ORAL HISTORY: MIGRATION AND LOCAL IDENTITIES - Academia

Migration and Narrationconcerns. What is raised here is the issue of the vulnerability of oraltradition to alteration, manipulation, and distortion. While tales ofcosmological origin bear certain continuity in time, tales of origin,migration, and primacy—in supporting or refuting claims to power,wealth, social categorisation, and prestige—tend to reflect differentiatedstakes and interests attached to these particular issues. The fluidityand shifting character of identity allows for variations in accountsof ethnic (identity) formations and the ways in which ethnicity spreadacross boundaries and historical circumstances (accounts of origin andaccounts of migration).It is therefore interesting to note that the quasi-uniformity ofaccounts of origin in the Mossi case reveals less about the existence ofa social consensus than it does about the relative success of the dominantpolitical group to maintain its national and exclusive version ofhistory as a strong source of legitimacy. Although there are two majortrends, with a considerable chronological difference of a few centuries,both display convincing historical coherence. On the one hand, theLarhlé Naba favours the dating of the beginning of Mossi kingdomsin the twelfth century, while Fage brings it towards the end of the fifteenthcentury. The first one is also the one favoured by Delafosse andTauxier, whilst the second one has been adopted by Michel Izard insubsequent research. Chronology to this day remains a bone of contention.On the other hand, however, genealogies differ very little inboth foreign and Mossi accounts. In all of the available lists for theOuagadougou kingdom, the few discrepancies which have been notedrevolve around the inclusion or exclusion of one or two names. Genealogies,unlike the history of states or societies, stand a better chanceof being remembered with accuracy, regardless whether particulargenerations of kings and chiefs choose to falsify the past by introducingor excluding names from the list. Court historians are particularlydevoted to preserving intact lists of kings and princes by reciting themfrequently. Ki-Zerbo notes, with regards to this, that griots at the palaceof Abomey recited the royal genealogy every day from the founderto the last one.116