numerous peoples and cultures that make up the current population of that country.
But although these books use portions of recorded texts from orature and design motifs
from the hand-made artefacts of some of the indigenous peoples, the books have to be
regarded as mere translations of the central meaning those texts and motifs have in the
lives of their original creators and users. As David Guss has pointed out, to really ‘tell’
and understand Watunna, the oral creation epic of the Yekuana and other indigenous
peoples of the Orinoco region, one must learn to weave baskets and decorate one’s body,
to construct one’s house and one’s garden, all the time reliving the creation cycle. One
must learn ‘to weave the word’, symbolically and actually (Guss 1989).
Two concrete examples of an attempt to experiment with new formats are the picture
books printed on large cloth rectangles, known as kanga in East Africa and pagne in
Mali and other West African countries. Traditionally, these cloths have been put to use
as clothing, baby carriers, head coverings, blankets, and for many other purposes. In
East Africa, they were (and still are) usually printed with colourful designs and
intriguing Swahili sayings. The Children’s Literature Association of Kenya and the
Operation Lecture Publique of Mali have each experimented with versions that could be
called ‘picture books for children’ that can be worn, hung up on a wall, spread on the
ground and displayed in other ingenious ways so that children can read them. Only
experience and time will tell whether rural persons, with little exposure to printed
pictures, will find such a format more approachable and easier to read than a picture
book printed on paper.
Another unusual example of picture book publishing adapted to a local cultural
situation are the picture books produced by Somboon Singkamanen of Thailand for
distribution at Buddhist ceremonies honouring a recently deceased family member. In
the past, ted nitarn (sermon stories) were read or told at such gatherings. Ever since the
availability of widespread printing, it has been common for a few of these ted nitarn to be
printed up and distributed to those attending. Most often they were in inexpensive,
unattractive formats. Since many of these sermons contain stories from the Jatakas
that are appealing to children, Singkamanen had the idea (first begun at the ceremony
honouring her deceased mother) of making up an attractive children’s picture book
version of one of these stories. All who gathered to honour her mother were given a
copy, and encouraged to take it home and read it to children, or give it to children to
read. This very culturally appropriate method of promoting children’s reading in
Thailand is only one of many advocated by Singkamanen.
Based on experiments he has carried out to determine how orally centred persons
tend to read pictures, Fuglesang contends that the illustrator of children’s books for
such cultures must be more aware of the difference between a memory-picture and a
two-dimensional picture printed on paper. For the person living in a mostly oral culture,
he says,
A lorry has a clear, concrete visual gestalt characterised by the high valence of the
four wheels. For a person who experiences his inner picture with concrete qualities,
it is logical and meaningful to make all four wheels visible. There is no clear
distinction between the real and the apparent, between the memory-picture and the
here-and-now visual expression.CULTURE AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 663