Saving Tanzania's Folktales Before They're Lost Forever | Elizabeth Mwambulukutu's Mission

How could that be?

As I reflected on this moment, in my later life, I started getting flashbacks to one of the times I sat kwenye mkeka (on a mat), kando ya moto (by the fireside), nyota juu angani (stars in the sky above), in Mabonde and Matare villages…  There, my grandmother in her glory sat on her throne, the kigoda (a three-legged stool) to share her masimulizi (narratives) as our imaginations took us off to new worlds through stories she was telling.

 

With all “the passengers on board”, my grandmother said…. 

“Hadithi Hadithi” 

We responded: “Hadithi njoo, utamu kolea”

Then she said: “Hapo zamani za kale”

With great anticipation, we responded: “eeeeh”

And just like that, the password to centuries of intergenerational knowledge, wisdom and ancestral intelligence were unlocked!  In the worlds that grandma’s masimulizi wove, animals such as Sungura (hare), Kobe (tortoise), and Simba (lion), who lived rent-free in forests of her memory, came alive in stories that whispered dark secrets full of wisdom, meanings, and moral lessons.

These experiences heightened my sense of discernment, so that from an early age, I knew how to spot a scammer from far a distance (thanks to the trickster, Sungura the hare!) Stories that grandma told carried valuable life lessons. In them, I also learned to become a better friend, was empowered with resilience and perseverance. Above all, I discovered that to lead, or to be responsible for others and to society goes beyond having the loudest roar in the room and that being an underdog can be my superpower.

Stories that grandma told helped me to find my voice, identity, and develop vocabulary. These stories had been passed to her through her mother, and to her mother from her grandmother, and on and on back into time.

Grandma’s influence on me seemed to weaken as I left village life behind for school and beyond. In the1990s, I experienced an exciting cultural turning point in Tanzania. Like me, children across the country tuned into Radio One of Radio Tanzania as Mama na Mwana (Mother and Child) program took listeners by storm. For the first time ever, Tanzanian folktales were narrated by Deborah Mwenda, a media personality and storyteller in Kiswahili.

In the year 2019, my friend Anna and I found ourselves travelling down memory lane. We reminisced on our childhood, friends, and playing outside, games such as kombelela (hide and seek), rede (dodge ball) and about the folktales that our bibis used to tell around the fireside. Aaaah guys, it was so nostalgic! Then came the true test of time...

Delving into our collective memories, we attempted to recollect stories, but grew frustrated when despite our best efforts, we came up with only a threadbare patchwork of tales to which we had often listened as children. We felt like we had failed an entire generation... We were haunted… we were haunted by an African proverb from Mali that says: 'When an elder dies, a library burns to the ground.'

I’m sure many of you have had similar experiences.

In that moment, I realized that if our stories remain undocumented, we would walk into a future where they have been erased. This is how the Hapo Zamani za Kale project was born, co-founded by Anna and I.

The Kiswahili phrase ‘Hapo Zamani za Kale’ which means (‘Once Long Ago’) is also used to open a story in a storytelling session in Tanzania. Though various communities have their own styles of opening a story, this is by far the common one throughout the country. Hapo Zamani za Kale aims to preserve, promote and restore Tanzania’s folktales by documenting them. Through documentation, we hope to open up stories to new interpretations, finding new meanings out of and new audiences for them. We’ve collaborated with our community elders, visual artists and youth, resulting in more than 100 folktales documented from across 17 Tanzanian villages with 23 in a storybook collection, illustrated by Masoud Kipanya. I believe these stories can offer an alternative approach to retelling the African story.

Take for example, Jennifer Msekwa, a Tanzanian visual artist’s “Vibua na Kasa (Fish and a Turtle)” folktale adaptation from the Hapo Zamani za Kale storybook as part of the exhibition.

On the surface, this tale is about fish and a turtle but it’s a metaphor for environmental awareness, the need to protect our oceans, and the importance of listening to wisdom.

In his collection of essays titled “The Shape of a Pocket”, John Berger, an English painter, art critic and novelist explored the relationship of art, artists and society. He argued that "What any true painting touches is an absence - an absence of which without the painting, we might be unaware. And that would be our loss."

I see this as an invitation. I think what this suggests is that folktales are not ancient tales that should be frozen in time. Whether it is Sungura the hare, Anansi the spider in Ghanaian stories, Ijape the turtle in Nigerian stories or Mamlambo the goddess of rivers in Zulu stories in South Africa, these are timeless vessels of culture, values, and can provide solutions to challenges of our times.

The UN estimates that by 2050, one in four people globally will be African. That is a global audience waiting to hear untold authentic African stories and an opportunity to shape the continent’s narrative, be it in African airlines, museums, libraries, schools, communities, art galleries, videogames, theater or film adaptations. However, I believe the key to telling our stories is to know them and in order to know them we must document the undocumented stories with the knowledge and wisdom contained in them.

Let us not wait until our libraries burn to the ground. So, whether you are a writer, researcher, leader, parent, visual artist or child at heart:

You too are part of this story.

You are the next chapter.

And with that, I ask you to join me and in the age-old storytelling spirit I’ve shared with you, please repeat after me:

Hadithi Hadithi

Hadithi njoo, utamu, kolea.

And just like that, my friends, you too can begin to retell stories your grandma once told you.

Asante.