Documentation of Orature

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.