Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
June 18, 2007
In an earlier article entitled ‘Sociology of Oromo Literature and Asafa Dibaba, leading Oromo Intellectual’, we presented analytically the methodological tools the Oromo scholar used in his research focused on Jaarsoo Waaqoo’s poetry. We noticed a massive interest in the article, and due to the importance of the subject, we re-publish here another part of Mr. Dibaba’s book “Theorizing the present” that evolved out of the author’s MA thesis entitled "Towards a political sociology of Oromo Literature: Jaarsoo Waaqoo’s Poetry".
With his sociological analysis of Jaarsoo Waaqoo’s poetry, Asafa Dibaba opens new horizons in the Sociology of Oromo Literature, and we are convinced through his text the average non – specialized reader will get a pertinent insightful into the greatness of Modern Oromo poetry that has been so far unduly disregarded by European and American scholars.
This book is actually divided into four chapters. The first chapter, as Introduction, treats background of the study: problem of the study, its objectives, and methods including a brief account of Jaarsoo Waaqoo’s life history. This is the part we re-publish integrally here with the addition of the brief Preface.
Chapter 2 presents some theoretical considerations and related studies, and this is the part we re-published in the earlier, aforementioned article on this subject. The third chapter describes the sociological poetics of the geerarsa genre and impacts of the genre on the works of individual Oromo oral poets, especially on Jaarsoo Waaqoo's poetry. In Chapter 4 the ethnographic background of Jaarsoo's poetry and impacts of other oral poetic genres, particularly the dhaaduu recitative poems, on Jaarsoo's poetic contents are illustrated. The multi-faceted aspects of socio-political, economic and cultural relations the poet raises in his poems are also sociologically analyzed in chapter four. Chapter 5 presents a short conclusion.
It will be quite indicative to add here the motto the author selected for the Introduction – Chapter 1 of his book, namely the following excerpt of Myles Munroe (from: The Burden of Freedom, 1984)
The person who cannot see the ultimate
becomes slave to the immediate.
"Theorizing the present" by Asafa Dibaba
Preface
This book evolved out of my MA research in Literature with the major aim of sociologically analyzing Oromo poetry, particularly Jaarsoo Waaqoo’s poetry, Finna San Gama (Beyond Adversities). The study is mainly concerned with the poetic content analysis of Jaarsoo’s poetry set in the social, cultural and economic immediate milieu of the Oromo and in the current sociopolitical matrix of Ethiopia put under the Tigre-led Abyssinian neo-colonial rule. In this regard, the study attempts to consider available theoretical concepts which are thought to be helpful for a sociological analysis of poetic contents and in answering questions of literary and sociological nature. Thus, primarily, this book makes a descriptive assessment of the ethnographic and literary background that informed the poet and his works. Data were collected using structured and unstructured queries, note-taking and tape-recordings. The task of transcription and translation of the data was accomplished under a supervision of informed Jaarsoo’s audience both inside and outside Boorana. I have also referred works of indigenous and expatriate scholars.
In this book attempt is also made to cast light on impacts of the geerarsa genre on Oromo literature, particularly Oromo poetry. The intention is to establish some generic characteristics of Jaarsoo’s poetry Finna San Gama (FSG I-IV) set within the geerarsa genre, with particular reference to the Boorana dhaaduu recitative war poetry.
Based on its subject-matter geerarsa can be categorized as traditional (time-free) and contemporary (time-bound). The traditional time-free geerarsa includes historical songs in praise of Oromo tribal warlords. Historical songs tend to be contemporary songs of their own time. Other traditional geerarsa songs are: hunting songs (e.g. gooba), songs of war of economic interests like the Boorana dhaaduu or the Arsi suunsuma, and songs of success or failure in finna/life. Contemporary geerarsa are those personal narratives or praise songs historically transformed into prison/protest songs following the dynamic sociological situations of the Oromo today. This transformation may mark the transitional period of Oromo literature; transition from what had hitherto been mere praise song to a political song of its time. Both the traditional and the transitional Oromo oral genre, doubtlessly the geerarsa, must have paved the way towards modern Oromo literature which is expected to have a great didactic role in directing current Oromo sociopolitical life situation in some way. The geerarsa genre and the dhaaduu recitative war poetry have influenced the content and performance of Jaarsoo’s Finna San Gama I-IV in which the poet recites issues of resource-based conflicts, nationalism, and social and development topics analyzed in Chapter 4. Based on the generic interpretation of those popular genres—geerarsa and dhaaduu—FSG can be classified as the Boorana dhaaduu recitative poetry. In data analysis the poetic contents are delineated based on their subject-matter, function and context. Thus, in a final analysis, like contemporary geerarsa, FSG focuses on different subject-matters (sociopolitical, cultural and economic), not just on war events unlike the traditional dhaaduu recitative war poetry. The significant role of the universal Oromo geerarsa and the Boorana dhaaduu in the content analysis of Jaarsoo’s poetry set in the Oromo sociopolitical context is therefore the aspect that a sociological analysis can reveal.
Chapter 1 - Introduction
Background
The problem one faces in studying Oromo literature (oral/written), I posit, is of a dual nature: first, where should one start the study of Oromo literature before he embarks on the task of the study? Though premature it may seem, this problem is crucial. 1 Another question that would logically follow from the first is this: towards what should one direct attention in the study of Oromo literature? Oromo literature, in the present-day Oromo reality, is part of the problem that needs serious attention and careful handling in order to be keenly aware of the present and to foresee the future. The assumption that one has to start from where one is, in synchronic 2 terms, may well be appropriate to a researcher in the field of Oromo oral poetry. To study the present finna 3 or 'development' stage of Oromo oral poetry, however, it seems imperative to look back at and start from, diachronically speaking, the past conditions under which the historically transformed Oromo oral poetic genre, particularly geerarsa was emergent. 4 For this purpose, this study places Jaarsoo's poetry within the matrices of the geerarsa genre to trace the impacts both of externally imposed socio-political factors and of internally motivated social and historical characters of Oromo tradition on the works of individual poets such as Jaarsoo Waaqoo. 5
Second, if authentic literature derives from the real life situation of the people and is determined by it, literature also reacts to the culture of the people. That is, literature affects the society and is also affected by it. Poetry, for instance, may make a difference to the speech, to the sensibility of members of the society, to the lives of the whole people—whether they read or not—and to the language, since language is an indispensable vehicle of culture. Now, the problem is, even though there is a long tradition of Oromo Studies (see Chapter 2), to the best of my knowledge, few research works have been conducted which seek to root the critical analyses and studies of Oromo literature (oral or written) within their socio-political and cultural context.
