Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology

Oral traditions are historical sources of a special nature. Their special nature derives from the fact that they are "unwritten" sources couched in a form suitable for oral transmission, and that their preservation depends on the powers of memory of successive generations of human beings. In many parts of the world inhabited by peoples without writing, oral tradition forms the main available source for a reconstruction of the past. Do the special characteristics of oral traditions û "unwritten" information dependent on the memory of successive generations û invalidate them as sources of historical data? If not, are there means for testing their reliability? Professor Vansina shows in Oral Tradition that with knowledge of the language and of the society, the anthropologist and historian can extract or deduce the historical content of oral testimonies. Based on the author's many years of fieldwork in Africa, this definitive work explores the possibility of reconstructing the history of non-literate peoples from their oral traditions, surveys existing literature, offers a typology of oral traditions, and evaluates methods of collection and interpretation. On first publication, Daniel McCall in the American Anthropologist called Oral Tradition " a tour de force. Indeed this may well be the most significant work written on the relation of oral tradition to history in thirty yearsàfor any field worker who intends to collect oral traditions, this work is indispensable."

History

VANSINA, JAN

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Routledge

Kingdoms of the Savanna

Africa

Publisher

From the Publisher\nThis product is not a traditionally bound book. Many ProQuest UMI products are black-and-white reproductions of original publications produced through the Books On Demand ® program. Alternately, this product may be a photocopy of a dissertation or it may be a collection reproduced on microfiche or microfilm if it is intended for library purchase.

University of Wisconsin Press

Light wear to boards. Light toning to pages with some spotting. Some pages have underling and notes in pencil. DJ has light toning and light marks with a few small edge tears.

The Children of Woot: A History of the Kuba Peoples

Univ of Wisconsin Pr

Oral Tradition as History

xvi 257p hardback with dustjacket, a fresh and clean copy, but initial pages with faint pencil marks

Paths in the Rainforests: Toward a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa

Antecedents to Modern Rwanda: The Nyiginya Kingdom (Africa and the Diaspora: History, Politics, Culture)

To understand the genocide and other dramatic events of Rwanda’s recent past, one must understand the history of the earlier realm. Jan Vansina provides a critique of the history recorded by early missionaries and court historians and provides a bottom-up view, drawing on hundreds of grassroots narratives. He describes the genesis of the Hutu and Tutsi identities, their growing social and political differences, their bitter feuds, revolts, and massacres, and the relevance of this dramatic history to the post-genocide Rwanda of today.2001 French edition, Katharla Publishers

To understand the genocide and other dramatic events of Rwanda's recent past, one must understand the history of the earlier realm. Jan Vansina provides a critique of the history recorded by early missionaries and court historians and provides a bottom-up view, drawing on hundreds of grassroots narratives. He describes the genesis of the Hutu and Tutsi identities, their growing social and political differences, their bitter feuds, revolts, and massacres, and the relevance of this dramatic history to the post-genocide Rwanda of today.

What was it like to be colonized by foreigners? Highlighting a region in central Congo, in the center of sub-Saharan Africa, Being Colonized places Africans at the heart of the story. In a richly textured history that will appeal to general readers and students as well as to scholars, the distinguished historian Jan Vansina offers not just accounts of colonial administrators, missionaries, and traders, but the varied voices of a colonized people. Vansina uncovers the history revealed in local news, customs, gossip, and even dreams, as related by African villagers through archival documents, material culture, and oral interviews. Vansina’s case study of the colonial experience is the realm of Kuba, a kingdom in Congo about the size of New Jersey—and two-thirds the size of its colonial master, Belgium. The experience of its inhabitants is the story of colonialism, from its earliest manifestations to its tumultuous end. What happened in Kuba happened to varying degrees throughout Africa and other colonized regions: racism, economic exploitation, indirect rule, Christian conversion, modernization, disease and healing, and transformations in gender relations. The Kuba, like others, took their own active part in history, responding to the changes and calamities that colonization set in motion. Vansina follows the region’s inhabitants from the late nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, when a new elite emerged on the eve of Congo’s dramatic passage to independence.

Being Colonized: The Kuba Experience in Rural Congo, 1880–1960 (Africa and the Diaspora: History, Politics, Culture)

One of twelve children in a close-knit, affluent Catholic Belgian family, Jan Vansina began life in a seemingly sheltered environment. But that cocoon was soon pierced by the escalating tensions and violence that gripped Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. In this book Vansina recalls his boyhood and youth in Antwerp, Bruges, and the Flemish countryside as the country was rocked by waves of economic depression, fascism, competing nationalisms, and the occupation of first Axis and then Allied forces. Within the vast literature on World War II, a much smaller body of work treats the everyday experiences of civilians, particularly in smaller countries drawn into the conflict. Recalling the war in Belgium from a child’s-eye perspective, Vansina describes pangs of hunger so great as to make him crave the bitter taste of cod-liver oil. He vividly remembers the shock of seeing severely wounded men on the grounds of a field hospital, the dangers of crossing fields and swimming in ponds strafed by planes, and his family’s interactions with occupying and escaping soldiers from both sides. After the war he recalls emerging numb from the cinema where he first saw the footage of the Nazi death camps, and he describes a new phase of unrest marked by looting, vigilante justice, and the country’s efforts at reunification. Vansina, a historian and anthropologist best known for his insights into oral tradition and social memory, draws on his own memories and those of his siblings to reconstruct daily life in Belgium during a tumultuous era. Best Special Interest Books, selected by the American Association of School Librarians Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the Public Library Reviewers

Through the Day, through the Night: A Flemish Belgian Boyhood and World War II

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

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Books by VANSINA, JAN

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by VANSINA, JAN. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology

Kingdoms of the Savanna

Kingdoms of the Savanna

The Children of Woot: A History of the Kuba Peoples

Oral Tradition as History

Paths in the Rainforests: Toward a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa

Antecedents to Modern Rwanda: The Nyiginya Kingdom (Africa and the Diaspora: History, Politics, Culture)

Antecedents to Modern Rwanda: The Nyiginya Kingdom (Africa and the Diaspora: History, Politics, Culture)

Being Colonized: The Kuba Experience in Rural Congo, 1880–1960 (Africa and the Diaspora: History, Politics, Culture)

Through the Day, through the Night: A Flemish Belgian Boyhood and World War II