The Importance Of Folk Literature

communicative context” (5), as indeed, Darigan who states that the source or the distinction of folk literature matters less. What matters and which we should be grateful about is its extant nature; the very availability of it for our careful exploitation. Quoting him, he says ‘… it’s not really as important to know the ‘who’, ‘where’ or ‘when’ as it is to know that as teachers, librarians, and parents we are enormously fortunate to have such a varied and rich selection of traditional fantasy at our fingertips…’ (1).

“The UNESCO Proclamation of Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” of 2001 provides a supportive statement of the reliance of written literature on oral documentations when they define oral literature (subsumed

To support his view, Kamara delves into the works of prominent writers like Chinue Achebe, Amos Tutuola, and Elechi Amadi leaving bare the rich cadence of their folkloric interior. Terrell, et.al (2004) shares strongly with the conception of emphasis on culture, subculture, and tradition, stressing on references to a “society’s values: what the people values; what they laugh at; what they scorn, fear or desire…”

Karppe (2011) comments that ‘the function of folklore is to reconstruct the ‘spiritual history’ of the human race…’ (qtd. in M’bayo, 2011:18), following Breckenridge’ assertion (18).

So folklore or my topic term, folk literature, is revealed to mean that which is transmitted orally; a term used by anthropologists or folklorists to define that mode that determines the language, the morals, (sense of right and wrong), preoccupations that are rife among non-literate societies, where cultural base requires an oral tradition for propagation. Even though they are sometimes used interchangeably, Young (2004) and others go further to qualify the term ‘folk literature’ by distinguishing between it and folklore. To them, “material folklore (following the division of the two by some scholars) means or includes those lores, which do not have a physical existence, but find expression through language, oral or