The aim of the present study is, therefore, to fill that gap. It is to examine critically the sociological aspects of Jaarsoo Waaqoo's poetry through analyzing the geerarsa poetic genre undergoing a historical 'transformation' (see Addisu 1990) set within the present-day Oromo life situation. That is, the significance of Jaarsoo Waaqoo’s poetry is critically analyzed from the perspective of the socio-political, historical, cultural and economic life situation of Oromo society in general and the immediate milieu surrounding the poet and his works in particular. Since culture and cultural productions 6 are believed to be social practices/actions, hence, their historical, literary and socio-political significance should be studied within their sociocultural context. This is so because 'significance' from a sociological viewpoint refers to "how an action or resource is valued by a particular group", (emphasis added) (Chamber in Levinson 1996: 1012). Jaarsoo Waaqoo's oral poetry can only be adequately understood in a sociological perspective, when 'put back' in its social and cultural context. In a way, this attempt is a move against the "pre-sociological and mystifying notion" of 'art-as-magic' and 'artist-as-magician' or '-genius', to repeat Janet Wolff's words in her The Social Production of Art (1993), towards art as a social and cultural practice rather than an individual feat.
Questions to be answered within this study are: how is the content of Jaarsoo Waaqoo's poetry affected by externally induced and internally motivated factors (socio-political, historical and cultural)? how is the mode of communication ('geerarsa' as an 'innovated'7 / 'transformed' 8 oral genre) related to the content of Jaarsoo’s poetry and to the life situation of the Oromo? what is the historical and socio-political significance of Oromo oral poetry to the people? why is Jaarsoo Waaqoo's oral poetry compelling at this particular time? upon what social understanding is the work dependent? how do relations among groups and circumstances affect the poet and his poetry? Attempt is made to answer these questions through analyzing texts from Jaarsoo's poetry, FSG I-IV, in relation to the historical and socio-political life situation of the Oromo.
There have been few works so far on Oromo (oral) literature, but most of them are not contextual studies. In this respect, Fekade Azeze’s (1998) unpublished recent bibliographical data show that over the last thirty years (1966-1997) among the senior essays written at Addis Ababa University, Department of Ethiopian Languages and Literature around twenty BA theses are on Oromo oral poetry. Based on these data and on a few other MA and BA theses on Oromo oral literature--most of them on prose narratives--submitted to the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, much still remains to be done to study Oromo literature in its sociocultural context. Addisu Tolesa’s Ph.D. dissertation (1990) on the 'contemporary' geerarsa poetic genre is one such research conducted from the perspective of Oromo sociocultural and political context in the wider matrices of Oromo oral literature. To this one may add Sumner’s collections and philosophical analyses of Oromo Wisdom Literature, 9 though Sumner's study is not contextual.
The study of Jaarsoo Waaqoo's oral poetry transcribed as Finna San Gama 10, hereafter FSG, 'Beyond Adversities', is believed to contribute to promoting the sociological study of Oromo (oral) poetry set within the Oromo life situation from its inception.
Rationale
The rationale for the selection of Jaarsoo Waaqoo’s poetry to study Oromo literature, particularly Oromo poetry, from a sociological perspective is two-fold: firstly, his poetic records were set in the period when rapid social and political change in Ethiopia seemed to take a ‘new’ momentum following the fall of the Derg regime in 1991. Secondly, though Jaarsoo had no formal education he produced a large output of poetry recorded on tapes. Thus, the context and content of the texts aroused questions of curiosity in me—the curiosity that has now become an academic pursuit.
Oral Poetry plays an important, often pivotal role in current public life of the Oromo people and does not merely consist of those anonymous oral narratives and poems handed down by tradition. Oral poetry among the Oromo is nowadays reinforced both by variations on the old themes as in the contemporary geerarsa protest songs (e.g., by Abbaa Shamaxee of Arsii and Luuccaa Abbaa Tuggoo of Wallagga) and by completely new compositions created by individual oral poets like Jaarsoo Waaqoo of Boorana. These individual poets and others like Sheik Mohammed Xaahir and Sheik Bakrii Saaphaloo of Harar and Abdaa Garaadaa of Arsii act as social critics and commentators on current events in Oromia. Through their poems or songs they have aroused national consciousness among the Oromo and influenced public opinions in such important issues as external pressures and the Amhara-Tigre domination on the Oromo (Addisu 1990, 1994; Andrzejewski 1975, 1985). Gunther Schlee (1992) and A. Shongollo (1996) have also confirmed the role of contemporary oral poet such as Jaarsoo Waaqoo as an active commentator of the present regime in Ethiopia. So, based on its thematic variation and mode of communication, one may put Oromo national literature as the traditional geerarsa hunting / praise song, the contemporary / transitional geerarsa prison/protest song and the modern (written) literature.
Informants say that the late Jaarsoo Waaqoo had no formal education. 11 His love of and concern for aadaa Oromoo, i.e., Oromo culture, especially songs and the dhaaduu poems (see Fugich Wako 2002:18-34), was deep. Four of Jaarsoo's tape recordings presented in this book have been collected and transcribed as Finna San Gama, FSG I-IV, for my MA thesis with the help of informants from Boorana. Jaarsoo’s other tapes have been not found yet. 12 Such a noble cause of composing new oral poems and recording them on tapes and commenting on the existing socio-political situation, however, was disrupted by the poet's early death on September 21st 1994. The poet was in his early 30s when he shot himself at the front, according to the informants and Jaarsoo's senior brother, rather than be taken prisoner by the woyyane force then fighting against the OLF army in Boorana (A. Shongollo 1996:270).
