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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Ngoni praise poetry and the Nguni diaspora
Author:Mphande, LupengaISNI
Year:1993
Periodical:Research in African Literatures
Volume:24
Issue:4
Pages:99-122
Language:English
Geographic term:Malawi
Subjects:Ngoni
migration
Zulu polity
oral traditions
praise poetry (form)
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/3820256
Abstract:Most of the studies on the 'Mfecane' claim to draw their evidence largely from 'oral' sources. But evidence shows that the use of these oral sources has been very selective, at best, and largely restricted to the oral traditions of those Nguni and non-Nguni groups that did not move very far from their original settlement. This article examines oral tradition data, notably 'izibongo' (praise poetry) recorded by Margaret Read (1937) from the Zwangendaba Ngoni of northern Malawi, a Nguni group that travelled all the way to Lake Victoria in Tanzania - 2,000 miles from their original home - before coming back to settle permanently in Malawi, almost a half-century after they had left South Africa. In his analysis of the 'izibongo' as a Ngoni oral tradition, the author is concerned, amongst others, with the following questions: How do the 'izibongo' substantiate the 'Mfecane' as a historical fact? What are the basic functions of 'izibongo' in Ngoni society, what are the changes in these functions that may have occurred over time, and to what extent do the 'izibongo' in Ngoni society serve as a forum for the articulation of power politics and gender conflict? Arguing that the 'izibongo' of the various diaspora Nguni groups subsume the themes of departure, wandering, nostalgia and expected return as their organizing structural motif, the author proposes a theory of oral literature, based on the theme of migration, wars and power. Bibliogr.
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