THE POTTER AND THE CLAY: FOLKLORE IN GENDER SOCIALISATION

BY

ANTHONIA MAKWEMOISA YAKUBU

DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES
FACULTY OF ARTS
NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA
JABI, ABUJA, NIGERIA.
ayakubu@noun.edu.ng; brigettemak@gmail.com
Abstract

Folklore, especially the folktale type, is one of the major tools adopted in the socialisation of boy and

girl children. The contemporary times notwithstanding, folktales are still an integrated part of daily

living and have been creatively recrafted into songs, poems, proverbs, and clichés. The pliability of

the folktale gives the narrator, as a proximal agent, the poetic license, to transmit his or her subjective

views to his or her audience, who because they are young, take these views to be true and binding. The

paper analyses the narrative realms, themes and techniques of male and female narrators and how

they, as parents/guardians/teachers, instruct and transmit moral values and communal beliefs to

children. The paper also investigates whether the lessons learnt from folktales affect the ways in which

children relate with the state, institutions of authority, the opposite sex, and the world. The theoretical

framework revolves around Sigmund Freud’s and Jacques Lacan’s theory of the unconscious, and

different strands of folkloristic feminism to critique how patriarchal ideas, values and stereotypes are

easily transmitted through the narrative agency of the gendered folktale.

Keywords: folktales; socialisation; narrator; subjectivity

Introduction

The term, ‘folklore’ has generated much academic discourse because up to the present there has

been no consensual agreement on what the definition or scope should be. Many scholars have

propounded individual definitions based on subjective or professional biases (See, for example,

Charlotte Burne, 1913; Maria Leach, 1949; Boswell and Reaver, 1962; Bascom 1965; Dan-

Amos, 1971; 2014; and Bronner, 2016). In the volume five of the seventeen volumes of the

International Encyclopedia, folklore is defined as:

 folk learning; it comprehends all knowledge that is transmitted by
word of mouth and all crafts and techniques that are learned by imitation
or example as well as products of those crafts (497)

Archer Taylor gives a broader definition of the folklore:

Folklore is the material that is handed on by tradition, either by word of mouth or

by custom and practice. It may be folk songs, folktales, riddles, proverbs or other
materials preserved in words. It may be traditional tools and physical objects like
fences or knots, hot cross buns, or Easter eggs; traditional ornamentation like the
walls of troy; or traditional symbols like the Swastika. It may be traditional
procedures like throwing salt over one’s shoulder or knocking on wood. It may be
traditional beliefs like the notion that elder is good for the ailments of the eye. All of
these are folklore (12)

To Ben-Amos (10), folklore is “a definite realistic, artistic, and communicative process”;

Abraham (98) defines it as “a series of artefacts…complicated by the interactions of different

groups”, and five years later, in the heat of the arguments and counter-arguments over what

constitutes a folklore (see Welsch 262; Bauman 170; Ben-Amos 10; Claus & Korom 31), he

defines it as “items of traditional performance which attention to themselves because of their

traditional activities” (145). Bronner (Folklore in Practice, 2016), moving away from the 20th

century definition that invariably includes in its scope terms like tradition, performance,

communication, amongst others, conceptualises a definition that will take particular cognisance

of five challenges, some of which include the presence of popular culture, the digital age, and

the new definition of what tradition is. In the light of these, he defines a folklore that emphasises

folkloric processes and knowledge. To him, then, folklore is “traditional knowledge put into, and

drawing from practice” (10). One gleans from the definitions identified that folklore as a concept

revolves people and their varied experiences in a given society, oral traditions, material culture

and customary lore (Wikipedia 2016).

No society can exist without a set of folklore, in which are encapsulated the society’s body of

beliefs and expectations pertaining to, among others, gender relations and children’s

socialisation. The folklore, then, is a community’s tool kit, so vital to its existence and

sustainability. The type of people we are socialised to become emanated from the particular

folklore we are raised by; social institutions like schools and churches have their foundations laid

on folkloric beliefs and attitudes which are necessary for their contuinity. Generations after

generations, some types of folklore are discarded for new ones, and some aspects are modified to

reflect the changing times. As a society is always in motion and fluidity, so also is its folklore.

