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Proverbs are independent texts which can be incorporated into a variety of genres. As embedded texts their illocutionary role cannot be underestimated. Whole narratives can be formulated to reflect the truth they espouse. The two novels discussed in this chapter apply a similar underlying proverb used in the title differently.

In Aphelile it is applied to gender politics, to warn against working mothers because they are no longer able to perform the traditional role of raising children. There is a nostalgic lament for the past roles of women in society because their strict adherence to the roles they performed ensured that the social order was not disrupted. In Impi, the proverb is applied in a different situation and a general outrage against city life is registered (Buthelezi: 14). The significance of both applications lies in their lamentation for the transient nature of time that forever pushes the societies into the intricacies of modern life. Those proverbs quoted in the texts embed moral imperatives, and the axioms derived from their application reinforce the absoluteness of accepted norms and values. As Barber (1999: 36) points out ‘anything that is constituted as quotable can be recruited for new purposes, expanded or inflected in new ways, attached to new textual forms’.

Endnotes

1 I have used folklore in accordance with Okpewho’s (see Introduction, 1992) definition to mean oral literature and indigenous literature.

2 African folklorists since the middle of the 1980s have moved beyond the conventional folklore study that focused more on the cultural contexts for its rendition or performance. They now study the relationship between orality and literacy. Their views are succinctly captured by Emanuel Obiechina (1972 and 1973). The Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies, 2003, 13(1) devoted the whole journal to a treatise on the presence of oral forms in literary genres. In relation to the isiZulu literary tradition, C. T. Msimang (1986) advanced a theory of the oral influence on the early Zulu narratives. However, his treatise creates an impression that it is only earlier narratives that manifest oral influence. However, this book establishes that there is unbroken continuity with current narratives.

3 Russian Formalism and Structuralism played a significant role in shaping isiZulu literary criticism. The tendency to collapse certain concerns of these two approaches as they relate to the artfulness of the poetic language or the literariness of the poetic diction or that of the language of literature created a perception that the oral art forms which are inherently artful were used in a similar way to the poetic language in European literary traditions.

4 Proverbs in oral lore have been derived from lengthy narratives of observed phenomena. The repeated re-narrations of these proverbs over time in different contexts have resulted in them being shortened expressions which in turn stood for whole narratives.

5 Robert Stam, 2005 has used the terms to refer to film adaptations but has drawn from Bakhtin and Kristeva’s concepts of intertextuality and hybrid construction of the artistic forms. These theories hold that the artistic utterance is always a mingling of one’s own word with the other’s word. One’s word/literary form becomes a hypertext spun from pre-existing hypotexts which have been transformed by operations of selection, amplification, concretisation and actualisation.

6 In the period under study, there are other narratives that have taken their titles from proverbs. These are Wanda’s Izibiba Ziyeqana (some medicines are stronger than others, 1997), Vilakazi’s Aphume Nobovu (they came out with the pus, 1998), Msimang’s Igula Lendlebe Aligcwali (the gourd of the ear never fills up, 1995) and Walivuma Icala (s/he pleads guilty to a charge, 1996), which is also a derivative from icala ngumphikwa (a charge is denied). There is also another category of texts whose titles have been articulated through idiomatic sayings (izisho). These are not necessarily proverbs but are axioms, truisms and maxims that command the same kind of absolute authority that is characteristic of the proverb, and that are used to highlight the actions and realities of the characters. Examples are Gininda’s Ukukhanya Kokusa (The dawn of the morning, 1997), Masondo’s Ingalo Yomthetho (The arm of the law, 1994) and Ngaze Ngazenza (I myself am to blame, 1994), Mbhele’s Izivunguvungu Zempilo (The whirlwinds of life, 1995), Shabangu’s Kade Sasibona (We are sages, 1997), Mngadi’s Umbele Wobubele (The udder of kindness, 1995), Bhengu’s Seziyosengwa Inkehli (They will be milked by a spinster, 1998), Cele’s Ngiyokhohlwa Ngifile (I will forget when I am dead, 1996), and Mbatha’s Amanoni Empilo (The fats of life, 1996).

7 Makhasana was a war commander-in-Chief in pre-colonial KwaZulu. It was custom that the King/Chief remained behind when his regiments went to war, except during the reign of Shaka who usually led his armies. Makhasana as an army commander would come back from these wars and re-narrate to the King/Chief and other council members who remained behind all that transpired in the actual battle. Giving minute details regarding how the regiments were sectioned (ukuphakwa kwempi), how they advanced and attacked and who stood out as fearsome brave warriors deserving of branding and how the enemy was defeated. This re-narration replayed the storytelling sessions with all the paraphernalia that went into them and thus was an occasion that was looked forward to by the whole Kingdom/Chiefdom.

8 This view certainly concurs with those of leading African developmental scholars like Azikiwe (1969), Davis (1962), Davidson, (1964) and others.

9 The morphology of the word is: Malume (uncle) + kazi (suffix denoting a female gender).

10 The head tax promulgation in 1906 and the poor translation of the concept Poll Tax as Intela Yamakhanda in isiZulu elicited responses from the peasants that alluded to the fact that it was an anomaly to pay for one’s head. Subsequently all ideas that did not make sense in the isiZulu language and culture were said to be insumansumane imali yamakhanda. The basic definition of insumansumane though, relates to a folktale that has mythical origins which is called insumo.