Oral tradition has played a pivotal and indispensable role in the reconstruction of the African past.

Oral tradition can be said to be history stored in the memory and transmitted by words of mouth from generation to generation. They can be preserved in some fixed forms and can be spoken or sung. Oral tradition has been classified according to Jan Vasina as; formulae, poetry, lists, tales and commentaries. In all, its major characteristic is verbalism and oral transmission. This valid source of historical writing has been invaluable in the writing of African history both in the pre-literate and literate times.

Accounts of traditions of different African societies were only begun to be written as a result of the influence of the Arabs and in the 20^th century, with the coming of the Europeans. Therefore, before this era, any information about the activities of the people was heavily depended on oral traditions. Bearing this in mind, the importance of oral tradition in tracing and writing the history of different African people like the Yoruba in Nigeria and Akan in Ghana to mention but a few cannot be over emphasized.

Oral traditions in form of myths, legends, songs, folktales among others are very important means of reconstructing African history. Most societies in Africa have traditional historians like palace narrators such as the Arokin in the Old Oyo Empire, or guilds of people with full knowledge of historical accounts of happenings in their societies which they pass from generation to generations. With this, the contributions of oral traditions in the provision of facts useful in the writing of African history cannot be doubted.

In the same vein, perhaps, Africans in the preliterate societies understood the dictum that people without their history have no identity. Hence, Africans ensured that their antecedents like the reign of kings, events such as festivals and occurrence of a disaster among others were properly committed to the memory of those responsible for such task and guided jealously by ensuring their transmission from one generation to another with taboos and sanctions associated with an attempt to effect alterations on them. This is to a large extent done in order to preserve the authenticity of the transmitted information.

Similarly, it is apt to state that the writing of preliterate African history in contemporary times cannot but give oral tradition its deserved place as a valid source of historical writing among other sources. This becomes pertinent after a careful examination of the contributions of oral traditions in the reconstruction of African past in the sense that the source ensures the existence of several types of oral traditions and the absence of a clear-cut diving line between the types in terms of content. This not only implies the richness of the source but also helps to ensure a more rigorous and valuable internal cross-checking of the source. For instance, some historical facts found in one type may also be present in another type; Personalities found in myths may also be present in tribal and family histories; Names mentioned or events described in poetry or song may also be found in tale or legend. This overlapping content is useful in the vital task of cross-checking for historical validation.

In conclusion, it is not out of place to quickly mention that oral traditions as a source of historical reconstruction and writing has its deficiencies like lack of definite chronology, it is mostly full of variants and vagueness, inconsistency due to the lapse of time to mention but a few. However, it should equally be established that these weakness did not remove the validity and efficacy of oral tradition in historical studies in Africa considering the fact that these limitations associated with oral traditions are also found in other historical sources such as written and material sources.