Preface

Ken Frazier

Research libraries preserve the human record for the benefit of future generations, but librarians engaged in this work seldom have the occasion to appreciate that we have actually done it. In this respect the conservation efforts that led to the publication of South African Voices represented an important milestone in the careers of the University of Wisconsin - Madison librarians who worked on the project. Early in the collaboration with Professor Harold Scheub we realized that we were doing important work that would outlive us all.

The stories, poems, and histories presented in the three volumes of South African Voices were selected from an immense and superbly documented collection of primary-source material collected by Professor Scheub. The collection includes 7,410 recorded performances and related materials compiled between 1967 and 1976. The indexes to the performances, which fill ten large binders, are meticulously organized. Records and notes that Professor Scheub apologetically called "sketchy" because they were originally written late at night in the dim light of a tent, are, in fact, remarkably detailed.

The UW - Madison Libraries are committed to the task of preserving the entire corpus of Professor Scheub's collection, including tape recordings, films, photographs, indexes, and works of art. All of the tapes have been reformatted to a digital medium more amenable for long-term preservation and access. More than 4,400 slides and over 4,000 black and white photographs are being digitized for inclusion in the resources that will be available on the Web site. Preservation work on the films is also forthcoming.

The oral performances presented in South African Voices were gathered during two of three extended visits by Harold Scheub in the late 1960s and 1970s, a time period during which life under the apartheid regime became increasingly bleak. At the time of his first trip Scheub was a University of Wisconsin graduate student studying under the powerful influence of Archibald Campbell Jordan---one of South Africa's greatest writers and teachers. Scheub was then almost thirty-six years old and already rich in life experiences. He had grown up near and worked in the steel mills of Gary, Indiana, and counted among his most important teachers and role models the African-American men who coped with America's own system of racial separation. In high school, before serving a four-year hitch in the Air Force, Scheub worked for the EJ&E railroad "with gandy-dancers: down-and-out men who educated me about the seamy aspects of life but also showed me how diamonds can be found in the rough streets of America."

On all of his journeys in South Africa Scheub got around by walking, carrying everything himself, including tape-recording equipment and a large supply of heavy batteries. He carried little food and, despite his status as a white man and outsider, he was offered food and hospitality by black South Africans nearly everywhere. Traveling in this way gave him an extraordinarily close and intimate view of the southern Cape Province, kwaZulu, Swaziland, and southern Zimbabwe during a troubled time. With each successive trip the oppression was observably worse.

The size of the collection he compiled during this time reveals Scheub's huge capacity for work. He met and interviewed more than 2,000 storytellers, poets, and mythmakers, ranging in age from four years to ninety-five---the most influential being Nongenile Masithathu Zenani, a figure who, in Professor Scheub's estimation, will one day be recognized as a Homer of South African storytelling. One measure of her importance is that Professor Scheub devotes two of the three printed volumes of South African Voices to her work and art.

The first and second volumes, A Long Time Passed and Created in Olden Times, are collections of performances by Mrs. Zenani at two different times separated by five years, 1967 and 1972, respectively. For the most part the stories are fantasy tales known by the Xhosa name intsomi, a story form that Masithathu Zenani was particularly expert in creating. English translations by Professor Scheub of many of these stories were published in the book The World and the Word (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992).

Mrs. Zenani was born at the beginning of the twentieth century, probably 1905 or 1906. She did not know her exact age. Her home was Nkanga, located only a short distance from the Indian Ocean. At the time of her death in 1985 she was still largely unknown, even within her home country. Although the world may or may not come to share Professor Scheub's assessment of her brilliance, she was, without question, the greatest storyteller he encountered in all his South African travels.

Volume three, The Way We Travelled, is a collection of oral performances of poems and national histories by various storytellers and artists, among them Masithathu Zenani again. The histories explore issues of particular relevance to national and regional struggle and survival, e.g., the invasion and occupation by white Europeans, as well as themes and characters (such as the "trickster") that are nearly universal to storytelling cultures.

