Challenges of Studying Written and Oral Sources in Africa

integrity of the biggest issues facing Afri kitty historians is the fact that the submit of demonstr competent Afri atomic number 50 History is comparatively new. A large majority of the ancestrys l dyingable atomic number 18 scripted from the conduct of locating of Europeans, with an Intended audience of Europeans. L In this egocentric method of reporting record, Africans were popular opinioned more than(prenominal)(prenominal) as objects a pot with a past let off no score. 2 The indite diachronic citations provided by imperialists robbed Africans of their piece.The lead story challenge facing African historians Is to bump a way to Inject the African voice Into the narrative, and thus roved a more accurate representation of the spotlessal chronicle. This tax income presents more profound questions. What qualities make soul an African? Is it sufficient to be a black person living on the continent? argon there levels of ethnicity? Are the descendants of A fricans brought to other parts of the tender-heartedkind In the slave trade Africans? Ultimately, who decides who Is African? Equally debatable is the Issue regarding what represents a thinkable fount, every written or literal.Each presents unique challenges that must be address in order of battle to qualify the none value of the In watchyation they portend to provide. period the more tralatitious African historical bloods are Invariably prone to the problem of European bias, weaken paintings offer a source that was born out of a desire of an African ( non a European) to entry their experiences. For exemplar, the disputation art of Gill Kefir in what is current(prenominal) Egypt represents people allegedly engaging in the catchy of swimming. 3 This offers historians perhaps the oldest example of source material regarding African muniment. UT what does this Written source truly prescribe African historians? Most importantly, it definitively registers that some one was there, and by means of scientific dating cuisines, It indicates approximately when they were there. This is real, unattackable certainty, which underpins all historical explore. 4 This Is non to Infer that there are non problems with the use of the paintings as a source of usable evidence. The older a source is, it is more identically to be inaccurate. 5 Were the people in the paintings actually swimming, as scientists guess?Does that mean that the desert where the cave paintings were found was once a work that contained lakes or rivers? Or did the cave painters dress up their art from the second-hand memories of others who had traveled to far onward lands? What was the origin they chose to document their experience? Was it graffiti? Was it make for religious reasons? Was it a territorial home run? Archaeological sites are less prevalent in Africa than other parts of the world, which Is problematic In having the ability to compare this crabby site to others.Fu rther, the available archives demand to compare these archaeologic get a lines are few in number in African regions, and sometimes less accessible collectable to semipolitical reasons. The Information In the African archives that do exist Is a great deal more difficult to translate than traditional archival Information In that virtually African engages are spontaneous, and non written, and s tumesce up impossible to document without the benefit of ad-lib history. 6 How can African historians rationalize these challenges and OFF source?One jot is to actively search for other animate examples of cave paintings and to compare them based on materials, method, content, location, etc. When much(prenominal) comparable examples do not exist, scientists could initiate more archaeological digs, extend communication among scientists to broaden the evidence base, and exert political pressure upon leadership to focus on scientific endeavors, as healthful as the preservation of the archives. alike(p) historians in other parts of the world, African historians face the challenge of deteriorating archives because of wrongfulness caused by the elements, water damage, and insects. Traditional written sources such as government documents, tax influences, and newspapers may to a fault be helpless due to archival neglect. Historians must forecast several criteria of source criticism to arrange each written sources historical value. 8 Regardless of the name on the document, who was the actual author? What was the real purpose of the document? Who was the intended audience? Did the author live a bun in the oven in-person motives in reporting it in the manner in which he did? For example, to the highest degree government documents from compound Africa were written by Europeans, with an intended European audience.There is no African voice in this history. Africans were treated like objects,9 and colonial imperialistic authors of written sources believed that they actually were generating history for the first time?that Africa (and Africans) had no history before their arrival. 10 some other limitation of written documents is that they are created from the point of view of an observer, and thus produce an cerebration that is completely root word areaive, and thereby, by definition, are spread out to other opinions and observations. To address the limitations of written documents, historians oftentimes attempt to incorporate viva sources in conjunction with written sources in order to strengthen historical evidence. Anxiety virtually flawed written sources drew scholars away from libraries and into t stimulates and villages for historical narrative. 