When Witches and Wizards Are Narrators: Oral Autobiography, Magical Realism, and Memory

Abstract

The Western focus on autobiography as individualistic and written literature precludes several oral African versions of the genre. The various African societies that have oral individual and communal narratives where individuals and community members occupy subject positions like the bridal chant, the hunter’s chant, the epic, and the panegyric are not accounted for in the Eurocentric basis of the definition of the autobiographical genre. An oral autobiographical tradition that is least studied and not given adequate attention in the traditional Western definition of the genre is the witches’ and wizards’ tale or confession and that is my focus here. The chapter will discuss autobiography and memory in relation to how witches and wizards remember and narrate their stories of adventures, conquests, failures, and conversion. It will analyze some of the narratives of the witches and wizards to show their stories as autobiographical tales of individuals and part of a community. Along with content analysis of the tales will be their contextual discussion. Also, the paper will discuss magical realism and the narratives, especially how ordinary human beings, the witches and the wizards in this case, acquire supernatural powers and are transformed from ordinary people to dangerous and enigmatic artists and narrators empowered for sinister and propitious activities. The implications of the witches’ and wizards’ narratives for creativity and human development will also be discussed. The oral texts for my analysis are from oral interviews, testimonies, and confessions.