All three volumes of South African Voices will be made available on the Internet as part of the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections. It is the intent of the UW - Madison Libraries to create a gateway to the entire corpus of recorded stories and visual images collected by Harold Scheub in South Africa between 1967 and 1976. At the time of first publication of the volumes, expected in summer of 2006, the Web site will feature South African Voices with links to sound files of the published transcripts and a brief recorded introduction in English by Harold Scheub for each of the stories. The Web site will also provide access to all available digitized photographs. The URL is http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/SouAfrVc.

As best we can determine, no other collection like it exists, despite the unquestionable fact that many hundreds of scholars have done research and field work in Africa. The publication of primary source material has been rare in every age. Now, because of the financial pressures on university presses and scholarly publishers, it is all but impossible to publish original-language transcripts of oral performances like those in South African Voices.

To date the UW - Madison library has reformatted approximately 2,000 hours of audio tape into a digital format that can be continually replicated and refreshed for preservation purposes. The original tapes will not be discarded but kept in archival conditions in the Special Collections vaults. The collection also includes 4,400 slides and over 4,000 black and white negatives of performances, and more than 100 super - 8mm films. The library is in the process of digitizing visual content as well.

Harold Scheub's indexes to the tapes comprise 7,410 records describing the tales and stories. These indexes are an indispensable resource for scholars and students to navigate this rich collection. The index to each performance includes time and place, performer, audience, and field notes. The indexes will be digitally reformatted to create a searchable online finding aid to the collection.

The transcripts are in two closely-related African languages, predominantly in Xhosa and, in parts of the third volume, in Zulu. The geographic regions of eastern South Africa where they are spoken are contiguous and the languages are mutually intelligible.

Zulu is the most widely spoken of the eleven official languages of South Africa, with approximately ten million speakers. Xhosa is second with about eight million speakers. Xhosa is also mother tongue of numerous South Africans who are wellknown and remembered in Europe and the United States. They include Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Miriam Makeba, Stephen Biko, and Professor Scheub's beloved teacher A. C. Jordan.

Professor Scheub is a prolific writer and researcher who has authored eight books and hundreds of articles. He has supervised more than sixty Ph.D. and master's degrees. There is no member of the University of Wisconsin faculty more revered and recognized than Professor Scheub. He is currently the leading exemplar of the charismatic UW teachers who have captivated generations of Wisconsin students. His classes attract hundreds of students, not only because they are dramatic and engaging performances by a gifted storyteller, but also because they are profoundly challenging. One student wrote the following to Scheub at the end of the semester:

"The amount of time you obviously put into grading each student's exam is staggering. Such personal attention in a class so large is unprecedented and much appreciated. In a class of 500 people, I did not feel like a number. Your lectures were always interesting, amusing and fascinating, and often inspiring. I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but I was moved to tears by your final lecture."

The intellectual property rights to content in Harold Scheub's collections are enormously complex. As the person who first recorded the performances in the fixed medium of tape-recordings and photographs, Professor Scheub undoubtedly possesses some copyrights to the recorded works. The University of Wisconsin has accumulated some rights by virtue of its reformatting and compiling work. However, both Professor Scheub and the library believe that these cultural works belong to performing artists and to the people of South Africa. Digital copies of the entire Scheub collection will be deposited in the University of Cape Town library to ensure the best possible prospects for long-term preservation and access to the collections for the people of South Africa.

The Scheub collection also includes thirty-four artworks---paintings, drawings, and sculpture. Portions of art were used as design details in the printed volumes. Professor Scheub is currently negotiating for the return of his art collection to South African cultural institutions as part of a national repatriation effort for artistic works that were created and often suppressed during the apartheid period.

The publication and distribution of South African Voices was undertaken in service to scholars, students, and educators with no expectation of profit. Given the cost of printed volumes and the relatively small market for primary-source material of this kind, it is unlikely that its publication will recover printing costs.

The UW - Madison Libraries take full responsibility for responding to copyright questions that may arise in connection to both the printed and online versions of South African Voices and related published materials from the Scheub collections presented on the Internet. Inquiries regarding rights and permissions should be directed to the Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing of the University of Wisconsin - Madison Libraries.

Ken Frazier
Director, UW - Madison Libraries