Notes for Ian Hamnett Section
- These terms are explained in the article referred to, but a brief rehearsal, with examples, might be found convenient. Literal non-oppositional riddles: ‘wha’ live in de river? - fish’; the referent and the topic are identical. Metaphorical non-oppositional: ‘two rows of white horses on a red hill - teeth’; referent and topic differ, but descriptive elements are not opposed. In oppositional riddles, there is such an opposition, which can be antithetical, where apparently only one of the descriptive elements can be true: ‘this corner is no corner at all - a ring’; or privational, where the second descriptive element denies a logical or natural attribute of the first: ‘got two eyes and can’t see - a potato’: or casual, where the second descriptive element denies the expected consequence of the action described in the first: ‘what eats and eats and never gets full? - a sausage grinder.’ (Georges & Dundes 1963: 114-115). Of the Sotho riddles listed in the appendix, two are included as examples of ‘literal non-oppositional’ (App. 28, 29). Fourteen may be regarded as ‘oppositional’ of various kinds (App. 10, 11, 13, 14, 21, 26, 27, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40) and the remaining twenty-four as ‘metaphorical non-oppositional’.
- Koestler’s book, it could be argued, was unkindly received by the academic world. Some criticism was informed and justified (Medawar 1964), but many scholarly readers were so alienated by the infelicitous combination of journalism and pseudo-science that the study undoubtedly displays that the elements of value and interest in the central theme were lost sight of or taken for granted. It is not necessary to follow Koestler into the language of ‘bisociation of matrices’ to recognise in his book some concepts which can be helpful and illuminating points of access to the subject matter.
- Sotho examples of such proverbs are: bana ba lesafo be jela pitsaneng e le ‘ngoe (the meaning of lesafo is obscure, though the sense of the saying as a whole is not in doubt); motho e-ea koo, khomo tlo koano (there are at least three variant interpretations); o hloba khoale (the point of the proverb is obscure). A limited discussion of these may be found in Sekese (1962: nos. 114, 309, 50).
- In Lesotho, kraal means a cattle enclosure (lesaka), rather than (as in the Republic of South Africa) a homestead or house (ntlo, lelapa).