FLYING WITH THE SPARROW People with Intellectual Disability in stories from Africa

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FLYING WITH THE SPARROWPeople with Intellectual
Disability in stories from Africa

• Nicola Grove
• Openstorytellers
• Department of Language and Communication Science,
  City University
• nicola_at_openstorytellers.org.uk

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About Openstorytellers

• Inclusive company of storytellers
• Co-run by people with label of learning
  disabilities (ID)
• Link traditional legends and personal stories
• Training, performance, resource development
• www.openstorytellers.org.uk

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INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY IN STORY
The daft boys were also great panto fun - Bill
Bumpkin..and Ben Bogtrotter.. were the Squires
stupid servants, while LW played the loveable
village idiot Billy Gosling, who had to be
shouted at by the audience every time he was
about to embark on another silly
escapade Review of Mother Goose pantomime Fosse
Way Magazine, 9/1/2009
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OUR RESEARCH AIMS

• Explore a range of traditional stories from
  different cultures that have direct relevance to
  people with a label of ID
• Work with storytellers and communities to develop
  empowerment through story
• Promote the cultural identity and cultural
  exchange of people with a label of ID

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Contribution of traditional stories

• Stories show us that people with learning
  disabilities have always been part of the culture
  
• They provide us with images and symbols we can
  explore, celebrate, challenge, develop
• They present types - aspects of human character
  which can be owned by everyone, emphasising
  universality
• The stories often reflect the complexity of the
  situations which learning disabled people face
• The stories offer an imaginative and oblique way
  of confronting and exploring issues

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• Stories connect the storyteller with his or her
  own life with the listener with others in
  society and other worlds with moral judgements
  with the bigger cultural narratives which
  influence the identities of individuals and
  communities. Through stories we are exposed to
  metanarrative constructs about disability, which
  we can interrogate, challenge and change.
  Meininger 2008

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Robin Meader, Artistic Director, OPENSTORYTELLERS
I think that everyone in the world has the need
to have a story, or we would be under a dark
cloud. Sometimes people had a good story and
something got in their way, like bullying,
politics, anti-social behaviour or unhappy
relationships. We sort out problems in stories
and this can help us. I was like Aladdin he
always had to do a lot of washing, but one day he
discovered he wanted to go somewhere he could
find a magic lamp, and it's like me, feel like I
really want to go out to a place to visit like a
castle or a cave or something, and as he rubs the
lamp a genie comes out with the three wishes, it
reminds me of wanting to get a job and make a lot
of money.And then he falls in love with this
girl and becomes rich, and to me it makes me feel
like I want to go out in the world and talk to
people.
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Research questions (stories)

• What stories do you know from your tradition that
  clearly feature people who are treated as though
  they have intellectual disability?
• What stories feature characters or situations
  that reflect the situation or behaviour of people
  with ID in your culture?
• What stories speak to the deeper experience of
  people with ID and their families ?
• Traditional tales and personal experiences

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Research questions (interview)

• What is the traditional view of a person with ID
  in your culture?
• Nowadays, what happens when a child or adult is
  identified as having an ID?
• What would the typical pattern of their lives be
  like?
• How do families feel about their children with
  ID?
• How do others in the culture perceive them?
• What issues arise for people with ID in achieving
  valued status within the culture
• Do groups of people with ID come together
• Are there organisations that promote people with
  ID in the culture?
• Who are the people working with folk with ID in a
  positive way?
• What do people with ID say?

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Sources of information

• 4 cities
• Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Pretoria
• Khwa Ttu cultural centre San people
• 21 people who told stories for a living
• 14 black South Africans (Khoi San Zulu
  XhosaSesutho)
• 7 white South African storytellers.
• 40 young actor/storytellers - Sibikwa
• 4 schools(SEN) 6 parent/carers, 4 teenage pupils
• CAAC university of Pretoria - 14 people with
  acquired brain injury 1 mother,
• Researchers attending IASSID conference
• Numerous taxi drivers, guides, bystanders,
  tradespeople Peace centre wardens
• Books and internet

