the madman and the migrant: work and labor in the historical consciousness of a South African people

This essay explores the nature of historical consciousness, and its relation to culture, among the Tshidi‐Barolong, a South African Tswana people. On the basis of the imagery of two informants—a “madman” and a former migrant laborer—it examines not merely the content of Tshidi consciousness, but also its expressive forms. These differ from the narrative modes of representation associated with “history” in Western contexts, and build on various poetic devices—most strikingly, on the rhetoric of contrast. Thus the opposed concepts of work and labor, one associated with setswana (Tswana ways) and the other with sekgoa (European ways), are major tropes through which Tshidi construct their past and present. Such rhetorical forms appear, on examination, to occur widely in situations of rapid change. As a result, this excursion into the poetics of history illuminates very general questions concerning the connection between consciousness, culture, and representation. [South Africa, Tswana, culture, consciousness, history, poetics, representation]