`FOLKTALES OF THE KXOE IN THE WEST CAPRIVI` BY CHRISTA KILIAN-HATZ

"FOLKTALES OF THE KXOE IN THE WEST CAPRIVI" BY CHRISTA KILIAN-HATZ, NAMIBIAN AFRICAN STUDIES CENTRE, 1999 FIRST EDITION, 338 PAGES, SOFTCOVER, IN EXCELLENT CONDITION

This book presents a collection of twenty-one folktales of the Khwe people in the Caprivi strip of north-eastern Namibia. The Khwe texts are accompanied by interlinear morphologic word-by-word translations placed immediately beneath each line. Idiomatic English translations follow separately after each tale and are readable as coherent texts. Sentences are numbered so that each passage of a Khwe text can easily be cross-checked with the English translation. The book thus serves equally the needs of Khwe people interested in learning to read and write their own language, the needs of linguists interested in the structure of the language, as well as the needs of scholars in oral literature interested in subjects of folktales or folklore.

It provides easy access to the tales and is useful for all three groups of readers it wants to serve. The book is a text collection and a sourcebook. It does not intend to and, thus, does not provide us with a more general perspective on oral literature or a detailed cultural and historical contextualization. A very short introduction presents the reader with brief information on the Khwe people (one page, plus a map of Caprivi), and a section on their oral literature including paragraphs headed "Kinds of Discourse", "Main Motifs", "Character of Animals" and "Performance", "A Short Comparative Aote" and "Presentation of the Tales". Additionally, the introduction contains notes on the orthography and on "Technical Issues".

The latter paragraph gives particulars on the place, time, and circumstances of the recordings as well as on the contributors to the book. Each tale is followed by a short interpretative comment on the message of the tale or the lesson to be learned from it. Footnotes provide information on the date and place of the recording event, on scientific names of animals and plants and, occasionally, on the literal meaning of a Khwe expression. They further contain remarks on interesting particularities of language usage including, for example, insulting by using opposite sex pronouns, speaking of oneself in the third person, etc. A short list of references closes the monograph.

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