Abstract:
Orature is an amalgamation of two words: oral and literature. It depicts the
creative impulse of the society it evolves from. This artistic expression includes
proverbs, riddles, extemporized poems/songs, folktales, childlore, etc. The
general observation is that attention has been given to aspects of Orature by
adults almost to the exclusion of children’s artistic expression. There is no doubt
that some aspects of our collective Orature has been put in print. However, much
more is yet to be documented. It is also often not considered that both adults and
children draw their experiences from the same setting, they employ the same
language and discuss the same socio-cultural issues; they express the same
hopes and aspirations. In fact adults very quickly forget that they were once
children as they quite often look down on childhood tradition. On the other hand,
how quickly their faces radiate with nostalgic laughter/smile as they recall some
of the childhood games they played. For a holistic documentation therefore, it is
necessary that the artistic creation of adults together with those of children
should be collected, collated, analysed and properly documented either for
revitalization or for archiving.
