Academic literature on the topic 'Tales, Boma (African people)'

AbstractIndigenous significances of nineteenth-century |Xam San folktales are hard to determine from narrative structure alone. When verbatim, original-language records are available, meaning can be elicited by probing beneath the narrative and exploring the connotations of highly significant words and phrases that imply meanings and associations that narrators take for granted but that nonetheless contextualize the tales. Analyses of this kind show that three selected |Xam tales deal with a form of spiritual conflict that has social implications. Like numerous |Xam myths, these tales concern conflict between people and living or dead malevolent shamans. Using their supernatural potency, benign shamans transcend the levels of the San cosmos in order to deal with social conflict and to protect material resources. As a result, benign shamans enjoy a measure of respect that sets them apart from ordinary people.

The paper analyses the origins of Italian national identity in opposition to the «otherness» of the African peoples subject to colonization between the end of the 19th century and the 1920s. The paper takes into consideration background studies in the history of pedagogy, among which, Gabrielli (2013, 2015) and colonial studies as Del Boca (1988) and Labanca (2002) in order to investigate the development of racial stereotypes outside the school. Racial stereotyping increased in advertising and emerged in trademark images of Italian companies so that it influenced the idea of otherness between 1890 – i.e. the conquest of Eritrea – and 1922 – i.e. the advent of Fascism.

Tales are “generally created by the people, based on imagination, living in oral tradition, mostly people, animals and witches, gnomes, giants, fairy, etc. It is the starting point of this study with its characteristic of being a literary genre (TDK Dictionary) describing the extraordinary events that happened to beings and its cultural dimension reflecting the language, thought and world view of the land it was born. In this study, in North African countries, Algeria, which has been colonized for years, we will examine fairy tales and children's literature, and answer questions such as their ability to reflect their own self, national consciousness in their works and the effect of their situation on children's literature. The culture, values and perspectives of this geography were approached from a different perspective through the selected sample tales, and the translations of cultural elements belonging to this culture were analyzed within the framework of Translation Studies Goal-Oriented Approach. As a result of the translation criticism, it was learned that the translators had a target language-oriented translation understanding. In addition, it has been concluded that the social and political problems faced by North African countries have an important influence on children's literature.

Before colonization, Africans had their own ways and methods of education. Its finality was to educate their children in accordance with African values. In Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, Chinua Achebe shows that African traditional education plays a key role in the passage from childhood to adulthood. Instead of using western materials and tools such as classrooms, blackboards, talks and or pens, in African traditional education the fireplaces, the farms, storytelling, tales and proverbs were the methods and means that African wise people adopted to educate their children.

This study aimed to investigate how three groups of people of differing ages, and with differing knowledge of the species, perceived the emotional state of African elephants (Loxodonta africana) managed in captive and semi-captive environments. Fifteen video-clips of 18 elephants, observed during three different daily routines (release from and return to the night boma; interactions with visitors), were used for a free choice profiling assessment (FCP) and then analyzed with quantitative methods. A general Procrustes analysis identified two main descriptive dimensions of elephant behavioral expression explaining 27% and 19% of the variability in the children group, 19% and 23.7% in adults, and 21.8% and 17% in the expert group. All the descriptors the observers came up with showed a low level of correlation on the identified dimensions. All three observers’ groups showed a degree of separation between captive and semi-captive management. Spearman analyses showed that stereotypic “trunk swirling” behavior correlated negatively with first dimension (free/friendly versus sad/bored) in the children’s group; second dimension (agitated/confident versus angry/bored) amongst the adults; and first dimension (active/excited versus agitated/bored) amongst the experts. More studies are needed to investigate other potential differences in assessing elephants’ emotional states by visitors of different ages and backgrounds.

African oral literature is not static; it changes in accordance with and in relation to the changes occurring in the society it reflects. As a rich source of varying degrees of information, African oral literature depicts the changing human conditions and behaviour like climate and related environmental conditions, crime, political instability, disease amongst others; and provides requisite solutions to such piercing and compelling global challenges. This paper presents a textual analysis of four (4) Sangu oral tales to show how the Sangu of south-west Tanzania have been remodelling their tales in relation to the changing human life conditions. It scrutinises “iJungwa Sikhandi Vaanu” (lit. trans. ‘elephants were once human beings’), “Umutwa nu Mwehe Waakwe” (‘the chief and his wife’), “Umuhinja ni Nyula” (‘a girl and the frogs’), and “Kwashi iNwiga sina Singo Nali”(‘why giraffes have long necks’), which were part of the 20 tales collected during in-depth interviews held with Sangu storytellers. The selection of these four tales was based in their suiting the climate change theme and remodelling. The study found that oral stories display unique knowledge of a particular people pertaining to climate change and adaptation. Moreover, it emerged that sustainable solutions to the current environmental crisis are embedded in people’s environment-related oral narratives.