Objectives
The objective of this project is to study critically Jaarsoo Waaqoo's oral poetry and to analyze it from a sociological and historical perspective of Oromo oral poetry, geerarsa as reflecting the socio-political and cultural life of the people. To do so, I will examine the verbal content of some 'contemporary' geerarsa texts (cf. Chapter 3). The basic assumption underlying the present study is that the geerarsa protest song and the dhaaduu recitative poems recited in plain voice have influenced the composition, recitative performance style and content of Jaarsoo's oral poetry.
Thus, the attempt is:
-to examine if Jaarsoo's poetry goes beyond passively reflecting on the status quo and rather aspires to direct and bring about change in the "working of the society"
-to describe whether those socio-political and historical realities that dictated Jaarsoo's poetry are also shared by other Oromo oral poets and,
-to make an attempt towards examining critically impacts of poetic features of the existing Oromo popular genres (e.g. geerarsa, dhaaduu poems) on the poetic content and meaning(s) of such 'newly' created oral poems by individual poets like Jaarsoo Waaqoo Qooxoo in relation to the Oromo present life situation.
Methods of the study
Methods used in the descriptive and analytical study of Jaarsoo Waaqoo’s poetry, i.e. to transcribe, translate and analyze the poems, are discussed in this part of the book. Information related to the socio-political and cultural factors that influenced the oral poet, i.e. Jaarsoo Waaqoo and his works at some time in history could well be more reliable if provided by the poet himself. Unfortunately, Jaarsoo Waaqoo died on September 21st 1994 as already noted. Information about the poet and his works was therefore obtained through interview during the fieldwork in Boorana (in Liiban and Dirree) in February 2002 from those who collected and kept the oral poet’s recorded poems, from Jaarsoo’s kin, close friends and relatives, and from some materials found in print (Shongollo 1996; Schlee and Shongollo 1992). For the task of transcription and translation I have worked with informants from Boorana though the intended meanings of some Jaarsoo's poems remain beyond the knowledge of the informants themselves.
The poet's political background and intentions in his poems that comment strongly on the woyyane's socio-political and economic suppression in Oromia (Shongolo 1996:268), however, might urge one to think very carefully about the methods of the present study. Interviews were needed during transcription, translation and annotation or glossing of the intended meaning of the poems to accomplish the task of the research. But, selecting for interviews or picking for some technical support any Booran or any Oromo only by virtue of his/her speaking Afaan Oromoo and knowing Jaarsoo and his poems may cause one, without any exaggeration, to run the risk of ending in jail. I, therefore, first had to interview individual singers and dhaaduu reciters with the help of elders and collect data to identify the 'traditional' oral poetry such as the gooba and dhaaduu and 'contemporary' songs/recitations composed and performed by individual oral poets. Then after, I interviewed those who had known the poet from his childhood and later those who heard his poems as I promised to keep anonymous the interviewees. Information related to the poet and his poems was not provided unless the Booran informants came to know me gradually and the purpose of the research very well. 13 These were some of the challenges I encountered during the present study.
The analyses of the texts in Jaarsoo Waaqoo's poetry involve describing the sociocultural context in which the works were set. It will be the purpose of this study, therefore, to find out whether or not the role of Oromo (oral) literature, Oromo oral poetry, is mainly functional not just aesthetic. Even more, to explore if, as already noted, the socio-economic, historical and political problems the poet communicates in his poetry correspond with the life situation of the Oromo at large, and not just the Boran, is the target of the study.
Recordings and Collections
Jaarsoo himself, the interviewees unanimously agree, carried out the recordings of his poems (interview with Roobaa, Diida, and Gaayoo; cf. FSG II, p109). G. Schlee and A. Shongolo's articles also confirm that Jaarsoo himself did the recordings. In the article co-authored by Gunther Schlee and A. Shongollo (1992) "Oromo Nationalist Poetry: Jaarsoo Waaqoo Qootoo's Tape Recordings on the Political Events in Southern Oromia, 1991" the co-authors say that Jaarsoo himself allowed them to transcribe and work on his 90 minute tape. Shongollo, in his "The Poetics of Nationalism: a Poem by Jaarso Waaqoo Qooto" (1996) contends when Jaarsoo wanted to reach a wider audience, he recorded his recitations... and handed out copies to people without charging any money... People... made copies of the copies. There are no record companies, no copyrights, no private ownership of this popular orality (p270).
The informants/interviewees share this view of the poet's reciting, recording and distributing few cassettes himself only among those whom he trusted. Hence, one may conclude that Jaarsoo himself accomplished the task of reciting and recording his poetry for the noble cause of mobilizing his people against external pressures. As for the collections, I started to collect Jaarsoo's recorded poems in 1998 at Jimma Teachers College when I read for the first time Jaarsoo’s poems in print by Abdullahi Shongolo (in Baxter’s Being and Becoming Oromo, 1996:265-90). I collected then some of Jaarsoo's recordings (FSG II and IV) through a college student from Boorana when I was teaching at Jimma Teachers College. The remaining FSG I and III were collected during the fieldwork in Boorana in February 2002 conducting my MA research. Jaarsoo composed and recorded most of the tapes "while he was serving in the [OLF] guerrilla army" (Shongolo ibid. p269).
Transcription and Translation
Transcription of Finna San Gama I-IV
In transforming the recorded poems into written words there are some practical problems one may face. One such problem among others relates to some dialectal variations: phonological, morphological, lexical and syntactic. Other constraints are perhaps relatively minor and do not impede the semantic processing of the poetry. These include hesitation phenomena: fill-ins like duub’ amma (now'/'and hereafter), and false starts and corrections.
