Chifunyise and the folktale as ideology and pedagogy: an autoethnography

Abstract

Writing is very recent in Zimbabwe, with the first Shona novel published in 1956. Before missionaries came with books and the practice of writing, indigenous people were a word of mouth people. They exploited folktales for values formation, education, communication and problem solving. Through folktales, they also researched and documented events. While folktales were affected by colonialism through the social changes that took place because of westernization, they continued to co-exist alongside written books for a while before they were eventually silenced by Zimbabwe’s long war for liberation. By the time the guns fell silent and a new government came to power, new tales and new folk heroes had taken centre stage. This autoethnographic paper is a reflection of a conversation between two storytellers – the author and the late playwright and storyteller – Stephen Chifunyise. It points out the shared views about the role of storytelling in society and how Chifunyise who told stories on television saw the transformative power of the art and the role it could play in democratizing communication as well as offering home grown solutions in an Africa that is attempting to integrate its indigenous values and systems into a world economy. The paper reminisces on the need for Africa to take stock of the power in indigenous knowledge systems and how Africans can come together to mainstream storytelling, share ideas and exchange information to revive the practice. The paper argues that Africa needs to go back to her stories and thought systems as is reflected in an African philosophy that is used by Shona storytellers to conclude their stories, ‘Ndipo pakafira sarungano,’ which metaphorically means, ‘the death of the storyteller is not the death of the story.’