The Early Career of D. L. P. Yali-Manisi, Thembu Imbongi

Abstract

avid Livingstone Phakamile Yali-Manisi (1926-99) was not just a Xhosa poet, but a traditional Xhosa oral poet, an imbongi. In offer- ing this narrative of early career of a Xhosa imbongi, I address concerns distinct from those who use folklore texts as an incidental spring- board for theoretical debate, and revert to a perspective advocated by Mark Azadovskii in his classic study, A Siberian Tale Teller, published in 1926. Azadovskii called for greater attention to be paid to the biographical ele- ment by collectors and researchers: tale, he wrote, contains deep traces of personal experience and of events in narrator's life. His experience, his ability to observe, his occupation with this or that handi- work, as well as his own personal characteristics, all of this has an enor- mous influence on retelling of a (7). He cited approvingly W. Berendsohn's response to tale collection of Brothers Grimm: It is incumbent on us to learn from environment and atmosphere in which narration takes place, from relationship of narrators to their audiences, from contents of narrative art. Above all, however, we would like to get to know, through detailed descriptions, narrators as well as their entire reper- toire of stories, in order to interpret importance of per- sonality in restructuring of Marchen; for we are no doubt dealing with highly gifted people with rich phantasies and strong memories, with artistic types who are equals of outstanding creative writers in world of literature. (13) Focusing on life of one specific oral poet in this way frees us from generalizations necessarily entailed in definition of a tradition. The greatest of all iimbongi (the plural form of Xhosa noun) was Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi (1875-1945). In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela recalls how deeply he was affected by one of Mqhayi's performances: during Mandela's final year as a student at Healdtown, in 1938, Mqhayi paid a visit to school, and produced for assembled students an oral poem (the Xhosa term is izibongo) that aroused conflicting emotions in future President of South Africa, who found himself torn between pride in myself as a Xhosa and a feeling of kinship with other Africans (50). Mandela was galvanized, but also con- fused by Mqhayi's performance (49), caught between his parochial ethnic identity as a Thembu and his emergent nationalistic identification with all