Avvicinarsi agli antenati. Tradizione orale e autorità nel paese Anno

Abstract In this article the author deals with a less explored aspect of oral tradition in Africa, namely its relations to the definition of social categories based on age and gender. Using the conceptual framework of Pascal Boyer’s theory of tradition, criterias of legitimation and enablement regarding utterances of “traditional truth” in the Anno society are investigated. The study shows how the uttering of truth concerning the past, as well as the exclusive right of the elders to utter such truth, is not based on their mastery of a definite corpus of knowledge. What elders really master is an undisputed control over the reality which traditional utterances about the past refer to: the world of ancestors, a world which they are considered to be linked to through an “essential” quality attributed to their person.