the repeated line pairs shape a verse passage as abcbdb, of the general pattern abab, in which b represents the heroine's repeated self-praise. The four levels of stanzaic patterning—stanza, compound stanza, verse, and verse passage—involve more than three-fourths of the total number of poetically defined lines in Muzee's Kachwenyanja. Most contiguous lines in this text cohere with one another, about 392 of a total 470, a number that includes lines grouped by double verb syntax and by number sequences. These patterns share a metanarrative function with stylistic usages that indicate compositional logic more directly (those treated in the first part of this chapter): stanzaic groupings also mark junctures between most of the generically anticipated plot developments. And predictably, plot junctures almost never fall within a stanzaic pattern. In only three instances, all of them within verse passages, does this occur. Far from being exceptions that weaken the association between plot and style, these three confirm that a bard can use stanzaic patterns, like other stylistic forms, to trace the contours of compositional finalization in narrative. The verse passage of the type abab (fully described schematically as abcbdb, 228—248.1) discussed just previously, is clearly split between two compositional segments. The final pair of alternations between repeated praise couplets (b's) and other line groups (a,c,d)—the db of abcbdb—describes the travel sequence of the heroine's revenge move, engage (equilibrium). The first part of the verse passage (the abcb of abcbdb) fully constitutes the preceding compositional component—the prepare sequence of the same move. The plot juncture between them is strongly confirmed by doubled adver-

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bials and past perfects. This unusual repetition of markers signals the beginning of the compositional unit (travel) and introduces an emotional high point, the heroine's initial address to the hero's corpse; the identical form also introduces her final address to him (358, 359). Thus, grammar emphatically signals a juncture in plot within a stanzaic form that contrapuntally asserts the unity of the passage as a whole. Does the unity created by poetic form represent a structure deeper than the plot juncture created by grammatical form? The answer seems to be yes. The verse passage as a whole is a thematic unit, a single configuration of semantic elements in the temporal thematic structure, which is described in the next chapter. Grammatical style marks the expected generic plot, but poetic style indicates an underlying thematic unity. Another verse passage that spans compositional components (249—283) consists of formulaic descriptions of the heroine's search and final discovery of her husband's killer. Incremental repetitions move the narrative from unsuccessful encounters to ultimate revelation. Similarly worded line groups describe a series of unsuccessful exchanges (a's), which are finalized by an initially similar but ultimately divergent revelation (b), forming an overall pattern of the type aab. Although the poetic figure spans a compositional juncture, contrast between a's and b heightens the narrative force of the revelation. The final example, also of the aab type, coheres by virtue of a refrain— lines 150, 158, 164, and 173—with a shared, marked phrase structure: 3rd person verb + subject praise name. In the first three (a's) the praise name is "Buffalo"; in the fourth and final one (b), it is "Spear of Warriors." Lexical variation within the repeated syntactic form establishes the aab pattern. The verse passage itself spans several compositional segments, and remarkably, each refrain finalizes one of them. The first three mark end points of consecutive components - the hero's preparations for departure (150, PREPARE), his taunting call on the battlefield (158, call in ENGAGE [disequilibrium]), and his initially victorious encounters (164, engage [disequilibrium] in ENGAGE [disequilibrium]). The final refrain (173) marks the apex of the hero's career, the end of the exchange that occurs just before his death (a discovered unit within engage [disequilibrium] in ENGAGE [disequilibrium]). Refrains complete compositional components as they create a verse passage. Here as previously, poetic and narrative talents converge in the bard's authoritative and stylish punctuation of plot. Like other elements of speech style, then, stanzaic patterns follow compositional junctures. But unlike other stylistic elements, stanzaic patterns embellish the narrative with elaborate, recurrent figures. Their ornamental function leads one to consider whether—like songs in Haya folktales or proverbs in good conversation—stanzaic patterns not only mark important boundaries but also foreground the parts of an utterance that are thematically dominant.

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The association between stanzaic elaboration and principal calls is not exclusive, and it is difficult to measure the degree of their correlation within the genre as a whole. But favored episodes in Kachwenyanja do seem to have a concentration of poetic form not present elsewhere. This is most true for the principal call, but other calls also receive special poetic treatment: the dream that summons the hero to seek a new wife, the warrior's battlefield taunts, and the wife's response to the news of the warrior's death. This elaboration suggests the bard stylistically marks the episodes in which central themes emerge. One should not take these supple shapes formed by binary contrasts or their categorization into stanzas, compound stanzas, verses, and verse passages for a rigid, canonical system of nonphonetic versification. As noted earlier, I am unaware of an indigenous critical tradition that names lines or their patterned combinations. The terms are rather critical tools useful for differentiating, understanding, and appreciating levels of stylistic patterning. Like a carpenter's jig or a tool a mechanic fashions to work on a particular engine, the terms fit the job at hand. They are not wholly emic categories, but they are not wholly etic either. In this chapter, patterns of generic compositional finalization calibrated contrast-within-a-frame and concordance analyses to illuminate artistic style in Muzee's performance of Kachwenyanja. This process isolated an "excess" of stylistic usage, the central clue to finding unexpected harmonies—the achievements of a robust and skilled poet and of the tradition to which his work contributes. In the following chapter, generic composition provides similar interpretive guidance for an approach to theme.

6 Significance Needs Time

Themes are both instruments and effects of epic performance, shaping equally the work of invention and that of understanding. Themes are to narration what knowledge is to institutional practice: that which guides and is created by characteristic practical strategies. This chapter explores the strategies used by the bard and the kinds of significance he creates with them.

Atemporal and Temporal Thematic Coherence in Kachwenyanja Themes form atemporal and temporal patterns in narrative. In the former, thematic coherence takes the shape of a system of culturally specific, abstract categories which define the world created by genre-focused imagination. These categories include contours of the social landscape, communicative codes, cultural values, and, most important, different roles or social standings: wives, warriors, and kings. This kind of knowledge is developed by bardic practice but also by institutions whose power infuses the site of the bard's performance. The defining categories and dimensions of atemporal thematic coherence do not change over the course of depicted action, although the way characters are described by them often does change. Nyakaandalo, for example, an already-married woman, becomes a warrior's wife and then an already-married-woman-warrior-wife. This atemporal aspect is the kind of theme apprehended by "structural" approaches like that of Levi-Strauss and the functionalist varieties like that of Beidelman. Elements in this kind of structure relate to one another through such abstract operations as negation, opposition, and analogy. This kind of thematic finalization is akin to that in proverbs: fashioning an abstract, metaphorical fit between depicted imaginary events and recurring situations in a particular social structure. Thematic finalization articulates cul196

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tural values, although its representation of them may not be direct. In epic ballads, this atemporal thematic structure represents a rhetoric of praise and disparagement, which emerges as an analogy between four groups of episodes—approximately in the manner of Levi-Strauss's construction of the Oedipus myth. The second kind of thematic coherence creates, and in a sense embodies, time in narrative. If time is perceived by all persons, not as measured ticks on a clock but as interwoven "structures of care," in which an instant is for us the sum of stages in the various processes of living in which we are involved, then, as Ricoeur suggests, temporal thematic coherence in narrative models this knowledge of being. A character's "cares" at any moment—the sequences of activity he or she is involved in knowingly or unknowingly—depict one fraction of that moment in narrative time, the remainder being composed of the other characters with their cares. These cares represent practical, ethical, and emotional knowledge, and characters' ongoing involvements can be seen to create abstract frameworks that articulate temporal thematic patterns and finalizations. Incorporating the unchanging semantic features of atemporal themes, temporal thematic structure develops by repeated comparisons between characters whose semantic make-up changes because of actions they have wrought, suffered, or witnessed. Characters' accrued significance frames episodes. This frame may be continually changing, it may remain constant for a while, or different aspects of it may change and remain constant at the same time. Temporal thematic structure emerges from successive redistributions of constant symbolic functions among a triad of characters—approximately in the manner of Turner's construction of the Oedipus myth. Finalizations of temporal theme occur at three levels of organization—single episodes, groups of episodes, and the narrative as a whole—thereby creating intuitively coherent chunks of story. These may or may not correspond exactly to the grouping of episodes defined by generic composition. Kachwenyanja's death, for example, concludes one such intuitive chunk, and it frames the entire second half of the epic, creating a partition embodied in the change of protagonist from hero to heroine. But in the hierarchy of compositional logic, the entire second half is parallel to the hero's death on the battlefield; it is a re-engagement with the same antagonist that produces equilibrium. These overlapping logics increase the density of the ballad's aesthetic affect. The semantic weight of the hero's death creates a large thematic division in an intuitive reading of the narrative. Such visceral interpretations surely depend on the bard's dramatic ability to create passionate, life-like characters within the abstract world of genre. To be worth its salt, our genre-centered approach must appreciate this talent as well. Explicating theme, in fact, would seem to be the ultimate test of my inter-

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pretive approach. One must be able to point clearly to patterns of significance in a work, and one must show that the selection of elements for these patterns was made according to a rational, or at least consistent set of operational principles. Generic composition once again provides an objective, specifically tailored, methodological framework. Explicating theme means revealing what is implied, and, to say the least, critics often disagree about the unspoken patterns of significance in particular actions. An approach must able to demonstrate the collective, social basis of the intuitions revealed and make a good case for their being in the minds of participants in a performance. Generic composition provides this interpretive foundation also. Hnally, just like single words, narrated actions articulate semantic significance through comparisons—with other actions in the text or with those in the real world of social events. The possible sources for thematic comparison being within or outside a particular narrative and the complex and sometimes ambiguous articulation of themes could make recognizing and understanding them difficult and sorting out their hierarchies and other structures even more so. But here again, compositional logic guides interpretation. In narrative genres, this logic proceeds toward and then away from the favored episode—in epics, the call—in which thematically central events occur. The elements that create this type of episode recur from epic to epic: a caller, an addressee, institutionally related ethical knowledge, richly symbolic acts, and marked rhetorical forms. Together they create a paradigm, an interpretive template for understanding major themes, which is useful for all items in the genre. This recurrent form keys an audience's critical expectations to the acts that articulate significant contrasts. It turns out that the call paradigm conforms and is useful in interpreting almost all episodes in classic epics, not only those that motivate and frame complete narrative moves. This patterned fit is unexpected and uncanny at first, but a moment's reflection sees that the same kind of thematic template exists, say, for Hollywood westerns, in which many episodes can best be understood as ancillary confrontations or contests of will leading up to or away from a principal showdown. The accuracy and utility of the episodeto-episode fit of a generic paradigm can be judged in the analysis found in this chapter. Theme-articulating contrasts in call and call-like episodes are formally discovered through a distinctive feature analysis of their elements. This arrays them on a limited number of semantic dimensions, just as was done for the elements in attempted mediation episodes in the folktales in chapter 3. The dimensions are akin to those that define quality spaces in componential analysis of kinship terms or in linguistic distinctive feature analysis of phonemes. But there are major differences. The set of dimensions that

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defines elements in a thematic paradigm are not as uniform as those that describe genealogical relationships or the articulation of meaningful sounds. Unlike kin terms or phonemes, narrative elements represent a variety of kinds of cultural knowledge, and the dimensions that describe them reflect this diversity. Moreover, because a narrative episode is exponentially more complex in its semantic make-up than are kin terms or phonemes, it does not make sense to pursue a goal of fully differentiating the episodes one from the other, as a more elegant distinctive feature analysis would do. But although this analyses does not identify a rigorously uniform and fully definitive set of dimensions, it does reveal dimensions that are fairly consistent throughout the episodes of a text, accounting for one aspect of thematic coherence. This approach to theme, like structuralism, treats each narrative episode as a bundle of semantic features that can be systematically identified. The present use of distinctive feature analysis differs from structuralism in situating the method within a framework of particular historical genres: Analysis of compositional finalization precedes its use, determines its selection of elements, and interprets their thematic content with a template formed by the favored episode type of the genre. The results of distinctive feature analysis and the identification of atemporal themes inform a subsequent analysis of temporal thematic finalization, a dimension absent by definition from most structuralist approaches. In addition to atemporal finalization, which constructs an abstract, generic representation of the social world, and temporal finalization, which embodies narrative time, there is a discontinuous form of temporal finalization, which is formed by comparisons between semantically marked elements in nonadjacent episodes. This structure emerges in irregular bursts of meaning occurring throughout the narrative, rather than through regular, continuous, episode by episode increments. In Kachivenyanja, these narrative flourishes, resonant acts and repeated phrases valorize the knowledge that guides and is created by the bardic institution itself. The following analysis of two episodes illustrates how semantic contrasts articulated in narrative thernatize institutional knowledge in a Haya heroic age. The episodes can serve as a catalog of the kinds of narrative materials the bard uses to create thematic finalizations.

