THE MILITARY SYSTEM OF BENIN KINGDOM, c.1440 - 1897

visitors. The argument often advanced by historians concerning the use of sources has beensummarised by Peter Kosso: “History is not possible without appeal to the value ofdocuments as messengers from the past, and without the organisation of the information theyprovide in accordance with temporary schemes governed by the ideas of historical time andhistorical process.” 78 Thus, the historian is able to select evidence and to create evidence onlyfrom the sources which constitute historical data. Among the various kinds of historicalsources oral tradition occupy a special place. 79 As Vansina points out, “they are messages, butunwritten; their preservation entrusted to the memories of successive generations of people.” 80As opposed to all other sources, oral tradition consists of information existing in memory; “itis in memory most of the time, and only now and then are those parts recalled which the needsof the moment require.” 81 For non-literate African societies, the value of oral tradition ashistorical evidence demands above all, patient and understanding of the material as regard itsnature and its limitations. A great deal of time has to be spent refining methods for thecollection, preservation and analysis of oral tradition.From the 1960s when African history affirmed itself as a university discipline, the useof oral tradition in research and methodology was also a parallel development in Africanhistoriography. This parallel development evolved because written documents for mostprecolonial African states and societies were scarce or did not really exist. Therefore,historians were obliged to develop new techniques in the collection and analysis of oraldiscourses on the past for the representation of historical knowledge. This methodologicaldevelopment was a movement pioneered by Jan Vansina. 82 After the Fourth InternationalAfrican Seminar held in 1961 at the University of Dakar, Senegal, 83 the ideas of themovement began to flourish as it also began to demonstrate the potential historical value oforal tradition in the search about the African past. 84 David Henige argues that the interest inoral tradition by scholars who were actually trained as historians was a new departure but itwas more than just an accident. 85 According to him, the belated stirrings of interest stemmed78 Peter Kosso, 1993, “Historical Evidence and Epistemic Justification: Thucydides as a Case Study,” Historyand Theory Vol. 32, p.24.79 Jan Vansina, 1985, Oral Tradition as History. Oxford: James Currey Ltd., reprinted 1997, p.xi.80 ibid., pp. xi-xii.81 ibid., p.147.82 A historian who trained both as a medievalist and an anthropologist, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.His book, De la tradition orale (Tervuren, 1961) included much of the results of his doctoral dissertation (1957).83 The scientific approach of the movement which focused primarily on the techniques of the historian, waspublished in J. Vansina, R. Mauny and L.V. Thomas (eds.) The Historian in Tropical Africa. London, Ibadanand Accra: Oxford University Press (published for the International African Institute) 1964.84 See for example, Ralph A. Austen, (ed.), 1999, In Search of Sunjata: The Mande Oral Epic as History,Literature, and Performance. Bloomington and Indiana: Indiana University Press. See the contribution of IvorWilks, “The History of the Sunjata Epic: A Review of the Evidence,” pp.25-68.85 David Henige, Oral Historiography. London: Longman Group Ltd., 1982, p.20.28