Textual Production and Contested Histories in a Performance of the Namibian Storyteller Dawid Plaatjies

The formal investigation of Afrikaans folklore and oral tradition dates back to the last decades of the nineteenth century. In 1914 relatives and friends of F. T. Schonken published his De Oorsprong der Kaapsch-Hollandsche Overleveringen (The Origins of the Cape Dutch [Oral] Tradition), the first academic study on proto-Afrikaans oral traditions. For the greater part of the twentieth century, evolutionist, diffusionist, or narrow nationalist tendencies informed most Afrikaans folklore studies.

Characteristic of the earlier diffusionist studies, certainly not uncommon in earlier folklore research generally, was the identification of the origins and influences of local tales. Following the critical practices of the time Afrikaans oral tradition researchers invariably sought to identify the origins of such tales as European. Compare Abel Coetzee's observation about the appearance of the animal tale in Afrikaans:

Baie skrywers deel sonder meer mee dat bepaalde sprokies "Hottentotsprokies" is, sonder om nader in te gaan op die saak [. . .]. Elders het ek reeds daarop gewys dat die aanwending van 'n wolfsvel by longontsteking, wat deur Bleek aangegee word as tipiese Hottentotsverhaal, alreeds só opgeteken word in die middeleeuse Ecbasis Captivi. My eie waarneming bring my al meer en meer tot die gevolgtrekking dat baie van die sprokies ten onregte beskou word as oorspronklike besit van die Kleurlinge [. . .]. Daar bestaan dus 'n sterk ooreenkoms tussen die Afrikaanse en Europese dieresprokie.

Many writers indicated that some animal tales were "Hottentot fairy tales" without exploring the matter further [. . .]. I have pointed out elsewhere that the use of a wolf's pelt [as remedy for] pneumonia, which Bleek considered a typical Hottentot [treatment], was already written up by Ecbasis Captivi in the Middle Ages. My own observations brought me to the conclusion that many of the fairy tales that were deemed to belong to the Coloureds did not originate with them [. . .]. There is a high degree of resemblance between the Afrikaans and the European animal tale). (62) ¹

The subjective intention in this passage, I suspect, beyond uncovering the tale's exact origins, was an endeavor to establish a more serious and noble, i.e., European and white history, for what was regarded as ordinary, local, and above all stereotypically humorous. This is not a fanciful interpretation since even some earlier Afrikaans linguists recognized that

die kleurlingtaal van ons land het tot dusver [. . .] het nou maar altoos gedien vir een doel: om te amuseer! Dat die kleurling sy gedagte soms op heel komiese wyse kan uitdruk, dat sy beskrywinge aan oorspronklikheid soms niks te wense oorlaat nie en dat hy dikwels gebruik maak van uitdrukkinge en wendinge wat vir die blanke vreemd is en dus bereken om die lagspiere te prikkel, dit weet ongeveer elke blanke inwoner van die land.

The coloured language of our country [. . .] has always served one purpose: to amuse! That the coloured sometimes expresses himself in a very comical way, that his descriptions can be very original or that he uses expressions and twists [in expression] that are designed to tickle the laughing muscles, knows almost every white inhabitant of the country. (Rademeyer 11-12)

Indeed, my own relatively recent investigations suggested that the black Afrikaans storytellers of Namibia and the Northern Cape Province of South Africa were creative but displayed greater narrative sophistication and greater sober verbal artistry than their forebears were given credit for. For instance, several female Namibian storytellers through their retelling of European fairy tales, such as Cinderella, obliquely commented on the restrictive nature of the social interaction between black worker and white employer and some even adapted the tale to reflect apartheid social and employment relationships. While the narratives of the female storytellers were guarded, those of male storytellers were politically more overt in their retelling of war battles, political struggles, and contested communal histories. Ideological and scholarly impediments and often critical limitations among Afrikaans linguists and oral tradition researchers generally prevented them&#8212...