Thematic Content in Call and Call-like Episodes Epic themes represent institutional knowledge in dyadic interactions: between man and woman, king and warrior, or one warrior and another. Themes also represent the kinds of knowing one needs to act well in these statuses: knowl-

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edge of the world oku-matiya, "to know") and knowledge of the self (okwemanya, "to know oneself"). These capacities appear in a character's ability to understand and act effectively with the virtues of his or her social standing. Bardic institutional knowledge is thematrzed in characters' marked competence in communicative genres. These are both speech (greeting, taunting, and addressing) and symbolic signs (drum, dream, dress, and battlefield gesture), some of which inscribe a human body with individual or group identity. This entire spectrum of themes is represented in Kachwenyanjcfs principal call. Reclining in the arms of his dream-sent bride, the hero hears war drums and immediately knows his obligation as a warrior. This is okw-emanya "to know oneself," a virtue that fixes one's ethical bearings in a complex social environment. The hero acts with resolute dedication to the royal state. He later shows this again by rejecting an enemy warrior's call-like greeting (156) and Littleman's offer of mercy (173). Marked sign and marked speech both appear in this central episode, the former in the drummed call, the latter in the symmetrical forms of address that set the emotional tone in the characters' relationship. Directly represented as "My husband" (114.1) answered by "My wife" (119), the verbal exchange is quoted a bit later (146) and also much later (367) as having been absolutely symmetrical, "Dear one" answered by "Yes, dear one." These contrast with the gender asymmetry common in clan practice represented in the warrior's quoted exchange with his second wife: "Wife!" answered by "My lord," (24—24.1). Symmetrical exchange among the newlyweds embodies a romantic, nonclan ethic. Thus, although opposed as love is to war, symmetrical speech and drummed sign reinforce each other thematicaUy. The ethics they represent— nonclan (symmetrical address) and royal state (drumming)—share a common opposition to clans. "[The drums] roar within me," the hero says, "I must go to war." His body reverberates with the drummed summons that predicates a warrior's identity on him. His ethically inscribed body becomes an instrument of state power. The epic's principal thematic dimensions are all present here—institutional ethical knowledge defined by role dyads, marked communicative codes, knowledge of self and/or other, and identity signaled by the body. Note that values on each dimension are not mutually exclusive: Both nonclan and royal institutional ethics may appear together, as can message forms of both speech and sign. Inversely, all dimensions do not occur in all call and call-like episodes, but enough do so that coherent structures emerge. Another episode, Nyakaandalo's call to heroic action, is equally rich with themes. In the company of her mu^na—a courtesan or serving woman sometimes given by the king as a domestic slave—the heroine learns of her husband's death, cries but once, and begins to plan her vengeance. Although it

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seems as though the action could proceed without her, the mu^ana is thematically as central to the action as the nearly naked man in Rukiza's corral. Present in every version I know, the mu^ana associates the deeds she and Nyakaandalo do with the royal state. The tactics they employ—words with implied meanings and sex with hidden consequences—are like those said to have been deployed by courtesans in service to the royal family. In this episode, as in that of the drummed call, sign and speech represent both royal and nonclan ethics. The alluring signs the knowing courtesan applies to Nyakaandalo's body conceal her intent, as the king's drum sounds within the body of a knowing warrior and reveals his dedication. Thematic dimensions remain the same, but values on them vary. The courtesan's tactics implicate the royal state, whereas the constructed identity of a previously married woman, one who can be wed without clan negotiations, implies an ethic that can be called nonclan. Nyakaandalo's speech embodies nonclan and state ethics in form and content. Her repeated promise to make nine accompany her fallen husband becomes her self-praise as a warrior. Recited before battle in the presence of royalty, the genre is also heard in Kachwenyanja's boasting address before he engages Littleman in combat (177—178), in the prebattle address to Nyakaandalo that he names self-praising (pkw-ebuga, 143), and in Nyakaandalo's address to her husband's corpse before she engages the enemy (246.1—248.1). As self-identifying praise in her call episode, her form of speech embodies warrior ethics. But her promise—to avenge her husband's death by killing his murderer and more—-opposes clans. It usurps a right to engage in a blood feud that belongs to the dead man's clansmen. In this episode, then, both sign as constructed appearance and speech as prebattle promise (pkw-ebugd) are doubly marked as state and nonclan. The two characters in this episode represent knowledge and self-knowledge: the courtesan, in her ability to get what is needed by manipulating appearances, and Nyakaandalo, in her self-affirmed stance as a woman not bound by clan practice and dedicated to her romantic lover. Nonclan, male-female relationships are thematically central in the calls to the warrior and to his widow, but role dyads defined by state institutional knowledge are also significant: warrior-king and courtesan-other. Symmetrically, only one dyad is actually present in each episode: male-female and courtesan-other. But in each, the call comes from the absent member of a second dyad—the king and the slain warrior, respectively. The discourse of bodies in these key episodes represents the power developed by the tactics of particular state-defined roles: the king, whose drum reverberates within the warrior; and the courtesan, whose tactical knowledge gives a female body its own authoritative call.

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Atemporal Thematic Coherence The preeminence, density, and configuration of themes in these episodes confirms that the way into a thematic analysis—like the way into an understanding of linguistic style—is marked by compositional finalization. Simply, dom inant themes occur in the principal call. Supporting themes appear in calls that initiate and frame whole moves within the narrative—the hero's dream (QUALIl'Y-call), the hero's battlefield taunt (UNGAGE [disequilibrium]-call), and widow's response (KNGAGG [equilibrium]-call). These modify and complement those in the drummed summons. The same paradigm interprets episodes composed of similar thematic elements (i.e., those whose action involves callers, addressees, marked message forms, and thematized institutional knowledge). Table 6.1 lists the call and calllike episodes as 1 have defined them for the purpose of thematic interpretation, identified by compositional function and line numbers. As usual, higherlevel moves appear in capital letters; lower-level, embedded moves appear in lowercase; and (-) signifies disequilibrium and (+) signifies equilibrium. Note that all of these episodes are constructed around communicative acts. Events whose configuration of elements is not call-like are not included. These are the physical violations in the tale: the deaths wrought by the warrior, his own death, and the vengeful acts of the heroine. They will be shown to articulate similar institutionally related themes in a different way. Note also that in most instances compositional and thematic segments are congruent. In five instances, thematic segments encompass but coincide with several compositional components. In only one instance—the descripTablc 6.1. Call and call-like thematic segments in Kachwenyanja Theme segment

1 )cscnplion

Plot segment

Kmbedded segment

Lines

1 . dream 2. wives 3. beer

dream of new wife address to wives request beer from king

QUALIFY

4. proposal 1

proposal to Nyakaandalo

call prepare travel engage(-), reveal, engage(+)

5. call 6. omens 7. taunt 8. Littlcman <). I lintk 10. trophy

drummed summons dialogue about omens warrior's taunt lattlcman's warning

16-29 30-39 40-77.2 78-104.1 105-118 119-150 153-158 164.1-173 174-178 184-185 186-190 191-217 218-243.1 244-248.1 249-287 288-357 358-385.1

1 1 orders

12. search 1 3 response 1 4. burial 15. proposal 2 1C, bros-t-1 17. coda

CALL I'RUPAKI': KNGAGK (-)

boast to 1 Iinda

1 attlcman takes penis orders to muxan;i questions to warriors lament and plans

KKVl'.AL I;NGAGI.;(+)

burial ot corpse

proposals by warriors deaths of brothers closing soliloquy

COMMHNT

call reveal engage(+) comment qualify, prepare engage(-), reveal, engage(+) call, prepare travel cngage(-), reveal engage(+)

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tion of the hero's death, which is characteristically divided into two parts— is a single compositional segment divided to form two thematic units. The close but not perfect alignment of theme and composition increases the depth of aesthetic experience, like that of a musical groove, in time but slighdy out of synch. The common set of elements in call and call-like episodes can be (partially) resolved into distinctive features, which take the form of values on thematic dimensions that define an heroic age. This analysis is represented in table 6.2. The rationale for identifying the thematic features in the drum and heroine's response episodes has been described above; these and other such specifications are outlined in appendix A. Table 6.2 groups episodes by similarity, out of their chronological order. The array shows how combinations of shared features define four groups. Contrasts between the groups establish an atemporal coherence, the bard's schematic sketch of the ethical landscape of Haya heroic society. Episodes in Group I share features of nonclan ethics, knowledge of self, and male-female role dyads. These episodes praise nonclan practice: in them, "knowers" act positively outside the bounds of clan. In six of seven episodes in the group, the protagonists' non-clan-regulated marriage is the Table 6.2. Distinctive feature analysis of call and call-like episodes

GROUP I

Kpisode

Role dyads

Ethics

Self/other

Codes

Marked body

drums*

nonclan, state

of self

speech, sign

male + social

nonclan, state

ot self, other

speech, sign

female + social

nonclan, state

of self, other

speech, sign

search

male- female war nor- royalty male-female courtesan-cither male-female courtesan-other male-female male- female male-female male-female male- female

coda

male- female

nonclan, state nonclan, state nonclan nonclan nonclan nonclan

of of of of of of

speech, sign speech speech, sign speech, sign irony poetic speech

wives

male-female male-female male- female

clan clan clan

of other of other of other

sign irony irony

male + individual

of self of self

speech speech sign

male + individual male + social

response* orders burial proposal 1 dream* omens

GROUP II

hros. -m-lan> proposal 2 GROUP III taunt* \Mtkman

trophy GROUP IV Hinda beer

warrior-warrior clan warrior-warrior clan warrior-warrior clan war nor- royalty warrior-royalty

state state

Call episodes are marked with an asterisk (*) The rationale for each feature is given in appendix A.

self, other self, other self, other self, other self, other self, other

of self of self, other

male + social male + individual

male + individual male + social

male + social

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arena of action; in the remaining one (search) a stranger—a nonclansman— tells the truth. Episodes in Group II share clan ethics, knowledge of treating others, and male-female dyads. These episodes disparage clan practice. In one (wives) the women fulfill domestic responsibilities only unwillingly, subverting the authority of their husband. Another (brothers-in-law) features clan-sanctioned violation of sexual exclusivity between spouses; not prohibited by clan custom, sex between the sibling-in-law joking partners occurred without the husband's knowledge, as the dissembling banter implies. Finally, the totemic system that regulates clan exogamy is ridiculed, or at least employed deceptively, in Nyakaandalo's crafty reinterpretations of enemy warrior's praise recitations (proposal 2). Episodes in Group III share clan ethics, knowledge of self, and warriorwarrior dyads. These episodes—taunt, Littieman, trophy—disparage clan rhetoric. In the taunt episode, an enemy warrior desires the fictive kinship of blood brotherhood with the hero. His friendly, fraternal greeting meets jeering disdain from the royal warrior. (Recall the importance of blood brotherhood in defining Ruldza's patriarchal virtues.) Similarly, Littleman's rhetoric of reproduction and nurturance, warning the hero to flee his bow, lest he "sire a misfortune" for him, is summarily rejected by the self-knowing warrior hero. The victorious clansman's cutting of the penis from the hero's corpse also evokes a negatively valued symbolism of reproduction. In the episodes of Group III the rhetoric of clan is weak or reprehensible. Episodes in Group IV share state ethics, knowledge of self, and a warriorroyalty dyad. They praise royal rhetoric. The warrior's visit to the palace (beer) highlights his knowledge of courtly speech and royal obligation. On the battlefield, his dying boast proclaims his self-knowing loyalty to the royal state (Hinda). Group IV also includes the principal call of the epic, doubly defined as Group I praise of nonclan practice (a marriage based on romantic love) and as Group IV praise of court rhetoric (the drummed call answered). The principal call is the only episode that can be included in two groups—by virtue of its double pairing of nonclan, male-female (Group I) and state, warrior-royalty (Group IV). This formal ambiguity in classification increases the metaphoric richness of the call, confirming its role as keystone of the thematic as well as the compositional architecture. On the basis of this analysis, an atemporal thematic structure of episodes can be diagrammed that resembles Levi-Strauss's well-known schema for the Oedipus myth. In the following table, the bundles of thematic features that define each episode are identical to those in table 6.2. Although this representation of atemporal thematic structure resembles Levi-Strauss's sample analysis of Oedipus, it differs through the radical intervention of compositional logic. This dynamic form locates atemporal the-

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matic analysis in an historical genre, defines and frames thematic units, and leads to the discovery of temporal structures. Table 6.3 concisely describes the four groups of episodes by combinations of three rhetorical strategies characteristic of this epic: praising and disparaging, thematizing nonclan ethical knowledge in addition to that of state and clan, and granting equal significance to rhetoric and deeds (words and symbolic acts). Together these broadly map the moral landscape of a heroic society characterized by institutional conflict, public acclamation and blame, and the high social consequence of individual acts of rhetoric. The bard praises narratively by portraying characters who speak and act with marked knowledge of self. This reaches a sublime limit with the dying warrior, whose proclaimed dedication to the Hinda state exceeds his own diminished strength. The bard disparages narratively by portraying characters whose lack of knowledge keeps them unaware of a call's true meaning (the would-be suitors in Proposal 2 and Littleman's brothers); or characters who issue weak, ineffectual calls (the would-be blood brother's greeting and Littleman's warning); or those who perform reprehensible acts informed by clan-related ethics (the hero's wives' truculent behavior and Littleman's taking of a trophy). The bard thematizes a nonclan ethic with a romantic marriage. Although in reality not entirely outside the regulatory domain of patrilineal clans, a oncemarried woman might properly be wed without ritualized clan negotiations. In the heroic age defined by these ethical coordinates, epic actions embody praise and disparagement. But this is only a categorical interpretation, an atemporal view of the value-laden world that is set in motion by another thematic

Table 6.3. Atemporal thematic finalization in Kachtvenyanja GROUP I

GROUP II

GROUP III

GROUP IV

Praising nonclan practice: Disparaging clan practice: Disparaging clan rhetoric: nonclan ethics, clan ethics, clan ethics, male-female dyad male-female dyad warrior-warrior dyad

Praising state rhetoric state ethics, warrior-royal dyad

dream proposal 1 omens

beer drums

M!,'CS

taunt [ittkman trophy

orders search response burial proposal 2 brothers-in-law coda

\-linda

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order. In this one, characters become transformed, significance accumulates, and time becomes incarnate.