One of the most favorite characters in many African myths and folk tales is definitely a trickster. As a part of the African cultural heritage, the trickster has an important place in the cultures of many African nations. He is an entertainer, teacher, judge and a sage. Many comic aspects of life are brought together through the trickster, as well as serious social processes. He rewards and punishes. He is a deity and an ordinary man, if not an animal. During the Middle Passage Era he goes along with his suffering people to the New World. New circumstances require him to change and assume new forms. He has to be a rebel and a protector of his people due to slavery and violation of human rights. So, from comical spider and monkey back in Africa, we now have new characters such as Railroad Bill, Brother John, Br’er Rabbit and many hoodoo doctors. African oral tradition is transformed and becomes the basis for African-American literature.

Generally, plants constitute the very foundation of human and non-human life. These organisms, among others produce fresh air that surrounds the Earth and provide organisms with food and nutrition. They provide organisms with medication, shelter and wearable materials. Moreover, plants are vital sources and materials for botanical imagination. Their omnipresence in literature in form of tales and devices such as symbols, similes, metaphors, satire, and personification is not a new thing; they have been making their appearances in art from since time immemorial. However, a critical eye on their potential literary imaginings particularly in Tanzania’s orality has largely been unnoticed or overlooked as a minor issue. Through the analysis of selected Sangu plant tales informed by a post-colonial eco-critical perspective, this paper shows how plant tales can help arouse general interest in plants and the floral-related narrative experiences as resources for making sense of human dependency on the vegetal beings and as a way initiating a meaningful dialogue about environmental protection from a literary point-of-view. More significantly, the paper uses the same vegetal tales to demonstrate the credibility and richness of the environment-related genuine information, wisdom and worldviews found in the oral literature of the African people in the struggle to combat the on-going global environmental crisis. This realisation negates the long-lived misconception that African literature is mediocre and does not satisfy universal aesthetic standards and sensibilities.

African culture is a rich reservoir of varying degrees of information. It encompasses unique knowledge originating from within Africa, which is reflected in its people’s traditions and customs. This knowledge engrafts and provides solutions to a myriad of problems. Among others, it provides solutions to compelling environmental challenges like land degradation, water and air pollution, global warming and climate change. This paper presents a textual analysis of five (5) Sangu oral tales that represent ecological knowledge and practices of the Sangu people. This is done as a way to unriddle the ongoing environmental enigma in the Usangu plain, and the world at large. The tales under scrutiny are: Umutwa na Avatambule Vaakwe (‘The Chief and His Sub-chiefs’); iNjokha wiita Nguluvi (‘Snakes like God’); Munego (‘A Trap’); iJungwa Sikhandi Vaanu (‘Elephants Were Once Human Beings’); and Amagulu ga Nguluvi (‘The Feet of God’). A total of twenty (20) tales were collected qualitatively through one-on-one in-depth interviews with Sangu storytellers; and then through content analysis method: all of which found the five aforementioned tales fit for the subject matter. The results show that the telling of the oral stories is not just an occasion but also a display of skills and knowledge of a particular people, and that the solutions to the current global environmental crisis lie in people’s traditions as expressed in their environment-related oral narratives.

