The lore and the proverbs: Sol Plaatje as historian
Date
1991-08-26
Authors
Starfield, Jane
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Abstract
Sol T. Plaatje's Sechuana Proverbs (1916) is a small blue book
containing 732 Setswana proverbs, their translations and their
'European eqvivalents'. At the University of the Witwatersrand , Johannesburg,
this store of Setswana wisdom is kept under lock and key, not because it
offends against any vicious South African censorship laws, but because it is
an old book that needs protection. Notwithstanding the recent reprinting of
much early African literature, scholars and publishers have not re-issued
Sechuana Proverbs, nor do readers in libraries or the open market make any
significant requests for it (1). This state, of affairs is, unhappily, not what
Plaatje intended when he set out to save these proverbs from the likely
oblivion of orality, by writing them down. This was the trap into which
writing enticed many of its practitioners among the African elite.
This article explores Plaatje's desire to preserve the proverbs, which
he considered central to the continued regeneration of Tswana culture. The
paper examines the interface between orality and literacy and the role of
those who moved between these two forms of social communication.
Sol Plaatje, South African nationalist, journalist, novelist, translator
and cultural historian, lived from 1876 to 1932.
Description
African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 26 August 1991
Keywords
Plaatje, Sol. T., Plaatje, Solomon Tshekisho, Folk literature. South Africa, Proverbs. Bantu