Temporal Thematic Coherence A tale of heroic passions—love, suffering, death, and transcendence— Kachjvenyanja has several clearly defined intuitive thematic chunks. Analysis accounts for these intuitions by identifying the objective patterns that create significance with sequence. Kachwenyanja's death creates the primary intuitive break. Before it, the passions are his; after it, his wife's. Within the initial hemisphere, the first three episodes, from beginning dream to palace visit, evoke the hero's vision of beauty, the annoying domesticity of his household, and his honored place at court. The second intuitive chunk consists of three episodes—dreamcome-true meeting with Nyakaandalo, their romantic marriage closely followed by the call to battle, to Nyakaandalo's reading of omens. These contain the affective heart of the story, a conflict between love and war, between the joys of home and duty to the state. The third thematic chunk is set on the battlefield. Its essence in the thrust and parry of verbal and symbolic exchanges: greeting and taunt, a warning ignored, the wounded hero's boast, and the act of mutilation. After the death of Kachwenyanja, there seem to be two main sequences. Nyakaandalo's transformation to a warrior begins with her never-to-be-fulfilled orders to receive the returning husband and concludes with her promise of revenge before the hero's corpse and her symbolic burial of it. The final, climactic chunk comprises the discovery of the killer, her revenge on him, and her comment, which concludes both this segment and the tale as a whole. Like atemporal structure, temporal coherence emerges in recurrent patterns in episodes, in groups of episodes, and in the epic as a whole. Its semantics are also generated by a call-like paradigm of elements. But unlike atemporal structures, temporal thematic coherence is continually transformed by the succession of episodes. A continuously emerging, intermittently finalized, temporal thematic coherence develops through episode to episode comparisons keyed by a particular representational device. This consists of adding another character role to the stable dyad of atemporal theme, forming an unstable triad that drives the action and layers it with meaning. The juxtaposition of a third character, one of the dyadic pair from a previous episode, creates themearticulating comparisons between adjacent episodes, framing the action with accumulated significance. In a temporal perspective, the atemporal dyad that defines institutional

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knowledge is differentiated into principal and interlocutor: respectively, the role that remains constant from episode to episode and the role that changes. The bard often marks the importance of the two principals in Kachwenyanja, the eponymous hero and his third wife, Nyakaandalo, by assuming their points of view, inflecting verbs used in narration in the first person (e.g., [about Kachwenyanja] "A spear I took in my right hand./ A hafted knife I took in my left./ A child behind to bear my calabash with woven cap./ I came to Nsheshe . . ." [37-40] and [about Nyakaandalo] "I took the Kyendai road./ I met a man guarding cattle./ 'Woman, I would marry you.'/ 'Before that, begin: recite me your self-praise'" [255—258]. Only the two principals embody self knowledge. Their inward feelings and outward actions alone achieve exemplary commitment. The interlocutor produces narrative movement by communicating a calllike message to a principal character or receiving one from him or her. The interlocutor's function may be performed by a single character or by several characters; when multiple, the personae in the interlocutor's role strengthen a thematic contrast (like the local warriors, who lie to Nyakaandalo) or enhance the identity of a particular social category (like Littleman's siblings). The final component of the triad, the key character or characters, frames episodes with an evolving significance. Like a picture frame, a key is not central to action between principal and interlocutor and may not even be present. But—like Banquo's ghost in Macbeth—this interposed character from the narrative past articulates underlying themes in a developing finalization. Key characters combine significance accrued from narrated events with the a priori cultural commonplaces associated with their social standing. The key role is multiform. It may be performed by one or more characters. It may be portrayed as present or absent. And a particular character may serve as key in a sustained way over several contiguous episodes or in a pattern of incremental change from one episode to the next. In the latter case, the interlocutor of one episode becomes the key of the episode that follows. Table 6.4 represents the triad of roles that articulates temporal themes. In 6.4.1 a principal character engages an interlocutor, while a key frames the action, foregrounding a particular thematic comparison. Table 6.4.2 represents triads in a progression of episodes in which the principal remains constant while the character playing the interlocutor in one episode becomes the key in the next episode; this kind of progression can be termed "incremental keying." Table 6.4.3 represents triads in a progression of episodes in which the interlocutor changes while both the principal and the key remain constant; this kind of progression can be termed "sustained keying." Table 6.4.4 represents the role triads in the call and call-like episodes of Kachwenyanja. Evidence for the ascription of particular roles to particular characters in each episode is discussed later and in appendix B in this volume.

Table 6.4. Triads in temporal thematic coherence and the role of the key 6.4.1. The mad

6.4.2. Incremental keying

6.4.3. Sustained keying EPISODE

PRINCIPAL

INTERLOCUTOR

KEY

N

l

A

M

K

2 3

A

N

k

A

O

K

N N

6 4.4. Episodes in Kachwenyanja EPISODE

PRINCIPAL

INTERLOCUTOR

K!iY

CHUNK. 1

/. dream 2. wives 5. beer

Kachwcnyanja Kachwenyanja Kachwenyanja

dream wifc co-wives ki

co-wives dream wife co-wives

CHUNK 2

4. proposal / 5. drums 6. omens

Kachwcnyanja Kachwcnyanja Kachwcnyanja

Nyakaandalo drums (kmg Nyakaandalo

ing Nyakaandalo drums (king)

CHUNK 3

7. taunt 8. IMUeman 9. llinda W. tropty

Kachwcnyanja Kachwcnyanja Kachwcnyanja Kachwcnyanja

enemy warriors Littlcman Hinda Littlcman

Nyakaandalo ead warnors Littlcman Hinda

CHUNK 4

1 1 . orders 12. search 13. response 14. burial

Nyakaandalo Nyakaandalo Nyakaandalo Nyakaandalo

muz ana warriors, stranger mu'^ana Kachwenyanja

Kachwcnyanj a Kachwenyanja Kachwenyanja Kachwenyanja

CHUNK 5

15. proposal 2 16. bros.-in-Liw

Nyakaandalo Nyakaandalo

warriors, Littlcman brothers-, sister-in-law

17. coda

Nyakaandalo

Kachwcnyanja

Kachwenyanja, mtt^ana Littlcman, Kachwenyanja, mu^ana dead siblings, Kachwenyanja

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Table 6.4.4 shows that incremental transposition of a character from interlocutor to key occurs in about three-quarters of the episodes (1 to 10, 15 to 17). It shows sustained keying in episodes 11 to 17. And it shows that in three of the latter (15 to 17) sustained keys combine with an incremental key to form "compound" keys. Table 6.4.4 also shows that the story is divided into five parts by patterns of incremental, sustained, and compound keys, and by a pattern in the first three groups, in which the regular transposition of roles is apparently reversed, with a character moving from key back to interlocutor (2, 5, 6, and 10). The significance of these chunks of text, which represent thematic finalizations at a level between single episodes and the entire work, will be treated after we specify more concretely the framing role of the key.

Hon> the Key Character Frames Episodes

A character keys thematic significance in several possible ways: by foregrounding contrasts or similarities, by altering the context of the depicted action, or by becoming the topic of quoted speech. A character may also key an episode solely by the significance of the social category it represents, as the muyana does in this epic. Consider the following examples. The hero's two wives, interlocutors in episode 2, key the thematic significance of the hero's exchange with the king in episode 3: In contrast to the wives, who accede only peevishly to the hero's request (30—36), the king responds graciously with a full measure of beer (69—71). The free flow of beer from kings to warriors, from to wives to husbands, from hosts to guests and between other statuses in Hayaland is an exchange that communicates interdependence and solidarity (Carlson 1991). A healthy flow confirms shared institutional ethics. The king, in turn, keys the succeeding episode, in which the warrior encounters Nyakaandalo and her sister. The courtliness of the warrior's approach and proposal is articulated in the salutation he gives the women, "Long life to the fearless one!" (86). This is a purely fictional form to my knowledge, but one made extremely honorific by the warrior's just having said it to the king (69). The warrior's way of addressing his new wife in episode 6 (146) keys comparison with his taunting of the enemy (152—158) in episode 7. The former's symmetrical, honorific, and loving form compounds the force of his asymmetrical and insulting answer to the enemy's peaceful salutation. Death imbues a key with a framing significance. The four warriors slain by the hero in episode 7 frame Littlemaii's merciful battlefield address to the warrior, "Flee my bow./ Let me not sire misfortune for you," in episode 8 (170).

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Their juxtaposition implies the clansman's insufficient appetite for killing and vengeance, a lack of virtue. A similar juxtaposition occurs when Nyakaandalo and her mut^ana call, have sex with, and kill Littleman's brothers (16: 289—357), an episode that is framed in part by Littleman's death. The dead men point to the absence of vengeance in their kin's subsequent actions. Kachwenyanja's death is a sustained key for four consecutive episodes (10—14: 186—248.1); as a hidden fact, it creates dramatic irony in the first two, and then, as a call to action, it evokes the heroine's response and her promise of vengeance. Another sustained key is Nyakaandalo's mu^na. For two long episodes (15—16: 249—357), her presence calls attention to ironic twists in the circumstances she helps establish with a courtesan's cunning. The skills of her social standing pursue and secure, and then compound, Littleman's victimization. Other interlocutors become keys as the topics of the principal character's speech. After warning and then wounding the hero, Littleman becomes the topic of the hero's failing boast (in Hinda: 174—178). In Nyakaandalo's soliloquy (17: 358—370.1), the heroine (as principal) addresses her self-praise to the dead hero (as interlocutor), and the topic of her poetic boast is Littleman and his relatives (as key), whom she has just called and killed in the previous episode. She then (17: 371—385.1) addresses a lament to clanswomen and men, in which Kachwenyanja becomes topic and key. In the trophy episode the key implies the addressee of a symbolic statement. Littleman's cutting of the penis from the hero's corpse, a statement couched in the reproductive idiom associated with clans, predicates ultimate weakness on the warrior. The act is keyed by and addressed to the Hinda royalty, as a counterstatement to the hero's boast in the previous episode. It also responds to the hero's treatment of an enemy corpse (162) in an exchange of violence that is discussed later. In sum, a character in the role of key articulates themes by framing significance in represented actions as comparison, topic, or implied addressee or, in the case of the mu^ana, as an embodiment of knowledge associated with a particular social standing. The key role is filled by characters that shift from episode to episode in an incremental pattern, remain constant in a sustained manner, or combine these patterns. The key and the triad of which it is part represent the link between temporal development of theme and the narrative succession of episodes. Readers familiar with Turner's theorization and analysis of mythopoeic thought (1977, 1985) may find this use of the triadic model somewhat simplistic. Set aside the fact that Turner treats thematic structure alone, without considering those of linguistic style or logical composition; diverging approaches to the description of theme account for this difference. For him thematic structure is unitary: There is only one in a text. In contrast, the present approach views theme as multiple kinds of semantic coherence created

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by a gifted artist standing on the shoulders of giants in his or her tradition. Although it may be possible to combine them in a single analytic representation, as I believe Turner has done, the result is quite complex. I prefer to trace the strands of significance one by one and leave their ultimate integration in the territory of the artist.

