George Fortune Papers

Original collection: The George Fortune Collection primarily contains material pertaining to Fortune's research and teaching concerning African linguistics, particularly the Southern Bantu linguistic groups. Materials concerning Shona language and culture are particularly well represented in the collection, including extensive notes and writings concerning Shona dialects, phonetics, stories, and songs. The papers include both Shona and English language materials, with Shona writings often accompanied by English translations.

Records include monographs, journals, unpublished manuscripts, reprints, typewritten and handwritten notes, notebooks, teaching and administrative papers, news clippings, ephemera, and a limited amount of correspondence. Also a part of this collection are tape recordings and large bound notebooks of notes and tape transcripts, which detail African stories and songs (in their original language and English translation). Fortune and his colleagues collected and recorded these materials while carrying out fieldwork and interviews in mid-twentieth century Africa.

Other noteworthy pieces of the collection include unpublished manuscripts by the Zimbabwean poet and scholar J. C. Kumbirai, a handwritten and bound (possibly original) copy of Hugh Tracey's classic text Ngoma, and a photograph and negative of A. C. Jordan. This collection also contains Rhodesian news clippings and ephemera.

2013 accretion: The 2013 accretion of Fortune's manuscripts, a gift continuing and complementing the first, includes autobiographical materials such as personal correspondence relating to his decision to leave the priesthood, letters to his wife before and after their marriage, diaries, and draft memoirs (one addressed to his then-teenaged son, Julian). Academic manuscripts and typescripts throughout the collection are primarily in Shona and English, representing Fortune's academic interests and collaborative writing projects.

Fortune's papers reflect his roles as a student (earning medals both as a poet and champion boxer in 1931), priest, husband and father, teacher and university department chair, collector of oral stories and poetry, and co-author or editor of publications in Shona and on the languages and history of Zimbabwe. A few folders contain memoranda, correspondence, official statements or communiques, and reports collected during his administrative service as a department chair at the (then) University College of Rhodesia, and (later) University of Rhodesia (before it became the University of Zimbabwe in 1980). During this period, the Smith government fomented a crisis by interfering with student admissions, resulting in strikes by faculty and students (1966-1970). Several pamphlets and reports relate to the broader context, the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (1965) and resulting civil war known as the Second Chimurenga or Zimbabwe War of Liberation (1966-1980).

In addition to many individual letters throughout the collection, there are 20 years of correspondence between Fortune and his student and, later, colleague A. C. (Aaron) Hodza (together with related correspondence with Nekatambe) on recording and collecting language examples (1962-1982). Included is a long correspondence with Hazel Carter, a Tonga, Kongo, and Shona linguist who worked at the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, and is Professor Emerita of African Languages and Literature at the University of Wisconsin. Also included are some letters with Peter Malanchuk, Africana Bibliographer at the University of Florida, who acquired the original collection.

A variety of written collaborations provide evidence of Fortune's career as co-author, editor, and reviewer. Most numerous of these are papers by and with Hodza, including what was Fortune's last academic writing project, an unfinished commentary on Hodza's Ugo Hwamadzinza Avashona. Other authors represented include Herbert Chimhundu, African languages professor at the University of Zimbabwe and an author of fiction, sociolinguistics, and a Shona grammar and dictionary. Several versions of papers by Simon Taoneyi (or Tawoneyi) relate to a project on "The Way of the Life of the Zezeru in the District of Salisbury." Versions of a paper by Bruno Gasse on the "History of Chimanda Reserve" are also included, as are his commentaries and translations of recordings of Shona songs with Hugh Tracey. There are collections of stories and poetry from S. M. Mutswairo, W. B. Chivaura (possibly former students), and the missionary Reverend Francisque Marconnès, author of Comparative Bantu Phonetics with special reference to the Mashonaland dialects of Karanga and other works.

