Ndukwana kaMbengwana as an Interlocutor on the History of the Zulu Kingdom, 1897–1903

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 343-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Wright

In the six years from October 1897 to October 1903, Ndukwana kaMbengwana engaged in scores of conversations in numerous different locations with magistrate James Stuart about the history and culture of the nineteenth-century Zulu kingdom. In the 1880s Ndukwana had been a lowranking official in the native administration of Zululand; at an unknown date before late 1900 he seems to have become Stuart's personalindunaor “headman,” to give a common English translation. Stuart's handwritten notes of these conversations, as archived in the James Stuart Collection, come to a total of 65,000 to 70,000 words. As rendered in volume 4 of theJames Stuart Archive, published in 1986, these notes fill 120 printed pages, far more than the testimonies of any other of Stuart's interlocutors except Socwatsha kaPhaphu. From 1900, Ndukwana was also present during many of Stuart's conversations with other individuals.In the editors' preface to volume 4 of theJames Stuart Archive, after drawing attention to the length of Ndukwana's testimony, Colin Webb and I wrote as follows:Since these were the early years of Stuart's collecting career, it is probable that Ndukwana exercised a considerable influence on the presuppositions about Zulu society and history which Stuart took with him into his interviews. No less likely, however, is the reverse possibility that Ndukwana in turn became a repository of much of the testimony he heard while working with Stuart, and that, increasingly over the years, the information which he supplied would have been a fusion of data and traditions from a variety of sources.

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Funk

In the history of botany, Adam Zalužanský (d. 1613), a Bohemian physician, apothecary, botanist and professor at the University of Prague, is a little-known personality. Linnaeus's first biographers, for example, only knew Zalužanský from hearsay and suspected he was a native of Poland. This ignorance still pervades botanical history. Zalužanský is mentioned only peripherally or not at all. As late as the nineteenth century, a researcher would be unaware that Zalužanský’s main work Methodi herbariae libri tres actually existed in two editions from two different publishers (1592, Prague; 1604, Frankfurt). This paper introduces the life and work of Zalužanský. Special attention is paid to the chapter “De sexu plantarum” of Zalužanský’s Methodus, in which, more than one hundred years before the well-known De sexu plantarum epistola of R. J. Camerarius, the sexuality of plants is suggested. Additionally, for the first time, an English translation of Zalužanský’s chapter on plant sexuality is provided.


2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-229
Author(s):  
Tobias Robert Klein

In the foreword to his Grundlagen der Musikgeschichte (1977), translated into English as Foundations of Music History (1983), Carl Dahlhaus names three reasons for writing the book: the lack of theoretical reflection in his own field; the problem of mediation between methodological maxims and their political implications; and the difficulties he encountered while preparing his history of nineteenth-century music. Each of the three reasons can now be understood more precisely and historically contextualized in light of recently uncovered letters and notes. Dahlhaus’s methodological critiques of political music as conceptually distinct from aesthetically autonomous works—contrary to a popular claim by Anne Shreffler (2003)—were directed mainly at the “Western left.” Moreover, in the 1980s this controversy became intertwined with historiographical questions regarding the concept of “event” that was reinforced in publications by the “Gruppe Poetik und Hermeneutik.” A postscript discusses the English translation of the book and the concept of “structural history” in late Dahlhaus.


Author(s):  
Peter Rowley-Conwy

On 9 January 1843, Richard Griffith addressed the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) about some antiquities found in the River Shannon. The river was being dredged to render it navigable, and the artefacts were discovered during the deepening of the old ford at Keelogue. Griffith was the chairman of the Commissioners carrying out the work, and his expertise was in engineering rather than ancient history. He stated that the finds came from a layer of gravel; in its upper part were many bronze swords and spears, while a foot lower were numerous stone axes. Due to the rapidity of the river’s flow there was very little aggradation, so despite the small gap the bronze objects were substantially later than the stone ones. The river formed the border between the ancient kingdoms of Connaught and Leinster. The objects had apparently been lost in two battles for the ford that had taken place at widely differing dates; stressing that he was no expert himself, Mr Griffith wondered whether ancient Irish history might contain records of battles at this spot (Griffith 1844). This was probably the earliest non-funerary stratigraphic support for the Three Age System ever published, but it did not signal the acceptance of the Three Age System. Just as telling as Griffith’s stratigraphic observation was his immediate recourse to ancient history for an explanation; for, as we shall see, ancient history provided the dominant framework for the ancient Irish past until the end of the nineteenth century. The Irish had far more early manuscript sources than the Scots or the English, although wars and invasions had reduced them; the Welsh scholar Edward Lhwyd wrote from Sligo on 12 March 1700 to his colleague Henry Rowlands that ‘the Irish have many more ancient manuscripts than we in Wales; but since the late revolutions they are much lessened. I now and then pick up some very old parchment manuscripts; but they are hard to come by, and they that do anything understand them, value them as their lives’ (in Rowlands 1766: 315). In the seventeenth century various Irish scholars brought together the historical accounts available to them. Geoffrey Keating (Seathrú n Céitinn, in Irish) wrote the influential Foras Feasa ar Éirinn or ‘History of Ireland’ in c.1634, and an English translation was printed in 1723 (Waddell 2005).


2010 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcelo Badaró Mattos

SummaryThe present article is based on research into the process of working-class formation in Rio de Janeiro in the period between the end of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth. It explores the significant shared experiences of workers subjected to slavery and “free” workers in the process of working-class formation, and aims to demonstrate that the history of that process in Brazil began while slavery still existed, and that through shared work and life experience in Rio de Janeiro, as in other Brazilian cities where slavery was strong during the nineteenth century, enslaved and “free” workers shared forms of organization and struggle, founding common values and expectations that were to have a central importance in later periods of class formation.