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Disability references

• 271 stories
• 240 read, 31 told
• 260 traditional, 11 factual
• 10 references to disability (3.7)
• 6 references to stigmatising conditions (2)
• 5 clear refs to ID (2)
• Reported prevalence of ID prior to HIV
• 2.9 (mild) 0.64 (severe) Kromberg et al. 2008

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Calabash Children
A woman is unable to have children. She goes to
the healer who gives her seeds. The woman plants
the seeds, which grow into gourds. She harvests
the gourds, and stores them in her loft, apart
from the largest, which she puts by the fire.
When she is at work, the gourds turn into
children and do the housework and prepare a meal.
In the evening, before she comes home, they turn
back into gourds. On the third day, the woman
hides and sees what is happening. Now the
children live with her. But the big one is slow
and clumsy, he was burned by the fire and over
cooked. One day she loses her temper with him
and says she wishes he were a gourd again.
Immediately this is what happens. The other
gourd children sing him back to life and the
woman asks for his forgiveness.(Tanzania. Told by
Susan Williams, Johannesburg Story Circle, from a
written version on the internet by Aaron
Shepherd
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Disability constructs

• To the extent the processes of narrative
  reconstruction can be traced (ie in non-western
  cultures) they seem to be concerned with
  asserting moral competence through interpreting
  the causes of disability rather than the process
  of living with it.. There is an emphasis on
  events preceding the onset of impairment and on
  moral relations to other people and spiritual
  beings.
• Ingstad Whyte 1995

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Traditional story How the cock got his feathers
A King has a son who was born dumb. He offers a
reward to anyone who will teach him to speak.
Various stratagems are tried, including
frightening him on hunting trips, and in
thunderstorms. A cock volunteers and takes the
boy home with him. First he takes the boy
fishing with a calabash which has a hole in the
bottom. The boy cannot tell him what is wrong.
Then he punishes him for losing the fish,
beating him with a whip until he bleeds the
boy then bursts into speech and makes his way
home, wailing and complaining. The cock is
given rich robes which become his feathers.
(Phebean ITeyami and P. Gurrey (1952))
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Perceived causation

• Ancestral curse
• Illwishing
• Punishment
• Taboo breaking esp in pregnancy
• Kromberg et al. 2008

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Beliefs about disability
I guess from my experience punishment of the
family the next level would be they did
something wrong so they are paying the actual
person (ie if a person became disabled later in
life). Very negative. In the Christian
perspective its my gift, god is training me to
give me this gift, the Jesus way, the family is
blessed. (Professional storyteller T) You know
Nicola, it is very difficult for us to think
about changing these beliefs, because our culture
teaches us to accept things the way they are.
This is how it is. (Zanendaba Storyteller)
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Lived experience
I remember as a child how cruel we used to
be.. Persecution, stoning, rejection, mothers say
they cant send them anywhere The people move
away as if we were aliens A lot of people are
still scared of disability, they dont really
know how to treat people - when they become more
accustomed to it they will relax
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What have you heard people say about a disabled
person?

• Youre bewitched
• You disgust me
• You die a dirty dog
• You did this to yourself
• You are useless
• You just have to kill yourself
• Useless thing
• Your parents punishment
• I cant eat with you in a same plate
• Money maker
• You are not a human being

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True story
A man Mama Pattie knew was crippled. Western
medicine could not help him, but he went to a
traditional healer and recovered some mobility.
He went to a nearby village to visit some people.
A woman there was jealous of her husbands
second wife and had decided to poison her. She
wanted to test the poison, and she thought the
man would do fine as a victim as he was worthless
and no-one would care about him. She invited
him into her house. He was very pleased because
this did not happen very often for him. She gave
him a cup of beer with the poison in it, and he
drank it. Then he left for home. He began to
feel terrible stomach pains and thirst. He sat
down by a river and drank and drank but it was
no good. He died by the river. When the woman
heard, she was very happy. She celebrated with
a beer. But she was not a good housewife and she
had not washed the cup up properly and this
was the one that she took.. When she began to
have stomach pains she realised what had
happened. She felt guilty and she told people
what she had done. Then she died.
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Transforming stories

• NG (in response to the story of the crippled
  man).
• Mama Pattie, this is a very difficult story 
• Mama Pattie Nokwe  If you dont like the story,
  all you have to do is change it 
• Such transformations can contribute to the search
  
