The Jie people of northern Uganda and the Turkana of northern Kenya have a genesis myth about Nayeche, a Jie woman who followed the footprints of a gray bull across the waterless plateau and who founded a ""cradle land"" in the plains of Turkana. In Remembering Nayeche and the Gray Bull Engiro, Mustafa Kemal Mirzeler shows how the poetic journey of Nayeche and the gray bull Engiro and their metaphorical return during the Jie harvest rituals gives rise to stories, imagery, and the articulation of ethnic and individual identities.
Since the 1990s, Mirzeler has travelled to East Africa to apprentice with storytellers. Remembering Nayeche and the Gray Bull Engiro is both an account of his experience listening to these storytellers and of how oral tradition continues to evolve in the modern world. Mirzeler's work contributes significantly to the anthropology of storytelling, the study of myth and memory, and the use of oral tradition in historical studies.
By:
Mustafa Kemal Mirzeler
Imprint: University of Toronto Press
Country of Publication: Canada
Dimensions:
Height: 237mm,
Width: 159mm,
Spine: 28mm
Weight: 700g
ISBN: 9781442648661
ISBN 10: 144264866X
Series: Anthropological Horizons
Pages: 392
Publication Date: 16 April 2014
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
List of Figures Preface and Acknowledgements Maps A Note: On Personal Names and on the Transcription of Jie Words Personal Names and Places and Some Common Words Introduction Part I Chapter One: Jie Past and Present: Ecology, Economy, Guns, and State Chapter Two: Ethnography of Storytelling Part II Chapter Three Patterns and Images of Historical Tradition Chapter Four: The Jie Landscaper, Memory, and Historical Tradition Chapter Five: Historical Tradition and Poetic Persuasion of Pastness Part III Chapter Six: The Return of Nayeche and the Gray Bull Engiro Chapter Seven: The Significance of Nayeche and the Grey Bull Engiro Oral Tradition in a Jie Storyteller’s Autobiography Conclusion Part IV The Stories Bibliography Notes
Mustafa Kemal Mirzeler is an associate professor in the Department of English at Western Michigan University.
Reviews for Remembering Nayeche and the Gray Bull Engiro: African Storytellers of the Karamoja Plateau and the Plains of Turkana
‘In this excellent extended case study, readers learn how storytellers recount the past to address today’s most pressing concerns…. This text could be superb for an undergrad humanities class… Highly recommended.’ -- A.F. Roberts * Choice Magazine vol 52:04:2014 * ‘There is much here to praise and my own admiration is directed at Mirzeler’s sophisticated and insightful rendering of how storytelling works as performance, art form, and vital practice in the Jie and Turkana societies.’ -- Robert Cancel * Western Folklore vol 74:3/4:2015 * ‘I found this study to be thorough, engaging, and provocative…. I recommend this book for upper division and graduate level courses in anthropology, folklore, or African history.’ -- Lisa Gilman * Journal of American Folklore vol 130:517:2017 *
