13th Congress of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research

Presentation Abstracts

JAMES, Adeola Abike

Women in Guyanese Folk Narratives: a re-evaluation

The study of women's literature has yielded new interpretations of old texts and the recovery of previously unknown written works by women writers. As well as enriching and illuminating various areas of intellectual endeavours, the scholarship has become very exciting.

This desire to know more about the ‘other text’ has intensified our historical search for complete understanding. It has led, particularly in places where most of the inhabitants enjoy a history of the written word only recently, to the oral tradition being taken more seriously. As we use the oral tradition to re-interpret our history, to further explicate our culture, it can also help us to understand some of the life-modes that seem to have been handed down from generation to generation.

This paper is a study of Guyanese folk narratives to examine specifically the roles played by women, both as traditional story tellers and as personae in the narratives, to see what light these shed on patterns of relationships among men and women in our society today. The study is based on a body of over fifty narratives collected between 1981 and 1985 from different parts of Guyana.

The stories, generally characterised as ‘Nansi’ stories, are quite well known, although a recent attempt to collect from young school children met with resistance. It was explained to me that it is deemed as a sign of backwardness to own up to a familiarity with these old stories in the age of television. This is all the more reason why we must continue to do research into the oral narratives and prove how very much they are embedded into the fabric of our lives today.