Voice, text, film; producing multimedia texts in South Africa – a case study of ‘The Medicine Bag’
Date
2007-02-28T10:24:51Z
Authors
Louw, Elizabeth
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Abstract
This paper considers the interaction between the process of producing a documentary
video film ‘The Medicine Bag’ and an indigenous knowledge system from the Northern
Cape where herbalists or traditional healers are known as ! aixa (Qaiga). These healers
use indigenous plants and other raw materials, sounds, rubbing or massaging
techniques, incisions and other methods to heal or to harm members of the community.
The Schwartz family, Namas who hail from this region, have for many years passed the
knowledge and the skills for healing on from generation to generation. For as long as
the family can remember, members of each generation, specially gifted and interested in
acquiring these skills, have been selected and trained to recognise and harvest medical
plants, prepare medicines and apply the various skills required to heal the sick. The raw
herbs, potions and medicines have been kept in a medicine bag, made from a tanned
springbuck hide.
Research for a documentary video to record oral accounts and practices attached to the
medicine bag, revealed various themes related to the interaction between oral accounts
and the process of recording and transcribing these narratives. These themes included
the absence of a fixed storyline or a single ‘correct’ text as is often assumed when one
engages with written literature; shifts in meaning that occur when the physical forms of
the accounts change as each recording or re-editing acquires a ‘performative aura’ and
issues such as the importation of cultural authority and resources on the participants,
their active participation in the process of memory and archive creation as well as the
impact of the process on the filmmaker/researcher that included an enriched
understanding of the scope and possibilities of working with oral texts
Description
Student Number : 8707660F -
MA research report -
School of Literature and Language Studies -
Faculty of Humanities
Keywords
documentary video, oral accounts, indigenous knowledge systems, medicine bag, herbal remedies