His Excellency the Masquerader
He serves
To ford between swamp and sand
He serves!
The bridge stands,
All that stone and steel put together,
It stands;
But bolts drop,
And steel that should be blue
At close grip
Shows brown…
And for such service, songs more than
Water and sand:
In Ojoto
So they worship the masks,
Altho’ in season-
The mask! O take off the mask! And behind?
What wind! What straw!
J P Clark
O tapster of soured wine, from the Sheath of the withered Palm,
Draw wine for me in the Pipkin-Jar that was tapped by my own tapster.
Draw wine for me in the little flask that makes a man stagger and sway.
Draw wine for me in wine-jar hot-mulled and dregged of its lees.
When I am well wined, I stand demanding my keen-edged sword,
My keen-edged sword with its guard-leaves of steel and its hilt of mtupa wood.
My keen-edged sword that hangs from the peg where the war horn and trumpets
hang.
Where are slug the state-drums and the rack-edged spears of battle.
Traditional (from the Swahili)
One cannot examine the poetry of Black Africa without citing illustrations of the affinity between the oral and the scribal traditions. Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka mentions intertextual engagements that can be found both within and across genres and forms – many ways in which the writers and the traditions dialogue with each other.
Soyinka himself, is among many writers who offer good examples of this. Last week, we discussed oratorical traditions such as the work of the griot and of the praise singer. In the examples presented here we see how poet J P Clark exhibits a strong influence from oral traditions and oral literature. We also see another example of a poetic trend found in both oral and written literature – that of the ‘drinking song’ – which in this case is also a praise song in oral poetry just like “To Palm Wine” which we discussed last week.
Oral literature evolved in human societies along with the development of language long before the advent of writing. After writing came written literature, but oral literature persisted in both literate and non-literate societies, so that both forms of literature coexist. The oral forms are, of course, very close to traditional society, and very often the literature arises out of rituals, spiritual phenomena, beliefs, mythology and other cultural practices. These will therefore be reflected in the oral literature that the communities create.
Prolonged coexistence of these and written literature in the same societies causes them to influence each other. African literature, and in particular, the Black literature south of the Sahara, is particularly enriched by the strength of the traditional societies and the coexistence of the oral and the scribal. Furthermore, many foremost African writers consciously exploit the oral and traditional forms.
Clark does it in his poem “His Excellency the Masquerader”. Clark, whose full name is John Pepper Clark, is a Nigerian writer, academic and critic who has been associated with the University of Ibadan and University of Lagos in Nigeria, and Princeton in the USA.
The poem is a praise song, dedicated to the masquerader. The masquerade is an important tradition of spiritual beliefs and ritual practice. Forms of the masquerade were taken to the Caribbean by enslaved people and are known in this part of the world, even though those forms that still exist lost their religious significance long ago.
Since Clark was born in the Niger Delta, the masquerade would have had some impact on his life and consciousness. The religious practice is strong in eastern and south-eastern Nigeria, including the Kalabari region. The practice there is very close to what has survived in Caribbean, especially Jamaica. Clark writes:
“In Ojoto
So they worship the masks,
Altho’ in season”
Ojoto is in East Nigeria where there is ancestor worship – a system of religious beliefs within the Ibo or the Ijaw (Ijo).
There are significant factors here. The poem hails the masquerader as “His Excellency”, and with good reason. It is a praise poem, so it is expected that its subject will be praised and exalted. But it is not just flattery or adulation. Note the line “they worship the masks”, which is true. The masquerader dances in the religious ritual wearing a mask which is a representative of an ancestor, deity or god. So, when the masquerader puts on the mask to dance, he is no longer himself as an ordinary mortal, but he becomes the god. He is treated as ‘majesty’ – he is revered, feared, and indeed worshipped by all who encounter him.
Note also “Altho’ in season”. The masquerader with his mask will only appear at a particular season. A band of masqueraders will appear on the streets as representatives of the gods who have come to visit. All the people of the community or town will run away when they see them coming, hastily clearing a path for them to pass. Mortals are forbidden to come into contact with them, and if they do, they will be beaten by the whips carried by the masquerade dancers.
As far as the mortals are concerned these are deities, not men wearing masks and costumes. Interestingly, these bands of masqueraders as they reappear in Jamaica, are called “Jonkunnu”. Some attempts to trace the origin of that name cite the French term “gens inconnus” which means “unknown people”. There is more than a grain of truth there because the identity of the masqueraders in Nigeria are hidden from the public. They are usually members of a secret society of high-ranking men in the community, and no one is supposed to know who they are when they appear in the band on the street; thus, they are unknown people. But more than that, they are mystical – they are not mortal, they are spirits.
This tradition of the praise song is taken from the oral literature. A good example is the untitled incantation from the Swahili language, which is also typical of another tradition – that of the drinking song. These are known across the world and across centuries of time. Learned members of the Roman Catholic order in Europe wrote poems in Latin in praise of drink in the Middle Ages. Similar verses existed in the oral poetry of Scotland in the eighteenth century. The most famous of these is the one Robert Burns collected in the field and made into the universally acclaimed New Year’s song “Auld Lang Syne”.
Today, the chutney tradition in Guyana and Trinidad is lively – buoyed by a never-ending series of drinking songs, many of them in the praise-singing tradition. Rum is revered in these songs. They reflect a village society in which rum is a panacea or a comfort in times of near-tragic experience. At the same time the songs praise it as the main vice of revelry, fun and high living.
The Swahili oral poem is a dedication to palm wine, perhaps the most popular, indigenous, strong alcoholic drink in Africa. It echoes the Yoruba oral poem “To Palm Wine”. These combine the praise song with the drinking song. Both of these genres hold an elevated place in the oral and the written poetry.