Introduction

In this era of global cultural rifts, it is interesting to ponder on the value of cultural syncretism in Wole Soyinka’s The Interpreters, a novel written in 1965, in which African and foreign cultural traits are blended to depict the reality of post-independence Nigeria. The book explains that the colonial situation caused severe identity confusions for the Yoruba, but their obsession with the past would hinder their development. It describes the reality of syncretism, defined as the “fusion of two distinct traditions to produce a new and distinctive whole” (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 229).

In Soyinka’s view, this situation requires a continuous “self-apprehension” (Myth, Literature and the African World xi) to reconcile tradition and modernity and to find the right balance between Yoruban and foreign values. The chapter initially provides some theoretical guidelines to understand the theme of syncretism in The Interpreters. It subsequently ramifies the topic into two parts: syncretic spirituality and syncretic mentality. The former describes the author’s insertion of ancient myth into modern reality as a complementary source of knowledge. The latter examines his description of hybrid intellectuals trained in (neo)colonial institutions and finally inquires about the possibility for the African to relieve the burden of the past, to take inspiration from it, and to build a better future.

Theoretical Signposts

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis advances that every language uniquely expresses the specific worldview of its native speakers. Benjamin Lee Whorf contends, “[w]e dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages” (qtd. in Valsiner and Rosa 42). No other borrowed language can appropriately replace a mother tongue in the expression of its specific worldview. When using a foreign language, therefore, post-colonial writers suffer from what David Crystal calls “the conflict between intelligibility and identity” (134), a kind of ambivalent attitude towards it for both its alienating and liberating potentials. They rely on numerous sources of inspiration, both local and foreign; they draw from the wide repertoire of orality, and insert vernacular lexis within the foreign language. This strategy is part of the post-colonial struggle for discursive liberation from the norms of the Euro-American canon.

Soyinka, like many post-colonial writers, uses the English language as a counter-discursive strategy that, in his words, assaults “the West […] with the West’s own dialectical weapons” (Myth, Literature and the African World 82). The hybrid style of The Interpreters, a blend of oral Yoruba and written English techniques creates considerable difficulty for readers to fathom its cultural differences and nuances. Julia Kristeva believes that such writers are lost in the “kaleidoscope” of their “multiple identities” and “unbearable memories.” She refers to the “silence of the polyglot” to describe the formal and sophisticated use of the foreign language because the subconscious does not participate in its production (57). This literary strategy, however, has an ethnographic function; it is a sign of cultural difference and a form of identity affirmation.