Tricksters and Trickery in Zulu Folktales is a research on one of the central themes in African, and particularly Nguni/Zulu folklore, in which the trickster figure plays a pivotal role. The Zulu form part of the Nguni group of the Kintu speaking populations in sub-Saharan Africa. Their oral traditions are based on those of the whole sub-continent, but also constitute significant innovations due to the Nguni's contacts with the Khoisan peoples and to the history that has shaped their reasoning processes. Folktales are an artistic reflection of the people's culture, history, way of life, attitudes to persons and events, springing from the observation of nature and of animal and human, behaviour, in order to create a "culture of the feelings" on which adult decisions are based. The present research is based on the concept of a semiotic communication system whereby folktale "texts" are considered as metaphors, to be de-coded from the literary, cultural and behavioural points of view. The system is employed to produce comic entertainement, as well as for education. A careful examination of the sources reveals the central role that observation of the open book of natural phenomena, and especially the observation of animal life, plays in the formulation of thought patterns and of the imagery bank on which all artistic expression is based, be it in the form of proverbs, or tales, or poetry. Animal observation shows that the small species need to act with some form of cunning in the struggle for survival. The employment of tricks in the tales can be either successful or unsuccessful, and this constitutes the fundamental division of the characters who are constantly associated with trickery. They apply deceiving patterns based on false contracts that create an illusion enabling the trickster to use substitution techniques. The same trick pattern is however widely employed, either successfully or unsuccessfully, by a score of other characters who are only "occasional tricksters", such as human beings, in order to overcome the challenge posed by external, often superior, forces, or simply in order to shape events to their own advantage. The original mould for the successful trickster figure in Kintu speaking Africa is the small Hare. The choice of this animal character points to the bewildered realization that small beings can only survive through guile in a hostile environment dominated by powerful killers. The Nguni/Zulu innovation consists of a composite character with a dual manifestation: Chakide, the slender mongoose, a small carnivorous animal, whose main folktale name is the diminutive Chakijana; and its counterpart Hlakanyana, a semi-human dwarf. The innovation contains a double value: the root ideophone hlaka points to an intelligent being, able to outwit his adversaries by "dissecting" all the elements of a situation in order to identify weaknesses that offer the possibility of defeating the enemy; and to "re-arrange" reality in a new way. This shows the ambivalent function of trickery as a force for both demolition and reconstruction. Chakijana, the small slender mongoose, is like the pan-African Hare in most respects, but with the added feature of being carnivorous, therefore a merciless killer. He makes use of all its powers to either escape larger animals, or to conquer other animals for food in order to survive. Hlakanyana, being semi-human, can interact with both humans and animals; Chakijana is mostly active in an animal setting. The unsuccessful trickster figure in Kintu speaking Africa is Hyena, an evil and powerful killer and scavenger, associated in popular belief with witches by reason of his nocturnal habits and grave digging activities. The Nguni/Zulu innovation is Izimu, a fictional semi-human being, traditionally interpreted as a cannibal, a merciless and dark man eater. Izimu is another composite figure, prevalently corresponding to Hyena, from which he draws most of his fictional characteristics. The figure further assimilates features of half-human, half-animal man-eating monsters known in the folklore of many African cultures, as well as the ogre figure prevalent in European tales. The anthropophagous aspect, taken as its prevalent characteristic by earlier researchers, is a rather secondary feature. The innovation from a purely animal figure (Hyena) to a semi-human one allows this character to interact mostly with human beings, thus expressing deeply felt human concerns and fears. Trickery is the hallmark of comedy, the art of looking at life from an upside-down point of view, to portray not the norm but the unexpected. Thus the metaphors contained in trickster folktales, as expressions of comedy, are rather difficult to decode. The ambivalence, so common in many manifestations of African culture, becomes prevalent in these tales. Human tricksters, who try to imitate the trick sequence, are successful if their aims can be justified in terms of culture and tradition; but are unsuccessful if their aims are disruptive of social harmony. Ambivalence is also predominant in "modern" trickster folktales, and in some manifestations of the trickster themes in recent literature. The trickster tradition is an important aspect of the traditions of the Zulu people, permeating social, educational and literary aspects of life and culture. The Nguni/Zulu innovations of Hlakanyana/Chakijana and of Izimu point to the dynamic and inner stability of the culture, a precious heritage and a force on which to build a great future.
Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1995.

