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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... means of images trapped in verbal cliches , the patterning of narrative actions , and also nonverbal cliches , the patterning of body movement and sound . The temporal movement of the plotted actions of a story occurs within a set of ...
... means of telling the story enables the performer to make plain what is only implied in the other versions : the suggestion that the diametrically opposed sisters actually represent the two contending sides of the same person , a ...
... means of food and hunger . The roots become a means of communication between the couple . And when the husband substitutes fake roots for real food , his relationship with his wife is ruptured . The second and third parts of the tale ...
Contents
The Art of the Storyteller | 7 |
Masithathu Zenani on Storytelling | 19 |
Tales | 27 |
Copyright | |
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