However, gender beliefs, attitudes and expectations have generally remained stereotypical

because of the relevance of folkloric practices to the sustainability of patriarchy (Baquedano-

Lopez 350).

Folklore is the unwritten or verbal literature, performances, or literary communicative devices of

a people. It is one of the media through which the collective values of a community or society

are sustained. Men and women generally adopt the different types of folklore for various uses.

For example, proverbs and songs are used by men and women to educate, warn, enlighten, or

criticise and ridicule others.

Myths, proverbs and folktales are folkloric genres which have distinct characteristics that set

them apart from one another. However, the folktale is the most common folkloric genre usually

adopted as a socialisation tool in the conditioning of children, and a unifying agent in the

propagation of a community’s body of values and social expectations. Folktales are fictional

prose oral narratives created from people’s imaginations and sometimes embellished with

snippets of historical facts. They are generally untrue, but are recognised as being true to life

because they treat themes that are taken from everyday life experiences which the audience can
relate to (see Bascom’s The Forms of Folklore, 1965 4; Fischer’s Socio Psychological Analysis

of Folktales, 1963 236).

Scholars like Degh (Folktales and Society, 1989), Bauman (Verbal Art as Performance, 1977),

and Zipes (The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, 2000) have studied folktales from the aspects

of their use and importance in traditional societies; their performance-oriented nature; and as a

tool in a community’s educational, cultural and communicative socio-cultural activities.

Generally, folktales are didactic in nature, but, according to Lewis (The Feminists have Done It,

1974), they also encode a community’s set of moral conducts and expectations for both sexes.

They are used to condition the audience, especially children, to the community’s way of life.

Through folktales, children begin to understand and accept the society they live in and their fear

of the unknown gradually recedes to a manageable level. Their entertaining qualities facilitate

easy reception by the audience. Folktales are also shared among a group of adult friends, male or

female. For women, stories are narrated to encourage bonding, console one’s pains in the face of

injustice, strengthen one’s survival instinct, teach and inform, offer therapeutic healing, amongst

other advantages.

The narration of the folktale has gone beyond the traditional scenes of ‘tales by moonlight’, and

the traditional figures of an aged narrator and an audience made of mainly children. In these

contemporary times, the globalisation of the world has taken the realm of entertainment to a high

level, and folklore has played its part. For example, the folktale is narrated in the classroom, in

places of religious worship, in offices, in films, music, and the different types of print and

electronic media. This reflects the fluidity and diversity of culture, people and community, and

folklore plays along, adapting its characteristics and features to the changing mode.
The Folktale and Patriarchal Stereotypes

Patriarchy, that social system in which authority and power is vested in boys and men, giving

“undue advantage over women” (Makama 117) in matters that include among others, religion,

language and knowledge, have remained in existence for centuries because of the adoption of

particular social but creative agents or tools which act to transmit its set of values and biases

through social conditioning or socialisation. As a social system, its continued existence is based

on a superiority/inferiority dichotomy, where one sex is adjudged to be better than the other

(Dogo 263). According to Huffel 260:

Patriarchy is a social system that promotes hierarchies and awards economic,

political and social power to one group over others. Patriarchy is essentially
androcentric and hierarchical by nature.

In times past, this social system refers to the power of the father as head of the family (Makama

117).Today, the term extends to include the “whole structure of Father ruled society: aristocracy

over serfs, masters over slaves, kings over subjects, racial overlords over colonized people”

(Reuther 1983:61).

The folktale has remained one of the most successful tools in realising the patriarchal agenda.

Ogunpolu (Classification of Yoruba Prose Narrative, 1986) Okpewho (African Oral Literature,

1992) and Uzendoski and Calapucha-Tapuy (The Ecology of the Spoken Word, 2014) have

written extensively on the folktale, from its structure to its functions Few have looked at the

functional aspects of folklore from the angle of its pliability in the hands of the narrator(s),

especially the power it gives one to recreate it to achieve specific purposes. For instance,

Lombardi-Satriani (Folklore as Culture of Contestation, 1974) and Davis (Maithil Women’s

Tales, 2014)infer there is a conscious deliberateness on the part of the male narrator to mold a
folktale to assume a particular form in order to establish specific views and biases within the

audience.

