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Field Techniques for Collecting and Processing Oral Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Philip D. Curtin
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Extract

Oral tradition as a source for African history has been subject to a certain amount of controversy in recent decades. These discussions have clarified both the uses and the problems of oral data; they have.raised important methodological issues, but they have also beclouded others. At the higher theoretical levels, the debate has involved the philosophy of history and the nature of historical knowledge. These issues are both interesting and important, but the discussion is not very helpful to the working historian.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , July 1968 , pp. 367 - 385
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

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References

1 This article was originally prepared for the Conference on Oral Data for African Studies, sponsored by the Oral Data Committee of the African Studies Association and held at the University of Wisconsin on 1–2 June 1967. In the present version, it incorporates suggestions and revisions recommended by participants at the Conference. While I have attempted to outline a consensus of views as to the most acceptable field techniques for historians collecting oral traditions in Africa, the opinions expressed here should not be construed as those of the Oral Data Committee or the African Studies Association.

To keep the record clear, I should also report that my own field experience in Senegal in 1966 has played an important role in the recommendations I have to make. Field-workers in other parts of Africa may find they need appropriate modifications. A tape collection made during this period of field-work, containing approximately 40 hours of original recordings and 60 hours of taped and annotated translations into French concerning the historical traditions of Bondu, is on deposit at the Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire, Université de Dakar, and at the Archives of Traditional Music, 013 Maxwell Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind. 47401. In either case, the collection is open to use by other scholars, and the Archives of Traditional Music are prepared to furnish copies of any of the tapes at cost.

2 See Vansina, J., Oral Tradition. A Study in Historical Methodology (London, 1965), 2–18, for a review of ethnographers' opinion on the subject.Google Scholar

3 Murdock, G. P., Africa: Its Peoples and Their Culture History (New York,1959), 43.Google Scholar

4 This essay makes no attempt to deal with the important problems of interpreting oral traditions. These are not essentially different from problems of interpreting any other type of historical data, as discussed in any of the several manuals of historical method. The authoritative work concerning oral data in an African context is J. Vansina, Oral Tradition It should be considered a must for Africanists.

5 See, for example, the monumental work of Maurice, Delafosse, Haut-Sénégal-Niger, 3 vols. (Paris, 1912).Google Scholar

6 At the time of writing, new tape recorders were coming on the market at a rate guaranteed to make specific recommendations obsolete by the time this essay appears. At present, however, three recorders would be the normal complement for work in Africa– perhaps two of the portable Philips-cartridge type (the second as an assurance against complete breakdown) and one reel-type machine for making copies of the original tapes.

7 For analytical purposes, a different typology will probably serve better. See, for example, the one provided by Vansina, J., Oral Tradition, 142–64.Google Scholar

8 New York, 1961.

9 See, for example, the narrative of Ayuba Diallo of Bondu, published by Thomas Bluett in 1734, or that of Osifekunde of Ijebu, published by D'Avezac-Macaya in 1845, both reprinted in Curtin, P. D. (ed.), Africa Remembered (Madison, 1967).Google Scholar More recently Rupert East published Akiga's Story (Oxford,1939)Google Scholar and Mary, Smith produced Baba of Karo: a Woman of the Muslim Hausa (London, 1954).Google Scholar

10 See for example, Goldstein, K. S., A Guide for Field Workers in Folklore (Hatboro Penna., 1964),Google Scholar and its bibliography of handbooks for folklore. Samarin, W. J., Field Linguistics (New York, 1967), is the most recent handbook for linguists, and it also contains an extensive bibliography. For anthropology, the standard list of desiderata for ethnographic reporting remains the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Notes and Queries on Anthropology (6th ed., London,1951)Google Scholar which should be supplemented by more detailed advice for field-workers in Paul, B. D., ‘Interview techniques and field relationships’, in Kroeber, A. L. (ed.), Anthropology Today, pp. 430–51 (Chicago, 1953),Google Scholar which is generally applicable to research in a variety of fields. Bruno, Nettl, Theory and Method in Ethnomusicology (Glencoe, III., 1964) contains a chapter on field-work and a bibliographic guide to other manuals. The journal Ethnomusicology also publishes articles from time to time which are designed to serve as guides to certain aspects of field-work. Other disciplines, however, such as geography, economics, political science, and art history still have no field manuals applicable to research in Africa.Google Scholar