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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2010
The publishers “blurb” on the back cover informs us that Oral Historiography is a “major re-evaluation of the collection and interpretation of historical data.” This, it certainly is not. Rather, it is a concise re-statement of what can be found scattered elsewhere, much of the best of it in Professor Henige's own previous work and in History in Africa, the premier English language journal of historical fieldwork which Professor Henige edits. Characteristically Henige himself makes far more modest claims for the volume asking that “this should be regarded simply as an effort to draw together a few of the many strands relating to the prospects of oral historical research and the problems associated with carrying it out successfully.”
1 See Henige, David, The Chronology of Oral Tradition, Oxford, 1974, and the excellent Bibliography on pp. 132/146Google Scholar of the book under review.
2 An equally impressive and more comprehensive discussion of different methods for reconstructing African history is Thomas Spear's Kenya's Past: An Introduction to Historical Method in Africa, London, 1981.Google Scholar
3 The classic study of oral tradition remains Vansina, Jan, Oral Tradition, Chicago, 1965.Google Scholar See also Curtin, Philip D., “Field Techniques for Collecting and Processing Oral Data”, Journal of African History, 9, 1968, pp. 367–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 Unfortunately we are never told of Professor Henige's own fieldwork experience.
5 This is perhaps understandable since Professor Henige, in addition to being a historian and editor, is also Africana Bibliographer at the University of Wisconsin, USA.
6 This is a general problem which has concerned anthropologists for many years. See for example Mead, Margaret and Bateson, Gregory, Balinese Society: A Visual Analysis, New York, 1941Google Scholar.
7 As foreign exchange restrictions become even more acute researchers cannot be certain that microfilm will be available in even national archives. During my last visit to the National Archives of Zambia no microfilm or processing chemicals were available. The Archivist was delighted to process my order with the microfilm I had brought with me. The processing was done in Europe and a negative copy returned to the National Archives.
8 The technique for copying documents as described is quite simple but should be practiced before going into the field.
9 See Henige, David, “In the Possession of the Author: “The Problem of Source Monopoly in Oral Historiography”, International Journal of Oral History, 1, 1980, pp. 181–94.Google Scholar I wish to thank Professor Henige for sending me an offprint of this article.
I wish also to thank the Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Fellowship Program, the Ford Foundation, The National Science Program, USA and WOTRO, the Netherlands Institute for Tropical Research for aid in conducting fieldwork in Central Africa.