Through the narration of folktales, children are socialised into believing certain ‘truths’ about

each sex, and these affect gender relations all through adulthood. It also influences the nature and

type of beliefs, processes, systems, institutions, etc. that are created. The fact that the narrator is

an adult confers authority borne out of experience on him or her and this facilitates the easy

transmission of his or her ideas to the young audience. Socialisation is a process by which a

person is incultrated into a particular body of beliefs, norms and practices of a particular

community. Usually, this process is lifelong and becomes more subtle in nature when one

becomes an adult (Elkin and Handel 45; Gecas 172).

Socialisation starts from childhood, a means by which a child is gradually brought up to become

a bona fide member of a society through the deliberate use of social agents or tools (see

Maccoby & Martin, Socialization in the Context of the Family, 1983; Connel 191 - 194; and

Cromdal, Socialization, 2006). It is successfully operated on a three-pronged pedastal: the

individual’s willingness or acceptance to be so imposed on; the body of rules and regulations

embedded in different branches of folklore – festivals, songs, dances, poetry, folktales, etc.);

fear, reward, and punishment, and the presence of what could be termed ‘the third eye’, an

‘invisible’ authoritarian figure to act as checks against excesses. The folktale is creatively

adopted by patriarchy to bring these to bear in the minds of children.

The Narrator as the Potter, the Folktale as the Wheel, the Audience as the Clay

The metaphor of the potter, the wheel and the clay refers to the relationship between the narrator

and his or her audience, which can be likened to the one that exists between a potter and clay. In
this relationship, the clay is at the mercy of the potter. The narrator plays an important role in the

sustainability of patriarchy as a social system. S/he operates both the wheel and the clay, and

then applies pressure on the latter, creating desired shapes and sizes. The wheel, in this instance,

the folktale, rolls the clay, in this instance, the minds of the audience, to produce particular

results that reflect the agenda of the narrator. For instance, in narrating a particular folktale, what

moral lesson, what gendered belief, fears, anxieties, resolutions does the narrator wants the

children to go away with?

At this juncture, it is important to state that this paper looks specifically at gendered folktales.

Bascom (4) identifies six types of the folktale: human tales, animal tales, trickster tales, dilemma

tales, formulistic tales, and moral tales (fables). These categories of tales are used to teach

positive values to children, but it is the first category – human tales – that are usually adopted to

transmit patriarchal stereotypes about gender to children. Continuous re-telling of the stories at

different times and environments cements into the consciousness of children the body of beliefs

of that particular community, which are basically premised on male and female, and the

relationship that exists, and should exist between them.

The folktale revolves around the key concepts of narrator, performance, audience/listeners, and

structure. It is the narrator that strings these concepts aesthetically together in order for the

folktale to achieve its purposes. The narrator employs the folktale as a tool to inscribe his/her

subjective reality on the consciousness of his/her listeners. S/he does this by performing the tale

through the use of voice, facial expressions, gesticulations, body movements, songs, audience

participation, and deliberate arrangement of the structural components of the tale (the plot,

characterisation, narration technique, language, theme, and more importantly, the structural

patterns of the actions in a given tale). Through the adoption of these processes, the narrator
stimulates and sustains the interest and attention of his/her audience, and is able to deliver his/her

intent and purpose(s) to the satisfaction of the audience.

The narrator can also be seen as a social crusader and a teacher. Through his/her personality,

memory, creativity, illocutionary power, adopted aesthetic form and style, and the ability to

adapt to the social context and immediate circumstances to facilitate his/her purpose(s) or

intention(s) for the narration of the story, current happenings in society are condemned or praised

in such a creative way that the audience is able “to recognize, relate to, and adopt” (Furniss 15).