The Succession of Ra/e Triads

In table 6.4.4 incremental keying and sustained keying individually describe episodes 1—10 and 11—14, respectively, and together create compound keying in episodes 15—17. A fourth pattern appears in the analysis as a reversal of the usual transposition of roles in incremental keying: In this pattern, the key of one episode becomes the interlocutor of the next. It occurs when a character, having been interlocutor and then key, reappears once again as interlocutor: as when the king, having keyed the thematic significance of the hero's approach to Nyakaandalo in 4 (proposal 1), returns as interlocutor in 5 (drums), to issue a call. This kind of reiteration also occurs between the episodes 1 (dream) and 2 (wives) and between the episodes 9 (Hinda) and 10 (trophy). These four patterns in the succession of role triads formally define chunks of the narrative, which represent finalizations of theme at a level greater than a single episode, but smaller than the work as a whole. The first three chunks (1—3, 4—6, 7—10), which have a pattern of incremental keying, are distinguished from each other by recurrences of the fourth pattern, the reappearance of particular interlocutors. This device articulates and finalizes thematic chunks by contrasting the warrior's relationships with three pairs of characters: with his dream wife and his cowives (1—3), with his new wife and the king (4—6), and with Littleman and the Hinda royalists (7—10). Episodes in a fourth chunk (11—14) are distinctively keyed in a sustained manner by a single character, the slain hero. A fifth chunk consists of two long episodes (15—16) and the heroine's concluding soliloquy, all keyed in a compound manner. These five strings of episodes constitute the large, intuitively felt chunks of the epic: a romantic, nonclan union between hero and heroine; convergence and divergence of lovers' romance and warriors' duty; a battlefield contest of state and clan; revelation, romantic grief, and resolute dedication; and the apotheosis of a knowing woman's love in •warrior vengeance. Formally, the five groups are artifacts of the sequential transformations of role triads. They represent local thematic finalizations in temporal structure. These changing role relationships are part of a larger system of thematic finalization, which occurs at the level of episodes, at the level of groups of episodes, and at the level of the work as a whole.

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Finali^ation of Episodes An episode makes sense by itself and in combination with others: Its themes are internally complete and externally in accord with those in adjacent episodes. Each episode in a sequence formed by incremental changes in key (1—10, 15—17) becomes thematically complete when its depicted action answers a comparison begun in the previous episode and begins one to be completed in the next. Thus, the hero's initial wives act with a mundane aggravation that completes their contrast with a dream bride, and they reluctantly provide beer that begins a comparison completed in the following episode by the king's easy generosity. The hero's proposal to Nyakaandalo echoes a courtliness sounded in his immediately preceding audience with the king, and it results in a romantic union whose love opposes the loyalty embodied in the subsequent call to arms. As these examples show, the key character creates an implicit comparison, which the bard may or may not make explicit. Episodes framed by a sustained key (11—14, 15—17) are finalized by a series of interlocutors shaped by external cultural expectations. Sequence may be composed of a single social type (warriors in 12 and 15, agnatic kin in 16) or of associated acts in a familiar cultural sequence like preparations before homecoming (11) or burial after death (14). Social types and cultural rituals embody themes that are finalized at the level of the episode. Episodes 15—17 combine incremental and sustained devices: They are thematically finalized both by comparisons initiated then completed and by repetition of social types. The complex framing in these long episodes, keyed on a sustained basis by the practical, ethical, and emotional knowledge that accrues to the courtesan and the dead Kachwenyanja, and incrementally by the dead Littleman, creates multilayered ironies in the repeated self-praise, joking between in-laws, and sex. This semantic environment seems to encourage the elaboration of affecting details, whose significance is compounded by the multiple frames. Thus, the sensual details of lovemaking (308, 327, 348) and the heroine's near loss of memory (296) become charged with multivocal meanings keyed by the courtesan, the dead hero, and the members of Littleman's clan who follow:

Finali^ation of Episode Groups As illustrated, transformations in the triad of roles in each episode finalize themes at the level of episode groups and account for intuitive thematic divisions in the narrative. Group-defining transformations include a change in the ballad's principal character from hero to heroine, shifts in types of keying from incremental to sustained to compound, and the reappearance as interlocutor of a previous key character, in a reversal of the usual pattern of incremental

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change. Themes achieve a partial finalization in these intuitively felt, formally described segments. The same themes are refinalized at the end of the narrative at a higher level, that of the entire work. The return of a key character as interlocutor between episodes (1—2, 4—5 and 5—6, and 9—10) divides and differentiates the three episode strings that comprise the story up to the hero's death (episodes 1—3, 4—6, 7—10). This device reiterates contrasts between particular characters and articulates themes that achieve a degree of completion within a single string of episodes: romantic versus clan love, love versus war, and state versus clan. These themes attain greater completion by the end of the work, as do other themes finalized at a local level. Note that this thematic grouping of episodes sounds counterpoint to the logic of compositional segmentation. Thematically, proposal 1 begins a string (4—6) that compares romantic love and feudal duty, as these virtues are embodied in the hero's relationships with Nyakaandalo and the king. But compositionally, the passage ends a move (QUALIFY) that: introduces and defines the epic's principal characters. These divergent local finalizations in the work reaffirm the independent existence of theme and composition: One is not simply reducible to the other. They also suggest the freedom with which a bard thematizes particular elements in a story: Although a plot demonstrably unfolds according to generic logic and although themes are largely articulated through a paradigm determined by that logic, thematic wholes may override compositional wholes when a bard multiplies semantic contrasts. As in other areas of linguistic expression, semantics sometimes strains the bonds of syntax—recall, for example, how the profusion of thematic contrasts in the tale, "Blocking the Wind" makes it at once an example and an explosion of generic folktale form. We hear the bard's poetic mastery in these overlapping structures of theme and composition, as we do in the superimposed stylistic patterns with which this very passage begins (78—81).

Initialisation of the Entire Work Finalizing temporal themes means resolving semantic oppositions in a narrative according to an intuitively recognizable logic or strategy. Resolution in the first string of episodes occurs through superseding, when male royalty supersedes a female domesticity. In trie second and third strings resolution occurs through selection, when the hero chooses war over love, and when he, not the clan warrior, is finally brought low. At the level of the entire work, however, thematic oppositions are resolved through synthesis at a more abstract level. Nonclan romantic attachment and clan-regulated domesticity come together in the heroine's final poetic recitation,

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which combines remembrances of romantic details of her courtship (361—362, 364, 366-367) with the poetry of a traditional wife's lament (371-376). Love and war come together in the heroine's decision to act as a warrior on behalf of her king-like lover, in the particular stratagem she chooses, and in the meticulous way she correlates aspects of her affection'with the murders she has committed (360—370.1). Her soliloquy imaginatively resolves opposition between clan ethics of reciprocal exchange among equals and state subordination and reward. She combines remembrances of equal exchange of address— "Dear one" answered by "Yes, dear one"—with her warrior-like exploits on the hero's behalf. The reappearance and resolution of these thematic oppositions invests the heroine's soliloquy with its finalizing power. The fourth and fifth strings of episodes are qualitatively different from the others. Key roles are sustained and, in the latter string, complexly composed; the initial episodes in each are framed as dramatic irony. Both strings depict acts and utterances that lack their usual meanings—detailed preparations for a homecoming that will never happen, returning warriors' Res told in formulas of the hero's praise (compare 196.1 and 199.1 with 149), self-praise that is really self-incrimination, detailed domestic ministrations that lead to murder, joking invitations that covertly promise sex but lead to death. Or they contain utterances that construct and comment on symbolic codes: a proverb about strangers' bringing bad news—and by implication about neighbors' refusing to bring it (200); a pair of equivalences that articulate disorder (millet = sorcery, herbs = destruction, 233—236); hairstyles that identify age grades; and a soliloquy composed of symbolic equations and instructions. These actions and utterances deconstruct and reconstruct and interpret symbolic codes. And as such, they represent an epic bard's knowledge of creating meanings in a complex social context shaped by opposing institutions. Bardic knowledge of this sort is also thematized in other Haya epics. Like the institutional themes articulated in the initial three strings of episodes, those in the final two are resolved through combination at the level of the whole work through the heroine's poetic commentary.

Discontinuous Sequences Contiguous episodes create a continuously evolving thematic structure. But contiguity alone does not fully establish a symbolic association within which semantic contrast articulates theme. Other features are also necessary, such as generic similarity (the two prestations of beer), lexical repetition (the greetings to the king and to the heroine), or cultural expectations (death to be followed by vengeance—marked by its absence in episodes 8 and 15). The same kinds of marked similarities can associate non-contiguous com-

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ponents. Three sets of these figures call for interpretation: one associated by semantic similarity, a second by shared form, and a third by lexical repetition. These associated sets contain depicted deaths, marriage proposals, and praise. The sequence of deaths in the epic—the four enemy warriors, the hero, and Littleman and his relatives—are elements of a rich thematization of the body that begins with the opening lines of the epic (3—4) and becomes violent soon after (23). Repeatedly, a body's outward treatment and appearance and its inward feelings represent aspects of knowledge associated with particular social institutions—-drums beating in the warrior's heart and the courtesan's erotic stratagem are only the ones most central to the plot. Killings are somatic highpoints in the narrative. They accentuate themes with grisly gestures. The royal warrior uses an enemy corpse as a stool to sit on in self-display. The clansman cuts the penis from the hero's corpse. These details index prestige and reproduction, spheres of activity governed respectively by state and clan. In these violent embodiments, institutional ethics achieve a visceral, aesthetic resonance. Five days later, in the fifth string of episodes, a vengeful Nyakaandalo orchestrates the serial killings of Littleman's clan. She kills the men in their sleep by slashing through their voice boxes (pku-kinda amalaka, to-slice-with-asingle-stroke the larynx, 313.1, 332.1, 352.1 354). Although also done to the neck, this style of attack differs from the mortal severing of Kachwenyanja's throat (oku-tema ebikya, to-sever-with-a-single-chopping-blow the throat, 180). The difference between severing a throat and slashing a voice box may merely be attributable to the geometry of victims' positions in battle or in bed. It may merely be a function of the design and use of iron blades swung manfully in combat or jerked silently at night. But it seems likely that the clear association between voice box (amalaka) and speaking and singing voice (eilaka, singular of amalaka) makes the heroine's act a symbolic severing of the clansmen's "voice"—their praise, their memory, the immortality conferred by ritualized speech. The heroine's act cuts off their lives and their memories as an answer to the destruction of her lover's reproductive line. Her bloody deed symbolically destroys an instrument of remembrance, while in the very next episode she constructs a poetic memorial for her slain lover with the nameless, numbered corpses she has taken. Her eulogy valorizes the act of praise itself, extolling the knowledge that informs bardic practice, that remembers with praise, that keeps in the collective present the beauty and virtues of the individual dead. The severed voice boxes represent an inverse of bardic knowledge. They refer by contrast to praise, and they enrich the key of the dead clansmen in the episode that follows. The slashed voice boxes answer the severed penis, and the latter answers a kinsman's corpse sat down upon. These gruesome acts build a violent, ethically meaningful exchange, a sequence that enhances the larger design. Associated by

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the strong semantic marker of death, these non-contiguous episodes contribute violent symmetries to the dialog of institutional ethics. Knowledge that informs court, clan, and bardic practice also seems implicated in a comparison between marriage proposals in the epic: the one the hero makes to the heroine (proposal 1: 78—104) and those the heroine evokes from enemy warriors to identify the killer (proposal 2: 249—288). The hero uses self-praise poetry (eby'ebngo) to identify himself to Nyakaandalo as warriors identified themselves to the king. Kachwenyanja responds to Nyakaandalo's question "You man who'd marry me, who are you?" with lines of his self-praise that speak of his geographical origins (99-101.2), physical appearance (102), and prestige as a warrior (103-104.1). Although performed here between prospective mates, this language use is of the court. Nyakaandalo uses the same genre to trick her husband's killer. She ironically turns the enemy suitors' self-praise into a burlesque of clan ethics. The heroine claims that each animal slain by a bragging suitor represents her clan, and that the killing makes marriage impossible. This reasoning is a clever combination of symbolic codes—self-praise poetry, marriage-regulating totemic avoidances, and another kind of totemic system (unrelated to the regulation of marriage) that envisions friendly affinities between clans and natural species. The use of these codes to construct a multilayered irony represents the knowledge of the bard, who, like the wa^»«-assisted heroine, can combine disparate symbolic genres in a complex whole. Nyakaandalo craftily conflates primary with secondary totems, and selfpraise with self-incrirmnation. In contrast, the warrior hero's proposal and self-praise have nothing totemic in them. Nyakaandalo bends these symbolic forms to her heroic purpose. The strategic, genre-mixing marriage proposals proclaim bardic wit, as the severed voice boxes mutely declare the value of his art.

