- Edgewood Staff
- Thursday, May 26, 2022
Storytelling is an emotive art form dedicated to expressing histories and experiences in front of an audience while drawing upon archaic cultural traditions. By way of their recitations and interpretations of narratives passed down from storyteller to storyteller over many centuries, get a peak into how Darion McCloud, Eboni Ramm, and Dr. Nancy Tolson continue to shed light on the uniqueness of African and African American storytelling in this contemporary era.
Meet A Few of Our Local Storytellers
Since the birth of civilization, every culture has used stories to make sense of the world around them. African and African American orature has many unique features that set them apart from the oral traditions of other cultures. By way of their recitations and interpretations of narratives passed down from storyteller to storyteller over many centuries, Darion McCloud, Eboni Ramm, and Dr. Nancy Tolson continue to shed light on the uniqueness of African and African American storytelling in this contemporary era. Many of the stories they recite have not only traveled through time, they have traveled thousands of miles over African deserts, savannahs, and coasts, and across the Atlantic to the Americas. These centuries-old tales and ancient knowledge, wisdom, and beliefs thrived in the souls of their African dwellers before ultimately being transmitted to their descendants on American soil.
Storytelling is an emotive art form dedicated to expressing histories and experiences in front of an audience while drawing upon archaic cultural traditions.
Storytellers aim to teach meaningful lessons by captivating listeners with art in motion, guiding their audiences in overcoming adversity, temptation, frustration, and pride through narratives that instill meaningful morals and values. They further aim to promote literacy and educate children and adults on the importance of historical, cultural, and familial identity. With the recent resurgence of traditional African and African American storytelling, McCloud, Ramm, and Tolson have become modern-day griots, a term referring to storytellers and performers who preserve history and traditions through stories and songs.
A Brief History of African & African American Storytelling
The history of storytelling is a story that has traversed cultures and continents since the beginning of man's time on Earth. It does not get more primeval than Africa, the origin of modern humans. African storytelling is an oral tradition involving a marriage of visual and auditory concepts to depict the present while interweaving mythical ideas to evoke the past. Griots and other storytellers in ancient and present African societies do more than tell fantastical narratives. They embody the substance of the stories by utilizing rhetorical devices such as repetition and personification and musical expressions like call and response. These techniques engage the audience and help storytellers recount the tales from memory. Storytelling is a communal activity in African societies, where griots employ narratives to chronicle their culture's historical experiences and personalrealities, skillfully weaving authentic cultural memories with their imaginations. Ancient familiar metaphors and symbolism are personified and structured into songs, riddles, proverbs, and rhythmic repetitions of words and employed by griots to mesmerize their audiences. This interplay between the literal and the figurative teaches people truths and equips them with messages that help them navigate a world they have yet to understand.
Many ancient African folktales, myths, and legends often feature animals to aid listeners in pondering the parallels and true essence of humanity's relationship with the life forms we share the world with. One well-known African folktale involves a hare trickster protagonist whose stories reflect on the interplay of truth and deception and the repercussions of the decisions people make in their everyday lives. The trickster African hare folktales traveled from their origins in Africa to the Americas by way of enslaved Africans. African folk stories changed shape and evolved through time as enslaved people retained the same themes as older tales while infusing their own unique twists. For instance, the enslaved African descendants altered the African hare folktales into what we know today as "Brer Rabbit." This act signifies the power and resilience of orature in preserving one's cultural heritage. Even though our enslaved ancestors did not have external freedom in the face of oppression and retribution, they did hold something priceless: freedom of thought. With the freedom to think as they pleased, the enslaved ancestors could cleave to their storytelling traditions and control the stories they told amongst themselves.
Watch & Listen to the story below of "Anansi the Spider" created by DeBria Robinson of Richland Library Blythewood!
The Future of Storytelling
Today, we live in a world where plenty of people bear untold stories that they may never get the opportunity to share with others. That is where Richland Library Edgewood's Oral History Project comes in. Our focus is to seek out unique and intriguing stories and digitally capture people's oral histories for future generations to learn from and enjoy. Everyone has a story within them, whether a family history, folklore, personal recollections, songs, or other oral expression traditions. Living traditions must continue to survive and adapt to modernization's challenges while also preserving distinctively cultural storytelling patterns and blending them with contemporary creative approaches.
In recent decades, there has been a societal shift toward embracing personal and cultural narratives and rediscovering long-forgotten oratory traditions, with organizations such as StoryCorps and Humans of New York documenting the accounts of thousands of everyday people for the enjoyment of mainstream audiences. We must acknowledge, respect, and preserve oral storytelling to foster self-growth and self-discovery in today's youth and adults. Thanks to modern-day griots, Darion McCloud, Eboni Ramm, Dr. Nancy Tolson, and the Edgewood Oral History Project, folktales, fables, songs, personal anecdotes, and other oral traditions will never be lost or forgotten.
We all have a story to tell. Email us at EdgewoodOralHistoryProject@richlandlibrary.com, or stop by to learn about Richland Library Edgewood’s Oral History Project and how you can share your story.