Pima-Papago Literature

This people's traditional literature is oral. Therefore, if its pieces are to be kept fixed, so they can be contemplated, they must be kept fixed in memory. I think the essence of literature is contemplation; thus, whatever cannot be fixed, cannot be a literature. Another way of saying this is that literature is thoughts formed in language and kept fixed for reflection.

Note that this concept of literature conforms with Vansina's concept of history, but it is more general. I hold that all literature implies contemplation, therefore fixity. But not all literature is history. Histories are fixed (but not unchangeable) texts that presumably stem from firsthand observations. Obviously, a people could elect to fix and preserve "made-up," nonobservational texts. My impression is that Pima-Papagos consider all their literature (their fixed texts) to be history and none of it to be fiction, and I suspect that this is true of tribal peoples generally. My impression of the Pima-Papago unanimity toward history is based on their always saying, "We think this story really happened," and never the opposite.

There are three levels of fixing, with associated text lengths, in Pima-Papago and perhaps all memory-based lit-

erature. First, there are very short texts that are fixed at the level of each individual sound. Then come medium-length texts, fixed at the level of the phrase or short verbal "formula." Finally are long texts that are fixed at the level of the episode. These last are paraphrased each time they are told. The same episodes are told, but the exact wording of the episodes may be—probably is—different on each telling. The middle level of memorizing largely precludes the spontaneity and indeterminacy of paraphrasing, and the extreme level precludes paraphrasing completely.

Among the Pima-Papago, the texts of the three levels, from tightest to loosest, are properly called songs, chants (or orations or prayers), and prose (oral prose). The Pima-Papago names, all nouns, are ñe 'i , 'song'; ñiokculida or hambto ñiok , 'talk-for-it' or 'rumbling [I believe] talk'; and a:ga or a:gida , 'telling'. Interestingly, the full and proper performance of a text such as the Smith-Allison, which I call a "mythology" (ho 'ok a:ga , 'witch telling', in Pima-Papago), includes all three levels of text. The performance is primarily in prose, in which the narrator paraphrases his own or his teacher's last telling. But distributed through the prose are shorter more rigorously memorized texts, ideally both orations (actually absent from the Smith-Allison text) and songs (abundantly present).

It can now be seen why the songs and war orations of the Hohokam chronicles are considered as proof that the Hohokam spoke Pima. Such texts are believed to have been retained basically unchanged since they were first spoken by a Hohokam. No one is sure of this, but it is supposed to be true. It is the prose, which is the great bulk of the text, that is considered to be unreliable, that is, merely conscientiously paraphrased from one telling to the next.

I stress the Pima-Papago concern for accuracy in retelling, but one might think that I merely imagine this. My response is that we who write have great retelling accuracy at our fingertips, if only we can read our own writing. I agree with Vansina that Pima-Papago and the rest of the oral cultures wish for such accuracy. They have worked within these three levels of text to attain it, always trading off length of text against reliability of reproduction. It seems that only people who valued contemplation would

undertake such a task, or rather, would involve themselves in maintaining a tribe's stock of texts. Interestingly, the one personal comment from Smith in the text, which comment seems illogical at first, addresses itself to exactly this point. He says in effect (this is how part 1 starts), "We contemplate faces in order to know things, which reminds me that I don't have these stories perfectly learned, therefore not ready to face you."