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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... maize . On this day , the initiates eat all sorts of things for the first time . They are allowed to eat the usual things - pumpkins and beans , stamped mealies , everything that has been proscribed during this period of seclusion ...
... maize . ( Those were the days when people cultivated with digging sticks ; they cultivated with their hands . There were no ploughs then ; no oxen were yoked . People cultivated with their hands in those days . ) Maize and millet - the ...
... maize was brought to the house of the bridal party . Grind- ing stones were brought in , and the maize was roughly ground . The ini- tial stages of brewing took place , then the dough was transported . It was the young women in the ...
Contents
Introduction | 3 |
PrologueOrigins | 9 |
Masithathu Zenani on Storytelling | 19 |
Copyright | |
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