Overview Of Indigenous Literature, A Survivalist Art

Indigenous literature, as a survivalist art, means that this literature has always existed in Africa since time immemorial immemorial times and surprisingly not waning, its impact is still felt, oral transmissions of the Nigerian experience is still popular,  in spite of many decades of the introduction of literacy.
Before 1914, there had flourished literature in various languages spoken in what is now called Nigeria. In the North Arabic literary scholarship was the vogue, poetry blossomed in Arabic or Ajani.
The Hausa version of the Arabic language, while in the south traditional literature held sway, described in many ways as oral literature, orature, folk literature, oral tradition etc.
As it is today, to write a piece of African literature without the injection of African traditional materials is like preparing a soup without thinking of salt. African oral materials found even in snippets confer authenticity on the modern African literary heritage. Thus, Achebe, Clark, Ike Amado, etc are today remembered, among others, for what they have made of orature, which they inherited from their different cultures.
It has been pointed out that literature in the Northern part of Nigeria is traceable to Ajani writers, who were essentially elitist and religious. More over, they largely wrote poems, while showing no real interest in novel and drama traditions. The reason was that poetry was used to convey their religious bent, while prose and drama are by their nature given to secularism and entertainment.
Christian missionaries played a role in instigating Hausa literature, however their output were focused on proselytising literature written in both Ajani and Boko scripts. Similarly, a newspaper like Gaskiya Tafi Kwabo, first printed in 1939, published in Hausa, has played stringent role in advancing literature in Northern Nigeria.
No mention of poetry writing in the North is complete without reference to Shehu Usman Danfodio, who lived in the 19th century. He is said to have composed 480 poems, some of them short, ranging from eleven lines to 450 stanzas. He also wrote books in Arabic, while his poems were written in Arabic or fulfulde and later translated in similar poetic form into Hausa. His son, brother and sister also wrote various numbers of poems.
There were also the scholars who wrote poems in Hausa in addition to their outputs in Arabic and fulfulde. As there was virtually no print media in the Hausa land of the 19th century, the scholars had their poems written on plain sheets of paper in local ink and published by being recopied by their disciples and students. Koranic blind beggers recited them after congregational prayers in mosques, market places where they found keen listeners.
The establishment of Translation Bureau later Literature Bureau in the 1930s saw to the production of the first set of Hausa novels, writers like Abubakar Imam, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Bello Kagara, Mohammadu Gwazo etc, published novels. They freely made use of the oral traditions in their native technique.
Similarly, Dr R.M. East who first headed the translation bureau, edited and published in 1930 six Hausa plays in which five of the plays were folktales made into drama and the sixth one, the dramatisation of Bayirida legend.
In 1953, the North Regional Literature Agency (NORLA) was established to augment the excertions of the literature bureau. NORLA saw to the compilation of the anthology of the poems of some important 20th century Hausa poets such as Sa’adu Zeingur, Mu’azu Hadeja, Alhaji Aliyu Namangi, etc.
After seven years period in 1959, NORLA was disbanded and its role later taken up by Gaskiya Corporation and much later by Northern Nigeria Publishing Company (NNPC) which was responsible for the flourishing of writings between 1960 and 1967. Not only did NNPC republish NORLA, titles, it published new Hausa novels like those by Umaru Dembo, A. Katsina, Garba Funtua and Abdulkadir Dan Gambo.
In 1980, NNPC ran a creative writing contest which saw to the publication of three submissions adjudged to be the best. In 1980, the Triumph Publishing Company was established by the Kano State Government which not only published two Hausa Newspapers, but brought out assorted books of various interests.
Literature in Igbo language was first encouraged by the Christian missionaries which needed a handle to spread Christianity. The church in 1840 directed Rev. J.F Schon (German) and the Yoruba Ex-slave, Samuel Ajayi Crowder, to study certain African language which could assist their evangelistic missions on the Niger. They selected Hausa and Igbo. Igbo was found by Rev. Schon to be difficult while preferring Hausa.
Schon managed to publish a Grammer of the Igbo language in 1890, but a greater work in Igbo language was done by Rev. Crowder and his fellow missionaries. The cooperative efforts of Baptist missionary named Clark and an African American called Merrick saw to the second collection in 1948. S.W. Koelle’s polygotha was published in 1854, in it , there were 300 Igbo words given in five different dialects.
