The roots of Black South Africa

Subtitle:: An Introduction to the Traditional Culture of the Black People of South Africa
Author:: David Hammond-Tooke
Format:: Hardcover

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United Kingdom

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A revolution took place in southern Africa in the early centuries of the first millennium AD. Suddenly in the warm Lowveld and bushveld of the Transvaal, there emerged settled communities, tilling the land, working metal, and creating a distinctive type of pottery. Before this time the country south of the Limpopo had been inhabited only by nomadic hunter-gatherers who used Late Stone Age tools. Slowly these new-comers – the ancestors of today's black South Africans – spread, with their herds of cattle, onto the savannah of the highveld and down into the coastal plains of the east. Over many hundreds of years their culture underwent transformations that enabled them to overcome the hardships and dangers of their often harsh land, until a delicate equilibrium was wrought, reflecting adaptations to the environment that had roots deep into the past. The coming of the white man destroyed this equilibrium forever. Changes were manifold: political, economic, religious and social, all interlinked and reinforcing one another. The old ways appear to be irrevocably lost. The Roots of Black Africa is a celebration of a way of life that may still have something to tell its inheritors.

Product details

Publisher:: Jonathan Ball Publishers
ISBN:: 9781868420025
Publication date:: September 2005
Length:: 275mm
Width:: 220mm
Thickness:: 17mm
Weight:: 1000g
Pages:: 224
Illustrations:: b&w & colour illustrations

Review

THE ROOTS OF BLACK SOUTH AFRICA

An introduction to the traditional culture of the black people of South Africa

David Hammond-Tooke

"David Hammond-Tooke’s The roots of black South Africa is a certain success … exquisitely illustrated with heaps of contemporary material. Hammond-Tooke, one of our most distinguished anthroplogists, has put together a fascinating, readable text that describes the history and traditions of the black people of South Africa. The book is neither too superficial nor too arcane."

"The historical diversification of the four major groups of black South Africans over 2 000 years, and the understanding of their culture in terms of our common humanity, is the them of this important book."

This book covers a vast area of which the sections on religion, politics, ancestry, witchcraft and medicines are very pleasing. It ought to be prescribed to people with a simplistic perception of black people."