Indeterminacy

The concept of linguistic impermanence is related to the views of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. about tricksters, whom he identities as conscious forms of the articulation of linguistic traditions. Tricksters demonstrate an awareness of themselves as traditions consisting of history, development, revision, as well as internal principles of patterning and organization (Gates, Signifying xx-xxi). Their ability to utilize a self-reflective meta-

discourse explains their status as meta-tropes in different traditions—a phenomenon observed both with Esu-Elegbara in the Yoruba tradition and with the Signifying Monkey in African-American discourse. In addition to symbolizing the nature and function of interpretation, they represent the practice of double-voiced utterance. In Gates' view, the language of Signifyin(g) functions as a metaphor for both formal revision and intertextuality. Formal revision changes a text’s meaning explicitly, whereas intertextuality does so implicitly. The latter occurs through references to other texts, events, or people who, as comparative points of reference, cause a text to be interpreted—and, in effect, to signify—differently. Gates also believes that the African- American vernacular, which is integral to the process of Signifyin(g), provides a foundation for formal black literature, contains its own type of indigenous literary criticism, and serves a protective purpose against corruption by those who are not part of the system (Gates, Signifying xxi).

Much of the literature about Esu—including praise poems and panegyrics called Oriki Esu, the Odu Ifá, Ifá divinations, or Esu songs—deals with the origin, nature, and function of interpretation and language use at a figurative level. He is the Yoruba meta- figure of formal language use, and of the ontological and epistemological status of figurative language and its interpretation. The literature about him contains many direct references to the levels of linguistic ascent which distinguish figurative from literal language (Gates, Signifying 6). His application to the field of linguistics is underscored by the Fon people's reference to him as “the divine linguist” and "he who speaks all languages and interprets the alphabet of Mawu to humans and other gods" (7). A linguistic interpretation of Esu's role has been figuratively associated with some of his

accoutrements. One example is the magical àshe—the same that was used by the supreme Yoruba orisha Olodumare to create the universe—which most statues depict being carried in a calabash by Esu. Here, Gates interprets àshe to be a symbol of logos, which he defines as the word, the audible, the visible, and a sign of reason (Gates, Signifying 7). Juana and Deoscoredes dos Santos say that àshe is the coherent force of the linguistic process (8). Gates claims that Esu is the black metaphor for the literary critic, or in a broader sense, the interpreter of the text. As the one who taught Ifá the system and who confirms or condemns Ifá’s message, Esu takes priority over Ifá in the process of interpretation. In Ifá poetry, it is often said that he appropriated Esu’s àshe and put it in his own mouth to give a message to the supplicant (9).

One example of linguistic impermanence regarding the Afro-Cuban trickster figure is the transformation of its name over time. The Yoruba in Nigeria refer to the trickster as Esu-Elegbara, whereas the Fon in Benin call him Legba. In the New World, he is called Exú in Brazil, Echu-Elegua in Cuba, Papa Legba (pronounced La Bas) in the loa of Vaudou in Haiti, and Papa La Bas in the loa of Hoodoo in the United States. All of these tricksters are variations of Esu-Elegbara (Gates, Signifying 5). Other variations found in South America and the Caribbean include Elegba, Eshu, and Ena. "Ena" is the name used at the beginning of each line in the Bahían Candomblé chant for Elegbara in Brazil. It means "two parts" and alludes to the dual nature of Elegbara's character (Daniel 70). Another variation that is particularly applicable to Cuban literature is the figure of güije or jigüe, generally identified as a black trickster, which is a conflation of the monkey and Esu in Afro-Cuban mythology. There are two types of literature on this figure. In the first, güije is portrayed as a small black man, like in the oral narrative, “El

güije de la Bajada,” found in “Leyendas cubanas” compiled by Salavador Bueno. The two key physical traits of Esu are his very dark color and his very small size. In the second type of literature, which is usually poetry instead of prose narrative, there is the jigüe or monkey. The jigüe’s attributes include dark color, pointed teeth, long hair of the color and type that are typical of descriptions of Esu (Gates, Signifying 17). His eyes are similar to Esu’s. Both güije and jigüe are derived from the Efik-Ejagham word for monkey: jiwe (18). The jigüe, Esu, and the monkey are doctors of interpretation (20).

Other manifestations of the topos of impermanence are elusiveness, indeterminacy, and ambiguity. Esu is the god of fertility and generation, of the elusive, the barrier between the divine world and the profane. He is often characterized as a habitual copulator—a trait which figuratively parallels his semiotic function. He connects truth with understanding, the sacred with the profane, text with interpretation, the subject with its predicate, the grammar of divination with rhetorical structures. While his walking with a limp appears to be a sign of weakness, it is allegedly due to his mediating function, which requires him to have each leg in a different world (Gates, Signifying 6). The Yoruba god Ifa is thought of as the text of divination (20). He is the god of determinate meanings, but his meaning must be communicated by analogy. He is allowed by Esu to name the texts of a tradition, and in a figurative sense he represents both the text and its closure. Esu, on the other hand, is the god of indeterminacy who controls the process of interpretation of Ifá's texts. Esu represents the ambiguity of figurative language, the uncertainties of explication, the open-endedness of every text, the discourse upon texts, and their disclosure (21). While Ifá is truth, Esu is the understanding of this truth that brings meaning to an individual (39). According to Gates,

the Signifying Monkey represents the rhetorical strategies used in each text to realize a connection. In other words, he represents neither the determinate textual expression of truth nor the figurative interpretation that allows for its understanding, but the linguistic tools that allow for a connection between the two (Gates, Signifying 21). It is for this reason that Gates considers the Signifying Monkey to be a trope of literary revision and the African-American master trope (21, 44).

