Siwu Literary Traditions an Ethnographic Biographical Study of Performance Genres

Abstract

The values of African indigenous literary traditions, rooted in the many African languages and arts of African societies constitute the soul of these societies in terms of culture, religion, and indigenous knowledge. Literary traditions that are expressed in language(s) have functioned socio-culturally, to keep the African societies together. With the growing social change, and the dwindling fortunes of indigenous African languages, most especially the minority languages, there is an urgent need to scientifically study the cultural significance of the literature in these languages and document it or forever lose the literary and artistic legacy inherent in them. Siwu is one of the Ghana Togo Remnant Languages in the Oti region in Ghana, and it is some its literary traditions that were identified and studied in this project. Siwu language has different literary genres (dirges, ceremonial poetic recitations, and ritual public performances) intricately woven into all ritual gatherings, most especially during funerals, celebrations, and the enstoolment of traditional political officeholders among others. Verbal artists, creatively use the Siwu language to engage their audience in songs and recitations, often in the form of call and response. Some of these verbal arts, in which words are in performance, in the voice of an artist, for different functions are on the verge of extinction as a result of non-practice and social change. The Eʋe and English languages pose a threat because their usage at public functions take precedence over Siwu. The study examines the performance of Siwu verbal arts, especially during funerals, their functions, their paralinguistics, aesthetics, the performer, performance space and how the creative language draws from the ecology of the study area (eco linguistics).