First, what is oral literature? It means spoken literature, or literature by word of mouth, which makes it a controversial term. Scholars like J. Ong argue that it is a contradiction in terms since the conservative view is that ‘literature’ should only refer to what is written. But the term has gained currency especially in Africa where it is taught in schools as part of cultural heritage. Its characteristics are those you find in the spoken word, narratives, recitations or songs which are imaginative enough to qualify as literature. There is a lot of reliance on performance – it’s only through performance that oral literature comes into being; for instance, you have to sing for the song to be there. Interestingly, oral literature also goes out of existence as it comes into existence; figure out a situation such as in speech where you cannot go back to what you have said, if we are talking about the ideal situation where technology does not intervene with recording gadgets. For this reason, some characteristics of oral literature will include mnemonic devices (aids to memory) such as the use of formulae, repetition, reference to real-life situations (“it’s as far as from here to that tree”,rather than ‘”it’s 100m away”; the car “kicked” the tree, instead of “crashed”; the aeroplane is “ndege”—“bird” in Kiswahili and other African languages, some creature we can relate to rather than an alienating machine), use of traditional knowledge such as myth, ritual, proverbs, folktales, and communal participation. Some examples of oral literature include, the oral narrative, sometimes referred to as the folktale, myths, explanatory tales, ogre tales, trickster tales, dilemma stories, historical tales, legends, including the epic. There are also types such as songs and chants, rhymes, performance of musical traditions, festivals, drama and ritual, beliefs and superstitions, proverbs, riddles, puns tongue-twisters. To have a feel of oral literature you can read books which are based on the spoken word, like The Bible, Homer’s epics and The Epic of Gor Mahia (on Kindle), attend traditional festivals or just listen to people in conversations.
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