No.2.8:Oral History
Who Are These People?
Sometimes when I am around my relatives, they start telling stories from their childhood and naming family members that I never had the chance to meet in my lifetime. Yet the stories are vivid and I felt as though I was there. I could see each moment happening in real time.
Our ancestors had to rely on the repetition of telling stories orally in order to preserve what they could recall of their history. During a time when they were not allowed to read nor write, telling stories was a method of preserving their history.
The retelling of stories verbally gives a sense of personification to the words. The tone, voice inflection, facial expressions and hand gestures gives texture to stories. Stories that may have been passed down from generation to generation. Stories that may have never been written down on paper. Stories of ancestors who are no longer physically with us.
These stories don’t have to be related to family history. These stories could be folklore intended to share life lessons.
The telling of these stories were also delivered through songs. Negro spirituals were songs Black enslaved people sung as they labored. It is believed that these songs were filled with codes or hidden messages. Messages only those who sung them understood their meaning. A commonly known spiritual, “Wade in the Water”, is often acknowledged as being a spiritual with a critical hidden message. It has been assumed that the lyrics referenced how those who were escaping slavery travelled through water to reach freedom as well as the horridenous journey over the Atlantic Ocean from the Motherland to the not-the-land-of-the-free. The song was a call for those who were prepared to run from their life of enslavement. The song delivers this message through referencing stories of the Bible bringing a sense of hope. Hope that a higher power would protect them in their journeys. Masking the message with biblical terms kept white slave owners oblivious to the intent of such spirituals. The crossing of the Jordan River was code for going to freedom or back to Africa. It is thought that references to Moses were code for Harriet Tubman. Harriet was referred to as Moses as she led the conduction of the Underground Railroad. Just as Moses led the Hebrews to freedom in the Bible.
The origins of telling stories this way came from Africa. Griots were West African storytellers or oral historians. They told stories verbally and through song. Despite the attempts to erase African traditions during the slave trade, the art of story telling wasn’t lost. It was used as a means of survival. It became the basis for poetry, jazz, blues, gospel, rap and R&B music.
This method of preserving our history is just as important as archiving written history. Our memory stores our mental treasures and fears. It’s one of our first abilities to retain information. We verbalize our thoughts before we know how to fully write a sentence. It’s a natural inclination for us to be storytellers. Whether we express stories in conversation or through song, oral history is a part of our culture and tradition.
So who in your family or local community is the storyteller?
