The flamboyant rooster and other Tshivenda song stories

Abstract

Ngano are song stories of precolonial origin told by the Tshivenda-speaking people of South Africa. There are various reasons why they deserve a larger audience. Like folklore elsewhere, they are ancient artistic maps of the human condition. Although by no means devoid of humour, they cannot be regarded as frivolous entertainment. They provide listeners with a privileged view of human relationships in an African society. Their characters are enmeshed in a complex web of conflict and interdependency. Class, patriarchy, seniority and physical power are some bases from which the world is controlled. Primordial desires and vested interests find easy prey in women, children and the underclasses. Overt violence takes the form of kidnapping, sexual assault and murder. Men typically turn into marauding animals who hunt their human victims. But there also are more subtle forms of violation, like rejection, jealousy and selfishness which often are driven by loneliness and insecurity. Although the persecuted appear helpless, they are not denied redemption. They find refuge within the community of the vulnerable, while their physical frailty belies a spirit of rebellion that enables them to escape and even undermine those who abuse them. And so mutually defining forms of power clash throughout, while resistance becomes contradictory: those that are sub-ordinate also may shift with ease into authoritarian roles. ... (Please refer to the attached full text for a detailed preface)