Tradition to Text: Writing Local Somali History in the Travel Narrative of Charles Guillain (1846-48)

Tradition to Text: Writing Local Somali History in the Travel Narrative of Charles Guillain (1846-48)

Author: 
Cassanelli, Lee
Publisher: 
Taylor & Francis Group
Record type: 
Journal Title: 
Journal of African Cultural Studies
Source: 
Journal of African Cultural Studies, Vol. 18, Number 1, June 2006, PP. 57-71
Abstract: 

The essay offers some observations on the interplay of orality and literacy in Somali society, using the mid-nineteenth century travel narrative of Charles Guillain. Because Guillain was among the earliest Europeans to record local Somali traditions, the sources of his information and the circumstances in which he gathered it warrant scrutiny. A close reading of Guillain suggests that he relied heavily on Arabic-speaking informants; that these informants provided him with written as well as oral sources on Somali history; and that Arabic literacy had already begun to spread from the urban centres of the coast to the Somali interior at the time of the French traveler's visit. We then speculate about the influence of written Arabic texts on the production and transmission of Somali ‘oral traditions’ in both Western and Islamic literary circles during the later nineteenth century.

Language: 
Country focus: 

CITATION: Cassanelli, Lee. Tradition to Text: Writing Local Somali History in the Travel Narrative of Charles Guillain (1846-48) . : Taylor & Francis Group , . Journal of African Cultural Studies, Vol. 18, Number 1, June 2006, PP. 57-71 - Available at: https://library.au.int/tradition-text-writing-local-somali-history-travel-narrative-charles-guillain-1846-48-3