Telling Tales Preserving the Art of Ethiopia’s Folkloric Tradition

Ethiopia has enjoyed a centuries-old tradition of oral histories that depict the lives of characters for the sake of promoting a particular moral or ethical lesson, especially for young children. However, scholars note that this tradition is slowly dying, especially in an increasingly interconnected world in which young kids are exposed to stories from other cultures and countries, sometimes to the exclusion of traditional local stories. Some artists and storytellers are trying to preserve this tradition, but it is proven to be a more difficult task than some may think. EBR’s Meseret Mamo spoke with individuals close to this subject in order to learn more about what is being done to preserve the nation’s folklore tradition.

For Meklit Hagos, 7, a second grade student at Girls Nativity School, located around Piazza, tales offer a glimpse into a world where fantasy and reality meet. She likes tales that take place in a faraway setting in which animals, princes and princesses are the featured characters.
When EBR met her on the morning of Wednesday, September 30, 2015, during her Amharic class session, Meklit was particularly fascinated by tales that were told in Western countries. “I love to hear tales like The Princess Mouse and Dora the Explorer,” she told EBR.
Much like Meklit, many children in Ethiopia are drawn to tales that originate in Western cultures. Drawing from her experience, Eden Telahun, 25, Meklit’s Amharic teacher, says this is partly because local tales that are published or made into film are rare in Ethiopia. “Because of this, I try to remember what my parents told me when I was a child when I want to tell [my students] tales that originated in Ethiopia,” says Eden.
Ayalneh Mulatu, a poet and playwright with a special interest in children stories, who has written 22 plays for children, shares Eden’s concern. He gets frustrated when talking about the lack of attention given to the preservation of indigenous tales and developing the characters that are featured in the stories.
According to Ayalneh, the availability of foreign tales through different print and audio-visual sources give children the choice to leave behind old, traditional tales and instead listen to seemingly elaborated, smooth, developed and colorful foreign stories. “Indigenous stories are not being developed and they are on the verge of extinction,” he told EBR.
For Dereje Gebre, a 58 year-old lecturer in Addis Ababa University’s (AAU) Amharic Literature and Folklore Department, tales that are handed down through various cultures and over many generations carry a great deal of cultural significance. “Tales play an invaluable role, along with other cultural traditions, in bringing people closer together and ensuring understanding among them starting from their childhood,” he argues.
Throughout history, tales have played a prominent role within any given culture, often reflecting society’s attempt to give form and shape to its hopes and fears. Tales provide order to seemingly random experiences, as well as express the culture’s belief system.
Tales usually possess recurrent themes, which often teach children about topics such as morality and fairness, making them an ideal vehicle to help children socialise within society.
Dereje also believes that tales have additional, culture-specific benefits. “The indigenous knowledge and wisdom found in the tales keep the society connected to its traditions and help shape its culture,” he says. However, experts like Dereje stress that tales should continue to evolve and shape according to the conditions of the times. When this happens, tales never cease to be relevant to the society whose values it’s supposed to represent, reflects Dereje.
To be sure, the experience of Western countries shows that throughout generations, stories change in order to make it fit for the current generation, although its core message remains the same. For instance, Cinderella was first written in the 17th century. Yet it is still developing. To date, dozens of children and adult movies have been made based on the character Cinderella.
Although Cinderella, like many literary tales, arose from an earlier oral tradition, the concept of the story still intermingles with the life of many societies around the world. This is because a specific culture’s nuances inform the plot. Even in Ethiopia, an Amharic movie entitled ‘Hiwot Bedereja’ was made based on the Cinderella story.
However, Ayalneh says it is difficult to develop local tales, regardless of how important they are to a culture. “Writing children’s stories that entertain as well as pass society’s tradition at the same time is a difficult task. We have strong and exemplary folktale characters, which should be developed further,” admits Ayalneh, who has a 2,000-page collection of unpublished indigenous tales.
In light of the threats facing indigenous folktales, there are a few individuals attempting to develop local tales that have significant benefits for children and the society. One of them is Bisrat Amare, 29, a graduate of chemical engineering from AAU, who developed and published three tales originally written by the late Kebede Michael in 2010.
Despite his efforts, Bisrat says it is very difficult to develop tales. The business side of the work has not been rewarding. “Very few distributors were willing to buy my books at the time,” he recalls. “Although the benefits started to increase slowly, it was not enough to reinvest for the development of another tale.”
Unlike foreign stories that usually imitate the culture and values of advanced societies, those close to the issue stress that tales that originate locally can be a source of truthfulness to the society and a tool to educate children on how to live with integrity and peacefully with others. However, to make this happen, indigenous tales and the characters should be developed to attract children of Meklit’s generation, who are much more exposed to the outside world than ever before. EBR

4th Year • October 16 – November 15 2015 • No. 32