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174 THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTHliterature, because it takes charge, because it is resolve situatedinll::1i:HlIH::, tales, epics, and popular songs,in time, begin to change. storytellerswho recited inert episodes revive them andincreasingly fundamental changes. There are attemptsbattles and modernize the types ofstruggle, the heroes' names, andthe weapons used. The method of allusion is increasingly used.Instead of "a long time ago,"they substitute the more ambiguousexpression "What I am going to tell you happened somewherebut it could happen here today or perhaps tomorrow." In this respectthe case ofAlgeria is significant. From 1952-53 on, its storytellers,grown stale and dull, radically changed both their methodsof narration and the content of their stories. Once scarce, thereturned in droves. The epic, with its standardized forms,reemerged. It has become an authentic form ofentertainment thatonce again has taken on awell what it was doing when it began svstematicstorytellers after 1955.The people's encounter with this new song of heroic deedsbrings an urgent breath of excitement, arouses forgotten musculartensions and develops the imagination. Every time thestoryteller narrates a new episode, the public is treated to a realinvocation. existence of a new type of man is revealed tothe public. The present is no longer turned inward but channeledThe storyteller once again gives rein toand turns creator. It even happens• a transforma timsuch as outlaws or drifters, are rediscoveredClose attention should be paid to the emergencenation and the inventiveness of songs and folk tales in anized country. The storyteller responds to the expectations ofthepeople by trial and error and searches for new models, nationalmodels, apparently on his own, but in fact with the support ofON NATIONAL CULTURE 175his audience. Comedy and farce disappear or else lose their appeaLAs for drama, it is no longer the domain ofthe intellectual'stormented conscience. No longer characterized by despair andrevolt, it has become the people's daily lot, it has become part ofan action in the making or already in progress.the congealed, petrified forms loosen up. Woodwhich turned out set and poses bythe thousands, starts to diversify. Theor tormentedmask comes to life, and the arms are raised upwards in a gestureof action. Compositions with two, three, or figures emerge.An avalanche of amateurs and dissidents encourages the traditionalschools to innovate. This new stimulus in this particularcultural sector very often goes unnoticed. Yet its contribution tothe national struggle is vitaL By bringing fuces and bodies to life,by taking the group set on a single socle as creative subject, theartist inspires concerted action.national consciousness has had a somewhatsphere of ceramics and pottery. Formal­IS abandoned. Jugs, jars, and trays are reshaped, at first onlyslightly and then quite radically. Colors, once TPclTirol-p,-lber, governed by laws oftraditional harmony,ing the of the revolutionary upsurge. Certain ochers,certain blues that were apparently banned for eternity in a givencultural context, emerge unscathed. Likewise, the taboo of representingthe human face, typical of certain clearly definedregions according to sociologists, is suddenly lifted. The metropolitananthropologists and experts are quick to note these changesand denounce them all, referring rather to a codified artistic styledeveloping in tune with the colonial situation. ThepV'"'Iprl"c do not recognize these new forms and rush toIt is the colonialists whoA memorable exbecauseit." r'.;.;