African Testimony Reported in European Travel Literature: What Did Paul Soleillet and Camille Piétri Hear and Why Does No One Recount It Now?

Abstract

European visitors to Africa frequently report versions of oral narratives in their travel accounts from the precolonial era. Beatrix Heintze cautions against the uncritical use of these narratives, arguing that they are a “special category of source to which one must apply not only all the criteria for the analysis of oral traditions, but also the sort of source criticism specific to written sources.” Her call for textual criticism is appropriate, but her recommendations regarding the oral aspects of the information raise several issues: what criteria should be adopted for the analysis of oral narratives and what insights into the past do these materials provide? Heintze assumes that oral narratives present “concrete historical data” with “literal” meanings which become “more abstract over the course of time.” She sees the principal value of European-mediated accounts as providing access to the factual statements and initial metaphors from which emerged the more abstract historical clichés expressed by informants in contemporary Africa.