AFRICAN HISTORIANS: THE SIGNIFICANCE AND THE POLEMICS OF THE APPLICATION OF ORAL TRADITIONS IN THE WRITING OF AFRICAN HISTORY

Abstract

As from the late 1950s as well as early 1960s when African countries achieved self-determination from colonial rule, the study of African history equally assumed a state of manumission. Overtime, with respect to learned articles, Textbooks, and a few popular works, African historians came to life-active innovators of their own history. At all times, there from, writings by Europeans, viewed from Afro-Centric perspective, revealed unexpected information about African history. However archaeological finds became recognized as indeed the creation of ancient Africans, and not the Europeans or any outsider for that matter. Subsequently, African Historians realized that oral traditions transmitted from past generations and recounted by African traditional Historians were valid as well as significant sources for historical reconstruction. As a historian, of African history, I am making a clarion call that all African historians working in whatever period of African history in whatever area to make the extra effort necessary to tap the special historical resources of oral tradition for the reconstruction of the segmentary societies. It is necessary to constantly remind ourselves that much as oral tradition could be enriched through cross-checking as well as supplementation with archaeological, linguistic and other sources, the value of oral tradition as a source of history is independent of these ancillary techniques.