African Historical Writing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toyin Falola
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Black People ◽  
African History ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Methodological Innovation ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
Black Intellectual ◽  
Pan Africanism ◽  
Intellectual Movement

This chapter looks at African historical writing. Several intellectual currents fused to produce the emergence of modern African historiography. First, the global black intellectual movement, expressed in the politics of Pan-Africanism, argued that the knowledge of African history was key to the understanding of the past and future of black people. Second, within Africa itself, a tradition of indigenous writing had already demonstrated the richness of the continent’s history. The third current that moved writing about Africa to the mainstream academy began in the 1940s during the era of decolonization, the transfer of power from Europeans to Africans, and the creation of independent nations. The chapter then explores a key methodological innovation that emerged in African studies first but has had application in other fields—oral tradition as a pathway into pasts either largely devoid of written records or dominated by the written records of colonial occupiers.

Constructing a Precolonial Owan Chronology and Dating Framework

1994 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 219-249
Author(s):  
Onaiwu W. Ogbomo
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
African History ◽  
Accurate Assessment ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
The Past ◽  
Relative Chronology ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Genealogical Data

Oral tradition has been recognized by historians as a vital source for historical reconstruction of non-literate societies. However, one of its “deficienc[ies] is an inability to establish and maintain an accurate assessment of the duration of the past [it] seeks to reconstruct.” As a result of its time-lessness it has been declared ahistorical. In the same vein R.A. Sargent argues that [c]hronology is the framework for the reconstruction of the past, and is vital to the correlation of evidence, assessment of data, and the analysis of historical sources. Any construction of history [which] fails to consider or employ dating and the matrix of time to examine the order and nature of events in human experience can probably be labelled ahistorical.Basically, the concern of critics of oral tradition is that, while they are veritable sources of history, the researcher “must work and rework them with an increasing sophistication and critical sense.” Because dating is very pivotal to the historian's craft, different techniques have been adopted alone or in combination to create a relative chronology. In precolonial African history, the most commonly used have been genealogical data which include dynastic generations, genealogical generations (father-to-son succession) and the age-set generation. Also systematically charted comets, solar eclipses, and droughts have been employed by historians in dating historical events, or in calculating the various generational lengths.A dynastic generation is determined by “the time elapsing between the accession of the first member of a given generation to hold office and the accession of the first representative of the next.”

The Memory of Maqoma: An Assessment of Jingqi Oral Tradition in Ciskei and Transkei

1993 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 321-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy J. Stapleton
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
South African ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
African History ◽  
British Army ◽  
The Third

Dominated by a settler heritage, South African history has forgotten or degraded many Africans who had a significant impact on the region. The more recent liberal and radical schools also suffer from this tragic inheritance. Maqoma, a nineteenth century Xhosa chief who fought the expansionist Cape Colony in three frontier wars, has been a victim of similar distortion. He has been characterized as a drunken troublemaker and cattle thief who masterminded an unprovoked irruption into the colony in 1834 and eventually led his subjects into the irrational Cattle Killing catastrophe of 1856/57 in which thousands of Xhosa slaughtered their herds on the command of a teenage prophetess. Recently, the validity of this portrayal has been questioned. Alan Webster has demonstrated that, throughout the 1820s and early 1830s, Maqoma attempted to placate voracious European raiders by sending them cattle tribute. Only after the British army and Boer commandos had forced his Jingqi chiefdom off its land for the third time did this ruler order retaliatory stock raids against the colony in late 1834.

scholarly journals Identity of Ao-Naga and Sümi-Naga Women as Gleaned from Folklores

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 94
Author(s):  
Resenmenla Longchar ◽  
H. Salome Kinny
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Striking Feature ◽  
Traditional Beliefs ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
Construction Of Identity ◽  
The Village ◽  
The Way

The word identity has drawn a lot of attention to itself more so in the present age where everyone seems to be in a quest to establish their own identity. This quest for identity is not an alien concept to Naga society which comprises of sixteen officially recognized communities. These communities rely upon their own set of folklores to glean their past. Folklores are a strong medium through which most of the traditional beliefs and cultural practices are embodied. It is a reflection of the past through which the identity of the community can be gleaned. Folklores are not mere spinning of tales to glorify one’s own community, but are narratives of the communities who follow oral-tradition. This paper attempts to glean the identity of Ao-Naga and Sümi-Naga women through their respective folklores. Ao-Naga and Sümi-Naga are two strong communities residing in Nagaland. Both the communities have rich folklores falling into different genres. A striking feature of most folktales is the way details are presented- the name of the village, location and presence of evidence in the present times suggesting the validity of the events in the folktales. After the construction of identity is done, this paper will compare the identity of women of these two communities. Women of both these communities have come a long way from what they were in the past. As the third and final component of this paper, it will analyse whether women are still under grip of their past identity or whether they have moved away from it to build a new identity for themselves in the 21<sup>st</sup> Century. This paper will further examine the identity of women in the 21<sup>st</sup> Century in the light of their past as constructed from the folklores.

