Swazi oral literature, eco-culture and environmental apocalypse
- Authors: Enongene Mirabeau Sone
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Swazi oral literature; eco-culture; eco-literature; eco-criticism; environmental sustainability
- Language: English
- Type: Journal Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/11260/2632 , vital:42302
- Description: The main objective of this paper is to show how oral literature is engaged by Swazis with regards to environmental sustainability. It demonstrates the relationship between nature and culture as reflected in Swazi oral literature and how indigenous knowledge embedded in this literature can be used to expand the concepts of eco-literature and eco-criticism. The paper argues that the indigenous environmental expertise among the Swazi people, encapsulated in their oral literature, can serve as a critical resource base for the process of developing a healthy environment. Furthermore, the paper contends that eco-criticism, which is essentially a Western concept, can benefit by drawing inspiration from the indigenous knowledge contained in Swazi culture and expressed in their oral literature. The paper concludes by recommending the need to strengthen traditional and customary knowledge and practices by protecting and recognizing the values of such systems in the conservation of biodiversity for sustainable development
- Full Text:
- Authors: Enongene Mirabeau Sone
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Swazi oral literature; eco-culture; eco-literature; eco-criticism; environmental sustainability
- Language: English
- Type: Journal Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/11260/2632 , vital:42302
- Description: The main objective of this paper is to show how oral literature is engaged by Swazis with regards to environmental sustainability. It demonstrates the relationship between nature and culture as reflected in Swazi oral literature and how indigenous knowledge embedded in this literature can be used to expand the concepts of eco-literature and eco-criticism. The paper argues that the indigenous environmental expertise among the Swazi people, encapsulated in their oral literature, can serve as a critical resource base for the process of developing a healthy environment. Furthermore, the paper contends that eco-criticism, which is essentially a Western concept, can benefit by drawing inspiration from the indigenous knowledge contained in Swazi culture and expressed in their oral literature. The paper concludes by recommending the need to strengthen traditional and customary knowledge and practices by protecting and recognizing the values of such systems in the conservation of biodiversity for sustainable development
- Full Text:
The struggle for authority in George McCall Theal's Kaffir Folklore
- Authors: Naidu, Samantha
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:26362 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/53942 , https://www.upjournals.co.za/index.php/SAJFS/article/view/1674 , https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9456-8657
- Description: This article focuses specifically on George McCall Theal’s collection of folktale texts, Kaffir Folklore (1882), as an example of an early South African ethnographic publication, and argues that the folktale transcriptions contained therein, although a part of Theal’s general colonialist project, are hybrid, containing the voices of both coloniser and colonised. The key argument is that the presence of the African voices in this text reveals simultaneously that Theal’s editorial aspirations were never absolutely imposed, and that agency and influence (albeit limited) of the colonised Xhosa co-authors were present. The article offers an analysis of the paratext (the preface, the introduction and the explanatory notes) of Kaffir Folkore, rather than a close reading of the tales themselves. To facilitate an understanding of Theal’s editorial practice, Kaffir Folkore is compared to Harold Scheub’s The Xhosa Ntsomi (1975). More generally, drawing on postcolonial folklore and book-history scholarship, the article explores how folklore texts of the colonial era, although contributing to the establishment of a literary and cultural orthodoxy in modern South Africa, constitute a telling hybrid genre, which invites a re-evaluation of colonial relations, and of individual texts themselves. In short, these texts synthesise different literary traditions (European and African), different mediums (the oral and the written), different disciplinary approaches (ethnography, folklore, literature), and most significantly, the voices of different subjects. Kaffir Folklore (1882) epitomises this synthesis
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Naidu, Samantha
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:26362 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/53942 , https://www.upjournals.co.za/index.php/SAJFS/article/view/1674 , https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9456-8657
- Description: This article focuses specifically on George McCall Theal’s collection of folktale texts, Kaffir Folklore (1882), as an example of an early South African ethnographic publication, and argues that the folktale transcriptions contained therein, although a part of Theal’s general colonialist project, are hybrid, containing the voices of both coloniser and colonised. The key argument is that the presence of the African voices in this text reveals simultaneously that Theal’s editorial aspirations were never absolutely imposed, and that agency and influence (albeit limited) of the colonised Xhosa co-authors were present. The article offers an analysis of the paratext (the preface, the introduction and the explanatory notes) of Kaffir Folkore, rather than a close reading of the tales themselves. To facilitate an understanding of Theal’s editorial practice, Kaffir Folkore is compared to Harold Scheub’s The Xhosa Ntsomi (1975). More generally, drawing on postcolonial folklore and book-history scholarship, the article explores how folklore texts of the colonial era, although contributing to the establishment of a literary and cultural orthodoxy in modern South Africa, constitute a telling hybrid genre, which invites a re-evaluation of colonial relations, and of individual texts themselves. In short, these texts synthesise different literary traditions (European and African), different mediums (the oral and the written), different disciplinary approaches (ethnography, folklore, literature), and most significantly, the voices of different subjects. Kaffir Folklore (1882) epitomises this synthesis
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2014
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