THEORY AND ITS ABSENCE IN THE ANALYSIS OF |XAM MATERIALS

The close interpretation of the |Xam texts remains, as I have noted, a task that surprisingly few scholars have attempted. It is also true to say that, with some exceptions, the interpretation that has been conducted does not employ or engage with the theoretical insights that have resulted from the debates of the last 40 years in the fields of cultural and literary studies. Nor, again with some exceptions, has the interpretation that has been produced itself been subjected to the type of critical scrutiny that takes these theoretical develop - ments into account. A number of reasons might be advanced for why Marxist, feminist, post-structuralist or post-colonial theory has had relatively little impact on the interpretation of the |Xam narratives. The ground - breaking analysis of the |Xam narratives by Roger Hewitt was produced in the 1970s, although only published in the late 1980s. It preceded, therefore, much of the theoretical activity to which I am referring. In addition, several of the readers of the |Xam stories have been anthropologists, historians, archaeologists and art historians rather than literary critics, and academics in these disciplines have not always been preoccupied with theoretical questions to the same degree as cultural and literary scholars. The general field of folklore and mythology, moreover, within which much of the interpretation of the |Xam texts could be located, remains largely rooted in the comparative, functionalist and structuralist paradigms of an earlier era, partly, perhaps, because the object of its study has often been positioned as traditional and timeless. Another possible factor is that contemporary theorists have rarely shown much interest in analysing ‘traditional’ oral texts themselves and have not, therefore, provided a lead as to how to apply their insights to texts of this sort (Csapo 2005: 290).

Despite the relative lack of impact of contemporary theory on the interpretation of the |Xam materials, the insights produced by this theory have potentially profound consequences for the ways in which the texts are read. Work such as that of Henry Gates (1988) or Karin Barber (1991; 1999) has demonstrated the effectiveness of employing some of the theoretical insights of the last 50 years when reading both traditional oral texts and the more contemporary texts that are directly related to older oral traditions.