The First Bushman's Path: Stories, Songs and Testimonies of the /Xam of the Northern Cape: Stories, Songs and Testimonies of the Exam of the Northern Cape - Softcover

Alan James

9780869809914: The First Bushman's Path: Stories, Songs and Testimonies of the /Xam of the Northern Cape: Stories, Songs and Testimonies of the Exam of the Northern Cape

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0869809911 ISBN 13: 9780869809914

Publisher: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2002

The ""First Bushmen"", or the ""First-there-sitting-People"", established the path along which all dead people and animals would travel to get to their final holding place, a great hole in the ground. And it was these First Bushmen who had been the original occupants of the land in which the Xam lived, and about whom stories were told. So declared Kabbo, one of the last of the Xam San to narrate the stories and oral traditions which had helped to make the Xam who they were, and to construct their land and make it livable. In these poems, Alan James has produced considered versions of a selection of the Xam narrations transcribed in the late 19th century, including many which have thus far received little, if any, literary or critical attention. The poems are supplemented by explanatory notes, helpful in particular to those who are unfamiliar with Xam history and culture. This title is an accessible and informative re-presentation of a wide range of the oral testimonies of Xam culture, whose riches continue to claim the attention of those who have succeeded the Xam in their land.

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Review:

I have long admired James's poems, but the degree to which he has allowed the 'versions and readings' of /Xam texts to resist his own voice is precisely what makes this an important publication. MichaelGreen, University of Natal

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