Perhaps equally difficult was setting Jaarsoo's tapes in a chronological order. A 90-minute tape transcribed and translated by Schlee and Shongolo (1992) is labeled as recorded in 1991. That tape can be transcribed as tape two for there is another tape-recorded on social and development topics earlier. Shongolo says in his article on "A Poem by Jaarso Waaqo Qooto" (in Baxter 1996) that before Jaarsoo joined the OLF the poet "had for some time composed songs about local politics and about development topics, such as, for example, the dangers of alcohol" (p.265), especially farsoo, as locally known. That tape transcribed as FSG I in this study is agreed by the informants as the first of Jaarsoo's poems. The poem Shongolo studied "was composed in the early days of the OLF resistance …[against] the Tigre attempts of Abyssinian neo-colonialism" (Baxter ibid. p268). This was more likely in 1992 when the OLF withdrew from the Tigre-led EPRDF coalition party. Another tape transcribed as FSG II was recorded just about the same time, i.e., in 1992 (The poet himself recites about the year, see FSG II, p99.)
FSG III is a 'dramatic verse', which communicates the theme of OLF's pan-Oromo cause, i.e., struggle for self-determination and democracy, using dialogue. FSG IV is the tape, the informants said, Jaarsoo was working on in 1994 which was interrupted by the poet's tragic death on September 21st that same year. The interviewees told me that his colleagues filled the incomplete tape by recording few songs of freedom and of patriotism.
In the present study there have been problems that relate to methods of transcribing and translating the texts. One such problem is a dialectal variation. The Boorana people in southern Oromia and in northern Kenya speak a southern dialect of the Oromo language (see Ton Leus, 1995). In the long tradition of studies on Oromo phonology, morphology and syntax that involved dialectal variation, Ton Leus cites works on Borana dialect by Stroomer (1987), Owens (1985), Heine, Andrzejewski, and Venturino’s Dizionario Borana-Italiano and Dizionario Italiano-Broana (1976) (see Leus 1995:2). According to those studies, Leus adds, “Oromo dialects have evolved specific and rich terminologies” (pp1, 2,) relating to sociocultural, political, economic and environmental aspects such as the modes of production, particular environmental adaptations, various social institutions and their inherent rituals.
Afaan Oromoo is intelligible among the Oromo in Oromia and those in the neighbouring northern Kenya. Though 'full' fluency in the Oromo dialect of Boorana seem to be unattainable in short period of time, since I come from Gomboo (Jaarsoo), the Sibuu clan of Wallaga, the dialectal variation, however, does not impede the study. As Ton Leus asserts, the last four centuries, from the time of Oromo dispersal in the sixteenth-century, “have not been enough for developing different languages" (p1). Ton Leus’s Dictionary, added to the information obtained from the Boorana informants/elders, is most pertinent to the present study not just for its lexical accounts of Afaan Oromoo, but because it also involves anthropological, historical, ethnographic and linguistic aspects of the life situation of the Borana Oromo.
To attain ‘accuracy’ in transcription, the text that ‘comes down from the lips of a speaker or singer ... is set down with word for word exactness by a collector’ (Dorson in Finnegan 1992: 196). Regarding what should or should not appear in transcriptions, Finnegan argues, what determines is the aim of the transcription: what is being transcribed, for whom and why it is transcribed (ibid.). Purpose for transcribing being the touchstone, she also proposes some 'dos and don'ts' while transcribing oral texts. She says: leave out ‘uh’s’, false starts and fill-ins like ‘you know’ or ‘I mean’; repair false starts and corrections (unless these seem significant for content); use the standard spellings, not dialect; do not correct or interpret: put down what the speaker actually said, not what is thought he meant (emphasis added, ibid. pp.196ff).
I contend it is the aim of the research at hand in general and the purpose of the transcription in particular that determines the whole task of transcription and translation. However, there are still other factors that determine the transcription and translation of the texts such as text rendition, i.e., if sung or delivered in a plain voice, and the generic category: if traditional songs or poems by individual oral poets. PTW Baxter, for instance, in his "Giraffe and Poetry" (1986) among the Booran, has this to say,
two points emerged clearly during the transcription and the accompanying discussion. Firstly, none of the verses has an exactly correct version: Dengi [the singer] varied his versions slightly from rendering to rendering, even in immediately successive rendering of the verse. There just is not a 'correct text' to collect…. Secondly, the verses are not intended to convey a simple narrative message (p48).
In transcribing and translating Jaarsoo Waaqoo's poetry such difficulties as fill-ins, corrections, false starts and unclear pronunciation are encountered. It is my conviction that Afaan Oromoo is not yet (fully) standardized to the level that one can stick to a single Received Pronunciation (RP) though the phonetic system of the language, i.e. qubee, is established. I therefore transcribed Jaarsoo’s poetry word-for-word including hesitation phenomena (false starts and fill-ins), where appropriate, and non-standard pronunciations such as elision (contraction) since the aim is to capture the content of Jaarsoo Waaqoos’ poetry from sociological perspective. Perhaps equally important point is title of the texts in transcriptions. Conventionally "oral forms do not always have titles in the same way as written works" (Finnegan 1992: 200). For the sake of convenience, however, I have transcribed Jaarsoo's oral texts titled as Finna San Gama 'Beyond Adversities' (FSG I-IV), to systematize the larger units and floating ideas into an integrated narrative whole.
In the series of texts in Finna San Gama the poet raises issues of sociopolitical, cultural and economic interests at length in some coherent and integrated manner. The 'pure transcription' therefore followed the actual voice of the speaker without any or with minimum interference of the transcribing medium, i.e., writing. The poems in his FSG I, for instance, are not titled. Thus, only some sample texts are selected out of the series under some operational criteria and used for the content analyses. Factors considered for the selection include: the aim of the research, namely, analyzing the poetic contents of Jaarsoo’s poems, degree of variation, i.e. from purely 'aesthetic' to ‘functional’, and immediate determining situations of the specific text: conflict, or issues of finna ('suitability factors'), etc.