12 The incorporation of unwritten history into the narrative makes it more evidentiary and gives the written documents a more verifiable African voice. Relying on written documents from the colonial period without the incorporation of unwritten examination sources, in m all c ases, produces an inaccurate version of African history.Typically, in the African history provided by Colonial Europeans their horticulture, norms, and ideology were largely ignored. One of the depict methods to avoid (the possibility of denying Africans a voice in their own history) is to include a peoples own ad-lib traditions and life histories in ethnographically and archaeological work. 13 Because most African languages in Colonial Africa were viva voce and not written,14 it is imperative to consider viva sources to footslog the evidence provided by written sources. oral exam sources can provide a wealthiness of historical evidence.For example, Historical linguists use oral sources to accurately track the movement of people across the continent. 15 This evidence of human migration can help explain ethnical change, which is important when considering that a lack of parsimoniousness of people in a special(a) area makes a study of their culture less possible. Oral histor ies offer first-hand accounts of events. These oral histories evolve into oral traditions16 stories passed imbibe from propagation to extension, offering us a glimpse of pre-colonial Africa not found in the Euro-centric written documents of imperialists.Oral sources obviously can accompaniment the written, a realization that was for too ample lost on most lord order to strengthen written sources to form cohesive historical evidence is Jan Vinson, who realized that the stories handed down from one generation to other Were as stable and received accounts of their past as were the written chronicles and in-person narratives (and) that in fact they were of the same genre. 18 In Bananas own words by creating a lifelike gradeting, (oral tradition) gives evidence close to how situations as they were observed, as well as about beliefs uncovering situations. 19 Thus, oral sources, through some(prenominal) shared oral history and oral traditions, combined with written sources, f orm a more credible account of historical occurrences than written sources merely provide. Oral sources, though, are not without their limitations. (H)Astoria can place trust in oral sources only to the extent that they can be verified by means of away evidence of another kind, such as archaeological, linguistic, or cultural. 20 Oral sources are subject to misinterpretation because of selective or collective memory, rumor, myth, or hearsay. That being said, oral sources subject to these limitations still offer substance, because historians can still study why the subjects believe it happened that way. 22 African historians can apologize the limitations of oral sources by searching for training that is worthy, if not as historical evidence, further as randomness that is not promptly apparent through the written archive. While attempting to glean evidence from a source on one topic, a historian may gain knowledge of another fortuitous topic.Ultimately, it is the duty of the h istorian to subject all written accounts to radical knowledgeable and external analysis to rig legitimacy and credibility. If the accounts are thoroughly construed, and the texts can be compared to one another with the information contained in oral and other sources, they will relate to yield semiprecious information on the history of Africa. 23 These things considered if an historian wanted to get an approximation of how many Africans were enslaved, wound or killed in the moving in of poof Leopold in the Congo, where would they start? What sources would they utilize, and what would they expect to take care?What there information strength they accidentally bollix upon? I propose that a peachy place to start would be to examine any existing hospital documents from 1885-1908, to determine if there is a written record of the number of people treated for sack of limbs. Local censuses (if available), police records, military ledgers, attribute records, death certificates major power also turn off as fruitful written resources. Additionally, missional records in the region competencyy rise up to be valuable, especially considering that they would probably not require translation, lessening the possibility that any information would be mistranslated.Another possible valuable written source talent be records in the Belgian archive, or that of the present-day Democratic Republic of Congo. The historian competency hope to find information or documents concerning the Congo Reform railroad tie, which might discharge some light on the information she seeks. Additionally, explore on the Congo foreswear State propaganda war and the International Association of the Congo might provide valuable useful written sources of evidence of injuries and deaths to those enslaved at that time.One might also be able to glean useful information from historical-based literature, such as Joseph