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Book/Printed Material History of the Basuto, ancient and modern;

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About this Item

Title

  • History of the Basuto, ancient and modern;

Summary

  • David Frédéric Ellenberger (1835-1919) was a Swiss French Protestant missionary who left for Basutoland (present-day Lesotho) in 1860 as a member of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society. Ellenberger spent more than 45 years collecting the oral traditions of the Basotho (also known as Sotho) people. His method was to gather "all the information which it was still possible to obtain from intelligent old men concerning the tribes, their origin, their manners, their form of government, their beliefs, the genealogy of the chiefs, etc." His objective was to preserve, for the Basotho, their historical memory, which he saw as being lost through contact with Westerners and other Africans. Ellenberger kept his notes in French, and this English edition of his work, published in 1912, was written by his son-in-law, J.C. MacGregor, a British colonial administrator. The book includes genealogies going back to 1450, a history of the Basotho people from their origins to 1833 (when the missionaries arrived), and an account of the rise of Moshoeshoe I (circa 1786-1870), the founder and first paramount chief of the Sotho people. The appendix includes chapters on religion, hunting, witchcraft, law and social order, and Basotho character and manners. A Sesotho version of Ellenberger's history, Histori ea Basotho, was published in 1917. World Digital Library.

Names

  • Ellenberger, D. Frédéric.
  • Macgregor, J. C. (James Comyn) tr.

Created / Published

  • London, Caxton publishing company, limited, 1912.

Headings

  • -  Sotho (African people)
  • -  Lesotho--History

Notes

  • -  "Genealogical tables of the tribes dealt with in this history": p. 331-393.
  • -  Written originally in French.

Medium

  • xxii, 396 p. incl. geneal. tables. front. (port.) fold. map, fold. tab. 23 cm.

Call Number/Physical Location

  • DT782 .E6

Library of Congress Control Number

  • 14004114

OCLC Number

  • 3502354

Online Format

  • image
  • pdf
  • online text

Additional Metadata Formats

IIIF Presentation Manifest

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Credit Line: [Original Source citation], World Digital Library

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Ellenberger, D. Frédéric, and J. C. Tr Macgregor. History of the Basuto, ancient and modern. London, Caxton publishing company, limited, 1912. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/14004114/.

APA citation style:

Ellenberger, D. F. & Macgregor, J. C. T. (1912) History of the Basuto, ancient and modern. London, Caxton publishing company, limited. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/14004114/.

MLA citation style:

Ellenberger, D. Frédéric, and J. C. Tr Macgregor. History of the Basuto, ancient and modern. London, Caxton publishing company, limited, 1912. Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/14004114/>.