News & Articles
Festival Eritrea: Ground for Communicating Oral Traditions
By Meron Abraha
Aug 9, 2008, 1:10pm

“… Once there was a wedding ceremony at a village and the hosts’ in-laws journeyed to take part in the celebration. As it is customary in the rural areas to praise the hosts with a poetic rhetoric, the elders, who are usually those with the ability to instantly come up with the words, rose and praised the host family.

Ms. Tsigehana Bokre, whose maternal uncles were the host family, was disappointed in not hearing the name of her mother mentioned. She therefore rose, and to all the guests’ surprise, performed her own rhetoric eulogizing her mother…”

This anecdote was told by Ms. Tsigehana Bokre herself, who came from the Gala-Nefhi sub zone of the Central Region for the oral traditions contest at the festival this year.
Mase (an expression of admiration or disapproval in a poetic form) is one type of Eritrean oral traditions. It is usually presented by elderly men, but quite a number of women are also getting the spotlight nowadays, especially in such occasions as the annual festival. Ms. Tsigehana is an example.

For a 76-years-old woman Ms. Tsigehana is still a strong woman with an acute memory. She flawlessly recited the Mase she had presented at that wedding, plus what she responded to what they told her.

“They were startled at my sudden outburst, and yet amazed at my ability,” she said, continuing her narration to the large audience at the Tigrigna Oral Traditions Contest inside the Expo Hall.

“One of the orators then sarcastically said that since women had begun performing Mases, the men should then rather resort to cooking and cleaning,” she went on saying and humored the audience with what she had responded back then to the sarcasm:

“… As we women have now started talking,
You men might as well do the cleaning,
You men might as well do the cooking,
We’ll give you the necessary utensils…”

Of course this has a perfect rhyming in its original (Tigrigna) version.

Octogenarian men also presented rhetoric they heard or recited decades back.

84-years-old Mr. Werede Haile from Adi Hargets, in the Southern Region, said that in the earlier days people resolved conflicts and disputed with wise and carefully chosen words. He then recited a Mase he had preformed some fifty years ago.

The contest was accompanied with traditional refreshments and traditional plays.

During the contest in question for instance, guests were served with kolo sghem (fried barley) and Suwa (traditional beer) by attendants dressed in typical Tigrigna traditional clothes; while during pauses groups of performers from the South and Gash Barka regions presented impressive traditional plays.

The hall was adorned with various slogans highlighting the importance of culture and traditions, among which “Preserving Culture is Preserving Identity” and “Oral Traditions are the Source of our Rich Culture” can be mentioned.

Apart from its educative and entertaining feature, the core objective of holding such an event is to record the rich oral traditions and ensure the transfer of the skills to the younger generation.

And that seems to be in the right path, as several young people are starting to present or show interest in similar performances.

One example is Woldemichael Okubatsien, a 45-year-old artistic all-rounder from the Gash Barka region. He performed a Mase, aided by a Kirar. Others also did the same, either with a Kirar or a Chira Wata, thus rendering the rhetoric more appealing.

The oral traditions contest, which has been attracting large audiences since its first occurrence in 2006, consists of traditional oral performances in Tigrigna, Tigre, Saho, Bilen, Nara and Kunama languages.

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