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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 9, No. 2
Publication Date: February 25, 2022
DOI:10.14738/assrj.92.11860. Nnamdi-Eruchalu, G. I. (2022). Folk Songs and Social Realities: The Nsude Igbo Women Example. Advances in Social Sciences
Research Journal, 9(2). 366-385.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Folk Songs and Social Realities: The Nsude Igbo Women Example
Geraldine Ifesinachi Nnamdi-Eruchalu
Department of English Language and Literature
Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria
ABSTRACT
This study is aimed at documenting and analyzing the folk songs of Nsude women
of South East Nigeria with the aim of understanding and reconstructing the
traditional culture of the people which is shrinking in the face of westernization.
The researcher observed that Christian songs and popular music have taken over
the roles women previously performed by folk songs. The study argues that the
decline in the use of folk songs by the womenfolk could be depriving the younger
generations of the people certain values, beliefs, norms, and social practice which
hitherto controlled behaviour and held the traditional society together, and as such
stripping them of their culture and identity. Previous works on Igbo folk songs
focused on documentation only, and some on the pedagogical roles of folk music.
The present study addresses the folk songs sang by Nsude women so as to highlight
the peculiarities of the people’s existence and philosophies.The songs were
recorded from the researcher’s interaction with five elderly women from the town,
as well as from her introspection. The analysis revealed that the songs in addition
to being sources of enjoyment, entertainment and relaxation for all inculcates in the
people the values to uphold and the vices to abhor for the harmonious existence of
the community.
Keywords: Culture, Nsude, folk songs, traditional society, women, identity
INTRODUCTION
Whether the Ibo people trace their ancestry back to Jubal-Cain it is not my purpose to discuss
but they certainly have inherited a fair share of the art originated by the “Father of Music” (
Basden 185)
In traditional African society in general and in Igbo land in particular, occasions for singing,
dancing, and getting the atmosphere charged with excitement occur frequently. Such occasions
which include births, marriages, deaths, arrivals, departures, appointments, promotions,
launching of new uniform, and a host of others have lead to the composition and use of a large
corpus of songs to address them. Akporobaro observes that “Women songs may be songs
associated with marriage ceremonies, betrothal occasions, the birth of a child, the burial of an
old woman, etc. They may be song reflecting the relationship between the woman and the
husband” (Pg 327). They carry the weight of the values, norms, beliefs, and world views of the
society and relate them to the people in a pleasurable melodious manner. Among Nsude people,
the songs are accompanied by music whose rhythm must be fast tempo . The faster the tempo,
the more the excitement and rhythmic movements they evoke until finally the chord of
ecstasies is touched, and a deep sense of satisfaction marked by total exhaustion is felt. This
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Nnamdi-Eruchalu, G. I. (2022). Folk Songs and Social Realities: The Nsude Igbo Women Example. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 9(2).
366-385.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.92.11860
helps to relieve them of the fatigue of the day’s labour and stimulate the body, mind and brain
for optimal health (See Patania, V.M. et al, No Page).
Igbo folk songs are widely circulated among the people. They are so ingrained in their daily life
and living that children simply pick them from their environment as they pick their native
tongue. These songs in addition to giving pleasure, entertainment, and relief from the day’s toil
enlightens the people on their folkways and acceptable conducts in their communities.
Igbo folk songs have received little scholarly attention despite their role in projecting the Igbo
language and portraying the Igbo culture. One of the earliest attempts to document Igbo oral
poetry was made In 1971 by Donatus Egudu and Romanus Nwoga. They recorded and
translated Igbo poems, and published them in a book which according to Amankulor is “an
anthology of Igbo transitional verse” (p. 159). In 1991 Umeh included an analysis of Igbo folk
poetry as a chapter in his book. Agu 2011 and Ojukwu, Onuora-Oguno, an Esimone 2014
approached the study of folk music from pedagogical perspectives. Okafor 2017 is a
compilation of hundreds of Igbo songs from across different Igbo communities. The present
study focuses on recording and analyzing the folk songs sang in Nsude before and in the 1980s.
Most of these songs have lost currency and exist only in the subconscious mind of those who
were familiar with them. The occasions they once addressed are currently being addressed by
christian songs and popular music. The songs recorded for analysis, to the knowledge of this
researcher, have not received any scholarly attention before now and are fast falling out use.