The Genre of Self-Praise Thematic structures created by repeated self-praise (eby'ebugo) insert the compositional logic of that genre into the epic ballad. The logic of self-praise is based in an expected sequence of performances. A royal warrior began a military campaign by chanting his self-praise before royalty, proclaiming his individual identity and bold intentions. Ideally, after he fulfilled his promise in military action, he recited it again to identify himself as he received the king's largess. Nyakaandalo's warrior-like virtue achieves this ideal. The lines of praise repeated in her final speech complete the circuit: "My husband died as one./

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But in Ihangiro I made nine go with him" (385—385.1). Recited before the hero's corpse, king-like in the deadly dedication it inspires, the lines celebrate her achievement. The words appear first in her response to news of the hero's death (232—232.1) and then become a refrain, defining a verse passage that culminates in her address to the fallen hero (241-242, 243-243.1, 248-248.1): "Although you died as one,/ In Ihangiro I'll make nine go with you" (248—248.1). Between these recitations she did the killings that she promised. Her final self-praise completes the warrior-like trajectory. A similar sequence is cut short by the hero's death. The outcome he envisioned in his boast instead becomes his fate. His battlefield address to Hinda royalty begins such a sequence, but it is quickly reversed: "Just let me go cleave the little man (in two)" he declaims. But "When Kachwenyanja tried to cleave the little man,/ The little one cleaved his neck. It spilled out on the ground" (178—180). The repetition of "cleave" (oku-tema) neatly reverses the warrior's boastful thrust. Although a sequence with only a very short span, these lines define a pattern of boastful speech reversed, and they alert listeners to a similar occurrence in the very next lines of the epic. The formula reversed in those lines initially appears in the hero's self-praise. Transformed into a description of his own death, it changes further when quoted in the speech of others. In these lines the bard elaborates the thematic possibilities of praise by altering the genre's expected performance sequence and context. In the first appearance of the formulaic lines, Kachwenyanja identifies himself to Muhuumuza, a man from whom the hero asks directions. "Hear! The Spear of warriors, It kills on open ground. He rolls them in burnt and blackened grass." (54—56)

The flexible syntax of the second line enables the passage to take several forms. Its verb phrase "kills on open ground" is the predicate of the symbolic subject in the preceding line, "Spear." The verb phrase can also stand in parallel with that in the following line, "rolls them in burnt and blackened grass." This potential overlap occurs when the subject of "kills" is the same as the subject of "rolls." The formula may thus occur as a triplet (as here) as a couplet composed of the first two lines, or as a couplet composed of the second two lines. The formula next appears as a couplet comprised of the first two lines, as the hero concludes his self-identification to Nyakaandalo. "Hear! The Spear of warriors. It kills on open ground." (104—104.1)

Without a pause the heroine accepts the hero's proposal (104.2). It next occurs as a couplet based on the second two lines of the initial

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triplet. The lines describe a reversed realization of the hero's praise. Littleman cleaved the hero's neck: "He killed him on white earth. He rolled him in the burnt and blackened grass." (181-182, 183-183.1) In the burnt stubble of the fields prepared for cultivation, the hero's boast has become his fate, strengthening the pattern of reversal in the passage that immediately precedes this (178—180). Images in the couplet move from honor to disparagement in the contrast between white and black. The enemy warrior rolls the hero's corpse on the ground in black ashes, an act of defilement amplified by the whiteness of the earth on which he died. In this couplet the location "on open ground" (omu mbuga) has become "on white earth" (omu bilikwela) to enable this contrast. The same reversal of the hero's praise is encapsulated in the stranger's report of his death (211-211.1, 214-215). The praise formula next appears as the transition between the heroine's emotional response to the news of death (218—225) and her calculated preparations for revenge (228—243). Doubled imperatives invoke his persona as witness. By quoting his distinctive speech she adds the virtues of his identity to her own: "Hear! The Spear of warriors. Hear! It kills on open ground. He rolls them in the burnt and blackened grass." (226-227.1) Repetition also strengthens the unity of the first two lines, which praise the thrust of a dedicated warrior—Nyakaandalo's own emergent status. The imperatives also insist that the lovers are like king and warrior, the relationship indexed by the "Hear!" in the first appearance of the formula (54). Kachwenyanja's enduring presence calls her to heroic daring. Manipulation of the imperative form creates other thematic comparisons in the final encapsulation of the praise. Littleman declaims, having been asked by Nyakaandalo to identify himself, 279 . . 280 281 282 282.1 283 283.1

. "Yesterday at Lugongo, I killed a man with fair skin. He had sideburns and he had a beard. His name is Kachwenyanja. Hail! Spear of warriors. I killed him on white earth. I rolled him in the burnt and blackened grass."

284 285

"Hear! Spear of warriors. You man, (it's) you."

Littleman appropriates the hero's praise to his own. But he changes the open-

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ing imperative (282.1) from "Hear!" (Hulila!) to "Hail!" (Habuka!). Both imperatives invoke relationships with the king but from markedly different perspectives. "Hear!" was declaimed by an individual warrior brandishing his spear and claiming the space before the king to announce his identity. "Hail!" was offered collectively with deferential clapping of hands by the king's retinue (embaga) to welcome a king as he entered a group of subjects and took his position of preeminence. This substitution articulates Littleman's commoner, clanbased ethical knowledge. He evokes the regal persona of the fallen warrior, adding it to his own with the intonation of a low-born clansman who has gladly slain his social superior. Following closely, "Hear! Spear of Warriors" (284) is spoken silently by Nyakaandalo, reaffirming her loyalty and resolve. The single line is combined in an aside with her discovery, "You man, (it's) you." She reasserts the imperative "Hear!" articulating the royal analogy of their love, the heroic fusion of warrior ethics and clan-free romance. In her final speech, the heroine's poetic intermingling of genres mirrors the thematic syntheses in her deeds. Her soliloquy combines the self-praise declaimed by a warrior with the elegiac verse traditionally crooned by a woman in mourning (oku-chuld). The former, male genre constructs a social self with public virtues, while the latter, female genre valorizes an intimately known other. The former envisions accomplishment and reward, while the latter incorporates past beauty into a diminished present. The knowledge of the epic bard, like his narrative point of view, encompasses both. The findings on theme in Kachwenyanja, as those on style, illustrate the power of genre to refine interpretive methods. Defining boundaries and units, genre uncovers unexpected designs and illuminates the complementarity between collective expectation and individual achievement. Its interpretive power is focused by the lens of compositional logic, the form of truth and action in the heroic age of Haya epics. Exposition began in the favored compositional unit, the call, which contains the work's dominant themes. A single paradigm of components underlies not only this and other calls but also most episodes of the epic. Distinctive feature analysis of these similarly configured episodes reveals a consistent set of values and dimensions, which describe the ethical world of a heroic society. Distinctive feature analysis of narrative elements is the hallmark of structuralism, but there are fundamental differences in its use here. First, the phenomenon for study is initially a culturally specific, historical genre, rather than a single text or a purely analytic grouping, such as myths from a particular cultural region, which allows a borderless and seemingly unconstrained selection of data. Second, the present approach discovers a favored compositional unit for each genre. This defines the locus for thematic contrast-within-a-frame

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analysis avoiding the seemingly unconstrained selection of textual elements that sometimes characterizes structuralism. Another radical divergence from structuralism occurs at the analytic moment when the paradigmatic pair of "caller" and "person-called"—the ethical dyad that embodies a timeless thematic element—is catapulted into narrative time. The pair becomes reframed as two-thirds of a triad, the changing roles of which define chunks and explicate intuitions in temporal thematic finalization. The third member of the triad keys significant themes in represented action with his or her accrued meaning and moral presence—even though he or she may be absent from the scene itself. Characters are vehicles of meaning in narrative, through the identities and motivations they are given and the accomplishments and suffering they accrue. Their narrative careers model "structures of care" in which we all are enmeshed, and which—as Ricoeur points out, following Heidegger—constitute an experience of time more fundamental than clock ticks or calendar flips. Moreover, reflecting back on narrative (following Ricoeur's method) one perceives an audience's experience of narrative time to be produced not only by a measured tick of adverbs and verbal tenses, but also by the flow and halt and intertwining of represented cares. Intuitively felt chunks of story—the rhythms and trajectories of heroic care—are experiences of epic time made visible analytically by episode-to-episode transformations in role triads. At the level of the episode, atemporal thematic finalization is achieved when represented action adequately models a particular view of an heroic age. At the same level, temporal finalization means the extension or completion of semantic contrasts begun previously, and the initiation of others to be completed later. At a level midway between episode and the work as a whole, temporal finalization occurs when episodes cohere as thematic chunks. The work as a whole reaches finalization when oppositions resolved in the chunks through one-sided dominance return at the end to be resolved by the aesthetics of inclusion. Compositional finalization in genre is the foundation for understanding theme. The generically favored unit—locus of major themes, paradigm for thematic expression—guides perception of themes and their hierarchies of meaning. It also alerts an audience to an excess of significance that occurs when action or quoted speech goes beyond the expected paradigm. In Kachwenyanja, this excess results from the imposition of the compositional logic of another genre, that of self-praise recitation (eby'ebugo). In this text, the thoroughgoing, organic integration of self-praise suggests a level of artistic creativity and achievement that far surpasses generic adequacy. Whether the bard Muzee was the originator of this or he learned it from a gifted teacher, or he elaborated a line already begun by his teacher, we can never truly know. Comparison of other epic ballads and other versions of Kachwenyanja

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suggest, though, that each bard elaborates in a chosen direction: toward a profusion of carefully ordered words and images that flow forth in performance in a seemingly impossible feat of memory/invention (as in Habib Suliman's M.ugashd)\ toward the elaboration of erotic or other forms of sensually entertaining detail; toward a trim, muscular verse, almost unadorned, but insistent and affecting (as Justinian Mugasha's ~Ruki%a); or toward a style like Muzee's, rich in thematic and stylistic elaboration through quoted dialogue.

7 Summary and Conclusion

Aesthetic Genres in Society Where are genres? Are they only ideal frameworks, particular kinds of linguistic competences one uses to create and interpret utterances? Or are genres also texts out there—printed on paper, recorded in various media, or vibrating on the air-—which use those frameworks? I say they are both outside and inside, just as speech is. livery utterance is new, generated from linguistic competences of various lands, including genre; and a speaker utters it into an environment that already contains other utterances. The latter affect what the speaker says and how she or he is interpreted. Genres do this—they shape what is said and what is understood in situations that happen frequently in society. Genres are part of both the (always-growing) already-said and the (ever-changing) frameworks for creating and understanding. Of what importance is the ontological question of where genres exist? Its answer affects the practice of interpretation. If genres have a material existence and one's analysis includes both framework and texts, one has a responsibility to afford readers the space to view multiple texts from multiple directions, to address issues of theme, style, and meaning, and to describe the kinds of frequently recurring situations that make these generic texts useful. I have tried to do this with the examples of the interpretive method I have developed. This is not to say that all generic competence is explicit in texts. The process of compositional finalization is a key example of implicit knowledge that informs usage and interpretation, from implied propositions in the logic of proverbs to the generic intuition that helps a storyteller's stylistic bricolqge mark narrative structure. But the material existence of particular works is also crucial. Just as my own interpretive intelligence for Hollywood westerns is informed by a memory of High Noon, the understanding of an early twentiethcentury Ilaya audience was surely informed by exemplary texts of the epic bal222

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lad genre like the three included in this volume. But if genres are also frameworks, are they normative? Is a performer tethered by genre to the preformed understanding of an audience? I think I have shown that a master narrator can create a plot so involuted that a story like "Blocking the Wind" seems to spin on the edge of its genre. Generic rules do comprehend its narrative trajectory, but only loosely, for I think the multiplication of boundaries in that tale makes the way it tells its story qualitatively different from, say, that of the more linear tale of the girl in the leopard's sack. But the difference between the two is no more than that between Rx&t^a, with its doubled motivating call—one to the king, one to the clan patriarch—and Muzee's Kachwenyanja with its interwoven compositional finalization from the genre of self-praise. The rules of aesthetic genres do not seem normative in the way those of more official genres do. Their processes of ftnalization are elastic enough to allow creativity in the use of the artistic materials and techniques at hand. This is surely the case in stanzaic elaboration of epics as well. The contents and tools in generic memory help performers construct a dialogue between theme, style, atid composition that is rich and accommodating to their purpose. Performers draw on knowledge that inheres in aesthetic genres—treasure troves of content, lexicons of style, and matrixes of compositional logic. Audiences apply generic rules of thumb, attend to the dialogue between generic dimensions in performance, track emergent complexities and innovations, and help create a discursive event that is usually within accustomed horizons. Focus on this process of genre-assisted conception and active audience cooperation is an essential aspect of the interpretive practice presented here. Findings result primarily from texts recorded in genetically informed interchanges between performers and audiences, my own interchanges with the same kinds of people, and my observations of interactions between aesthetic dimensions of recorded texts. To this dialogue, an amply entertained stranger brings "outsideness" (Bakhtin cited in Moreson and Emerson 1990) a mode of creative understanding that can help comprehend wholeness in aesthetic works. Interpreting Haya literature genetically frames possible dialogues with nonAfrican literary traditions: epic, folktale, and proverb. Haya epic leads one to query Homer's Iliad, for example, about thematization of ethics strategically related to the state in heroic society. The state looms large in that magnificent work. War—the apotheosis of statehood—defines the universe of action in the Iliad. (Like war, some "police actions" also embody the state, like King Ruhinda's confiscation of Rukiza's cattle and the military skirmish in which Kachweiiyanja is killed.) Do AchiUes's anger and the myriad other emotions that motivate represented action in Homer's epic thematize institutional ethics and resistances to them inscribed in social bodies (like royal drumming in the

