This book, based on stories derived from the oral tradition of the Xhosa-speaking peoples, particularly from the Tsolo and Qumbu districts in the former Transkei, has not been published in South Africa before.

ANC MP Pallo Jordan says that when his father, Archibald Campbell Jordan, was a lecturer in African languages at the University of Cape Town he would visit the older people in the townships to add to his collection of tales. One of his favourite haunts was a house in Stone Street in the then District Six. A number of men from the Tsolo and Qumbu districts, where he had spent his childhood, lived in the house. Every Thursday a woman and Qumbu, who worked in town, visited the house in Stone Street. She had an extensive repertoire of tales and was renowned as a great narrator. A C Jordan wrote them down and translated them into English and in this way some of the oral tradition of the Tsolo and Qumbu districts has been preserved.

For generations stories like these have been passed down by word of mouth, but thanks to the efforts of people like A C Jordan and Jeff Opland, whose mammoth work Words that Circle Words was also published by Ad Donker some years ago, the tradition is now recorded for posterity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

These tales were published after A C Jordan died in exile in 1968. He had been a lecturer in African languages at the University of Cape Town, but in 1961 was refused a passport, so he left the country he loved to take up a scholarship in the United States. He became Professor of African Languages and Literature at the University of Wisconsin.