Concords Heart of Darkness, Sir Arthur Cowan Doles The Crime of the Con go, and Bertrand Russell emancipation and Organization. Research on the parties evidence of the atrocities in the region, including Edmund Dine Muriel, Roger Casement and the aforementioned Bertrand Russell. Local museums might contain artistic creation from the region during Loopholes occupation that captures the outrage, despair and helplessness of the affected.By speaking to locals, she might hear, through oral tradition, the stories passed down from generation to generation about the occupation. In the unlikely, yet still possible event, that any 106-year-old residents still survive, they would be able to provide first-hand oral history. Other than gaining information regarding the number of enslaved, killed and maimed, she would, in all probability, gain an understanding of the long-term effects of the occupation of Leopold upon the citizens, as well as information of how Loopholes occupation came to an end due to intense international criticism.Possible obstacles that she might experience In retreat, Leopold may give birth destroyed written evidence of the atrocities, as well as local artwork or libraries. His regime may have been so strict that any expression, either written or oral, was prohibited and subject to the same penalties as those who refused to work in the mines, or underperformed in their duties, diminishing oral sources. Lets consider that the same historian endeavored to learn the approximate number of the descendants of diasporas Africans who returned to touch on in the so-called redeeming of Africa. Where might she begin, and what would she expect to find? What limitations might she realize? What other information might she learn along the way? A good enough starting mint would be to yack the archives in Liberia and Sierra Leone countries set up as places of African repatriation for freed slaves. There, she could view the legal records regarding who came back and when they returned, who their family members were, where they live d, as well as their professions. Available Census documents would prove to be invaluable in that regard.Ships manifests would chew over the number of passengers return to these countries, as well as the number of family members that accompanied them. She could research the founders of both countries, Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the first president of Liberia, and Christopher Koru bread and Osaka Stevens, early leaders of Sierra Leone, to find documents pertaining to the numbers of returning Africans. She could study historical literature about repatriation, such as Back to Africa the Colonization Movement in Early Africa by Timothy Crummier, as well as Black Migration in America a Social demographic History by Daniel M.Johnson and Rexes R. Campbell. She could also read the works of the men who themselves returned, such as George Washington Williams, Samuel Jay Crotchet, and Henry McNealy Turner. 4 nigh limitations she might experience in her research inconclusive data due to the p roportional impossibility of proving that they (or their descendants) were indeed originally distant from the continent. Incomplete or inaccurate software documentation might also prove to be a stumbling block in attaining this information.Additional research on topics such as the American Colonization Society, and the histories of both Liberia and Sierra Leone would not only provide numerical data, but also undoubtedly uncover unintended useful information about the achievements and political and religious aims of those who returned, as well as how hey were received. Did they consider themselves more civilized than the aboriginal Africans whose descendants had not been removed from the continent?What other the reasons why some Africans did not return, even though they had the opportunity. Through personal interviews of present-day citizens who are descendants of returning freed slaves she could learn of the oral traditions they had developed. She might also learn of the artwork prevalent in these regions, as well as the folklore and literature that the return to Africa produced, and how it differed from that of autochthonous Africans. As a recognized academic endeavor, (African history) has emerged only in the last four or quint decades. 25 Until recently, African history was written by and for Europeans, and as such, didnt provide a lifelike depiction of the people, the culture, and the overall actual history of the continent, but served more as a record of White encroachment, and functioned as a tool of propaganda to legitimate the civilizing mission of Europeans. By altering traditional methodology and utilizing both written and oral sources, a more accurate picture of African history ND its people can be discovered and studied.Beyond the fade of imperialistic African history, there is a real history of the African continent that invites further study, and such an endeavor is necessary in restoring the African voice. If we fail to do so, (w)e run th e chance of not only denying people a voice in the reconstruction of their own history, but offending and demeaning indigenous cultures when we use them as a perplex for the past without recognizing not only their changing past but their active closeness in changing and/or maintaining their identities and history in the present. 26