Download or read book Oral Literature of the Luo written by Simon Okumba Miruka and published by East African Publishers. This book was released on 2001 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the sixth title in a series of titles focussing on the oral literary tradition of various East African ethnic groups - the Maasai, the Embu and the Mbeere amongst others - published by EAEP. Okumba Miruka, particularly known for his contribution to oral literature in Kenya, sets out to contexualise his subject by first explaining about the Luo people and culture - from migratory patterns and economic activity to the concept of divinity, death, warfare and Luo cuisine and eating culture. He then approaches the oral literature of the Luo through the genres of riddles, proverbs, poetry and narratives. For each genre, he offers a general introduction, notes on style, convention, performance and social function, and a wide range of samples, or 'primary texts' with commentaries.
Download or read book Oral Literature written by Asenath Odaga and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Oral Literature in Africa written by Ruth Finnegan and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2012-09 with total page 614 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ruth Finnegan's Oral Literature in Africa was first published in 1970, and since then has been widely praised as one of the most important books in its field. Based on years of fieldwork, the study traces the history of storytelling across the continent of Africa. This revised edition makes Finnegan's ground-breaking research available to the next generation of scholars. It includes a new introduction, additional images and an updated bibliography, as well as its original chapters on poetry, prose, "drum language" and drama, and an overview of the social, linguistic and historical background of oral literature in Africa. This book is the first volume in the World Oral Literature Series, an ongoing collaboration between OBP and World Oral Literature Project. A free online archive of recordings and photographs that Finnegan made during her fieldwork in the late 1960s is hosted by the World Oral Literature Project (http: //www.oralliterature.org/collections/rfinnegan001.html) and can also be accessed from publisher's website.
Download or read book Oral Literature of the Maasai written by Kipuri, Naomi and published by East African Educational Publishers. This book was released on 2020-02-22 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oral Literature of the Maasai offers an extensive collection of types of oral literature: oral narratives; proverbs; riddles; and a variety of songs for different occasions. The versions in this book were collected by the author from a specific Maasai community in Kajiado County of Kenya. The author listened to many of the narratives and participated in many proverb and riddle telling sessions as she grew up in her Ilbissil village of Kajiado Central Sub-county. However, she recorded most of the examples of oral literature in the early seventies with the help of her mother, who performed the role of the oral artist. Many songs were recorded from live performances. The examples ring with individuality, while also revealing a comprehensive way of life of a people. The images in the literature reveal the concrete life of the Maasai – people living closely with their livestock and engaged in constant struggle with the environment. But like all important literature, the materials here ultimately reveal a people with its moral and spiritual concerns, grappling with questions of human values and relations, struggling for a better social order. This book recommends itself to the general reader. However, the book is more than this: it includes stimulating discussions of examples, as well as review questions and exercises. The book is highly recommended to students of oral literature at secondary school level and at the university.
Download or read book The Luo People in South Sudan written by Kon K. Madut and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2020-08-13 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work draws from several interpretations and perceptions of Lou ethnic groups regarding their kinships, lineages, and the geocultural claims pertaining to their identity and sociocultural interactions among social groups and communities. It builds on the current literature and oral history to methodologically reaffirm kinships and establish ethnic lineages. Most contemporary Luo narratives come from Kenya and Uganda, in addition to those written by Western anthropologists and missionaries. None of these narratives have changed the content of the oral stories told by Luo groups and subgroups in Africa, especially those related to their lineages, ethnic affiliations, and their path of immigration from South Sudan to Tanzania, but have, instead, confirmed the history, stories, and mythology of the greater Luo groups in Africa. This book will serve to evoke intellectual curiosity among African social scientists, prompting them to conduct more research to further understanding of Luo ethnic groups’ ways of life and social interactions, as well as their contributions to the sociopolitical and economic development in the countries and regions they inhabit.
