Men of few words: Christophe Wondji

UNESCO Courier, May, 1996 by Miriam Smadja

Africa attaches great importance to oral tradition. Is there such a thing as an 'African silence'?

Christophe Wondji: There are several kinds of silence. The silence of the night and the silence of the forest contrast, for example, with the sound of tom-toms during festivities and merrymaking, and with the eloquence of the griots - musicians and folk-historians. There are also the profound silences that punctuate the utterances of wise men, such as those of Ogotommel, the old Dogon sage questioned by the French ethnologist Marcel Griaule.

Speech is an act. It comes from the depths of one's being. It is a form of commitment. That is why the head of a family or a village speaks only at the appropriate time and place. Words spoken by a chief can be divisive. They can wound and even kill. A chief is therefore very careful about deciding when he should speak. There is an Akan proverb which says that the spoken word is worth its weight in gold. In other words, it is comparable to the signs engraved on the little bronze statuettes that were once used in parts of West Africa as weights for weighing gold dust. The only way of access to this word is by going through successive stages of silence, which "weigh down the tongue".

Who can receive the words of an elder?

C. W.: A father chooses the quietest of his sons, the one least prone to lose his temper, the one said to be "like a grave", in that he takes in words but does not utter any. His attitude shows he is keen to learn: he remains in the company of "elders", but keeps silent in their presence, thus showing that he knows his place.

One day the father takes the son he has chosen to one side and says to him: "My son, I want to give you some fragments of the Great Word - the word that concerns the origins of our family. You shall reveal nothing, I am sure: your belly is deep."

A person whose belly is not deep - who immediately repeats what he has been told - is left out, because "everything comes out of him easily". If he is incapable of keeping his mouth shut when he is young, how will he be able to keep an important secret later on in life? It's easy to spot a man "with a light mouth". Just tell him something of no importance and make him swear to keep it to himself. If he boasts about it to the first person he meets - and during the heat of the day gossip circulates fast beneath the straw roofs - the blabbermouth is disgraced forever.

How is the word passed on?

C. W.: By keeping one's mouth shut and one's ears open. The young man lets the elder speak. The master expresses himself slowly, in a rather low voice. His speech is punctuated by long silences, so that his words can penetrate the younger man and become part of him.

Does the disciple make any comment while he is receiving his instruction?

C. W.: He never interrupts the elder with untimely remarks. For many a long year he simply listens. And as a result of his patient listening, his spirit is elevated and gradually approaches the truth embodied by the master.

It is only when he feels he has understood a little that he starts asking questions, but he is in no hurry to do so. Until he has made the elder's words his own, he will be unable to use his knowledge properly. That moment will not come until he in turn is in charge of a family, a group of hunters or a whole village.

For some time now, educators have been striving to introduce new methods of "expression and communication" in Ivory Coast schools - following a Western fashion. The emphasis is on dialogue. "Put your point of view across," very young pupils are told. "Formulate your doubts and your criticisms." It is easy to see why the pupils find it hard to adjust to a practice so totally alien to their tradition of respecting a master and a corpus of knowledge.

Can the silent listening of a disciple be compared to that of a hunter lying in wait?

C. W.: In a sense, yes. In Akan, silence is defined by the following expression: "Nothing can be heard from the deep forest." The young hunter holds his breath and remains motionless as he learns how to recognize animals by certain sounds they make - the growl of the leopard, its muffled tread, the flapping of an elephant's ears, the rustle of grass under an antelope's hooves. There is an attitude that corresponds to each animal, but also an appropriate way of shooting it. When faced with a leopard, a solitary and combative animal that is quick to scent danger, the hunter has to adopt a completely different strategy from the one he will use with an antelope, which is timid and guileless. The arrow has to hit the leopard first time, in the head or the heart, otherwise it is bound to get you.

In the same way, the head of a family or a village, or indeed an Ashanti king, has to resolve conflicts with a good deal of tact, and without being unfair to either party. Like the hunter lying in wait, he seems to be keeping out of it. His "cane carrier"(1) conducts the debate in his place. The chief's words concern each person and are addressed to all. They therefore need to be selected, or "sifted", by the cane carrier. They are full of unspoken thoughts, which are extremely important, and which the elders know how to decipher.