African Communication: Sounds, Humans, and Visual Objects

Abstract

Africa south of the Sahara has been characterized by its orality, i.e., as societies without writing systems. In actual fact, however, field research reveals a number of phenomena which function to record messages and events, although they may not appear to at first sight. In this article some of the methods the author studied in Africa are presented: the proverb-based greetings and the drum language of the Mongo, the naming of children and the transmitting of messages by knotted cords among the Tembo, and the suspending of objects representing proverbs by the Lega. These practices exemplify the rich array of methods that nonliterate societies have for transmitting messages formally. Societies without writing might be thought of as societies where communication is always done in prose with no set form. Quite the contrary, the members of such societies resort to formal methods using proverbs, etc., to ensure communication synchronically as well as across generations, as if compensating for the lack of writing systems.