Download or read book A Dictionary of Oral Literature written by Leteipa Ole Sunkuli and published by East African Publishers. This book was released on 1990 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Oral Tradition as History written by Jan M. Vansina and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 1985-09-06 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jan Vansina’s 1961 book, Oral Tradition, was hailed internationally as a pioneering work in the field of ethno-history. Originally published in French, it was translated into English, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, and Hungarian. Reviewers were unanimous in their praise of Vansina’s success in subjecting oral traditions to intense functional analysis. Now, Vansina—with the benefit of two decades of additional thought and research—has revised his original work substantially, completely rewriting some sections and adding much new material. The result is an essentially new work, indispensable to all students and scholars of history, anthropology, folklore, and ethno-history who are concerned with the transmission and potential uses of oral material. “Those embarking on the challenging adventure of historical fieldwork with an oral community will find the book a valuable companion, filled with good practical advice. Those who already have collected bodies of oral material, or who strive to interpret and analyze that collected by others, will be forced to subject their own methodological approaches to a critical reexamination in the light of Vansina’s thoughtful and provocative insights. . . . For the second time in a quarter of a century, we are profoundly in the debt of Jan Vansina.”—Research in African Literatures “Oral Traditions as History is an essential addition to the basic literature of African history.”—American Historical Review
Download or read book Power Marginality and African Oral Literature written by Graham Furniss and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-12-11 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African oral literature, like other forms of popular culture, is not merely a form of entertainment but a medium for commenting on contemporary social and political events. It can also be a significant agent of change capable of directing, provoking, preventing, overturning, and recasting social reality. The contributors to this collection are anthropologists, linguists, historians, and ethnomusicologists, who present fresh material on oral literature to paint a lively picture of current real life situations in Africa.
Download or read book Oral Literature of the Asians in East Africa written by Mubina Hassanali Kirmani and published by East African Publishers. This book was released on 2002 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A further new title in this series on East African oral literature, considering East African-Indian genres of oral literature and cultures, which developed as people from India/Asia migrated to East Africa. The authors discuss how these literatures have been a source of creativity and renewal; and how they give expression to the values, perceptions and aspirations of cultures. The book is organised into sections on the socio-cultural background and historical origins of the literatures; patterns of migration and settlement in East Africa; styles in Indian literature as preserved in East Africa, common symbols, images and figures of speech; the role of the artist in literary production; and performance of oral literature. The authors further provide and discuss narratives from many genres: e.g. myths, legends, animal tales, moral stories; tales of wisdom and wit; riddles, proverbs and songs. Many passages appear in the original languages, transcribed from primary sources - in particular Gujerati; also Sindhi, Punjabi, Cutchi, Hindi, Kondani - as well as in English translation.
Download or read book East African Literature written by J. K. S. Makokha and published by Logos Verlag Berlin. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: East African Literature: Essays on Written and Oral Traditions is a wide-ranging collection of essays by seasoned and younger literary critics based in universities across the eastern region of Africa. The contributors offer illuminating criticism on issues of gender, sexuality, historiography, stylistics and narratology in representative works by writers such as: Ngugi, Okot p'Bitek, Julius Ocwinyo, Goretti Kyomuhendo, Ebrahim Hussein, Ben Mtobwa, M. G. Vassanji, Elieshi Lema, Rebeka Njau, Kyallo Wadi Wamitila, Ken Walibora, Katini Mwachofi, Margaret Ogola, Jared Angira, Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin, Dagniachew Worku and Nuruddin Farah. Transcribed works by popular oral artists working in major vernacular languages across the region have also been examined. Several essays offer critical perspectives on stylistic trends and thematics in Kenyan, Tanzanian, Somalian and Djiboutian drama. Read collectively, these critical essays expand the field of East African literary thought at the levels of criticism, texts and issues. Fresh analyses underpinned by a number of theoretical frameworks are conducted on scriptural and oral texts by established and emergent writers. The result is a panorama of East African literature from the turn of the century to the present moment. The book breaks new ground by expanding the conventional meaning of East Africa to include not only Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania but also Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti.
