The World and the Word: Tales and Observations from the Xhosa Oral TraditionA master storyteller of the Xhosa people of South Africa, Nongenile Masithathu Zenani gives us an unprecedented view of an oral society from within. Twenty-four of her complex and beautiful tales about birth, puberty, marriage, and work, as told to the renowned collector of African oral tradition, Harold Scheub, are gathered here. Accompanying the stories are Zenani’s detailed commentaries and analyses and Scheub’s striking photographs of her in performance. The combination of these historical and cultural observations with a richly symbolic collection of tales from a single traditional storyteller make The World and the Word a remarkable document. |
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... begin to carry out the implications of that thought : " This is the way it shall be done in this homestead . " But it was not this way in the begin- ning . Custom is a human thing , a cultural creation ; it is not in the nature of ...
... begin with the burning of the kraals - he had not been told what he should begin with . He concluded that he must begin with the kraals , and he would still have a place to sleep . If he burned the house first , he would have no place ...
... begin to layer , to pile one on top of the other despite the linear arrangement of images . This piling or layering effect is necessary to the establishment , by the plotted images , of timeless forms . Only when the members of the ...
Contents
The Art of the Storyteller | 7 |
Masithathu Zenani on Storytelling | 19 |
Tales | 27 |
Copyright | |
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