Text in Afrikaans
Die eerste hoofstuk omskryf die begrip ngano, daarna volg 'n uiteensetting hoe die Venda mondelinge tradisie in die verlede gefunksioneer het en word die huidige aard en posisie van die verskynsel in die lewe van die gemeenskap gedefinieer. Veranderende sosio-ekonomiese en politieke kragte het die tradisionele lewenswyse van die Venda-mense in so 'n mate versteur dat die mondelinge tradisie en die stem van die storieverteller nie meer hoog waardeer word deur die moderne geslag nie. Die teoretiese uitgangspunt van hierdie tesis aanvaar dat religie 'n radikaal integrerend funksie het wat chaos in sinvolle patrone inkorporeer. Dialekties verbind aan die eerste beginsel van religie is die inherente drang van die mens se gees om alle gegewe limiete te transendeer. Vanuit hierdie fokus kan ngano as religieuse artikulasies interpreteer word wat chaos in sinvolle patrone uitdruk, en waarin oak opstand teen bestaande orde en tradisionele aannames uitgespreek word. In bree trekke skets die tweede hoofstuk die historiese agtergrond van die Venda-mense vanaf 800 nC tot en met die resente politieke veranderinge van 1994 in die Noordelike Provinsie. Die tweede deel van die hoofstuk bied 'n uiteensetting van hul religio-filosofiese agtergrond en tesame met die geskiedkundige gebeure dien dit as interpretatiewe konteks vir hierdie oeroue verhale wat van die een geslag na die ander oorgelewer is. In die volgende nege hoofstukke verskyn vyftig volksverhale wat in agt verskillende areas in Venda gedokumenteer is. Elke verhaal is vooraf voorsien van 'n opsomming van die inhoud van die verhaal asook 'n interpretasie van die verhaal deur die verteller self of verduidelikings van haar helpers. Die oorspronklike Venda-teks word gegee in die presiese woorde van die verteller met daarby die Afrikaanse vertaling. 'n Terna wat hehaaldelik voorkom is die opstand van die magteloses (die kind, die vrou of niksseggende persoon) teen magtiges (die koning, die man, dominerende familielede of tradisionele strukture). Ander gewilde temas is die ellende van hongersnood, die aanwending en voorkoms van toorkragte en bonatuurlike transformasies. Ten slotte is daar drie Sankambe-verhale waarin die fantastiese avonture van hasie, die aartbedrieer, wat op grand van blote vernuf oorleef, humoristies vertel word. Ofskoon daar duidelike artikulasies van verset en kritiek teen die tradisionele orde en teen magtiges is, waag ngano dit selde buite die tradisioneel religieus-filosofiese grense.
The first chapter outlines the concept ngano, thereafter the function of the Venda oral tradition in the past is described and the present nature and position of the phenomenon in community living is defined. Changing socio-economic and political forces disturbed traditional Venda life-style to such an extent that the oral tradition and the voice of the storyteller are not highly regarded by the modern generation. The theoretical point of departure of this thesis accepts the radical integrative function of religion ordering chaos into meaningful patterns. Dialectically tied to this first principle of religion is the inherent urgency of the human spirit to transcend all given limits. Viewed thus, ngano can be interpreted as religious utterances in which chaos is expressed in meaningful patterns and where resistance is articulated against existing order and traditional assumptions. Chapter two sketches the historical background of the Venda people from 800 AD up to recent political changes of 1994 in the Northern Province. The second part of this chapter presents an exposition of their religio-philosophic background which, together with the historical events provide an interpretative context for these ancient stories handed down from one generation to the next. Fifty folk tales (ngano) appear in the following nine chapters documented in eight different areas in Venda. Every narrative is introduced by a summary of the content of the story together with an interpretation by narrator and assistants. The Venda text is given first adhering as closely as possible to the original words of the narrator. Every line is followed by an Afrikaans translation. A recurring theme in ngano is the powerless (child, wife or insignificant person) resisting the powerful (king, husband/man, dominating family members or unyielding traditional structures). Other popular themes are the misery of famine, application and occurrence of witchcraft and supernatural transformations. Lastly three Sankambe-stories are documented in which the fantastic antics of the hare, the trickster in Venda folk tales who survives by sheer cunning, are humorously narrated. Although there are distinct expressions of resistance and criticism against the existing order and dominating powers, ngano seldom ventures beyond traditional religious and philosophic boundaries.
Religious Studies & Arabic
D. Litt et Phil. (Religious Studies)

These jocular tales are about religiosity, vernacular religion, murder, and death. Most characters are Muslims, others are Christians and Jewish. With his Janus personality, Djeha is a malleable folklore character: in some collections, he is Muslim in others, Jewish. Here, Djeha is a Sunni Muslim (he attends Quranic school). Muslim characters interact with Christians and Jews, often poking fun at each other. Djeha disrespects the injunctions of the Quran and the five pillars of Islam (the profession of faith, the five daily prayers, attending the mosque on Fridays, alms-giving, observing Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca). While he should refrain from eating pork and drinking alcohol, Djeha is not an exemplar Muslim. Djeha kills animals and humans (the muezzin in “Djeha and the Sheep’s Head”) or incites other people to kill so that he may keep their money. In closing tale, Djeha is betrayed by his best friend and killed.