Dr William Baikie published his self account of his expedition into Igbo land named the Igbo Expedition, Crowder’s Isoamaibo primer first published in 1857, later reprinted in 1927 and known today as Azundu, could be said to be the foundation of Igbo literary origins in the modern sphere.
In 1933, Pita Nwana, from Ndizogu in Imo State published the first Igbo novel entitled Omenuko which soon superseded Azundu in its educational functions as generations of school children and learners at Adult Educational Centres read it for its wit, volatile humour and its insistent in oral overtones. The sayings of Omemuko became something like the John Ploughman’s talks.
The next Igbo novel emerged thirty years later, precisely in 1963, titled “Ije Odumodu Jere” (The Trip made by Odumodu), written by Leopard Bellgam in the same year D.N Adiarh Published ‘Ala Bingo’ (Bingo land) however, none of these two novels matched Omenuko in terms of its popularity, gravity and extent of acceptability.
In the last 30 years, many Igbo plays and poems have been issued by well known publishing companies, including the Igbo plays of A.B Chukwueze and the Igbo poetry collections, edited by R.N. Ekechukwu and E.N Emenanjo in the 70s and 80s.
One writer whose Igbo novels have helped to shape Igbo literature is Tony Ubezie. His novels are memorable and touch at the base of human, social and environmental psychology. His interesting novels in Igbo largely titled in proverbs include, ‘Ukwa Ruo Oge Ya O Daa’ (When The Bread Fruit Ripens, It Falls), ‘Is I Akwu Dara n’ala’ (A palm fruit which falls on the ground), ‘Juo Obinna’  (Ask Obinna), ‘Nmiri Okueji Egbu Mbe’ (The Hot Water With Which Tortoise Is Killed), ‘Ukpaka Miiri Onye Ubiam’ (the oil bean which had fruited for the poor man). By the time the prolific writer died in 1994, he still had several unpublished Igbo titles.
However, any mention of the development of the Igbo literature without a mention of the singular efforts of the late Maazi F.C Ogbalu is faulty. He devoted over forty years of his life to the promotion of Igbo studies, using his press at Onitsha. He published his own books on the Igbo proverbs, Idioms, riddles, customs and tradition, poetry, fictions and several books for primary and secondary schools.
Literature in Yoruba follows the same pattern of development as Hausa and Igbo. If Ajayi Crowder, the Yoruba Ex-slave played such a prominent role in the founding of Igbo literature, one imagines that by the time he took on Igbo, much development has taken place in his Yoruba Language. This was largely due to the influx of the liberated slaves many of who were literates into Yoruba land a little before the middle of the 19th century.
There was also the influence of the establishment of Christian missions, Primary and secondary schools whose products soon acquired the art of reading and writing. Although the Yoruba Renaissance, which was stirred by the ex-slave started in the 1880s, the book in Yoruba history by Rev. Samuel Johnson completed in 1897 and published in 1921, could be said to be the proper take off point. Most people who claim now to be knowledgeable on Yoruba history only narrate  Johnson, what is now known as Igbo culture and tradition was first mooted in that book.
It was not until 1939 that D.O Fagunwa’s “Ogboju-ode ninu Igbo Irunmale” (The Skillful Hunter in the Forest of spirits) a long prose narrative in the tradition of Yoruba folk lore was published, those who could not read Yoruba had to wait for Wole Soyinka’s translation of the story under the title, The Forest of a Thousand Daemons.
Some thirteen years later, precisely in 1952, Amos Tutuola, writing in quaint English, published the palm wine Drunkard, it was hailed in Europe and America, but distasted in his country. He wrote just as Fagunwa did, except that his medium was not Yoruba, but his tales which were linked artistically to yield the palm wine Drunkard were essentially Yoruba stories. Since Fafunwa, other writers who wrote like him in the Yoruba language include Ogundere, Omoyajowo, Fatami, etc. Others who wrote in the realistic tradition included I.O. Delano, who published his first Yoruba novel in 1955 and his second book of fiction in 1963. Since then, there have emerged the novels of J.F Odunjo, Afolabi Olabimtan, Adebayo Faleti, T.A Ladele, Ola Owolabi, Kola Akunlade, A Oyedele Yamitan Awoniji, among others.
It is therefore no gain saying that recent writers are even more aggressively adept at appropriating folk materials; Osofisan, Okri, Osundare, Erekwe, and Ohaeto, etc have in various proportions incorporated indigenous languages and folk elements in their writings such that their rootedness is not in doubt.