Gates believes that stories of the Signifying Monkey originated in slavery and that its presence in African-American literature is derived from Cuban mythology, where the orisha Echu-Eleggua is portrayed with a monkey at his side (Gates, Signifying 51-52). In contrast to Esu and other similar figures in Africa, the Signifying Monkey does not exist primarily as a character in the narrative so much as a vehicle for narration. Both characters are figures of oral writing in the context of black vernacular language rituals. Signifyin(g) is derived from the body of mythological narratives. In contrast to Wittgenstein's depiction of poetry as a rhetorical practice focused on information giving with a transcendent signified, signifyin(g) focuses on the play and chain of signifiers. The Signifying Monkey is referred to as the Signifier or "he who wreaks havoc upon the Signified" (5). Gates believes the Signifying Monkey is descended from Esu-Elegbara, due to their functional equivalency as figures of rhetoric and interpretation (53). A great irony of both figures is that, in spite of their involvement in interpretation, they do not facilitate closure of meaning. Gates identifies the monkey as a master of anti-mediation, or the negation of the initial mediation (56). Since slave narratives are sometimes read as reversals of masters' attempt to transform them into commodities, as well as slaves' acts of witness by which they attempt to show membership in the human community, they

constitute a form of chiasmus (Gates, Signifying 128). They also embody the role of the Yoruba concept of simbi, by reversing the relationship between signifier and signified.

Further insight regarding the Yoruba trickster's indeterminacy may be found in the Fon folklore of which it is an outgrowth. The primal god of the Fon is a Janus figure. One side of its body—Mawu—is female and rules the night. The other side—Lisa—is male and rules the day. This double deity had seven sons, of which the seventh is Legba—an alternate name for Esu. Legba is the variable of Fon metaphysics, like a wandering signifier. While Legba’s six siblings rule over six domains of heaven and earth, Legba rules over all. He exhibits both subtle domination and ubiquitous representation in his role as linguist (Gates, Signifying 23). His dual sexuality is an indication of liminality, but also of the transcendence or penetration of thresholds, and the interchange between different universes and different discourses (27). Esu is often referred to as masculine, yet he is considered by the Yoruba to be either genderless or of dual gender. Both his masculine and feminine attributes are graphically depicted in sculpture. He is a dual-gendered Janus figure, reminiscent of his dual parent, Mawu-Lisa. The figures of both parent and child serve as reconciliations of opposites in discourse and symbols of indeterminacy (29). Incidentally, Esu's hermaphroditic status has a semiotic overtone when one considers the etymological origin of the term used to describe it. The female side, metaphorically paralleled by the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite, parallels Esu's insatiable sexual desire, as well as his tendency to place himself in situations which compromise others. The male side, which corresponds with the Greek god Hermes, parallels his status as a messenger and trickster.

Esu represents his power in terms of agency and will. However, his ultimate power, which is even the source of the power of will, is that of plurality, or multiplicity. The other major component of Esu's power—on par with his plurality—is his power to connect the parts. He is the sum of the parts and that which connects the parts (Gates, Signifying 38). This can be seen in the belief that he should be invoked and sacrificed to before any other orisha (Barnet, Cultos 33, 47; Gates, Signifying 38). He is the only one who can set the connected parts into motion. Since the power to connect parts is one definition given for àshe, one might say that Esu is the manifestation of àshe. Not surprisingly, his role in Yoruba cosmology has a parallel in semiotics. As the dialectical element in the process of criticism, he is the one who connects a text to its interpretation (Gates, Signifying 38). In Gates' view, the most fundamental tenet of Yoruba thought is that there are simultaneously three stages of existence: past, present, and the unborn. Esu represents these and makes their simultaneity possible (37).

It has been argued that metonymy, synecdoche, and irony are forms of metaphor, since they are all different ways of comparing two dissimilar ideas. Through the progression of tropes, the forms of representation become increasingly complex, and their comparisons more difficult to comprehend. The final trope, irony, is considered to represent the culmination of this cycle. One reason for this is that, with irony, the relationship between signifier and signified is less explicit than with the other tropes. Put another way, the dissimilarity between and a signifier and its signified is at its greatest when irony is used. The concept of simbi, the figure of Coco Macaco, and the trickster Esu relate to this in a number of ways.