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warrior's heart and his new wife's clan-free love)? I have not found commentary on the thematization of the institutional ethics of the state in Homeric epic, but my reading of the Haya epic suggests it may be possible. Haya genres might begin a dialogue on still another continent by causing one to wonder whether there are particular genres in Native American narratives. Are there regular, differentiated ways of achieving compositional finalization, and do they have functional relationships to style and theme similar to those observable in Haya folktales with human protagonists? Does the sentence-based, bottom-up, linguistically oriented practice of the critics who have written about Native American narratives cause this generic dimension to disappear? Or is there a completely different kind of compositional finalization for narrative in Native America? An argument for the latter alternative comes from the domain of proverbs, which show a marked compositional difference between Native North America and most of Africa and Europe. Although proverbs undoubtedly do exist in Native American cultures, their logic seems very different from that of Haya proverbs and those from European sources that resemble them. Apache (Basso 1976) and Chamula (Gossen 1973) examples seem to resemble each other in their logic, which one might liken to an allusion, but not to the logic of opposed propositions present in Haya and other proverbs. As a framework for integration, a generic approach enables three powerful analytic methods to work together by orienting each with the other. In it, Propp's functional analysis of composition is directed unequivocally to historical genres, rather than to narrative in general (as Greimas 1983 used Propp's findings) or very broadly defined analytic genres (as Dundes 1964 and Haring 1972 used Propp's method). In the present context Propp's functional analysis becomes not an end in itself but a beginning of understanding composition's relationships with style and theme. Contrast within a frame oriented by generic composition moves from being a universal, culturally nonspecific, analytic tool to a specifically oriented one that can integrate bottom-up attention to linguistic details with a top-down understanding of the utterance as a whole. Moreover, it can be effectively used to study theme as well as style. Distinctive feature analysis in this methodological setting can treat thematic content at levels of entire utterances and contexts to illuminate the usefulness of genres at their points of performance in a heterogeneous social field. At an episodic, subutterance level it reveals both atemporal and temporal thematic chunks and wholes. In presenting the method and its examples I have tried to operationalrze genre as an interpretive instrument. I became aware of the full power of genre fairly suddenly and unexpectedly in the process of preparing epic ballad texts for publication. Having discerned the favored compositional unit of the call, and while using it to trace the threads of theme and style in the epics, I realized that dominant themes in Haya folktales with human protagonists bear a

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strategic relationship to the ethic:; of the patrilineal clan. It suddenly became clear to me that what is true for epics is also true for folktales: Dominant themes, which are invariably articulated in favored units, bear strategic relationships with the institutions whose power infuses generic places of performance in a heterogeneous social landscape. Moreover, just as the call reproduces contradictions that characterize ethical choice in a heroic age of state building, the thematically dominant attempted mediation episode in folktales invariably reproduces the ideological contrast between inside and outside, which is the characteristic discrimination in clan-generated knowledge, especially as this affects the social position of the predominantly female narrators. I had not realized these strategic connections. At the same time, I saw the unitary logic of compositional finalization in proverbs. These discoveries resulted from interillumination between methodologies, textual dimensions, and literary corpora generated by this generic approach. They resulted from being pointed at what to look for. An operational notion of genre points at "what to look for and specifies the tools for finding it. To be sure, all disciplines provide this guidance. But by recognizing the importance of compositional finalization as the achievement of a logical form that positions the cutting edge of genres used as a tools for living, the present approach calibrates the instrument of analysis itself to particular historical circumstances and produces surprising but, in retrospect, quite commonsense results, such as nonphonetic stanzas and a heroic age in eastern Africa. To conclude, I present a summary of the genre-powered approach as it can be used for narrative. It is a linear description, but the discovery of a mode of achieving finalization on one dimension is often assisted by hints from another, even beyond the necessary points of analytic feedback noted. Think of it as a recipe for the kind of reading I gave to Muzee's Kachwenyanja. 1. Set boundary conditions at the level of genre by identifying a body of similar utterances—a putative historical genre. 2. Do a Proppian functional analysis for a significant number of members of that putative genre to reveal its characteristic forms of achieving compositional finalization. Revise the boundary conditions as necessary. Note: Characteristic ways of achieving compositional finalization are identified by figuring out the purpose each episode serves with respect to an utterance as a whole; discovered patterns are often modified through feedback from stylistic and thematic analyses. 3. At the level of a single text, use compositional junctures as frames for a contrast-within-a-frame analysis to identify a set of metalingual stylistic features. Make a concordance for the features identified and plot their distribu-

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tions. Compare these distributions with the predicted compositional structure and revise it as necessary. Account for the multiple functions of particular features as in chapter 5. 4. At the level of genre, identify the favored compositional component that articulates dominant themes—an episode type in narrative. Note: The favored compositional component in epic ballads was identified primarily by attending to thematic fit, not stylistic elaboration (as in folktales), for epic style is poetic in some degree throughout. The favored status of the call rests on a detailed fit in several dimensions: Besides being a strong thematization of ethical knowledge that informs major institutions of pre-colonial Ilaya society, the call is the apex of a hierarchy of episodes that motivates and frames depicted action and is the paradigm of theme-articulating relationships that can be found in many episodes of texts in the epic ballad genre. (The favored episode in folktales, attempted mediation, meets the same criteria.) Themes that inform other episodes, such as the equilibrium-producing final epic engagement, do not consistently produce this intricate fit. At the level of genre, dominant themes are always articulated in favored compositional components. Tliis regularity makes making and getting the point a lot easier. Let the favored episodes in multiple texts define a set. Let each of these episodes be understood as a bundle of semantic features, and let the shared generic components of those episodes—relationships between characters, settings, important social boundaries, represented communication, ethical knowledge, etc.—be understood as the dimensions on •which those features can be arrayed. These dimensions define an envisioned generic world that represents themes dominant in particular social contexts of performance. Note: Although using a structuralist form of distinctive feature analysis on narrative episodes, this part of the method differs from that analytic tradition by being situated in a project that addresses linguistic style, narrative time, and performance context. 5. For a single text, use the characteristic paradigm of the favored compositional component to analyze the thematic finalizations achieved at all levels and to reveal the "structures of care" that create narrative time, as in chapter 6 (in this volume). Here genre is read inward to interpret an individual work. 6. Compare dominant themes across genres to reveal how they are instruments and effects of the power of local performance traditions that exist in strategic relationship to larger social institutions. Here genre is read outward to the social formation it helps shape. Note: In applying this method, remember the virtues of a critic are generosity, creative intuition, and a capacity to enjoy.

Appendix A Paradigm of Atemporal Thematic Coherence in Call and Call-Like Episodes (as represented in table 6.2)

Drums Male-female: Drums are heard as the couple lie together. Warrior-royalty: The warrior's ethical responsibility to the royal state informs his decision. Nonclan: The hero and heroine call each other "dear one," a marked divergence from clan-regulated domestic decorum. Royal state: The war drums call the warrior to serve the king. Self-knowledge: The hero fully comprehends that he must go to war. Speech: Speech is the medium of nonclan exchange noted previously. Sign: Drums are to be interpreted. Body: His attachment to the state is felt within his body as a beating drum; it marks his membership in the category of warriors.

Response

Male-female: The heroine destroys food to sever her relationship with her dead husband. Courtesan-other: The courtesan and heroine devise a plan. Nonclan: A blood feud is undertaken by a wife, not the dead man's patrilineage. Royal state: A courtesan prepares the heroine to act as a courtesan. Self-knowledge: The heroine embraces the role of warrior-lover with enthusiasm and resolve. Knowledge of other: Their plan is based on knowledge of external appearances and masculine appetite. 227

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Speech: The heroine's repeated promise becomes a central feature of the epic. Sign: Hairstyles and other forms of self-presentation are discussed and prepared. Body: The heroine's body is inscribed with strategic meaning as that of a divorcee desirous of marriage.

Orders

Male-female, courtesan-other: The heroine gives orders her mu^ana to have her husband received properly. Nonclan: The referent is the husband, mate in a non-clan-regulated marriage. Royal state: The mu^ana implicates the structures of the state. Self-knowledge: Being addressed by her name, I-laugh-knowingly, the mu^na's reply is "Knowledgc-is-within," an utterance which thematizes self-knowledge. Knowledge of other: The heroine knows how this should be done. Speech: The witty call to the muzana and her response foregrounds the importance of stylized speech. Sign: Acts of welcome signify welcome and a good wife's knowledge.

burial Male-female The heroine addresses her dead husband. Nonclan: The wife undertakes a blood feud, not the dead man's patrilineage. Royal state: The heroine speaks her boastful self-praise to the slain hero as a warrior does before a king. Self-knowledge: The heroine is resolute in her commitment to vengeance. Knowledge of other: The heroine knows a proper form of ritually burying the corpse, as she knew the escoteric marriage rule. Sign: The heroine symbolically buries the hero's corpse with a twig. Speech: The heroine's repeated promise becomes a central feature of the epic. Body: A corpse receives ritual attention.

Proposal 1—The hero's proposal to the heroine Male-female: A marriage is being sought. Nonclan: The proposal is conveyed outside clan practices of marriage. Royal state: The hero offers the same greeting to the women that he just gave the king; and the warrior's self-praise recitation, which usually has a court venue, is central in winning the heroine's hand.

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Self-knowledge: Neither hero nor heroine hesitates in decisions on the major ethical issue of marriage. Knowledge of other: The heroine complicates the hero's quest by displaying knowledge of marriage custom. Speech: The hero's self-praise recitation confirms his ethical worth. Body: The heroine notes the distinctive royal bearing of the hero, and he notes his individuatmir hairiness.

Dream Male-female: Wifely strategies and arguments about spousal slaps frame news of a new wife. Nonclan: The hero is called to marry through a process outside clan practice. Self-knowledge: The hero believes in his abilities to interpret dreams and is willing to persevere in a journey' on the basis of that belief. Knowledge of other: Me understands the meaning of the dream. Speech: His assymeincal exchange of terms of address with his wife contrasts with his later exchanges with Nyakaandalo. Sign: A dream is to be interpreted.

Omens Male-female: The verbal exchange involves male-female domestic relationships. Nonclan: When the hero requests wifely service due by clan rules, the heroine says she didn't come with a bag of seeds—she would have in a clan marriage. Self-knowledge: The hero knows he must go off to war. Knowledge of other: The heroine recognizes meaning in the signs, or (in the hero's view) practices the clever wiles of a previously married woman. Speech: The hero's self-praise notes their symmetrical exchange of address ("dear one") for the first time. Sign: Omens are to be interpreted.

Search—--'The heroine':; quest to learn the hero's fate Male-female: The heroine asks a series of men about her husband. Nonclan: The revealer of truth is a stranger, defined by distant origin. Self-knowledge: The stranger realixes his role by being free to tell the truth. Knowledge of other: Knowledge is the issue here, the revelation that will motivate the dramatic action of the remainder of the narrative.

The Powers of Genre

Speech: Ironic speech of the dissembling warriors begins a series of complex symbolic communications. Body: Aspects of the hero's appearance identify him.

Coda

Male-female: The passage celebrates the protagonists' love. Nonclan: The soliloquy remembers romantic love and symmetrical address. Self-knowledge: The heroine has established a heroic social status, transcending clan-defined love and female domestic roles, and she celebrates this. Knowledge of other: The heroine pointedly displays her knowledge of the use of language for praise and memorial. Speech: The figurative speech in this section synthesizes in praise the dualities of \vord and action, ideal and actual, love and death. The heroine performs two distinct genres—self-praise and eulogy (oku-chula). Body: Complexion becomes poetry in eulogy.

Wives Male-female: The request and its response characterize a spousal relationship. Clan: The hero requests domestic service due by clan-regulated domestic exchange. Knowledge of other: The younger wife exhibits a knowledge of domestic strategy that men must find blameworthy. Sign: The younger wife's outward zealousness is a sign of inward opposition.

Brothers-in-law

Male-female: Domestic matters of food and sex are involved. Clan: Joking between wife and brothers-in-law is part of clan-regulated exchange. Knowledge of other: The heroine displays her strategic knowledge of the ways of clan and men. Speech: The triple meaning in her invitations—to visit, to copulate, to die— embodies the. dramatic ironies of the episode. Proposal 2—Marriage offers Male-female: Marriage proposals structure the surface of events. Clan: Clan totems are the subject of the heroine's discourse.

Appendix A

231

Knowledge of other: The heroine ironically and strategically manipulates the symbols and appetites of men and clans. Speech: She deploys dramatic irony and ironic interpretation of figurative speech. Body: The dead hero's physical appearance again indexes his individuality.

