Climate Change, Remodelling of Oral Tales and the Changing Ways of Life: The Case of the Sangu of Tanzania

Abstract

African oral literature is not static; it changes in accordance with and in relation to the changes occurring in the society it reflects. As a rich source of varying degrees of information, African oral literature depicts the changing human conditions and behaviour like climate and related environmental conditions, crime, political instability, disease amongst others; and provides requisite solutions to such piercing and compelling global challenges. This paper presents a textual analysis of four (4) Sangu oral tales to show how the Sangu of south-west Tanzania have been remodelling their tales in relation to the changing human life conditions. It scrutinises “iJungwa Sikhandi Vaanu” (lit. trans. ‘elephants were once human beings’), “Umutwa nu Mwehe Waakwe” (‘the chief and his wife’), “Umuhinja ni Nyula” (‘a girl and the frogs’), and “Kwashi iNwiga sina Singo Nali”(‘why giraffes have long necks’), which were part of the 20 tales collected during in-depth interviews held with Sangu storytellers. The selection of these four tales was based in their suiting the climate change theme and remodelling. The study found that oral stories display unique knowledge of a particular people pertaining to climate change and adaptation. Moreover, it emerged that sustainable solutions to the current environmental crisis are embedded in people’s environment-related oral narratives.