Wilhelm Bleek and the Khoisan Imagination: A study of censorship, genocide and colonial science
Item
Title
Wilhelm Bleek and the Khoisan Imagination: A study of censorship, genocide and colonial science
author
Wittenberg, Hermann
Is Part Of
Journal of southern African studies, 38 (3): 667-679
isbn
0305-7070
citation
Wittenberg, H. (2012). Wilhelm Bleek and Khoi imagination: a study of censorship, genocide and colonial science. Journal of Southern African Studies, 38 (3): 667‐679
Ethical Disclaimer
Availabel online at: http://repository.uwc.ac.za/xmlui/handle/10566/1010
Identifier
LIT185
Description
In 1864 Wilhelm Bleek published a collection of Khoi narratives titled Reynard the Fox in South Africa, or Hottentot Fables and Tales. This paper critically examines this foundational event in South African literary history, arguing that it entailed a Victorian circumscription of the Khoisan imagination, containing its libidinal and transgressive energies within the generic limits of the naïve European children’s folktale. Bleek’s theories of language and race are examined as providing the context for his editorial approach to Khoi narratives in which the original ‘nakedness’ was written out. The extent of Bleek’s censorship of indigenous orature becomes visible when comparing his ‘fables’ to a largely unknown corpus of Khoi tales, collected by the German ethnographer Leonhard Schultze during the Nama genocide in the early 20th century. The paper compares these collections of oral narratives, and suggests that this has implications for the way the famous Bleek and Lloyd /Xam archive was subsequently constituted in the 1870s. Wilhelm Bleek’s interventions in civilizing the Khoisan imagination marks a move away from a potentially Rabelaisian trajectory in South African literature through which the Khoisan could be represented and represent themselves. In admitting a sanitized indigenous orature into the colonial literary order, it is argued that Bleek helped to create a restrictive cultural politics in South Africa from which the country is yet to emerge fully.
Date Issued
2012
Subject
Group identity-Khoikhoi (African people)
Group identity-Khoisan (African people)
South Africa-Colonization
Khoisan (African people)-Colonization
Imperialism-South Africa
Folk literature-Khoisan (African people)
Folklore-South Africa
Type
Article
Language
English
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
topic
Social Integrity