Taunt Warrior-warrior: Taunting comes between warriors. Clan: The hero rejects the enemy's desire for blood brotherhood, fictive kinship emblematic of the kin-based clan system. Self-knowledge: The hero displays his total dedication to his warrior ethics, rejecting any relationship with the enemy. Speech: A peaceful greeting is hurled back as a warrior's taunt.

I Jttleman—His warning Warrior-warrior: Warning passes between warriors. Clan: Littlcman, a lowly figure here and also in Ejjki^a, phrases his warning in reproductive terms ("let me not sire misfortune for you") that refer to a clan's domain of regulatory power. Self-knowledge: The hero desplays his total dedication to his warrior ethics. Speech: The enemy's kind words have no effect on the hero.

Trophy Warrior-warrior: The symbolic act occurs within this dyad. Clan, Sign: The severed penis symbolically refers to the power of clans to regulate reproduction. Body: The act makes a rhetorical predication on the hero as a class of royal warriors—embodying its utter defeat. As a sign it seems a member of a set that marks the hero as a warrior; the set also includes his internally beating drums and an arrow recklessly plucked from his own breast.

ilinda—The hero's boast to royalty Warrior-royalty: The dyad defines the speaker and his addressees. Royal state: A warrior's boast to rulers marks him for future reward.

232

The Powers of Genre

Self-knowledge: The hero exhibits total dedication to warrior ethics, disregarding personal safety in pursuit of renown in battle. Speech: The hero's boast is self-praise before battle. Body: The hero proclaims his warrior status by plucking out Littleman's arrow and sucking the blood.

Beer Warrior-royalty: The dyad defines the speaker and his addressee. Royal state: The action occurs at court, where the hero acts on a warrior's prerogative to request beer from a king. Self-knowledge: The hero is certain that his status will be rewarded. Knowledge of other: The hero displays a knowledge of courtly speech. Speech: The hero's lengthy, formulaic greeting to the king precedes his request.

Appendix B Role Triads in the Articulation and Finalization of Temporal Thematic Coherence (as represented in table 6.4)

1. Dream—PRINCIPAL AND INTERLOCUTOR: Kachwenyanja and the dream bride. KEY: the co-wives. The hero's two substantial wives frame the dreamed call to him from an ideally beautiful bride, symbolized by a crested crane. Their characteristic domestic tactics described before the dream make the pair a meaningful contrast to the heroine and the romantic relationship that begins here. 2. Wives—PRINCIPAL AND INTERLOCUTOR: Kachwenyanja and the co-wives. KEY: the dream bride. The hero's address to his wives provokes a truculent response - a calabash scrubbed near to breaking, clothes infused with incense near to burning—that deepens the contrast between co-wives (interlocutors) and dream bride (now key). 3. Beer—PRINCIPAL AND INTERLOCUTORS: Kachwenyanja and the king. KEY: the co-wives. An interlude to find beer creates a contrast between the King's generous response to the hero's courtly address and a co-wife's previous irritation and stinginess. Praiseworthy court generosity further disparages domestic practice. The contrast is accentuated by the meanness implied in the man's father's name, He-who-hasn't-his-own Hasn't-hisown, which could be a way of curtly refusing a request. 4. Proposal I—PRINCIPAL AND INTERLOCUTORS: Kachwenyanja and Nyakaandalo and her sister. KEY: the king. The king keys the action through similarity. The hero sees the woman as "royal" (79). lie accords them royal honor, greeting first: with almost the same salutation he gave the king (86—compare 67). Royal stately tactics continue in his recited selfpraise, a genre that is proper for self-identification before a king. 5. Drums—PRINCIPAL AND INTERLOCUTOR: Kachwenyanja and the drums (the king). KEY: Nyakaandalo. The dream bride's romantic love contrastingly 233

234

The Powcis of Genre

frames the hero's answer to the Call. Summoned by the state, his warrior body responds more to duty than to the embrace of a loving, knowing bride. Her great, defeated love keys the strength of his allegiance. 6. Omens—PRINCIPAL AND INTERLOCUTOR: Kachwenyanja and Nyakaandalo. KEY: the drums (king). The drumming frames the hero's request to Nyakaandalo to help prepare his campaign. The hero mistakes Nyakandaalo's true interpretation of the signs as a loving ruse to keep him from going to war. The dedicated warrior's self-knowledge evoked by royal drums outweighs the woman's knowledge of the world. 7. Taunt—PRINCIPAL AND INTERLOCUTOR: Kachwenyanja and the enemy warriors. KEY: Nyakaandalo. The hero's honorific greeting and symmetrical address to Nyakaandalo key by contrast the hero's taunting refusal to greet the enemy warrior and his scorn of blood brotherhood. The warrior's ethic contrasts with the affection and caring epitomized by Nyakandaalo. In the bloody heat of battle, any humane significance is alien. The hero uses the final man he kills as a stool to sit on, transforming a person into an medium for prestigious self-display. 8. Littleman—PRINCIPAL AND INTERLOCUTOR: Kachwenyanja and Littleman. KEY: dead warriors. The dead warriors frame the interchange. Littleman's warning and his willingness to let the killer of his comrades live are signs of weakness. The hero intends to add Littleman's corpse to the others. 9. Hinda—PRINCIPAL AND INTERLOCUTOR: Kachwenyanja and the Hinda. KEY: Littleman. Littleman keys the wounded hero's address to the Hinda royalty. He is the referent of the hero's boast to "cut the little man in two." 10. Trophy—PRINCIPAL AND INTERLOCUTOR: Kachwenyanja and Littleman. KEY: the Hinda. Hinda royalty frame Littleman's cutting of the dead hero's penis, an act couched in the reproductive rhetoric of clan. This consummate predication of weakness challenges the military power of their state. 11. Orders—PRINCIPAL AND INTERLOCUTOR: Nyakaandalo and her mu^ana. KEY: Kachwenyanja. The frame keyed here is dramatic irony. Neither of the women realize that their preparations are meaningless in light of the hero's death. 12. Search—PRINCIPAL AND INTERLOCUTORS: Nyakaandalo and the warriors and the stranger. KEY: Kachwenyanja. The hero frames the action as the object of their search. His death creates the irony in the speech of the local warriors who respond to Nyakaandalo's inquiries. 13. Response—PRINCIPAL AND INTERLOCUTOR: Nyakaandalo and the mu-^ana. KEY: Kachwenyanja. The stranger's report of the hero's death frames Nyakaandalo's response. 14. burial—PRINCIPAL AND INTERLOCUTOR: Nyakaandalo and Kachwenyanja. KEY: Kachwenyanja. The dead hero is interlocutor as well as topic of Nyakandaalo's promise and the motivation for her quest.

Appendix B

235

15. Proposal 2—PRINCIPAL AND INTERLOCUTORS: Nyakaandalo and the enemy warriors and Littleman. KEYS: the mu^ana and Kachwenyanja. The unspoken presence of the muzana keys the tactical use of speech and sexual attraction. A succession of enemy warriors propose and are rejected on a pretext of clan incompatibility supposedly revealed in recited praise. Finally, Littleman reveals himself as the killer. The slain hero frames Nyakandaalo's interpretation of the warriors' self-praise. 16. Brothers-in-law—PRINCIPAL AND INTERLOCUTORS: Nyakaandalo and the brothers- and sister-in-law: KEYS: muzana, Kachwenyanja, and Littleman. Having killed Littleman, Nyakandaalo invites her brothers-in-law to visit her and receives a visit from her sistei-in-law. The courtly strategy that ironically uses tactics of clan discourse continues to be keyed by the muzana. From totemic incompatibilities supposedly revealed in praise in episode 14, the discourse shifts to joking relationships between in-laws made doubly ironic by the death of Littleman. M.Coda, part I—PRINCIPAL AND INTERLOCUTOR: Nyakaandalo and Kachwenyanja. KEY: Littleman's dead siblings. Having killed Littleman and his siblings, Nyakandaalo recites her self-praise before the corpse of Kachwenyanja. The topic of her praise is the the siblings. 18. Coda, part II—PRINCIPAL AND INTERLOCUTORS: Nyakaandalo and clanswomen and men. KEY: Kachwenyanja. Nyakandaalo uses women's elegiac verse (called simply oku-chula, "to mourn") to speak of the warrior and the connection between praise and memory.

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Index

agriculture 19 anachronism 97 analogy 116, 171 Aristotle 17 atemporal thematic coherence, defined 196 attempted mediation, as favored compositional unit in folktales 80 audience, role in performance 18 Bachwezi spints 21, 147, 150, 167 Bakhtin, Mikhail 4, 8, 9, 17, 37, 84, 85, 168, 223 banana leaves, as image 130 Bankango (sing. Munkango), non-Hinda dynasty 94, 98 Banquo's ghost 207 bardic knowledge thematized 200, 214, 216,219 Basso, Keith 224 Bauman, Richard 5, 6, 9, 15, 39 Bayango, a pre-Hinda dynasty 94 banana (courtesans, singular, mu^ana) 25, 106-107, 114,201 bee 128, 181 beer 84, 92, 93, 97, 122, 131 Beidelman, Thomas 144, 196 Berger, Ins 21, 167 Bko 167 blood brotherhood 104, 105, 106, 133, 142, 144, 145, 204 blood feud 23, 201 bodies, institutionally inscribed 201, 215 bottom up versus top down analysis 73

bow 102, 163 bnmlage 30, 74-75 bridewealth 131 Briggs, Charles 5, 6, 9, 15, 39 butter 112, 160

the call (in epic ballads) defined 86-87, 88 in Kachivenyanja 100, 126, 144 inMugasha 157, 167 in Rukisyi 132, 133, 142, 145 call-like episodes 202 Carlson, Robert 92 cattle 19, 20 as plunder 108 as prestige 112 as symbol 138 fire for 133 in bndewealth 131, 160 in state structures 21, 22, 25, 132, 136, 137, 142, 145 terminology for 133 character dyads, articulate atemporal theme 199-200, 201 character triads, articulate temporal theme 206 key role, types and function 209, 210 patterns of succession in 211 roles in, defined 207 character types, in folktales 80 childlessness, obuchweke: lack of male heir 24, 95, 148,155,157 clan brother (mulumuna) 95, 114 clan patriarch 131, 132, 133, 137 241

242

Index

clans and subclans 22

control agricultural production 20 role in the state 22—23 coffee 26, 105, 109, 111 color symbolism 106 commonsense results 225 compositional finali/ation ambiguity in 143

as generic shape of truth 35 as logical form 35, 48

as proverbial logic 47 at local level, proverb 40, 42 at level of context, proverb 39—40

at level of entire utterance, 39, 88 compared with deep structure 45 critical in understanding theme 220 descriptive adequacy of, in epic ballads 88 explicit in some proverbs 45 in epic ballads and narratives compared 88-89

in folktales 49-50, 53-54, 62, 71 111 Kachwenyanja 125—126 in Mugasha 166—167 in proverb context, implicit 43

in proverbs and narrative compared 35, 40^1 m Ruki^a 141-143 of one genre encapsulated in another 220 simple shape transformed in varied performances 35, 48

single versus double negation in proverbs 44, 48 context as broad horizon and vivid present 5, 83, 84, 168-169, 172 in Bakhtiii's approach to genre 37 internal to a text 6 of epic 6-7, 84, 86 of folktales 171 of proverbs 170, 171 contextualization 5, 6 and entextualization 15, 17—18 as stylistic fmalization 39

in a folktale performance 62 contrast-within-a-frame 49, 81, 177 Cory, Hans 24, 94, 127 crested crane 92, 112 Daiiforth, Loring 55 Dauer, Sheila 7, 26, 62, 167 dialogics, as inclusion of one utterance in another 8—9 dialogue and monologue 18 between elements in a work of art 14 discursive formation 85 distinctive feature analysis of episodes 198-199, 203-204 oriented by compositional fmalization 49, 64, 80 reveals world of heroic society 219 dog 42 domesticity 90, 108, 118, 119, 122 dominant theme 12, 28-29, 31, 32, 143, 144, 146, 224, 225, 226 in epic 145-146 in folktales 49, 71, 81-82 in proverbs 41, 42, 43, 47, 48 Dostoevsky's novels 17, 18 double conditioning, principle of 85 drum 43, 131, 133, 158,200 economy, precolonial domestic 25 embedding, in compositional sequences

55,63 Emerson, Caryl 15, 17 epic

African 84 and heroic society 83 and the state 88 dating of 86

Homeric 87, 170 Mande 87 epic ballads defined 84 Kabundu Gulikiile 168 Kachwenyanja 88, 89, 91-125, 133, 135, 139, 143 Kai/aba&8, 138 Kaiyu/a88, 129,138