In considering the narration of the folktale to children, and the important role of the narrator as

an entertaining social crusader, there is an interplay of conscious and unconscious motive(s), and

male and female narrator. Freud (On Creativity and the Unconscious, 1958), Lacan (The Four

Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, 1988) and Bowman (Review of the Unconscious,

1965) discuss the realm of the unconscious in human relationships, attributing to it a sense of

untapped power, which sometimes controls the conscious. Applying this to the subject of the

folktale and its narration, one can say that the only motive there is on the part of the narrator

during storytelling sessions is to impart positive moral values on the children in an entertaining

way, so that the children will grow into responsible adults. It is thus these positive moral values

that shape the world, even as the negative ones, which children are aware of through storytelling,

are also contesting for a place in the mind. The moral responsibility of the narrator then can be

seen as an unconscious act mold future generations in the light of there being no ulterior motive

otherwise, that is, no deliberate motive to inculcate children into particular beings. This is

especially the case for the female narrator, in line with her biological and social roles.

But feminist folklorists have argued to the contrary (see Mills, Feminist Theory, 1993;

Jorgensen, Political and Theoretical Feminisms, 2010). The narration of folktales is not as
ordinary as it looks. Much deliberateness is applied by the narrator because patriarchy should be

sustained through the socialisation of the next generation of people. Feminism is a broad-based

philosophical notion or theory that relates to women’s socio-historical conditions. Its theory,

diverse in thought and methodology, revolves around the “woman question” (see Irigaray,

Speculum, 1985; Hum, Feminisms, a Reader, 1992; Freedman, Feminisms, 2001; Keenan, Race,

Gender and Other Differences, 2004; Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists, 2014; Eltahawy,

Headscarves and Hymens, 2015). It specifically addresses the oppression of the female, in

relation to the male, in a patriarchal and often capitalist society. De Caro (Women and Folklore,

1983); Stoeltje (Gender Representation in Performance, 1988); Babcock (Taking Liberties,

1987); Ice (Women, Folklore, Feminism, 1989); Mills (Feminist Theory and the Study of

Folklore, 1993); Kouseleos (Feminist Theory and Folklore, 1999); and Jorgensen (Political and

Theoretical Feminisms, 2010) opine that the fact that the narrators are products of a patriarchal

society means that they will pursue patriarchal interests during the storytelling act. The male

narrator consciously acts out a patriarchal agenda during his narration, while the female narrator,

as an unenlightened victim of patriarchy, unconsciously, during her storytelling sessions to

children, promotes the values of a social system that has undermined her personhood.

The intention of the narrator is to impart his/her subjective world view, philosophy, norms and

values on a generally unsuspecting audience in order that they would uphold the community’s

material and spiritual existence. The narrator achieves this by creatively arranging all the

components that make up the tale into a meaningful whole. S/he skilfully encases the theme in an

intricate weave of plot, characterisation, language, dialogue, songs, etc., to form an admixture of

linear patterns, the “syntagmatic”, (see Greimas 1966:404) as propounded by Vladimir Propp

(Morphology of the Folktale 1966; 1975) and binary oppositional patterns, which Levi Strauss
terms “paradigmatic” (1955:30). This way, the narrator shapes the subjectivity of the audience to

conform to social expectations.

Kituku (East African Folktales, 1977); De Boeck and Honwana (Children and Youth in Africa,

2005); Tucker (Children’s Folklore, 2008); Mtonga (Children’s Games, 2012); Ilias et al

(Children’s Perception of Folktales and Narration, 2010) to mention a few, have contributed to a

vibrant body of work on children folklore, to prove that children are very much engaged in the

creation, application and transmission of folklore. Children learn through imitation of what the

adults do during storytelling sessions. When they are together amongst themselves, they create

their own stories, jokes, riddles, pranks, tongue twisters, songs, rhymes, nicknames and jeers,

amongst others. However, the content of their own folklore generally imitate the gendered

beliefs and values of their community.

