Mashairi ya Vita vya Kuduhu
Mashairi ya Vita vya Kuduhu: War Poetry in Kiswahili Exchanged at the Time of the Battle of Kuduhu
Ann Biersteker
Ibrahim Noor Shariff
Copyright Date: 1995
Published by: Michigan State University Press
Pages: 130
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/j.ctt7zt77d
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Book Info
Mashairi ya Vita vya Kuduhu
Book Description:

Mashairi Ya Vita Vya Kuduhuis a presentation and discussion of both manuscript and published versions of poems written by Lamu poets around the time of the Battle of Kuduhu. The poetic dialogue studied in this volume has played a significant role in the history of Swahili poetry, and its primary concern is to inform continued work in this area. The poems contained in this work were transmitted and preserved by speakers of Kiswahili and later collected and preserved by scholars. Chapter One contains the edited poems; Chapter Two consists of the translations. Subsequent chapters include accounts of the Battle of Kuduhu, editing and translating practices, and annotated poems and source versions. This work is presented as an example of the importance of research, fieldwork, and the consideration of available versions and alternative styles of presentation in the study of Swahili poetry.

eISBN: 978-0-87013-894-2
Subjects: Language & Literature
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  1. Front Matter
    Front Matter (pp. i-iv)
  2. Table of Contents
    Table of Contents (pp. v-vi)
  3. Acknowledgements
    Acknowledgements (pp. vii-viii)
  4. Maps
    Maps (pp. ix-xii)
  5. INTRODUCTION
    INTRODUCTION (pp. 1-20)

    The early nineteenth century dialogue between Muyaka bin Haji, representing Mombasa, and Zahidi Mngumi and other Lamu poets has been intriguing to many who have studied Swahili poetry and history. Poems exchanged by these poets before and after a battle known asKuduhuare still remembered by many in Lamu and Mombasa and have been studied by a number of scholars. In this study we translate the dialogue between Muyaka bin Haji and Zahidi Mngumi and the other Lamu poets and also present and discuss editions of the poem that were exchanged. Ours is a comparative study of both manuscript...

  6. 1. MASHAIRI YA VITA VYA KUDUHU: EDITED POEMS
    1. MASHAIRI YA VITA VYA KUDUHU: EDITED POEMS (pp. 21-32)
  7. 2. MASHAIRI YA VITA VYA KUDUHU: TRANSLATIONS
    2. MASHAIRI YA VITA VYA KUDUHU: TRANSLATIONS (pp. 33-42)
  8. 3. ACCOUNTS OF KUDUHU
    3. ACCOUNTS OF KUDUHU (pp. 43-70)

    Many accounts of the battle ofKuduhuhave been written. The available standard accounts of events in the Lamu archipelago during the early nineteenth century present conflicting versions of the political and military struggles that took place, and provide a very limited sense of economic, social, or cultural life during this period. The standard primary sources on the war are:

    1. The Lamu Chronicle ; ⁴²

    2. Captain C. H. Stigand’s edition of The Pate Chronicle; ⁴³

    3. The Kitab al-Zunuj ; ⁴⁴

    4. A manuscript history of the Mazrui family written by Sheikh al-Arnin bin Aly Mazrui; ⁴⁵

    5....

  9. 4. EDITING AND TRANSLATING PRACTICES
    4. EDITING AND TRANSLATING PRACTICES (pp. 71-102)

    Preparing an edition of early nineteenth century poetry at a time when the field of textual criticism is re-considering questions of theory and practice,¹⁵⁹ raises obvious questions about the objectives and procedures of our work. Editing poetry in Kiswahili makes answering some of these questions less problematic than this task would be if we were preparing an edition in another language. There are, of course, obvious senses in which our edition represents what Anthony Appiah terms, “the careful filtering of the rough torrent of historical events into the fine stream of official narrative; the creation of a homogeneous legacy of...

  10. 5. ANNOTATED EDITION OF MASHAIRI YA VITA AND SOURCE VERSIONS
    5. ANNOTATED EDITION OF MASHAIRI YA VITA AND SOURCE VERSIONS (pp. 103-232)

    In this edition Roman numerals identify eachshairilpoem,capital letters label eachubetilverse,and Arabic numerals label eachkidpandelhalf-line.Source versions are listed after our edited version of eachubetiif our version required substantial annotation and/or differed significantly from the source versions. If our version required less annotation or generally followed one or more sources, source versions are listed after theshairi.

    Footnotes explain our editorial decisions, provide references to relevant sources, and provide Standard Kiswahili (St.) and English glosses (E.) for Northern Dialect terms and poetic terms not found in most dictionaries. Where a typescript or manuscript source...

  11. BIBLIOGRAPHY
    BIBLIOGRAPHY (pp. 233-246)
  12. INDEX
    INDEX (pp. 247-254)
  13. Back Matter
    Back Matter (pp. 255-255)
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