Translation
The fact that Finna San Gama is in the Boorana Oromo dialect, i.e. that it is in the dialect, may make the task of translation more complex to handle. Added to the poetic features observable in Finna San Gama such as long syllables, frequent high tonal contours, contractions of sounds, frequent repetitions and refrains are typical of the vernacular. The vernacular, through denotative factual expression, is describing 'factual' content/events such as war, drought, famine, forced exile, poverty and disease and, most of all, struggle for freedom is one factor, among others, to consider as a practical problem in determining the aim of translation. Hence, the factual/descriptive model of translation, which depends on whether the language has a "direct correspondence with 'reality', essentially consisting of denotative factual statements" (Finnegan 1992:187).
The first two models in translation i.e. factual/descriptive and thought/meaning, Finnegan says, “are extreme enough”. The third and the fourth concern, namely language as expression and the purely linguistic model, i.e., ‘speech acts’ or meaning-as-use are also not without some drawbacks. According to Finnegan, in "language as expression" or "as action" attention is to context, i.e. to performance, to non-verbal communication and to audience interactions. And she goes on to ask: "And how can these be translated? And what can be done with ambiguous and allusive poetry (like the Boran poem in Baxter 1986)? or what can be done with the level of meaning of different categories of audience/hearers " (ibid. p.188)?
To overcome the problem of translation it may be compelling to "follow Andrzejewski's injunctions [1965:11-17ff] and compile a gloss for each verse", where appropriate, as Baxter suggests (1986). In the present study, the glosses are assembled from the comments of informants and other participants during transcriptions and translations and put in endnotes also using Ton Leus's Borana--English Dictionary. Such a stylistic device that caused Baxter difficulties in translating the Boorana giraffe hunters' song (gooba) is the names of people and places frequently used in Boorana oral poetry. According to the informants, Baxter says, names are often used "merely for their sound, that is to make or extend a rhyme or an alliteration or to provide a required number of syllables" (p49): names are used rather for their sound than for their sense.
Baxter concludes, citing Cerulli (1922:109), that Oromo verse places a high value on "sound parallelism", which is probably, as Baxter confirms, "common to much Oromo poetry" (Baxter 1974). On the other hand, in translating Jaarsoo's poetry it may well be argued that names are not used more for sounds than for senses. Unlike the names in Baxter's "Giraffe Poetry" the personal name Goobana, Minilik's warlord, for instance, is very crucial in Jaarsoo's poetry (cf. FSG I 1991), in which case I found it reasonable to leave such names in Afaan Oromoo.
Another difficulty in translating Oromo oral poetry, particularly that of the Boorana, results from ambiguity and allusions. Baxter maintains, the ambiguity and "impressionistic, almost concealed, meaning" with esoteric and archaic words, synecdoche and metonymy altogether make translation difficult. Such ambiguities, I contend, derive from the implicit connection between the words and sounds as "part of the cumulative meanings of each verse" (Baxter 1986, p49): hence, "the ambiguity of the language reflects the ambiguity of the experience" (ibid.). Owing to allusions, words tend to have other latent meanings rather than just manifest ones. Thus, one may conclude, understanding the Oromo verse, especially the Boorana poetry, and comprehending it increases with repeated listening and exposure to the culture and the language.
In translating African languages, Andrzejewski points out, "a literal translation, instead of giving an insight into the original, distorts it by violating the rules of the target language… " (emphasis added,1965, p11). Many names of objects and concepts in the source language may be totally alien to the culture of the target language. Andrzejewski's best example is the Oromo kallacha (script corrected), a wooden 'phallic symbol' strapped to the forehead of Abbaa Gadaa, for which there is no equivalent English word.
For such technical and aesthetic reasons, I decided against a 'word for word' translation and resorted to giving as extensive glosses/annotations as possible on the meaning(s) of individual words and notes on some punning allusions and ambiguities. Attempt has been made also to "compromise between the sense and substance of the original and the imperatives of poetic coherence in the original" as Said S. Samatar says in his memorial note in tribute to the late B.W. Andrzejewski, who died in 1994 (see Samatar in RAL vol. 29 no 1, 1998). Andrzejewski had a ''brilliant gift'' in striking a balance between over-literalism and over-literariness in translation, which Samatar chooses to call "Andrzejewski's happy medium" (Samatar in RAL vol. 29 no 1, 1998, pp216ff). By over-literalism Samatar seems to mean too much relying on literal translation, whereas, over-literariness is too much poeticizing in the target language instead of giving due insights into the original.
Where the translation still sounds fully intelligible, Andrzejewski maintains,
[t]he easiest solution to the difficulties facing the translator is to pretend that they are not there: to suppress all details which might be puzzling...and to paraphrase or even summarise the contents of the original" (ibid. p15).
Hence, the translation of 'content' alone cannot represent the text’s full import or the language as the form of expressiveness with emphasis on the cultural context. In the present study, therefore, I have attempted at a judicious balance between the substance of the original text and the poetic sense of the text in translation.
Some models of transcription and translation have been carefully reviewed in this section for the sociological analysis of Jaarsoo’s poetry. In what follows, formats for analyzing the poetic style and Jaarsoo's delivery of his poems will be briefly discussed.
Text Rendition and Analysis
Interdisciplinary approaches are employed in analysing FSG because the presentation of the 'texts' is set within a varied historical order. That is, the poet refers to past and present historical events in Oromia and articulates the hopes and aspirations of the Oromo in the future. Hence, methodologies in practice tend to overlap in time and converge since the topic raised in each tape centers on issues such as politics, education, health, economy, and other societal interests.
In the usage of the term “text” throughout the analyses in this paper, I have left aside Bakhtin’s broader sense of the term: text is “any coherent complex of signs” (qtd in Finnegan1992: 158). In this study therefore the focus is on "texts-as-verbal”, i.e. that which is 'verbalized', delivered orally. Text, in this study, means that which is orally composed and orally delivered, tape-recorded, and handed out for public consumption by an oral poet and transcribed, translated where appropriate, and now re-presented in writing.
