Transmission of Kapsiki-Higi folktales over two generations: tales that come, tales that go

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Book

Title:	Transmission of Kapsiki-Higi folktales over two generations: tales that come, tales that go
Author:	Van Beek, Walter E.A.
Year:	2016
Pages:	170
Language:	English
Series:	African histories and modernities
City of publisher:	New York, NY
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN:	1349949272; 9781349949274
Geographic terms:	Cameroon Nigeria Northern Nigeria
Subjects:	Kapsiki folk tales memory social change oral history
Abstract:	This study on Kapsiki-Higi tales compares two corpuses of stories collected over two generations. In this oral setting, folktales appear much more dynamic than usually assumed, depending on genre, performance and the memory characteristics of the tales themselves. In northeastern Nigeria the author collected these tales twice with a time gap of two generations, in order to assess the dynamics of this oral transmission. The comparison between the two corpuses shows that folktales are a much more dynamic cultural system than is usually thought. These dynamics affect some types of tales more than others, reflect social change and intergroup contact, but also depend on characteristics of the tales themselves. Cognitive approaches of memory shed light on these varieties of transmission, as do performance aspects in tale telling, in particular ideophones. [Book abstract]