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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... gone to that circum- cision dance . He moved on , walking straight to that place . He arrived there and sat at a distance , fearing to enter . Finally , this boy , who was now a young man , saw the man ; he knew that it was his father ...
... gone to gather firewood . When he got there , dust was billowing up be- cause the ravens were scratching the earth . They were playing . The dust kept getting into his eyes . He went and sat at a distance and asked about his mother ...
... gone wrong with me ? " And all this time , he was feeling the movement of the child here in his stomach . But he kept quiet . He did not speak about it . He hid it from the people . He felt that there was indeed something mov- ing here ...
Contents
Introduction | 3 |
PrologueOrigins | 9 |
Masithathu Zenani on Storytelling | 19 |
Copyright | |
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