The texts in Jaarsoo’s poetry, as already noted, do not focus on only one topic. The issue of power relation among the Oromo and Others, especially the Habasha (the Amhara-Tigre ruling class) in successive historical periods, and the resource-based conflicts with the Somali, the Gabra, and the Garri which has gradually led to boarder conflicts, as the poet says, are among the major topics. Jaarsoo's poems, as elsewhere argued in this study, are about nationalism (cf. Schlee 1992; Shongolo 1996). Mohammed Hassen has described nationalism as "...above and beyond all else, about politics, and that politics is about power. Power, in the modern world, is primarily about control of the state" (Baxter 1996:70). Parts of the texts related to power relation and conflict resolution call for sociological analyses, I believe, using multidisciplinary approaches in the fields of sociology and development studies. To affirm the significance of other factors, it seems compelling to repeat Albert B. Lord cited in Foley (1990): "without a symptomatic knowledge of context the text may well be misunderstood and misrepresented" (p380). That is, in the analysis of texts-as-verbal "text and context are inseparable " (ibid).
Context is, Isidore Okpewho says, what Malinowski urged his colleagues to note during the early days of anthropological study of oral texts, i.e., the "social, cultural, economic, environmental, meteorological, and circumstantial" matrices of song or tale performance (Okpewho 1990:122). According to Malinowski, Okpewho adds, those matrices help one "as a guide to understanding the functional import of the texts in the life of the community" (ibid.). The problem is that, Okpewho rightly argues, neither Malinowski nor his disciples has given a single analysis which combined insights from all those domains (ibid.) in the sociological study of oral texts.
In this study, therefore, to describe the sociocultural context in which FSG texts are set conflict theory and development theory, based on ethnographic data, are called up on (Markakis 1994; Wallace 1994; Galtang 1996) including a combination of approaches to (Oromo) oral literature (Bakker 1997; Summner 1997; Finnegan 1992, 1977; Baxter 1986; Ong 1982;). Considering the 'contemporary' text from the perspective of 'traditional' literature, which gives the text depth of meaning to its origin and nature or development is not to force the observation of the text-as-verbal into the straightjacket of diachronic observation. It is rather not to distort the text beyond recognition while describing and analyzing it in synchronic terms set within the present finna and sociocultural situation.
Jaarsoo Waaqoo’s Poetry: FSG I-IV
The primary emphasis of this study will be the analysis of sociological aspect of Jaarsoo Waaqoo's poetry. The present study does not claim to be an overall study of Oromo oral poetry from a sociological perspective. However, the geerarsa oral genre referred to as an "Oromo National Literature" (Addisu 1990, 1994) is also used in Jaarsoo's oral poetry as an 'innovated' poetic style not just sung, but recited. That perhaps necessitates the analysis of Jaarsoo Waaqoo's poetry within the general framework of Oromo traditional song, i.e., the geerarsa, now transformed into a national Oromo protest song (Addisu ibid). Jaarsoo Waaqoo recited his poems and recorded them himself, as already noted, out of which "a 90-minute tape" is in its transcription and translation into English from the original Oromo version by Gunther Schlee and A. Shongolo (1992), and another transcribed and described as "The Poetics of Nationalism" by Abdullahi Shongolo (in Baxter 1996). Other tapes, I transcribed them with the help of informants from Boorana, annotated and titled them as Finna San Gama I-IV in series, meaning Beyond Adversities since Jaarsoo declares (cf. FSG I):
Oromo never shows a weak character
even in the face of adversities!
FSG I, 145 pages in a transcript focuses on the existing social problem of the people, Boorana in particular. The poem as a social critique comments in detail on the danger of alcohol/farsoo as impeding the finna ‘development’ of the society.
The second volume, FSG II, 137 pages in transcript, is on the Oromo worldview. The Oromo as a whole have three elements of common knowledge system to share. These are: the concept of uuma, the concept of ayyaana and the concept of safuu—the violation of which is cubbuu ‘sin’ according to Gemechu Megersa (1993; cf. also Bartels 1983). Jaarsoo’s this second volume is allegorical in style. It centres on the dialogue between ‘cubbuu’ and ‘dhugaa’, i.e. ‘vice’ and ‘virtue’ where, according to the underlying Oromo philosophy, and of the oral poet indeed, the latter dwells in the world of Being which is both transcendental and eternal in nature (Bartels 1983; Gemechu 1993; Baxter 1996). FSG III is much the same as FSG II in that it uses dialogue as a medium of addressing the present political confrontation between the Oromo and the "Tigre attempts of Abyssinian neo-colonialism", as the poet recites.
The other tape, which makes FSG IV, 122 pages in transcript, is mainly political in content. It focuses on the description of the Booranaland, culture and life style of the pastoralist Booran and hence the need to protect Boorana from any attack or occupation by the neighbouring ethnic groups, especially the Somali. Abdullahi Shongolo’s text in print (in Baxter 1996) is a combination of extracts at least of two cassettes or more, of which the first recording comprises the major part, with a brief biographical sketch and some annotations/glosses (cf. also Schlee 1992).
Jaarsoo Waaqoo as a Poet
In this section the biography of the poet will be established mainly based on the information obtained from Jaarsoo's close kin, especially his senior brother and relatives. I also tried to crosscheck the information in those materials in print (in Abdullahi and Schlee) with those obtained through interviews.
The late Jaarsoo Waaqoo was the sixth son of Waaqoo Qooxoo of Noonituu clan who lived and died in Tuqaa, near Moiyale. Jaarsoo's mother died when he was only four; this might have affected Jaarsoo greatly from his childhood to feel abandoned in a wilderness. Tarri told me that Jaarsoo did not like to often mix with people, except, though less often, with his hariyyaa (age-group) called danbal' duubaa. 14
According to Tarri, my Boorana informant, Jaarsoo was a rebel as a herd boy. He repeatedly condemned the elders for compromising with the Garri, the Gabra and the Somali about their property rights to land and land resources in Boorana. Similarly, when he was the OLF soldier, Jaarsoo is said to have frequently criticized the leadership, Tarri says, for its lack of some organizational coherence and for its reluctance to fight the sidii (enemy) and free Oromia. Jaarsoo was known among his hariyyaa as creative, articulate, energetic and straightforward. He was a renowned story-teller among his harriyya and a dhaaduu narrator who could recite a chunk of war events non-stop (interview with Qararsa, my another Boorana informant). He told his brothers and sisters, and the hariyyaa, that he would not remain a herd boy, but one day he would be a freedom fighter and free his people put under subjugation. Then when he was only fourteen he fled home to Nairobi to live as a peddler and later a shopkeeper, during which time Jaarsoo might have come in contact with the OLF. Jaarsoo was twenty when he came home only to live for five years under dissatisfaction as he saw the unbearable external pressures which forced him to flee again and join the OLF in early 1987/8. It was this time in Soloolo, Kenya border, that Jaarsoo lived with his bride Diimaa, whom Tarri married to him, and composed/recorded his poetry. Diimaa bore him a baby-boy named Boruu now living with his mother and a cousin in Solooloo. According to Tarri, Jaarsoo composed/recorded his poetry on the danger of alcohol, farsoo, and its social and economic implications after he came home from Nairobi.