The last years of the 20th century were tough times for selling food to Europeans. The competition was fierce, the rules uncertain, and the retail markets picky. It was not just that huge supermarket chains had come to dominate food retailing, and to demand products conforming to ever-higher standards of convenience and aesthetic quality; these trends were common across the industrialized world. In addition, they demanded that the suppliers of those products— farmers and manufacturers, but also a range of intermediaries—meet standards of hygiene and accountability that were unimaginable twenty, even ten years earlier. The supermarkets wanted assurances that none of their products would set off another food scare; too many had already shaken European consumers’ faith in the supermarkets’ increasingly globalized offerings. On the supermarket shelves, these assurances might appear as new labels or packaging, if they appeared at all. What consumers largely did not see was the work that went into providing them with food as certifiably pure as it was pretty. This work took place on farms and in packhouses; in consultants’ offices and corporate boardrooms; in activists’ meetings and chemical analysts’ laboratories. It demanded long flights, short deadlines, and nonstop vigilance. Above all, the work of assuring the overall goodness of globalized food required all kinds of people and things to deal with each other in new ways, and often across great distances. In this sense, it transformed the social relationships of food provisioning on both an interpersonal and transcontinental scale. This book explores how these changes took shape within two fresh vegetable trades, or commodity networks, linking two Sub-Saharan African countries to their former European colonial powers. The francophone network brings Burkina Faso’s green beans to France, while the anglophone network brings an assortment of prepackaged fresh vegetables from Zambia to the United Kingdom. Broadly similar in some ways, they differ radically in others, including the ways that they experienced Europe’s late twentieth-century food scares. By exploring the history of these differences and how they are sustained and transformed in specific places, practices, and social institutions, I hope to illuminate the relationship between culture and power in globalized food provisioning.

The term ‘narrative' has attained a contemporary connotation of identity tales and has stepped outside the bounds of literature to enter into realms of sociology, anthropology, law, and even medicine. Narrative is not just the medium used by writers to tell their stories, but also a powerful tool of self-expression, with a strong reference to individual stories set in a significant cultural background. This nature of narrative has been observed in one of the most significant African American writers of the modern era – Toni Morrison. With the rise of in-betweenness and the need for a space to emerge as an individual identity, it is important for people to create narratives to counter prevalent dominant narratives.

Njabulo Simakahle Ndebele is a prophet of the post-apartheid condition, producing a discourse on the oppressed and their future which dispenses with agendas and instead concerns itself with the conditions that make the very framing of agendas possible, conditions that his people have never fully enjoyed on their own ground. In Ndebele’s essays we have a reflex at the level of cultural critique of the strenuous feat of reclamation that was underway in the making of the broad democratic movement at their very time of writing. In propounding this reading, the chapter looks at Ndebele’s most influential essays, including “Turkish Tales and Some Thoughts on South African Fiction”, “The Rediscovery of the Ordinary”, and “Redefining Relevance”. It relates these works to several metropolitan thinkers such as Cornelius Castoriadis, Benedict Anderson, and James Clifford; and discusses the implications of two notable absences: white writers and women. Ndebele is accorded a descriptive term that might seem archaic: wisdom. As a prophet of the post-apartheid condition, Ndebele adopts the paradoxical stance of participatory distance, of internal exile from the tyrannical present as the custodian of all times.

Abstract “Race movies” had not merely risen out of segregation; they had been anointed by it and, after a fashion, prospered from it. At their best as in The Scar of Shame ( 1927), a film by the Colored Players of Philadelphia, they had provided black audiences with a shock of recognition of their plight and put forth a group morale that called upon African Americans to strive for, as one of the character says, “the finer things.” At their worst they fed off black misfortune rather than deal with it, parodied bourgeois life rather than set it as a standard, and gave away credibility by setting life in a dark world unsullied by white people and improbably packed with black crooks and cops, judges and doctors, molls and grandes dames, so that the subsurface play of the text allowed the inference that blacks had only themselves to blame for the hand they had been dealt. Also running through the worst race movies was a half-hidden wish to be white embedded in the frequent tales of garbled identities, lightskinned casts, and mannered behavior. All of these, to be sure, were the outward signs of the “twoness” of American life about which W. E. B. DuBois had written, but sometimes race movies teased and strummed these feelings rather than take them up as part-of the daily round of black life. And sometimes, almost perversely, race-moviemakers drew attention to the unfair comparison of their shoe­ string work with Hollywood gloss by billing their stars as “the colored Mae West” or “the colored Valentino.”