Download or read book Encounter with Oral Literature written by Simon Okumba Miruka and published by East African Educ. Publ.. This book was released on 1994 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author has undertaken extensive research in oral literature and is the author of A Dictionary of Oral Literature. Here he uses an anthological approach to examine the various genres of oral literature both at the theoretical and analytical level. The anthology emphasises the areas of definition, classification, style and themes. The book is essentially an analysis of the four genres of riddles, proverbs, oral poetry and narratives. It introduces a new way of looking at oral literature, particularly in the case of riddles and proverbs which have received little analytical attention locally in terms of classifying them and discussing their styles and social functions. The author contends that the four genres exist in a continuum rather than as disparate phenomena.
Download or read book An African Worldview written by Ian D. Dicks and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2012 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book Ian Dicks informs the reader about the ways in which the Yawo of Malawi view the world. The Yawo are predominantly Muslim, yet many maintain strong links with their traditional religion. They are a largely oral society, teaching and reinforcing their beliefs and practices using oral literature, which includes myths, proverbs, proverbial stories, songs of advice and prayers at various stages of the life cycle, particularly during initiation events. Ian Dicks describes in detail the Yawo's material world, customs, beliefs and rituals, and juxtaposes these with Yawo oral literature. He then examines them under six worldview categories, the result being a rich description of the way in which the Yawo see the world. This book is not an armchair study but has the feel of being written by an eyewitness, by someone who has had first-hand experience of the subject and who seeks to describe this in a manner which is sensitive to the Yawo and their culture.
Download or read book Siaya written by David William Cohen and published by East African Publishers. This book was released on 1989 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Traditional Ideology and Ethics Among the Southern Luo written by Andrev B. C. Ocholla-Ayayo and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress written by Sijie Dai and published by Knopf Publishing Group. This book was released on 2001 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An enchanting literary debut—already an international best-seller. At the height of Mao’s infamous Cultural Revolution, two boys are among hundreds of thousands exiled to the countryside for “re-education.” The narrator and his best friend, Luo, guilty of being the sons of doctors, find themselves in a remote village where, among the peasants of Phoenix mountain, they are made to cart buckets of excrement up and down precipitous winding paths. Their meager distractions include a violin—as well as, before long, the beautiful daughter of the local tailor. But it is when the two discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation that their re-education takes its most surprising turn. While ingeniously concealing their forbidden treasure, the boys find transit to worlds they had thought lost forever. And after listening to their dangerously seductive retellings of Balzac, even the Little Seamstress will be forever transformed. From within the hopelessness and terror of one of the darkest passages in human history, Dai Sijie has fashioned a beguiling and unexpected story about the resilience of the human spirit, the wonder of romantic awakening and the magical power of storytelling.
Download or read book Oral Traditions as Philosophy written by Samuel Oluoch Imbo and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2002 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a study of the Ugandan poet and cultural critic Okot p'Bitek. In his poems and critical essays, Okot engages with the oral traditions of his people--the songs, dances, funeral dirges, and so forth--seeing them as manifestations of the people's philosophy of life. Imbo's book aims to make explicit the philosophical questions raised in Okot's work, placing them within the wider picture of contemporary African philosophy as a whole. Visit our website for sample chapters!
Download or read book Basotho Oral Poetry At the Beginning of the Twenty first Century written by Moruti Tsiu and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2010-12-12 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contains a major research into, and deep investigation of Basotho language oral poetry in Lesotho at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The classical form, the dithoko, which was inspired by tribal wars or battles fought by the Basotho, is explored fully, but the absence of wars, and urbanisation with the economic and social imperatives of modernism, have inspired new forms of poetry. The new forms include dithoko, i.e. 'praise poetry'; the difela, 'mine workers' chants', and the diboko, the latter which as 'family odes', are still performed in rural areas. The research work involved the live performances of 33 diroki, i.e. poets, watched and recorded in their natural environments. The investigators were led by the late Professor Abiola Irele, then of Ohio State University.
