ORAL HISTORY: MIGRATION AND LOCAL IDENTITIES - Academia

Migration and Narrationso that it wasn’t any longer possible to detect accretions (in Henige1974, p. 376, quoting A. M. Shah, and R. G. Shroff (1959).History and the perception of time:between accounts and performanceOrators of court history, namely the griots, have a stake in themodes of detention of knowledge, in the negotiation of the historicalpast as instrument of power, reference, and prestige. They also have astake in their professional status as vehicle and guardian; if not alwaysin a position to make history. They have secured a particular niche ina pool of voice-holders animated with diverse aims. Theirs were multistrandedand projected within the categorical perceptions of professionalpossibilities; griots could make and unmake kings by invokinghistory as the source of legitimacy: “to tell the past was to persuade thepresent” (Lentz, 2000, p. 195; Lonsdale, 2000, p. 205). 5The practice of history by academics and performers revealsa striking contrast in aims but also in the use of available tools torecount history. While academics speak to an audience of a timelessperiod (an audience outside the historical actors); historical narratorsare strongly aware of and motivated by the need to elicit an emotionalreaction from a historically involved audience, one that “must findits resonance in the collective consciousness”. Relevance is thereforefor them a vital concept as indifference could mean jeopardy of theirmeans of living (Jewsiewicki, 1986, p. 9-10).On the other hand, placing history as “a competition in civilisation”,performed historical accounts contextualise culture with a viewof comparing legacies and achievements on a wider scale, thus expandingboth the audience and the thrust of historicity beyond purely historicalborders and projecting useable ideas into the future (Longsdale,5Anthropological responses to criticism from post-colonial historians—asto their indulgent use of oral accounts as wholly relevant sources—hasbeen that part of the benefit of using these accounts lies in the fact thatthey provide historical or at least past (conventional) justification topresent social structures and politics.109