ABSTRACT
Oral tradition deals primarily with events and is designed to be edifying. In the absence of written sources and any external checking, oral tradition provides an opportunity—as long as it is meticulously and tirelessly scrutinized—not only of eliminating many false problems and correcting errors in dating, but above all of elaborating a chronological groundwork which has been very much absent from pre-colonial history. Oral tradition limits the chronological framework of sociologists to a period covered by a few centuries. The strength of an oral tradition depends on the strength of the social structure which it explains and justifies. African cultures are not capable of changing over from an oral tradition to that of a written culture before becoming obliterated by the impact of the modern world. Oral tradition is essentially of an evanescent nature and since the social substratum is being removed the task is an extremely urgent one.
