Things that Don't Come by the Road: Folktales, Fosterage, and Memories of Slavery in the Cameroon Grassfields

摘要

Oku adults have a straightforward rationalization for the existence of folktales:nthe frightening cautionary tales of the child-eating monster K∂ηgaaηgu serve tonwarn children not to go to the fields or to stray too far from the house withoutntheir parents. But this rationalization is belied by the fact that adults in thisnchiefdom of the Cameroon Grassfields do not tell folktales to children.nRather, folktales are most often told by children amongst each other, with nonadult involvement, and they are consequently learned by younger children from older ones.n1nThis is an unusual situation inWest Africa, where the norm isnfor adults to tell folktales to children. For all we know, adult-to-child storytell-ning may have been the normal practice in the Grassfields in the past, but if itnever was, this practice has now passed into desuetude, and today adults looknwith mild scorn on folktales ( f∂ngaanen, ∂mgaanen pl.) and generallynremain aloof during storytelling sessions.n2nStorytelling in the Grassfields isntherefore a child-structured form of play in Schwartzman’s (1978) sense: it isnan activity mediated by children without adult input. Prior to the introductionnof schooling in the Grassfields, children used to be made to guard the cropsnagainst birds and monkeys, an activity that left them to their own devices innthe fields for long periods of the day (Argenti 2001; see also Fortes 1938;nRaum 1940). In some cases, children actually slept in small shelters that theynbuilt in the fields, and they would consequently stay away from their homesnand adult supervision for days at a time. It was in this context, away fromnthe censorious gaze of adults, that children’s illicit masking activities developedn(Argenti 2001). It may also be in this context that children were able to indulgenin prolonged bouts of storytelling without fear of reproof by adults, in whoseneyes children should be seen but not heard. Today, children no longer guardnthe fields, and they have therefore taken to telling their folktales at home.