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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | War and Remembrance: The Power of Oral Poetry and the Politics of Hananwa Identity |
Authors: | Joubert, Annekie Van Schalkwyk, J.A. |
Year: | 1999 |
Periodical: | Journal of Southern African Studies |
Volume: | 25 |
Issue: | 1 |
Period: | March |
Pages: | 29-47 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | Sotho military operations 1894 praise poetry (form) Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) History and Exploration Education and Oral Traditions |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/2637585 |
Abstract: | The important role that oral tradition plays in the reconstruction of the historical and cultural existence of nonliterate societies demands an interdisciplinary approach. In this analysis of the praise poem in honour of Ratshatsha, former chief of the Hananwa, disciplinary boundaries are crossed, and the input of the performer, family members and local inhabitants are included in order to arrive at a better understanding of the oral text. Ratshatsha, or Kgalushi, reigned over the Hananwa, a Northern Sotho-speaking people living at Blouberg in the Northern Province of South Africa, from 1879 to 1939. The praise poem, which is presented here in Hananwa, with an English translation, gives a comprehensive account of the 1894 siege of Blouberg by forces of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR). The recital of this praise poem during a contemporary political gathering can be viewed as the Hananwa taking an active role in the dialectics of their own history. Note, ref., sum. |