Gender in oral traditions

* Jan Jansen: "Gender in the Sunjata-Epic", a West-African narrative.
* Anita Mooijman: "The roles of women in Hausa folktales".

Oral traditions, narratives and folktales are important mediums to communicate in African societies. They are not static, frozen stories that reflect a past situation. On the contrary they are part of a dynamic discourse, a lively commentary on society, on status roles, on ongoing changes.
Although the main roles in these stories are male, they also contain a commentary on gender relations. The two presented papers highlight the gender discourse hidden in the oral traditions and folktales of respectively Bambara and Hausa people in West-Africa. This analysis reveals an alternative way to uncover gender relations and changes therein in a society.