1.22 Orality vs. Writing

The conflict between orality and writing is a central one in slave narratives. It is related to a myriad of important issues such as the question of single or collaborate authorship; the role of intermediaries who participate in the preparation of the narrative such as amanuenses, translators, and editors; the degree of agency that each of these possesses; and how their work affects the narrative's form, content, and meaning. The degree of this conflict is often magnified in the case of narratives about the lives of Africans or those of African descent, since it parallels cultural differences between their own societies that were primarily oral and those of their European, Arab, or American captors, which utilized writing for propagating historical and literary canons. Most cultures of sub-Saharan Africa functioned primarily as oral societies without written languages. Even in those that had been conquered by literate peoples, such as portions of Northwest Africa under the influence of the Arabs, the spread of literacy was largely limited to members of the cultural and religious elite. As such, it functioned as a status marker, elevating those who could read and write above those who could not.

Interestingly, the ability to express oneself orally also became a status marker of sorts for blacks in slave-holding societies of the Americas. Prior to ending their status as commodities, blacks had to demonstrate themselves as speaking subjects, a goal whose acquisition was severely hampered by restrictions during slavery (Gates, Signifying 129). Even for illiterate blacks, such as Esteban Montejo, the ability to transfer one's words into writing facilitated communication with an audience beyond the immediate social setting and was an important step in the process of humanization. They needed to be recognized as fellow humans who possessed emotions and free will and were capable of self-

expression. In effect, both literate and illiterate blacks depended on books about themselves to propagate written transcriptions of their speech to others who would never hear them directly (Gates, Signifying 131).

The testimonial, like other oral forms of cultural production, gives the impression of being dependent on collaboration with literate people for inclusion in the broader literary canon. At the same time, it is interesting to observe how the testimonies of certain lettered people end up imitating or being produced according to the rules of oral (unlettered) testimony that lettered people had made possible or authorized (Achugar 58). Both Autobiografía de un esclavo and Routes in North Africa by Abú Bekr eṣ ṣiddīk [sic] are examples of this phenomenon. Their relatively simple vocabularies and ostensible paucity of rhetorical devices reinforce the narratives' oral quality and enhance their credibility. At the same time, they create a misleading image of illiterate narrators who are dependent on the intervention of white amanuenses to publish their accounts.

The inclusion of the Other who is unlettered, marginalized or silenced does not reduce the testimony or eliminate other enunciating subjects. The literate collaborator may also be considered an enunciating subject and a marginal or silenced Other. He assumes his representation not as a character in the text, but as the mouthpiece (in writing or in social or political struggle) those who are represented by characters in the text but cannot speak for themselves (Achugar 58). While such a collaborator is not totally silenced, as happens to the monkey in Barnet's tale "The Owl and the Monkey," he is still not recognized with a speaking role in the text. Similar to the Signifying Monkey identified by Gates, he manifests himself in the rhetorical strategies used in the narrative's

interpretation and uses these devices to realize his own testimony or that of other individuals of his station.

The chief feature that distinguishes an original testimonial from memory, biography, autobiography, and dialogue is that it almost always comes from an oral exchange. The traces of orality vary from one testimony to another, and in some cases can be re-obtained by the permanence of the initial dialogue. Examples of this may include the use of the second-person subject pronoun in the text or references to what has been said or lived by the interlocutor. In others, such traces can be registered by the permanence of unique registers of oral discourse and transcripts of spoken discourse, vocative particle, or onomatopoeia (Achugar 65). The appearance of orality contributes to the documental effect. It enhances the aura of a text’s authenticity by giving the impression of having an unadulterated connection to its original emissor. Further, it implies that fiction does not exist or that it exists only at the smallest level so as not to diminish the truth of what is narrated (66). Since many slaves' writings were direct extensions or formal revisions of speeches, a fact attested to by many ex-slave narrators, it is not surprising that they contain a preponderance of oral qualities (Gates, Classic 4).

Table 1.1 Afro-Caribbean Meta-Tropes and Their Correspondence with the Master Tropes

Afro-Caribbean Meta-Trope Master Trope

Ndoki Metaphor

Nkisi Metonymy

Nganga Synecdoche

Table 1.2 Tropes, Modes of Explanation, Emplotment, and Ideological Implication Trope Mode of Emplotment Mode of Explanation Mode of Ideological Implication

Metaphor Romance Ideographic Anarchist

Metonymy Tragedy Mechanistic Conservative

Synecdoche Comedy Organicist Conservative

Table 1.3 Names of Sixteen Principal Odus and Their Figures on the Opele Chain

Name of Odu Figure on the Opele Chain

Ejiogbe Meji All nuts concave

Ọyẹku Meji No nuts concave

Iwori Meji Middle two nuts concave

Odi Meji Outer two nuts concave

Irosun Meji Top two nuts concave

Ọwọnrin Meji Bottom two nuts concave

Ọbara Meji Top nut concave

Ọkanran Meji Bottom nut concave

Ogunda Meji Top three nuts concave

Ọsa Meji Bottom three nuts concave

Ika Meji Upper middle nut concave

Oturupon Meji Lower middle nut concave

Otua Meji Top nut and bottom two nuts concave Irẹtẹ Meji Top two nuts and bottom nut concave Ọsẹ Meji Top nut and lower middle nut concave Ofun Meji Upper middle nut and bottom nut