To this end, this study would address the following research questions:
i . Do the people of Nsude have folk songs?
ii. What functions do the songs perform for the community?
ii. What themes are exploited by the folk songs of Nsude under analysis?
iii. What identity do the songs project for the people?
LITERATURE REVIEW
Oral Literature
Literature means ‘writings’ (Latin Literatura) from ‘litera’ ‘letter’ (of the alphabet), used “to
cover a given body of written materials” (Okoh 10). So, etymologically, literature is associated
with writing. In its broadest sense, literature refers to anything written in any field of
knowledge, be it in photography, swimming, agriculture, space science and technology,
computing science. Literature also refers to written works of arts created from the imaginative
powers of humans. It is literature in this second sense that is the focus of this paper. Merriam
Websters views it as “writing in prose or verse: especially: writings having excellence of form
and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest”. Dictionary.com defines it as “writings
in which expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest,
are characteristic or essential features, as poetry, novels, history, biography, and essays”.
When literature is viewed from the perspective of its etymology, definitions in dictionaries, and
stance of some western writers as a purely writing tradition, only written works of arts are
qualified to be addressed as literature. Consequently, referring to such oral performances as
folk tales, myths, legends, folk songs, epic narratives, recitations and chants, riddles, proverbs,
rituals and others as ‘oral literature’ sounds anomalous and contradictory, and highly
contestable to some European writers.
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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 9, Issue 2, February-2022
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Ong, for instance pronounced that “thinking of oral tradition or heritage of oral performance,
genres and styles as ‘oral literature’ is rather like thinking of horses as automobiles without
wheels” (12). Despite Finnegan’s defence of oral literature by hinting “that the term ‘literature’
though devised primarily for works in writing, has been extended to include related
phenomena such as traditional oral narrative in cultures untouched by writing (16), Ong insists
that “concepts have a way of carrying their etymologies with them forever. The elements out of
which a term is originally built usually , and probably always, linger in subsequent meanings”
(11).
It should be recalled that language through which expression is given to literature is primarily
oral, and that before the invention of writing, all communications were done by word of mouth.
Such works of arts are only preserved in their oral forms in non-literate societies, the majority
of whose languages are yet to have written forms. Akporobaro notes that
Literature need not be what is written only, but all verbal creations written or spoken which
are artistically projected, the collection of oral presentations, recitation and performances of
high artistic merits which are products of the creative use of the imagination by artists of the
spoken words in preliterate communities. (35)
Literature is described as oral when its mode of preservation is by words of mouth, and since
that is one of the ways of storing information it does not make such works less literature. “Oral
literature, including songs, arose as a means to fix those thoughts in memorable , recoverable,
keepable forms... namely ‘stretches of language (discourse) kept in memory or (later) writing’,
or more simply “kept language” (Donald Bahr (Bahr et al 1997 cited by Webster 297). He goes
on to note that “by ‘keeping’ I mean ‘keeping for reenactment,’including retelling and
rereading”. So, at the heart of oral literature is performance.
Meanwhile, it is a universal truth that the ability of humans to deploy their creative impulses to
produce works of arts that inspire, educate, entertain, unearth suppressed feelings, vocalize
hidden truth, foster the overall well-being of humans, and build a better secure society using
the instrumentality of language is not the exclusive preserve of literate cultures. Creative
literature does not reside only in the consciousness
of people from literate societies.
Like love and laughter, literature (no matter its shape, preferred form, mode of existence or
perpetuation) is not the exclusive property of any one nation, culture, or race, no matter how
sophisticated, arrogant, or disdainful of other cultures. No society is so backward, deprived,
depraved, or under-privileged technologically, as to be totally lacking in literary, artistic
activity. (Okoh 21)
Poetry
Poetry is by far the oldest of the literary genres. In the words of Maduakor, “poetry originates
from sources that are dark, mysterious and primordial. It has been with man from creation. It
is indeed the oldest of the arts. In this regard it is to be viewed as song, and it is associated with
music and dance”(2). Its beginnings cannot be traced since it is inextricably tied to nature which
is in itself poetry. The splashing of water, the burbling of small streams, the rumbling of
thunder, the pattering of rain, the chirruping of insects, the rustling of trees in the breeze, the