It is said that Jaarsoo knew the historical injustices that his people lived in, as he usually passed his time talking with Boorana elders, raaga (prophet), arga-dhageettii ('griots'), ayyaantuu (seer) and others. Tarri, now abbaa qe'ee, literally, 'head of the household' is himself a seer, under whose apprenticeship Jaarsoo was brought up as a seer, poet, and 'arga-dhageettii', quite impossible for a young man of Jaarsoo's age. It is this background experience from his childhood that enabled Jaarsoo to depict through his poetry continuity and change in the life of his people. 15
The poet composed his oral poetry based on dhaaduu (recitative poetry), and the oral genre of geerarsa, the folksong which has undergone a historical transformation but still has remained the medium of artistic verbal expression “firmly based in Oromo social life” (Addisu 1990; Shongolo in Baxter1996). Jaarsoo’s oral style is therefore innovative in that he developed the traditional popular genre of geerarsa, particularly dhaaduu into a more general and more collective mode of communication. He expresses a universalist modernizing sociopolitical discourse, i.e. unity and solidarity among the Oromo in general and mutual trust and peace between his people and other ethnic groups in particular. Abdullahi Shongolo argues that the poet invented this new mode of sociopolitical discourse so that he can speak to the “heart” of his people and to all the peoples fighting each other over resources in Southern Ethiopia. In this regard, many of the verses in Jaarsoo’s poetry are critiques of the existing ethnic conflict between Borana and the Garri, Gabra and the Somali in particular and other social, economic and political problems of the Oromo in general. Jaarsoo suggests that the root cause of the conflict between the Borana and others is “ignorance and misunderstanding” when they have traditions of common origin, shared customs and language (Shongolo in Baxter 1996: 269).
Oral poetry among the Oromo serves such social functions as conflict resolution mechanism as can be seen in Jaarsoo Waaqoo’s poetry. Related to this fact is perhaps Negesso Goba’a’s suunsuma. Negesso’s suunsuma,16 is another social critique commenting on his people’s early euphoria when the king was deposed in 1974 and ‘Land For the Tiller!’ was the song of the day leading on to the 1975 Land Reform Proclamation. Similarly, the social and political context in which Jaarsoo’s poetry is set is “the transitory and contested situation that followed” the fall of the Derg in 1991 (Shongolo 1996; Schlee 1992). This time, when “the new Tigre rulers” came to the area, i.e., Boorana, and “asserted their presence” by establishing a new statehood then representatives of various peoples and ethnic groups (Garri, Gabra, Somalii) in the area started to fight the Booran about power sharing in the newly established statehood. At the same time the already existing conflict over resource use and management among the peoples in the area was escalating (Shongolo passim).
To Abdullahi Shongolo the conflict in the south was then of two types: one was, between representatives/leaders of the people struggling for representation in the newly emerging sociopolitical order in the country. The other was the already existing but now escalating conflict among the peoples over resources. However, one may argue, there were three modes of competitions prevailing in the south, particularly in Borana and other neighboring ethnic groups as a result of the absence of state structures and institutions then in the south involving the society to make policies workable. First, resource-based competition among the clans, lineage and tribes; second pastoralism and farming as two competitive modes of life; and third, the traditional autochthonous people-centered administrative, sociocultural institutions and the modern state institutions operating under central government (Pastoralism Forum Ethiopia, 2000).
The major focus of Jaarsoo Waaqoo’s poetry is a general political and sociocultural message of unity, peace and solidarity among his people and other ethnic groups and the current situation of the Oromo under the "Tigre attempts of Abyssinian neo-colonial rule" (Shongolo, in Baxter 1996:268). He also addresses a “situation in which the social construction of identity and belonging involves a very complex use of criteria of language, decent and cultural practice”(ibid.) often causing conflicts over resource use and management, especially land. Jaarsoo plays down those differences and urges his people instead to focus on unity, peace and solidarity. Jaarsoo was in his early twenties when he composed his poems. He learnt reading and writing in Afaan Oromoo (Oromo Language) in qubee/Latin script only later as an OLF soldier and used writing for revising and perfecting the poetry he composed orally. Born and bred in the pastoralist Boorana community of Noonitu clan as a herd boy at Tuqa near Moiyale, Jaarsoo composed and recorded his poetry, most of it as an OLF soldier (interview with Tarri,Qararsa and others). He used literacy, as Shongolo writes, “only as a mnemonic device to perfect his oral performance; his concern was Orature not literature” (ibid., p270; cf. also footnote no.9). Jaarsoo composed poems on various sociopolitical and cultural issues until his death on the 21st September 1994.
Endnotes
1. The problem needs due attention because the Oromo today find themselves in a double jeopardy: primarily the Oromo are engaged in a reconstruction of the past and in averting the 'history of the Galla', as portrayed by Bahrey (1590) and "used by historiographers as a written source material for the study of the Oromo past, became not only their international image but was incorporated into, and became part of, the Oromo self-image." See Gemetchu Megersa's essay in PTW Baxter (1996, pp92-102). At the same time, the Oromo today find themselves in a serious sociopolitical situation under the present regime and are engaged in a national struggle for self-determination as addressed in the works of Jaarsoo Waaqoo and other Oromo individual (oral) poets. See Addisu 1990, 1994; Schlee 1992; Shongolo 1996. See also Mohammed Hassen who bluntly declares that "...the Oromo language, the core of national identity, was the one language that was most disparaged and least studied in Ethiopia" (in Baxter ibid. p71). He adds citing Mekuria Bulcha (1994:9): "From 1942 to 1974 Afaan Oromoo was the only language in Africa that was banned from being used for preaching, teaching and production of literature..." (emphasis added, ibid).