Index Kqjango 88 Kilenty (Kachivenyanja) 89 Kitekelem, 114, 138 Mbali OlugaNtyo N^aliva 88, 138, 139 Mugasha 88, 112, 129, 130, 132, 147-165, 170 OmutiMuhata 168 Rukiqt 7, 88, 90, 104, 126, 127-140, 170

thematic content of 20, 25 ethical knowledge 20, 80, 100, 117, 142, 171 ethics distributive 87 of clan 20, 24, 25, 32, 46, 132, 133, 136, 142, 144, 145, 167, 171, 172, 216 of nonclan 200, 201, 203, 204, 205, 213 of the state 20, 22, 23, 25, 132, 144, 145, 167, 172 relative and nonuniform 43 excess of significance 220 fart 43, 67 favored unit 81 as thematic locus 198, 200 Feza, Abdallah 7,13 field research 6, 13 and translation 11 on epic ballads 7 on folktales 7 on genre 8 on proverbs 7-8 finalization, as a critical concept 17—19 kinds and levels 37 Fmley, M. I. 87 fishing 20 folktales closing formulas, quoted 53, 62, 70 narrator's moral (meaning in context), quoted 61—62 opening formulas, quoted 51, 56, 65 songs in, quoted 52, 57, 58-59 folktales presented Blocking the Wind 65-70 Have You Not Seen Luhundu? 51—53, 71

243

The Glistening One 56-62 Foucault, Michel 32, 85 Ganda language 162 genre as body of texts 3, 11 as classification or taxonomy 14—15 as collective memory 15, 223 as competence and performance 222 as contextualization and entextualization 16 as descriptive of a particular world 15 as discursive practice 15-16 as form-shaping ideology 3, 4, 6, 16 as framework 3, 4, 15 as ideology of form 83-84 as intertextual reference 5, 6, 9, 15, 16 competence in, explicit and implicit 222 completes underspecificd referent: 6 dimensions of, relationships between 40-41, 47-48 in Native American narrative 15, 73, 224 material existence of 222 mediating history and literature 83—84, 85 normative 223 primary and secondary 8—9 read inwards and outwards 83, 177 where do genres exist? 16-17, 222 gluttony 43, 71, 80, 171 Gossen, Gary 224 grass 94, 128, 134, 135, 156-157, 181 greetings 26, 104, 167 Grzybek, Peter 40 Habib Suliman (epic bard) 144, 147, 166,221 hair 92, 98, 112 Hanks, William 5, 35 Haring, Lee 54 Hartnoll, M. M. 24, 127 Hasaii-Rokem, Galit 40 I laya language (Luhaya) 19 heart 43, 128, 136 heroic age and society 84, 86, 87, 223

244

Index

heterogeneous social field 83, 86, 169, 170 Ilimba, clans of cattle herders 134 Hinda95, 98, 130, 134, 167 Hollywood western 222 hunting 102, 114 Hymes, Dell 15,73 hyperbole 131, 145, 168 hypergamy 25-26, 172

lamentation 110, 140 land ownership 23-24, 139, 169 layering, in composition 55, 64, 71 leopard 47, 57, 62, 63, 80 Lcvi-Strauss, Claude 144, 196 lines, sung and poetic ix, 178, 193

love 111, 117, 122 Luo 21 Lwamgira, F. X. 169

Iliad 223 inequality, in greeting 26

Maclntyre, Alasdair 87, 145, 170

inside and outside 55, 62, 64, 80, 171

Mafeje, Archie 20 Malinowski, Bronislaw 144

institutional conflict 86 interlacustnne states 20-21, 134 interpretation

and dialogism 10 and dialogue 11, 13 goals of 3, 4 lands of 3 presentation of evidence 36 intertextuality, as dialogic reference 9 irony 42, 119, 131, 168, 210, 214, 216 Isheshe (also Sesse, Nsheshe), islands 90, 149 Ishumi, Abel 147

Mannheim, Bruce 10 meaning, and context 81

metaphor 5, 38, 39, 115, 117, 118, 129, 144, 145, 196, 204 method

as integration of analytic strategies 224 compared to structuralism 199, 204— 205, 219-220 feedback in 225 presentation of performance texts 222 operatioiializing genre 224—225 summarized 225-226 mctonym 130, 145

Jameson, Fredric 3, 4, 11, 83 Johnson, John 84

Mieder, Wolfgang 42, 48 millet 65, 84

Kagombola 7 Kaijage, Frederick 95 Kayango 94, 95 Kimuli (spirit) 161 kingdom of Ihangiro 94, 106, 129, 130

mourning (okti-chula) 219 Mugasha (fisher god) 146 as servant at high god's palace 169 as hero of social difference 167—168 cult of 169 Mugasha, Justinian (epic bard) 127, 141, 221 Mukajuna, Laulelia 50, 65, 84

Moreson, Gary 15, 17

kingdom of Kiharija 98

kingdom of Kiziba 108, 147, 169 kingdom of Kyamutwala 94—95, 98, 147 kinship 128, 171 Kishwa (epic bard) 137 Kisiraga, Winifred 12, 13, 56, 62, 84 knowledge and self-knowledge 199—200,

201 Kuipers,Joel 17

Labov, William, 78 Lake Victoria 90

Mukama Lukamba 166

Mulokozi, Mugyabuso 13, 84, 89, 145, 150 Mutembei, Richard 12,13 mutilation 106, 135 mu^ana. See banana Muzee (epic bard) 144, 221 myth 144, 146, 169, 173

Index narrative analysis of, compared to that of proverbs 49 as form 13, 28, 29, 32 genres of 7, 11, 15 time in 197, 220 number symbolism 111 Obeng, Samuel 8 Oedipus myth, analysis of, referred to 197, 204 oku-gaya "to belittle" 46, 146 outline, of volume's contents 31—32 outsideness 223 pauses (phrasing) 50, 89 performer, innovation by 82 plot moves (compositional sequences), elaborated and combined 55 power discursive and/or institutional 10, 15, 20, 21, 23, 24, 32, 39, 196, 200, 201, 214, 225, 226 interpretive, of genre 3, 4, 6, 14, 15, 219, 224 praise 118 elegiac praise 122 of antelope 115 of fish 152 of hippopotamus 159 of Kagolo 155, 157-158, 162, 163, 165 of lightning 152 of locust 159 of Mugasha 147, 165 of nsenene grasshopper 159 of thunder 159 of Wamara 149, 150 of wind 152 of women 148, 154 of vagina 119 Propp, Vladimir 40, 49, 55, 89 proverbial logic: parallel and opposed propositions 42, 44, 47 proverbs discovering an underlying logic of 35 generic characteristics 36

245

implied contrast in 38, 42 in Native North America 224 kinds and levels of finalization in 38 other approaches to 36 subgenres: enfumo and omivi^p 37 utterance as unit of analysis 36—37 proverbs discussed A rolling stone gathers no moss 48 A single drum does not sound in the living room 43 An enfula who does not borrow shames his or her subclan. 22 Bad news is brought by a traveller. 108, 109 Brewed by the tattered, drunk by the well-dressed 93 He who doesn't travel says, 'My mother cooks (best)' 47, 83 He who hasn't his doesn't travel 94 It rots, not fallen 011 by rain; so what about if rain falls on it? 46 It's the one cooked for by a stepmother who eats too much 43, 44 It's the ugly one who farts at a funeral 43 John is eager to please 45 Many a mickle makes a muckle 48 Not-being-able-to-reach-around-itself dresses a dog in its collar 42 One drum does not sound in the living room 44 One paddle leaves early 44—45 One straw finishes the honey 44, 45, 48 She (or he) makes you travel at night— you thank her (or him) in the morning 45 Speaks-not- with-children brews beer by himself 93 The cow that goes slowly drinks well 38-39, 42 The one coming from the forest says, 'It's [the spoor] of a leopard'; do you say, 'It's [the spoor] of a human'? 47 The one who laments more than the mother is the one who killed the child 44

246

ndex

proverbs discussed (continued) The salt is tasty, the Abashomwa stink 171 There are [real] women who lack children; so what about Nyante who doesn't even menstruate? 46 They advise the one whose heart listens 43 They love the wood; they hate the woodsman 171 Wamala is never finished 149 When the ant kills is when he sees his relatives 171 Whoever hits your eye—you hit his nose 165, 169 pun 111, 130, 149 reciprocity, as theme 46 Rehse, Hermann 11 Reining, Priscilla 24 Ricoeur, Paul 197, 220 royal advisers (balamala) 135—136, 139 Ruta, Odilon 13 Rutayuga, John 13 Scheub, Harold 55 Schmidt, Peter 21, 167, 169 segmentation, thematic and compositional 202-203 self-control, as theme 43 self-praise recitation (eby'ebugo) 90, 103, 110,111, 114,115-116, 122,144, 201,216-219 addressee of 116 compositional logic of 216 of grasshopper 159 of Mugasha 147 semantic contrasts thematize institutional knowledge 199 semantics overrides syntax 213 scmiroyal status (obu-fula)22, 130, 172 sex 110, 122, 139 shrine 149 snake 138, 149 social disadvantage 43 speech genres, represented in epic 200

spirit possession 115, 117, 150 spit 130, 157 squash plant, as metaphor 129 stanzaic figures (local stylistic finalization) and thematic chunks 194 association with composition 195 formed with combinations of nonphoiietic features 186 compound stanza, defined and illustrated 189-190 compound stanza in aab 99, 101, 110, 111, 112,113 compotmd stanza in aba 101, 107 deduction used to discover 185 difficulty 111 recognizing 185 existence of, questioned 185 extrapolation of shape in 188—193 in African narrative and praise poetry 185-186 interpolation of lines in 187—188 interpolation of words in 187 mirror stanza 95 mirror verse 91, 93 not a canonical system 195 outline of poetic system 186 phonetic versus noiiphonetic features in 185 six principal shapes 186 syntactic devices transform stanzaic shapes 186-193 stanza, defined and illustrated 188—189 stanza formed alternately 96-97, 101, 110-111, 124 stanza in aab 91, 93, 95, 96-97, 101, 107,108, 111,119,124 stanza in aabb 96 stanza in aba 91, 93, 101, 103, 104, 105, 107, 112, 123, 124 stanza in abab 96, 99, 110, 123 stanza in abb 91, 105 straddle compositional segments 193-194 stylistic excess 195 verse, defined and illustrated 190—191 verse in aba 91, 95

Index verse passage, defined and illustrated 191-193 verse passage in aab 105, 109, 113, 119 verse passage in abac 109 verse passage in abcb 113 state building 21—23 strategies and tactics, in discourse 85—86 in epic: praising and disparaging narratively 205 structuralism 49, 80-81, 143, 199 stylistic features adverbials 63, 181 asides 184 co-occurrence of features 182 create stylistic finalization 178 discovery of patterns in usage of i 84 disjunctive and conjunctive uses o( 183 distribution of 29—30 distant past tense 182 double verb 182-183 intonation 63 locutives 183-184 LOUD-soft alternation, repetition 63 multifunctionality of 29-30, 178 number sequences 184 past perfect tense 181-182 praise names and praise poetry 184 proverbs 184 recent past tense, unmarked in epic 181 referential function of 178 use of to mark compositional units 63, 178-181 used in narration, not quotation 181 vocables 184 stylistic finalization at level of context, proverb 39 in quoted proverb 39, 45, 46 may mirror composition 45, 46 subgenre 54 subordination 25, 86, 87, 169 Taylor, Archer 48 Taylor, Brian 20

247

Tedlock, Dennis 10 temporal thematic coherence 197 compared with atemporal 205—206 develops by significance accrued in characters 197 discontinuous sequences in 214 finalization of theme at three levels 197 framing of episodes by accrued significance 197 thematic finalization at level of context, proverb 38—39 at level of entire utterance 38, 213-214 at the level of episode 212 at the level of episode groups 206, 211,212-213 at local level, proverb 38 in quoted proverb, ratio of acts and conditions 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48 in Kachivenyanja 122—123

segmentation in, diverges from composition 213 themes ambiguity in analysis of 204 as instruments and effects of epic discourse 196 as instruments and effects of power 86, 172 as representations of knowledge 143 and cultural values 196-197 and meaning, differentiated 4—5 building blocks of 100 coherence in 101 as compansons 90, 100, 162-163 defined 83 dimensions of 200, 201 elements indicated by composition 198 explication of, as true test of method 197-198 hierarchy in 144, 202 institution-related 144 paradigms of 198-199, 202 resonance in 84 Todorov, Tzvetan 78 totems 95, 114,216 Tracey, Hugh 166

248

Index

transcription, conventions of 50 tribute 23, 130 Turner, Terence 210 twins 94 Urban, Greg 9, 10 utterance, and dialogics 8, 9, 36 violence, depicted, as ethical discourse 118,215-216 virtue 100, 116, 118, 144, 145, 200, 204, 210,213,215,216,218,219 voice 118, 123, 139 Voloshtnov, V. N. 85

walking stick 56, 62, 112, 127 water, as metaphor 129 wedding ceremonial 132, 158, 160, 161 wind 65, 152, 157 witchcraft 44 women and marriage 98, 100, 136, 137 bride 92 co-wife 92 status of 24, 25 wife 90 Yankah, Kwesi 8 Zumthor, Paul 88