The Uncoiling Python: South African Storytellers and Resistance

Notes

207 notes The book epigraph is from Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses,” in The New Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250–1950, ed. Helen Gardner (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), 645. preface and acknowledgments 1. “The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up by the Government of National Unity to help deal with what happened under apartheid. The conflict during this period resulted in violence and human rights abuses from all sides. No section of society escaped these abuses” (http://www.doj.gov.za/trc/trc_frameset.htm). 2. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report (London: Macmillan , 1999), 1:1. 3. Ibid., 1:16. 4. Author unknown, “Historical Resume & Statistical and Other Vital Information Relating to Mount Ayliff District,” typescript, n.d., 9; W. Power Leary, resident magistrate, Mount Frere, September 27, 1904, untitled typescript ; Captain G. D. Ward, comp., “Historical Record of the Mount Ayliff District, Cape Province, Union of South Africa, 1878 to 1937,” compiled from notes by Mrs. I. B. Hunter and from other sources (Kokstad, South Africa: Kokstad Advertiser, 1937), 2. prelude: the uncoiling python The chapter epigraph is from the King James Version of the Bible, ed. Robert P. Carroll and Stephen Prickett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). 1. Axel-Ivar Berglund, Zulu Thought-Patterns and Symbolism (London: C. Hurst, 1976), 60–61. 2. Ibid. 3. W. B. Rubusana, Zemk’ Inkomo Magwalandini (Frome: Butler and Tanner , 1906), 262–63. “Ofisi Kona, ukunene. Uzalwa ngoNobhesi intokazi kaBikitsha yasemaQocweni Izibongo” (of Ofisi Kona, the right-hand. He is born of Nobhesi, the daughter of Bikitsha of the Qoco clan). 208 S Notes to Pages 2–6 4. Ibid., 266. 5. This praise-poem (1S-451) was narrated by Magagamela Koko, a Mfengu man about eighty years old, in a home overlooking the Kei River valley, Nqancule, Ngqamakhwe District, the Transkei, on August 31, 1967, before an audience of ten women, two men, and ten children. 6. Into yam enkulu means “thing, my senior son.” 7. UBantwana bayaxathula: “[He who is] Children-walk-in-shoes.” 8. This description was given by Nongenile Masithathu Zenani in 1972 in Willowvale District in the Transkei, when a group of narrative performers and poets discussed poetry. See also note 58 to chapter 3. Nongenile Masithathu Zenani delivered this praise imagery (2S-15) on August 2, 1972, at 2:15 pm, outside, along the side of a ridge near her home, to an audience of three teenagers, three women, and three children. 9. Rubusana, Zemk’ Inkomo Magwalandini, 347–48. 10. Ibid., 231. Hintsa (c. 1790–1835) was a major Gcaleka king (the Gcaleka are a Xhosa-speaking people). 11. Ibid., 252. 12. Harold Scheub, Story (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998); Harold Scheub, The Poem in the Story (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002); and Harold Scheub, Shadows: Deeper into Story (Madison, WI: Parallel Press, 2009). 13. Harold Scheub, The Tongue Is Fire (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996). 14. The materials for this study include transcripts of field recordings of approximately nine thousand Xhosa, Zulu, Swati, and Ndebele performances of stories, histories, biographies, and poetry in 1967–68, 1972–73, 1975–76; five thousand color slides of storytellers, historians, and various other people, along with scenery and communities (mainly in the rural areas of southern Africa); thirty-five hundred black and white photographs of storytellers , historians, and various other people; and Super 8 mm motion pictures , both silent (about ten hours) and sound (about five hours). 15. Kafir: “inkawu: in-Kau. the Vervet monkey . . . fig. an albino native. Isi-kau: That which is little, insignificant, unimportant.” Albert Kropf, A Kafir-English Dictionary, 2nd ed., ed. Robert Godfrey (Lovedale, South Africa : Lovedale Mission Press, 1915), 184. Xhosa: “inkawu, an ape, monkey; an albino. isikhawu: something insignificant; a short cut. ubunkawu: monkey nature.” J. McLaren, A New Concise Xhosa-English Dictionary (Cape Town: Longman, 1963), 70. 16. Scheub, The Tongue Is Fire, xvi. 17. Harold Scheub, review of Towards an African Literature: The Emergence of Literary Form in Xhosa by A. C. Jordan, Journal of American Folklore 90, no. 357 ( July–September 1977): 347–52. 18. Jon Stewart, the American comedian, said about his storytelling, “It’s a wonderful feeling to have this toxin in your body in the morning, that Notes to Pages 6–14 S 209 little cup of sadness, and feel by 7 or 7:30 that night, you’ve released it in sweat equity and can move on to the next day.” Quoted in Michiko Kakutani...