African Folklore: An Encyclopedia - Marshalls University

African Americans 83
C
CALL-AND-RESPONSE
See Dialogic Performances: Call-and-Response in African Narrating
CALLAWAY, BISHOP HENRY H. (1817–
1890)
Edward Tylor, the “father of anthropology,” personally supported his research and Paul
Radin once asserted that he had “laid the foundations for the scientific study of native
African religion and folklore” (1970, 1). Nevertheless, one hardly encounters the name of
this extraordinary Anglican missionary, Bishop Henry Callaway, at all any longer.
Born in Lymington, England, in 1817, Henry Callaway always wanted to be a minister
in the Church of England; but spiritual doubts led him to the Quakers. By 1844 he had
become qualified to practice medicine and he married in a Quaker ceremony the next
year. The loss of his first two children to illness surely increased his questioning of
organized religion. In 1853 he left the Quakers and rejoined the Church of England. The
following year he departed for Durban to began his missionary work.
Callaway immediately began recording Zulu customs and language with his primary
translator and informat, Umpengula (Benham 1896, 77). He soon had amassed hundreds
of pages of data and published A Kaffir’s Autobiography in 1861. Callaway’s first major
academic contribution was Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus (1868).
In his introduction, Callaway observed that these tales were a means of “discovering what
was the character of the mind of the people.”
In addition to noting the importance of the Zulu narratives themselves, Callaway also
contributed the rigor of his fieldwork, the recognition of the indigenous perspective, and
the value of original language texts. Although any collection of texts made over one
hundred years ago has intrinsic value, Callaway’s research techniques are especially
impressive. His initial motivation in learning Zulu may have been to translate Christian
prayers and psalms, but his work took him far beyond this. Callaway’s insistence on
publishing parallel Zulu and English texts provides an invaluable record for today’s