Cultural Functions of the Efik Tone Riddle

Topical and Political Songs

“…also Herskovits 1958cf. also Herskovits , 1961Messenger 1959Messenger , 1960Messenger , 1962Simmons 1958, 1960as useful survey of West African spoken art (1961) draws largely on the findings of this group.…”

“…The use of tone correspondence in some poetry is so striking as to have been called a species of 'rhyme' (e.g. the 'tonal rhyme' of Efik, Ganda, and possibly Luba poetry (Simmons 1960a;Morris: 1964: 39;Van Avermaet 1955: 5;Stappers 1952a).…”

“…Ganda (Sempebwa 1948: 20); Ewe (Jones 1959: 16-39); Ashanti (Nketia 1962: 67);Tswana (1933: 80); Mpama-Bakutu (Windels 1939: 19); children in Leopoldville (Comhaire-Sylvain 1949; Ibo (Nettl 1954a: 238-9); Efik (Simmons 1958); Hausa (Krieger 1955). 17The Dogon examples collected by Griaule suggest the same kind of varia tions on a single theme for some of the verses as is evident in the many variants of the 'same' rhyme in the Opies' collection of English school children's rhymes III.…”

“…Many examples could be cited of this. The erotic Ibibio riddles have already been mentioned (Simmons 1956). The Lamba too have many obscene riddles, while the Shona specialize in riddles characterized by their suggestiveness but to which the real answers are always in fact innocent (Fortune 1951: 31).…”

“…Besides rhythm, the analogy may take the form of tone resemblance between question and reply. This has been recorded, for instance, from the Luvale of Zambia (White 1958), the Luba of the Congo (Van Avermaet 1955), and the Ibibio-Efik group of Southern Nigeria (Simmons 1956(Simmons , 1958 In these riddles, occurring in languages in which tonality is a significant feature, the question and answer are marked by identical or similar tonal patterns. The Ibibio tone riddles described by Simmons are characterized by their erotic content or allusions, practically all containing some reference to vagina, clitoris, or coition, as in the riddles 'Big ships-Big clitoris' and 'Sun shines (and) come hits ground (and) splits-Vagina opens (and) come takes fly (and) chews', each characterized by exact or nearly exact tones in each part (Simmons 1956: 80;82).…”