• for a different socio-ethical construction of
  inclusion,
• which diminishes the power of sameness, embraces
  resilience, difference and transformation,
  celebrates stories and honours relationships of
  acceptance and friendship (Clapton, 2008)

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Alternative endings

• Sibikwa suggestions

She gets punished she goes to hell She goes to
prison He doesnt die He goes back and confronts
her and brings her to justice He goes back an d
confronts her. He forgives her and she realises
that he is worth something after all. She changes
her mind about people with disabilities and
becomes a good person.
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Post discussion comments from Sibikwa
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Locating the cockerel tale
In another traditional story told me by Gillie
Southwood, the lion wants a more powerful
voice, and gets his roar when he is tricked into
swallowing bees. From an empowerment perspective
I think the message is about giving people
challenges which enable them to discover the
power within themselves to break through a
barrier, even when this causes pain rather than
the more apparently obvious moral that dumb
people can be made to speak by hurting or
bullying them. (Grove, 2008)
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Healers beliefs about origins of ID

• 100 volunteers from Traditional Healers
  association (80 female)
• 58 did not know -
• ie they were honest about their knowledge base
• Inheritance or illwishing more frequently cited
  as cause than taboo breaking (suggests external
  causation)
• More nuanced insights into disability than are
  suggested from the list
• Healers were actively interested and positive
  about working with the researchers

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Open doors

• Xhosa - initiation possible for young man with
  cerebral palsy test is based on capacity to
  carry out task, not on impairment
• Reported prevalence rates are lower when IQ and
  adaptive ability are used, than IQ alone (ie,
  there is a focus on what children CAN do)
• Role for children with mild disabilities
  especially in rural/cattle cultures (indeed they
  are not necessarily seen as disabled at all)

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The two sisters and the wealth box
Two daughters, one intelligent, Her mother has
died and her father has married again. Her sister
is less intelligent. The first girl works hard
and everyone loves her. Her sister pushes her
into the river when they go to fill their water
pots. She is swept across the river to another
land. The first thing she sees is a sheep. It is
weighed down by its long long hair, trailing on
the ground, Shear me, shear me pleads the sheep.
Of course says the girl and she takes the
clippers from behind the sheeps ear and clips
his fleece. The sheep thanks her .
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Interrogating the story

• NG What do you mean by intelligent?
• Anaya The first girl is respectful, she listens.
  The second girl is impatient, not respectful.
• Anaya is Pattie Nokwes granddaughter and
  translator
• Ie, the underlying construct of  intelligence 
  relates to emotional and social skilfulness,
  rather than to reasoning and intellect

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Flying with the sparrow
At a time of drought, the peoples prayers cannot
reach the rain goddess, who is too far away.
Vulture, dove and sparrow volunteer to fly up to
heaven. Vulture takes dove on his back, dove
takes sparrow on her back. Half way up the
vulture tires and drops down, dove carries on,
but tires, and it is the tiny sparrow who
successfully reaches Heaven and petitions the
goddess, who responds with a shower of rain.
(Traditional Zulu, told by Muza Ntanzi from
Khwakhayalendaba (House of Stories) Soweto)
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 Im going to help you to fly response of
nondisabled child on hearing the story, putting
his arms around a friend and supporting him to
raise them up
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REFLECTIONS

• There is clear evidence of people with ID
  featuring in legends associated with settled
  cultures - but less evident in hunter-gatherer
  tales, featuring animals
• Stories carry multiple meanings which can be
  accessed at at different levels. There are
  questions about ownership of story, authority to
  tell and the cultural situation of stories
• Culturally specific meanings are difficult to
  access from outside the culture - stories that
  are strange need unpacking with the insights of
  experts
• Stories are dynamic, not static - once the story
  has been told to me, I can play with it

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STORYTELLING EXCHANGE

• An international programme for a storytelling
  olympiad (www.companyofcommonsense.com)
• Openstorytellers are collecting legends that
  feature people with disabilities, with a protocol
  for using the tales in workshops
• To contribute, email info_at_openstorytellers.org.uk
  with  storytelling exchange  in the message line