2. See Baxter Voice, Genre, Text (1991, p5) where he cites T. Todrov for an argument different from the present: "... every interpretation of history is based on the present, just as that of space starts with here, and that of other people with I.”
3. Finna is a very complex concept to pin down. On one hand, it is understood among the Booran as suga, abundance/health. Tarrii, for example, says if the living condition for the people and the livestock is suitable, the Borana say it is finna, finna Waaqaa. Ton Leus puts this as "life all given by God"/Waaqaa. (See Ton Leus, Borana--English Dictionary 1995, p297.) Ironically, where the grass and water is scarce, the condition of the animals, the country and of the people can still be healthy. Finna, therefore, is not a matter of quantity, Tarri adds. On the other hand, Finna can also represent a bad time or hard times "when a government is oppressing people putting them in prison etc" (Leus Ibid) or when the cattle, the people or the country is not in a good condition even when there is a lot of food, grass and water (cf. Gufu Oba 1989). Still more, finna is the phases of development, which constitutes the sociopolitical, economic, and cultural life aspects of the Oromo over time (cf. Gemetchu 1993, and in Asafa 1998, pp.30-31; see also Aneesa Kasam's essay "The Oromo Theory of Social Development" (Asafa ibid.). Finna, among the Macca Oromo, particularly the Horroo, is 'kin' what the Booran call 'firaa-fiixaa'. For the purpose of this part of the study, however, I have adopted the Oromo 'stages of development' as the meaning of finna.
4. In folkloric studies, in diachronic terms, "discourse is produced both in historical and social terms" (Muana 1998, p.50 citing Bauman and Briggs 1992; Urban 1994).
5. In this respect, at least two conditions seem to be indispensable: one, to identify and critically examine what external conditions (sociopolitical, economic cultural, or any others) and how they often suppressed the Oromo literary activity; two, how those external and internal conditions affected the composition and performance of Oromo oral poetic genres. These two points may require a fully-fledged research of its own kind.
6. By 'cultural productions' I mean oral literature, especially oral poetry, other than other cultural artifacts. Among most African writers, literature is understood as “an art and cultural product” (see Ojaide 1996:ix).
7. See Shongolo in Baxter 1996, p269. Shongolo says that Jaarsoo's poetic style is an 'innvoted' geerarsa genre. In Shongolo's words, Jaarsoo's style is "a new mode of expressing modern, generalized and collective--in contrast to the geerarsa's traditional and individual praises--political values and goals among the Boran" (in Baxter 1996, pp269ff).
8.See Addisu 1990, 1994.
9.Professor Sumner's Philosophical analysis of Oromo Wisdom Literature (Proverbs, Folk tales and Folk songs) lays a foundation indeed for the study of Oromo (Oral) Literature. His works in series are: Oromo Wisdom Literature Vol. I (1995), Anthology of Oromo Wisdom Literature (Proverbs, Folk tales and Folk songs) (1996), Oromo Wisdom Literature Vol. II, Songs (1997), and Oromo Wisdom Literature Vol. III, Folk Tales (1997). However, Sumner collected and analyzed in English those texts/works already published in different languages (German, French, and Italian) in isolation from their social, political and cultural context.
10. It should be made clear that in this study Jaarsoo's poems are transcribed as Finna San Gama (FSG) or Beyond Adversities since the poet addresses the present severe condition the Oromo are put in, the national struggle toward self-determination the nation is engaged in and the hope and aspirations of the people in the future.
11. See Schlee and Shongolo who contend that Jaarsoo "has never gone to school" (p. 230), to which informants, Qararsaa, Haalakee, and Tarrii, agree. A.Shongolo writes the poet learnt reading and writing in AO, the Oromo language, when he was an OLF soldier. He adds that Jaarsoo "used literacy only as a mnemonic device to perfect his oral performance" (in Baxter, p270).
12. Tarrii and other informants agree that the poet composed several tapes in his lifetime.
13. Other researchers got the chance to talk to the poet himself. See Schlee and Shongolo (1992) in R.J. Hayward and I.M. Lewis (1996: 230). They say that Jaarsoo's "motivation is political mobilization and he has given us permission to make transcriptions and translations with this [his political motivation] in mind" (ibid.) from a 90 minute declamation of political poems.
14. Danbala is one of the lines of hariyyaa, age-groups, so: "Danbal' Diidaa, Danbal' Bulee, Danbal' Areero…" The other hariyya line is Wakor, so Wakor Waaqoo, Wakor Liiban, Wakor Soraa etc (interview with Tarri, see also Ton Leus 1995:188).
15. Of continuity and change I agree with what Mario I. Aguilar writes (Aguilar 1998): "...I have argued that the foundation for each generation's choice has been a response to external factors in which survival and continuity (emphasis added) have been key" (p254). He adds that the "need for continuity has meant change, through a process in-built in ...Boorana society, that of diversification. Aguilar's conception of continuity and change in the life of the Waasoo Boorana is congruent with Baxter's Nagaa Boorana (1965) or Helland's political viability of Boorana pastoralism (in Baxter et al 1996) that "response to ...crisis or conflict has been aimed at keeping and increasing that Nagaa Boorana" (ibid.). In the Epilogue to his Being Oromo in Kenya (1998) Aguilar concludes the Boorana preoccupation with keeping the Peace of the Booran and "Those processes of conflict and consensus have shaped and continued shaping a new body of Borana oral tradition and custom..." (ibid.).
16. Negesso’s comment was that the rapid sociopolitical change of the time was unpredictable and nothing good or bad was known yet about the military junta (Negesso 1994 passim).
