Serie - FHYA selection from the Bonner Series

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA using Wits materials, 2017: In 1970, Philip Bonner recorded a series of interviews, as a part of his doctoral research at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, under the supervision of Professor Shula Marks. The interviews were undertaken with assistance from the Department of Local Administration, and on occasion with the help of individuals close to the Swazi king, namely uMntwanenkhosi Makhungu, an elder son of the monarch; Mangangene Dlamini, a noted Swazi historian; anthropologist Hilda Kuper, a close friend of the king; as well as Mr Tibamu; and John Dlamini. Mr. T. Simelane, a librarian based in Manzini, and Mr. F. Buckham, were responsible for the production of summaries of some of these interviews in typed form in English. The transcribers and translators were Johnson Sithole, Nokuthula Vilakati, John Dlamini, Nkonzo Hlatshwayo, Ruth Ndlela, Billy Mavimbela, P. Khumalo, Manganene Dlamini, and R. Sicheme Mamba. The group aimed for a form of transcription attentive as possible to dialect variation. The transcriptions were interleaved line by line with literal direct translations into English augmented by annotations as the transcriber-translator saw fit, and sometimes by further annotations by Carolyn Hamilton, who was a student of Bonner’s. The transcribers periodically added tape duration counter numbers to their texts. The group was assisted for a time by Michael Westcott, a then recent graduate of York University with a research interest in oral history. In the late 1980s and early 1990s Hamilton, assisted by an Archaeology graduate student, Ronette Engela, experimented with the possibility of editing the translations for publication. This process created a number of edited typescripts, but the project was not taken forward. In 2012, the Wits Historical Papers undertook to digitize the recorded interviews. This was made possible by a grant from the Carnegie Foundation. A full copy of the digitized recorded interviews was deposited by the Wits Historical Papers in the University of Swaziland Library. In 2014 the Five Hundred Year Archive commissioned Patricia Liebetrau, a metadata librarian who had worked on the Digital Imaging South Africa project, to undertake the digitization of a selection of the transcripts from the recordings made by Bonner.]