The book contains San stories arranged by topics — stories about Mantis and his family, other animal stories, accounts of hunters, shamans, and more — but what I wanted to focus on today is the introduction, 40 pages long, which provides a detailed and deeply moving account of the San storytellers in the 19th century who told their stories to Wilhelm Bleek and to his sister-in-law Lucy Lloyd. The most important among these storytellers was the San man named ||kabbo, whose words provide the title of the book: "stories that float from afar." Here's a screenshot from the introduction that explains what that phrase meant for ||kabbo:
You can read more about David Lewis-Williams's work at Wikipedia. He is an archaeologist and also an ethnographer who has spent his long career working on San art traditions, and he is dedicated to their preservation; proceeds from this book go to the Rock Art Endowment Fund at the Unviersity of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg (where Lewis-Williams joined the faculty in 1978). This is the opening page of the book:
I was so glad to find this book at the Internet Archive; it provides a beautiful overview of San stories and also of the history of the storytellers like ||kabbo. Highly recommended, and it is just a click away, available for digital lending at the Internet Library:
by J. David Lewis-Williams
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are limited to Google accounts. You can also email me at laurakgibbs@gmail.com or find me at Twitter, @OnlineCrsLady.