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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... bird ; she seized it and ate it - shwam ! shwam ! shwam ! shwam ! shwam ! But there was a feather , a feather that ... bird now - rrr rrr ! Then : taaaaaa ! a small scrap of flesh from that bird flew from between her teeth as she was ...
... bird turned to the young man , and said , “ Vukuthu vukuthu ! It is said , ' What will you give us for that ? ' " He said , " I can give you some corn . " The first bird said , " Do you think that we have throats large enough to swallow ...
... bird in part one and of the bird in part two . In part one , Mityi's harmony with nature and with her ancestral past is established in the scenes in which a bird assists her . The pattern of assistance by the bird that makes her human ...
Contents
The Art of the Storyteller | 7 |
Masithathu Zenani on Storytelling | 19 |
Tales | 27 |
Copyright | |
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