Abstract

DE STERCK, Marita. Tales in/on initiation rituals. Tydskr. letterkd. [online]. 2008, vol.45, n.2, pp.112-123. ISSN 2309-9070.

All over the world stories are told in which girls become women. Young heroines survive outside and inside, lightning and thunder, earthquakes and floods ... In spite of bodily harms, jealous mothers, incestuous fathers, animal suitors ... changing women emerge, bleeding instead of sleeping, alive and kicking, rooted in firm female flesh after their second birth. The author collected oral stories about growing up from girl to woman among the Sepedi and Griqua in South Africa. In this article she deals with questions about writing these stories for young readers from other cultural contexts. She attempts to answer the question: How much is lost in translation?

Keywords : Oral literature; initiation rituals; Griqua; hokmeisie-ritual.

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