San Tales Again: Acknowledgement and appropriation

Abstract

A review by Helen Yardley in the Mail & Guardian of San Tales from Africa by Rafaella Delle Donne (2007. Cape Town: Struik) announced, ‘A number of children's books based on African myth and legend have been published, but this is the first that focuses solely on those originating from the San people’. This emphatic statement is incorrect. It is not unusual for publications of translations from the San (whether intended for children or the general public), and statements about the translations, to be silent about earlier versions. This article considers acknowledgements, silences and debts in successive versions of San lore. It looks at the way Donne and other children's books draw on San oral literature and whether they acknowledge their sources. I then look at the verse versions of the Bleek and Lloyd transcriptions that various writers have published, including The Return of the Moon by Stephen Watson (1991. Cape Town: Carrefour) and the stars say ‘tsau’ by Antjie Krog (2004. Cape Town: Kwela). Watson has accused Krog of plagiarism. The controversy this has aroused highlights how successive versions raise questions about the nature of authorship and plagiarism and whether the reworking of San lore constitutes appropriation of the voice of the colonised. The article briefly evaluates the validity of Watson's accusations.

Keywords:

• Bushman lore
• children's literature
• folktales
• plagiarism
• San lore
• translation

Notes

See the results of the survey of ‘sixty-odd bookshops’ that the International Board on Books for Young People (South Africa) undertook in December 2005, together with its analysis of the Executive Books e-mail newsletter for children and young people, Big on Books, for January-April 2005 (IBBYSA 2006).

I have given some examples of books inspired by Specimens of Bushman Folklore in Jenkins (2006, 113).