Anecdotes as Historical Evidence for the Principate

1980 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Saller
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
African History ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Narratives

Historians' judgements about the evidential value of anecdotes have oscillated over the past decades. In the early part of this century authors of German textbooks on historical method warned students against using anecdotes on the grounds that their form was not fixed and their contents fluctuated since the narrators exercised their imaginations to improve stories with each telling. J. Vansina, an anthropologist studying the value of oral traditions for reconstructing African history, concluded in his more recent work that the anecdote is among the least reliable types of oral tradition. Nevertheless, recent scholarly works on Roman imperial history have utilized anecdotes for the sorts of social, economic, and administrative details which the available political narratives ignore. No systematic analysis has been undertaken to justify this use. I shall attempt to fill the gap by asking three basic questions: in what social contexts were anecdotes generated and transmitted; what changes in content were likely to occur during transmission; and what are the implications for the use of anecdotes as historical evidence?

Comment: African Art and African History

1962 ◽  
Vol 5 (02) ◽  
pp. 25-27
Author(s):  
Philip D. Curtin
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Mixed Data ◽  
Human Society ◽  
African History ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
African Art ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Starting Point

In discussing these three papers as they relate to history, it is an essential starting point to realize that the discipline of history is changing and has changed considerably in the last quarter century. History began as an account of the great deeds of our own ancestors, a record of the past that was essentially a backward extension of our own group personality. It long ago outgrew its concern with our tribal past and came to be concerned with the past of other peoples who share our Western culture. More recently, historians have become increasingly concerned with the past of other cultures as well. Some remnants of the older historical tradition are still around, but broadly speaking history now can be defined as the study of change in human society. With this shifting focus inside the discipline itself, some of the barriers that used to surround history have also begun to disappear. One of these barriers was a distinction between history and pre-history, made according to the kind of evidence that each used. Historians worked with documentary evidence, leaving the pre-historians to worry with the kind of problem that could be solved only through the combined use of archaeology, oral tradition, linguistic evidence, and the like. In African history no such distinction is possible, and it is now generally abandoned. Documentary evidence about the history of Africa south of the Sahara begins about the ninth century, but it has to be used alongside non-documentary evidence. Documentary evidence, used by itself, only begins to tell the whole story when we come to the twentieth century, and even here it overlaps with the oral evidence of people still alive. African history is thus dominantly a history based on mixed data. The old line between history and pre-history is no longer useful, and the Journal of African History recognized this fact when, for convenience, it set a new division between history and pre-history at the beginning of the Iron Age — a date which will, of course, be somewhat different for different parts of Africa.

Al-Rasm al-ʿUthmānī: Towards Correct Pronunciation and the Preclusion of Ambiguity

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-171
Author(s):  
Nāṣir Al-Dīn Abū Khaḍīr
Keyword(s):  
Specific Pattern ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
Different Ages ◽  
Correct Pronunciation ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind

The ʿUthmānic way of writing (al-rasm al-ʿUthmānī) is a science that specialises in the writing of Qur'anic words in accordance with a specific ‘pattern’. It follows the writing style of the Companions at the time of the third caliph, ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān, and was attributed to ʿUthmān on the basis that he was the one who ordered the collection and copying of the Qur'an into the actual muṣḥaf. This article aims to expound on the two fundamental functions of al-rasm al-ʿUthmānī: that of paying regard to the ‘correct’ pronunciation of the words in the muṣḥaf, and the pursuit of the preclusion of ambiguity which may arise in the mind of the reader and his auditor. There is a further practical aim for this study: to show the connection between modern orthography and the ʿUthmānic rasm in order that we, nowadays, are thereby able to overcome the problems faced by calligraphers and writers of the past in their different ages and cultures.

