The Transmission of Kapsiki-Higi Folktales over Two Generations
Tales That Come, Tales That Go
Authors: van Beek, Walter E.A.
Free Preview- Explores the folktales of the Kapsiki-Higi people in a comparative analysis across generations and among various African cultures
- Provides answers to important questions of memory and cultural studies of African peoples
- Uses historical, anthropological, and literary analysis in a unique approach and examination of transnational African culture
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- About this book
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This study on Kapsiki-Higi tales compares two corpuses of stories collected over two generations. In this oral setting, folktales appear much more dynamic than usually assumed, depending on genre, performance and the memory characteristics of the tales themselves. In northeastern Nigeria the author collected these tales twice with a time gap of two generations, in order to assess the dynamics of this oral transmission. The comparison between the two corpuses shows that folktales are a much more dynamic cultural system than is usually thought. These dynamics affect some types of tales more than others, reflect social change and intergroup contact, but also depend on characteristics of the tales themselves. Cognitive approaches of memory shed light on these varieties of transmission, as do performance aspects in tale telling, in particular ideophones.
- About the authors
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Walter E.A. van Beek is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology of Religion at Tilburg University and Leiden University, the Netherlands, and has performed extensive fieldwork among the Kapsiki-Higi. His recent publications are The Dancing Dead. Ritual and Religion among the Kapsiki/Higi (2012) and The Forge and the Funeral; the Smith in Kapsiki/Higi Culture (2015).
- Table of contents (5 chapters)
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Tales at Two Times
Pages 1-21
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Grouping the Tales
Pages 23-41
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The Tales, Old and New
Pages 43-103
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Tales That Went, Tales That Came
Pages 105-119
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Remembering Folktales
Pages 121-148
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Table of contents (5 chapters)
Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- The Transmission of Kapsiki-Higi Folktales over Two Generations
- Book Subtitle
- Tales That Come, Tales That Go
- Authors
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- Walter E.A. van Beek
- Series Title
- African Histories and Modernities
- Copyright
- 2017
- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan US
- Copyright Holder
- The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)
- eBook ISBN
- 978-1-137-59485-3
- DOI
- 10.1057/978-1-137-59485-3
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-1-349-94927-4
- Softcover ISBN
- 978-1-349-95889-4
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- XI, 170
- Number of Illustrations
- 5 b/w illustrations, 9 illustrations in colour
- Topics