2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. N. SWINNEY

The production, in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century, of the annual reports of the government-funded museum in Edinburgh in several different formats has led to problems in citing these documents in bibliographies. A brief history of the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art and its method of accountability from its foundation in 1854 to 1905 (the period during which it was administered by the Department of Science and Art and the years immediately following the handover to the Committee of the Council on Education in Scotland) is presented along with a concordance table for the different forms of the reports.


1993 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresita Yglesia Martínez ◽  
Néstor Capote

The final years of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth signified a time in which the Cuban people adjusted to a reality for which they were not fully prepared. The world created by centuries of Spanish colonialism crumbled in a spectacular and miserable manner, leaving in its wake a country desolated by war and famine. On January 1, 1899, the Spanish flag was lowered from El Morro in Havana and replaced with the flag of the United States. During this politico-military transition from Spanish rule to U.S. occupation, the defenders of independentismo and Cuba Libre were ignored and humiliated.


1955 ◽  
Vol 9 (35) ◽  
pp. 300-318
Author(s):  
F.S.L. Lyons

The letters which follow are concerned with conditions on, and with the management of, an estate in, county Leitrim in the early years of the nineteenth century. They form part of a body of correspondence now belonging to Dr Patrick Logan of Poole Sanatorium, near Middlesborough, and I am grateful to him for permission to quote from and to use the originals of these letters. My attention was first drawn to the documents by Professor T. W. Moody of Trinity College Dublin, when he received copies of them through Professor Séamus Delargy from the late Mr J. J. Mahon, who lived near Drumshambo, and was keenly interested in the history of county Leitrim. Mr Mahon died towards the end of 1952 and since then I have received much help in tracing the whereabouts of the originals from his son-in-law Mr P. J. Brennan, from Dr Joseph Logan, from Mr M. J. Molloy and from Very Rev. John Canon Pinkman, P.P., V.F.; I wish to record my thanks to all of these.


2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-109
Author(s):  
Sholeh A. Quinn

How Muslims in past centuries dreamed about, attempted to actualize, andconceived the apocalyptic and messianic events of the End Times cannot beignored in any comprehensive approach to the study of Islam. This volumeconsists of an English translation of one important source that contributes toour understanding of nineteenth-century Islamic messianic movements:Mirza Habib Allah Afnan’s (1875-1971) history of the Babi and Baha’i religionsin Shiraz. Born in Shiraz, Afnan grew up in the home of SayyidMuhammad `Ali Shirazi, “The Bab,” (1819-50) and was raised by his widow,Khadijah Begum.The Bab was born into a Shi’i Muslim merchant family during the earlyQajar period, a time when many of his contemporaries expected the nearadvent of messianic and apocalyptic events. Among the groups so inclinedwere the “Shaykhis,” devotees of Shaykh Ahmad ibn Zayn al-Din al-Ahsa’i(d. 1826). The Bab was initially a Shaykhi and a follower of Sayyid KazimRashti (d. 1843), al-Ahsa’i’s successor. In the 1840s, he claimed to be theexpected qa’im (messianic “ariser”) or mahdi (“rightly guided one”) andfounded a religion that he hoped would change the world and usher in an eraof peace and justice. These assertions led to his execution in Tabriz, Iran, in1850. In subsequent years, most of his followers looked to Mirza Husayn`Ali Nuri, “Baha’u’llah,” as the Bab’s successor and a figure who, in his ownright, fulfilled Babi and other messianic expectations ...


Author(s):  
Melissa L. Gustin

This paper explores how Harriet Hosmer (1930-1908) positioned two early busts, Daphne (1853/4) and Medusa (1854) in opposition to Gianlorenzo Bernini's works of thes same subject through careful deployment of Winckelmannian principles. This engages with the first English translation of Winckelmann's History of the Art of Antiquity by Giles Henry Lodge in 1850, as well as the rich body of antique material available to Hosmer in Rome. It problematises art historical approaches to Hosmer's work that emphasise biographically-led readings over object-led interpretations informed by contemporary translations, discourses of originality, and display practices. It demonstrates the conflicting position of Bernini in the middle and late nineteenth century as the "Prince of Degenerate Sculpture", and shows that Winckelmann's victimisation of Bernini led to his poor reputation. This reputation as skilled but degenerate provided the foil for Hosmer to reclaim these subjects, demonstrate her correct understanding of classical principles and citation, and prove her superiority. Ultimately, however, the two artists will be shown to have more similarities than differences in their use of classical references; only access to Winckelmann's writings separates their reception in the nineteenth century.


1996 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 641-657 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaakov Ariel ◽  
Ruth Kark

One of the most interesting Protestant sects that settled in Palestine from 1881 onwards, and that operated successfully for more than fifty years, was the American-Swedish “Colony” in Jerusalem.1 Known in its early years as the “Spaffordites,” the group was also called the “Overcomers,” since the members' journey to Jerusalem was spurred by their desire to overcome a series of personal tragedies. The history of the “American Colony,” as it was known in Jerusalem, reveals the power of religious beliefs to motivate and shape the lives of adherents. In this case, believers emigrated, built a new community with its own order and sense of purpose, demonstrated dedication, and made sacrifices in following what they considered to be divine commands. The American Colony also exemplifies the limited possibility of sustaining a religious community based upon intense beliefs, as one generation struggles to convey its religious tenets and social principles to the next. To reconstruct the religious influences, principles, and practices of this unique group in Palestine, the American Colony should be placed in the context of nineteenth-century American evangelical Protestantism, which included elements of revivalism, dispensational premillennialism, evangelism, and holiness teachings.


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