Lot's Offer of his Daughters to his People in the Torah and the Qur'an: A Comparative Study in Two Parts (Part One)

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 161-224
Author(s):  
ʿĀʾiḍ B. Sad Al-Dawsarī
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Comparative Studies ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Status ◽  
Moral Problems ◽  
Moral Dimensions ◽  
Similarities And Differences

The story of Lot is one of many shared by the Qur'an and the Torah, and Lot's offer of his two daughters to his people is presented in a similar way in the two books. This article compares the status of Lot in the Qur'an and Torah, and explores the moral dimensions of his character, and what scholars of the two religions make of this story. The significance of the episodes in which Lot offers his daughters to his people lies in the similarities and differences of the accounts given in the two books and the fact that, in both the past and the present, this story has presented moral problems and criticism has been leveled at Lot. Context is crucial in understanding this story, and exploration of the ways in which Lot and his people are presented is also useful in terms of comparative studies of the two scriptures. This article is divided into three sections: the first explores the depiction of Lot in the two texts, the second explores his moral limitations, and the third discusses the interpretations of various exegetes and scholars of the two books. Although there are similarities between the Qur'anic and Talmudic accounts of this episode, it is read differently by scholars from the two religions because of the different contexts of the respective accounts.

Learning Zulu

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
South African ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
African History ◽  
African Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Correct Form ◽  
Linguistic Purism

When this book's author began studying Zulu, he was often questioned why he was learning it. This book places the author's endeavors within a wider context to uncover how, in the past 150 years of South African history, Zulu became a battleground for issues of property, possession, and deprivation. The book combines elements of analysis and memoir to explore a complex cultural history. Perceiving that colonial learners of Zulu saw themselves as repairing harm done to Africans by Europeans, the book reveals deeper motives at work in the development of Zulu-language learning—from the emergence of the pidgin Fanagalo among missionaries and traders in the nineteenth century to widespread efforts, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, to teach a correct form of Zulu. The book looks at the white appropriation of Zulu language, music, and dance in South African culture, and at the association of Zulu with a martial masculinity. In exploring how Zulu has come to represent what is most properly and powerfully African, the book examines differences in English- and Zulu-language press coverage of an important trial, as well as the role of linguistic purism in xenophobic violence in South Africa. Through one person's efforts to learn the Zulu language, the book explores how a language's history and politics influence all individuals in a multilingual society.

Negotiating Tripartite Philosophy (Strategy–tactics–technique)

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 53
Author(s):  
Hazem Hamad Mousa Al Janabi
Keyword(s):  
Bottom Line ◽  
Negotiation Strategy ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past

Tripartite Negotiating philosophy: (strategy - tactics - technique) At the beginning , the research consists of four sections as follows: The first axis titled: "what negotiation", and the second axis: "philosophy of negotiation," The third axis titled: "negotiation strategy". Down to the fourth axis which included titled: "negotiating tactic", Sajama with the past and as a supplement came fifth axis titled: "negotiating technique", to be the bottom line in the form of a set of conclusions. Negotiation consists of a base triple hierarchical strategy - tactics - technique. The philosophy of negotiating interactive basis of rationality. Negotiable three parties are the position and the case and the parties involved. Is the process of negotiating strategic recruitment capacity and capabilities to achieve the desired goal of the crisis prematurely. Negotiating tactic is the process of hiring capacity and capabilities to achieve the desired goal at the negotiating table. •The technique is the process of negotiating employment capacity and capabilities to achieve the desired goal at the negotiating table to contain thesudden things check response and renewed flexibility.

Free but fragile: Human relations amidst poverty and HIV in democratic South Africa

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-94
Author(s):  
Christina Landman
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Predominantly White ◽  
Black People ◽  
Hiv Treatment ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
White People ◽  
Black And White ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Black Township

Dullstroom-Emnotweni is the highest town in South Africa. Cold and misty, it is situated in the eastern Highveld, halfway between the capital Pretoria/Tswane and the Mozambique border. Alongside the main road of the white town, 27 restaurants provide entertainment to tourists on their way to Mozambique or the Kruger National Park. The inhabitants of the black township, Sakhelwe, are remnants of the Southern Ndebele who have lost their land a century ago in wars against the whites. They are mainly dependent on employment as cleaners and waitresses in the still predominantly white town. Three white people from the white town and three black people from the township have been interviewed on their views whether democracy has brought changes to this society during the past 20 years. Answers cover a wide range of views. Gratitude is expressed that women are now safer and HIV treatment available. However, unemployment and poverty persist in a community that nevertheless shows resilience and feeds on hope. While the first part of this article relates the interviews, the final part identifies from them the discourses that keep the black and white communities from forming a group identity that is based on equality and human dignity as the values of democracy.

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