The root and tip of the ||kwanna: introducing chiasmus in |xam narratives

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Periodical article

Title:	The root and tip of the \|\|kwanna: introducing chiasmus in \|xam narratives
Author:	Rusch, Neil
Year:	2016
Periodical:	Critical Arts: A Journal of Media Studies (ISSN 1992-6049)
Volume:	30
Issue:	6
Pages:	877-897
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	San storytelling oral literature
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2016.1263219
Abstract:	This article considers the rhetorical figure chiasmus, or ring composition, as it appears in narratives told by the 19th-century \|xam storyteller, \|\|kabbo. Chiasmus is contextualised against broader cosmological considerations in a close inter-textual reading that highlights chiasmus as a mnemonic device. It is the contention of this article that chiasmus is embodied and finds particular specificity in '\|\|kabbo's intended return home'. Embodiment implicates kinesthetic attentiveness and somatic sensitivity, which this article explores as they apply to storytelling and endurance running (persistence hunting) as practised by \|\|kabbo. Finally, embodiment is shown to be signified in a variety of representative schema such as story, map and rock engravings, which intertwine with motility, wind, paths, death and !k'augen (death influence). Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]