from Africa Today Volume 50, Number 2

Excerpt from

The Back Without Which There Is No Front

Kofi Anyidoho

I was embarrassed to find that I could not share with my own people what I was supposed to be doing rather well. It did not matter much that my poems were allegedly being read "all over the world." All over which world? whose world? Were my people part of that world?

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Using as its point of reference the principle of "continuity" fundamental to Ewe conception of development and of life itself, this paper draws on the author’s personal experience and testimony to establish an organic relationship between Ewe oral tradition and poetry written in English. The article examines contradictions surrounding the use of colonial-heritage language and culture as the basis of creativity and general education in Africa. It demonstrates the challenges of creative work in colonial-heritage languages and the benefits of original work in African languages that draws on models from the oral tradition; however, given that African cultural practice is primarily oral, the paper acknowledges the need for using modern technology for transmitting African literature, especially poetry, through recordings of the spoken voice.

Introduction

The story is told in oral tradition of the Ewes in Ghana that in their migratory journeys to their present homes, probably the most important single step they took into the future had to be done walking backward. It is said again and again that to escape from the tyranny of King Agokoli and the walled city of Notsie (in present-day Togo), the Dogbos, as they were then called, had to break out at night through a secret opening in the great wall and then proceed toward freedom by walking backward for a considerable distance away from Agokoli.

Oral tradition tells us that Agokoli’s final task for the Ewes was a demand that they weave ropes made of clay. It is also said that before setting this impossible task, the king had decreed that all Dogbo elders be killed. It would appear that his order was pretty much carried out, except for one family, which managed to hide away its venerable old man. This was the man who advised his children to tell the king that they were more than prepared to produce as many clay ropes as he cared for, provided he made available to them an old sample. "Go tell Agokoli," he is reported to have said: "Ka xoxoawo nue wogbea yeyeawo do." (It is on to old ropes that new ones are woven.) It is also said that when it became obvious that Agokoli felt so humiliated by the response that he was ready to persecute and execute several Dogbo leaders, it was this same old man who provided his children with the master plan for their historic escape.

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