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The modern approach to the study of folklore¹ has created a discursive terrain that allows for the reconsideration of the role of folklore material in contemporary society (Thosago, 2004: 13). This approach rejects conventional conceptions of folklore as ‘antediluvian’, ‘backward’, ‘illiterate’ and ‘primitive’ and instead seeks to regenerate folklore. Thosago’s perspective highlights the interrelation between folklore and postmodernity and how technical spaces such as the broadcast media can be exploited for the rejuvenation of folklore, an aspect I explore in the last three chapters of the book. However his views on this matter are not new. Since the inception of isiZulu literature in colonial times, writers have made use of a syncretic admixture of traditional knowledge and Western civilisation when writing about modernity. This has since become a convention of creative writing in isiZulu. Therefore at the conceptual level, re-narrating contemporary experiences entails a need to revisit this ancient tradition, thus creating a hybridised continuity, complex as it might be, between the idyllic, unattainable past and the self-conscious writings that typify post-modern textuality (Obiechina, 1972, 1973; Msimang, 1986).²

It is against this background that I discuss proverbs and their reinvocation in two post-apartheid isiZulu novels. The study of proverbs has led to significant advances in our understanding of their nature and their function in discourses of orature, literature, and every day speech acts. The uses of proverbs and other oral genres are various and wide, but their significance lies in their ability to explain language, thought and society (Pridmore, 1991, cited in Zounmenou, 2004). It is not only the thoughts of a society presented through proverbs but also its philosophical views that are reflected and passed down from one generation to the next. In some African societies the use of proverbs in daily conversations is a highly valued verbal experience because it develops the ingenuity seen as linguistic preparation for the performance of lengthy verbal art forms like folk stories or izibongo (praises).

Okpewho (1992) discusses the application of proverbs, especially the role of proverbs in everyday conversation and the ‘twists’ that are discerned in the proverbs used by individuals to ‘spice up the talk’. Further scholarly views emphasise their didactic illocutionary function (Monye, 1966; Pelling, 1977; Mokitimi, 1997; Okpewho, 1992). It is the intended didacticism in proverbs that I focus on in this chapter. IsiZulu literature is dominated by didacticism. This didacticism has always been located within a traditional knowledge though accentuated by the advent of Christianity which brought its own moral discourses. The tensions and the conflicts that have existed between these two discourses, tradition and Christianity, with each vying for dominance in literary discourses have characterised isiZulu literature from its inception.

The Christian discourses are not the only prominent force that shaped isiZulu literature. A host of other Western influences shaped its content and form. According to Barber (1999: 20) the use of Western stylistic criteria firstly excluded oral art forms from those texts that are ‘constituted to invite comment, analysis and assessment’ and secondly, prevented recognition of the fact that these indigenous forms could have formed a basis for an indigenous African aesthetics. When Western literary conventions are applied to isiZulu literature, those oral art forms that have been used in novels, short stories and dramas have been regarded only as ‘the author’s use of language’ rather than as examples of African discursive practices. In such instances the author is praised for including idioms and proverbs in his work and is castigated if their quantity is found to be wanting.³ According to Barber’s model, African discourses are constituted by oral art forms such as folk narratives, legends, riddles, proverbs, axioms and everyday sayings. These oral art forms perpetuate and reaffirm the authority of the traditional world. They are able to improvise, and they are fluid and flexible, which allows them to incorporate new materials and migrate to other genres. In spite of this apparent flexibility and mobility there are certain valuable elements, constituted by unchanging fixed formulations, that make it possible for these art forms to be identified as independent, detached texts. Akinnaso (1985) points out that whenever these forms are performed or uttered, they are experienced as durable formulations that come from outside the current conversation and are thought to transcend conversation or other everyday uses of language. The contribution provided by Barber (1999, 2000) to the study of proverbs, not only as performance texts but also as identifiable discursive practices that underpin African value systems, has never been explored in relation to isiZulu literature. Barber further points out that

the reification of the utterance in Yorùbá discourses, is signalled by the intense and pervasive presence of quotation […] There is a whole field of texts that are constituted as quotations: rather than being merely uttered, they are cited (1999: 18–19).

Even though Barber’s model focuses on the oral art forms of Yorùbá society, the presence of these oral formulations in isiZulu language justifies its application here. The two novels selected for the demonstration of this theory are Buthelezi’s (1996) Impi YaboMdabu Isethunjini (The war of Africans is in the intestines) and Radebe’s (1996) Aphelile Agambaqa (Words have been finished).

This chapter investigates the uses of proverbs as an implied reading strategy in isiZulu literature. Proverbs are not only artistic articulations but also critical discourses in which are embedded moral instructions for social cohesion. The close affinities between proverbs as narratives⁴ and the plots of Aphelile Agambaqa and Impi YaboMdabu Isethunjini reveal how the proverbs used as titles, together with others cited throughout the narratives, depend on their linguistic-social authority as pre-existing quotations while they simultaneously comment on, and shape perceptions of, contemporary life. There is ‘mutual reflection’ at play between the proverbs and the narratives of the novels. What the proverbs encapsulate as the known absolute truth about life experiences is re-enacted in the narrative producing similar conclusions. The narrative is structured in such a way as to refer back to these proverbs at the end of the novels. To bring out the interplay between the proverbs and the plotting strategies of the novels, I explore the proverbs both as titles of the narratives and as propellants of the moral lesson. In discussing the moral I will draw on the many proverbs that have been quoted throughout the novels to highlight issues that impact the central theme of the narratives. These quotations, when detached from the contexts of these narratives, can be used as ‘independent utterances’ from which various narratives can be derived. However in these texts they have been contextualised as supporting truths that complement or supplement the dominant truth reflected in the titles of the novels.