Between the Male and the Female Narrator

It is important to note that patriarchy has continued to be the longest and all-pervading social

system because of the role and contributions of women. The inferiority ascribed to girl children,

in relation to boy children, has not changed much because women themselves have deeply

internalised this belief and then pass it on to their children. The socialisation and upbringing of

children is one of the major responsibilities of mothers (see Tulviste, 2013; Kovacs, 2010).

African communities reserve this prerogative to the woman because of the important biological

function of reproduction she performs; it is assumed that this function gives her the advantage of

bonding with her child first and more closely than the father, extended family or moral

institutions within the community. In the order of the socialistion of a child, the mother comes
first, followed by the father, members of the extended family, particular girls and women, peer

groups, and lastly, social institutions like the school and the church/mosque.

The important role of mothers to the socialisation of children can be further observed in the

castigation society apportions to women when children do not turn out well, according to the

expectations of the particular society. When a child becomes a social misfit, most often, the

blame is placed on the mother, and not the father, because of the biological bonding she is

expected to have explored in the upbringing and socialisation of the child.

A male narrator is interested in one thing when he is telling stories to his young audience: to pass

on the community’s way of life to the children, so that the community, in its spiritual, material

and social entity, will not go into oblivion many years later (Okpewho, 23; Kalu, 50; Finnegan,

65). Under the veneer of light banter, dance, songs, and jokes, a lesson is instilled in the

children’s consciousness.

For the female narrator, she believes what has been inculcated in her: generally, that she is

subservient to the male figures in her life, and that her primary role is to promote the cause of

men at her own detriment. This ‘detriment’ is not seen in a negative light; it is given a positive

mien to mean a life of sacrifice, for the good of her family and the community. This is why

nothing changes much in the socialisation of children during a story telling session. The girl

should be seen, not heard, for she is naturally a caregiver, while boys should be seen and heard

for theirs is to take from the women what is their right: respect, honour, fear, and adoration.

Through the narration of folktales, girls are cautioned to not question the status quo, for those

who did met an untimely end. Through avenues like this, female narrators further re-cement their

victim status, without holding out any hope to their young ones.
Women and men, as narrators of folktales, have the “poetic license” to, while still being faithful

to the major components of the tale, adapt it in such a way that the story presents a more realistic

view of life. Chukwuma describes this freedom to be flexible in storytelling as interplay of habit,

memory and “creative memory” (306). Ahmad describes this act of embellishing a tale while still

retaining most of its stable components as “the dynamic flexibility of the tale”. (17)

The male narrator thus has at his disposal a veritable tool for perpetuating himself. He colours

the folktale with his personality, imposing his religious beliefs, world view, ‘subjective reality

and values’ on it in such a skillful way that the audience’s attention is captivated and their

expectations satisfied (Akporobaro, 24; also see Ahmad, 2002). The female narrator, on the other

hand, does not deviate from the social norms and beliefs pertaining to gender relations. She re-

cements these beliefs and attitudes during her narration of folktales to children, thereby further

perpetuating the dichotomy apportioned to boys and girls. However, this is not always true in all

cases. For example, in the study of Tanzania folktales, Senkoro observed that female narrators

usually change the plot of a story in order to project the female characters in it positively, while

the male narrators do likewise for the male characters in a folktale (Understanding Gender

Through Genre, 1 -2, 2005). Olarinmoye carried out a similar study of Yoruba folktales (The

Images of Women in Yoruba Folktales, 2013), insisting that women are actually portrayed as

powerful in many folktales from the region.

Conclusion

While the paper has established that folklore, especially through the narration of folktales, is

used in the socialisation of boy and girl children, to teach moral values and ensure the contunuity

of a community’s way of life, it is also important to note that the narration of folktales to
children is not an exercise to while away time; they involve degrees of spontaneity and

deliberateness; they are used to encode and sustain the laws that govern gender relations.

More importantly, the narrator (female or male, and always an ‘agency’ of patriarchy) occupies a

central place in folklore. The narrator’s worldview, beliefs, and cultural biases are creatively

deployed to embellish the tales. Children are inculcated into a belief system that is based on one

sex being ‘better’ than the other, and they grow up believing, recreating and abetting this belief.

This way, patriarchy is sustained.

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