Fortune's academic predecessor and mentor, linguist Gérard Paul Lestrade (1897-1962), was (from 1925) the first head of the anthropology section of the South African Native Affairs Department. Included are a half-dozen of his lectures on national languages and related topics. Clement Martyn Doke (1893-1980) was among the first linguists in Africa to abandon a Eurocentric approach. Included is Fortune's undated draft bio-bibliography (published as part of the 1970 G. K. Hall Catalog of the Doke Collection), and a 95 page manuscript bibliography of Bemba group dialects (apparently in Doke's handwriting).

A wide variety of notes, lectures, lessons, draft manuscripts, corrected publications with editorial marks, commentaries, offprints, and successive editions of Fortune's own publications are included. Several items relating to cave paintings, including newspaper clippings and an indexed, annotated scrapbook of photographs of rock paintings indicate Fortune's apparent interest in Zimbabwean prehistory. His own secondary school grade reports, exam results, awards, degrees, portraits, and two honorary Doctor of Literature diplomas document a lifelong record of distinction in all of his academic pursuits.

The George Fortune Collection primarily contains material pertaining to Fortune's research and teaching concerning African linguistics, particularly the Southern Bantu linguistic groups. Materials concerning Shona language and culture are particularly well represented in the collection, including extensive notes and writings concerning Shona dialects, phonetics, stories, and songs. The papers include both Shona and English language materials, with Shona writings often accompanied by English translations.

Records include monographs, journals, unpublished manuscripts, reprints, typewritten and handwritten notes, notebooks, teaching and administrative papers, news clippings, ephemera, and a limited amount of correspondence. Also a part of this collection are tape recordings and large bound notebooks of notes and tape transcripts, which detail African stories and songs (in their original language and English translation). Fortune and his colleagues collected and recorded these materials while carrying out fieldwork and interviews in mid-twentieth century Africa.

Other noteworthy pieces of the collection include unpublished manuscripts by the Zimbabwean poet and scholar J. C. Kumbirai, a handwritten and bound (possibly original) copy of Hugh Tracey's classic text Ngoma, and a photograph and negative of A. C. Jordan. This collection also contains Rhodesian news clippings and ephemera.

The 2013 accretion of Fortune's manuscripts, a gift continuing and complementing the first, includes autobiographical materials such as personal correspondence relating to his decision to leave the priesthood, letters to his wife before and after their marriage, diaries, and draft memoirs (one addressed to his then-teenaged son, Julian). Academic manuscripts and typescripts throughout the collection are primarily in Shona and English, representing Fortune's academic interests and collaborative writing projects.

Fortune's papers reflect his roles as a student (earning medals both as a poet and champion boxer in 1931), priest, husband and father, teacher and university department chair, collector of oral stories and poetry, and co-author or editor of publications in Shona and on the languages and history of Zimbabwe. A few folders contain memoranda, correspondence, official statements or communiques, and reports collected during his administrative service as a department chair at the (then) University College of Rhodesia, and (later) University of Rhodesia (before it became the University of Zimbabwe in 1980). During this period, the Smith government fomented a crisis by interfering with student admissions, resulting in strikes by faculty and students (1966-1970). Several pamphlets and reports relate to the broader context, the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (1965) and resulting civil war known as the Second Chimurenga or Zimbabwe War of Liberation (1966-1980).

In addition to many individual letters throughout the collection, there are 20 years of correspondence between Fortune and his student and, later, colleague A. C. (Aaron) Hodza (together with related correspondence with Nekatambe) on recording and collecting language examples (1962-1982). Included is a long correspondence with Hazel Carter, a Tonga, Kongo, and Shona linguist who worked at the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, and is Professor Emerita of African Languages and Literature at the University of Wisconsin. Also included are some letters with Peter Malanchuk, Africana Bibliographer at the University of Florida, who acquired the original collection.

A variety of written collaborations provide evidence of Fortune's career as co-author, editor, and reviewer. Most numerous of these are papers by and with Hodza, including what was Fortune's last academic writing project, an unfinished commentary on Hodza's Ugo Hwamadzinza Avashona. Other authors represented include Herbert Chimhundu, African languages professor at the University of Zimbabwe and an author of fiction, sociolinguistics, and a Shona grammar and dictionary. Several versions of papers by Simon Taoneyi (or Tawoneyi) relate to a project on "The Way of the Life of the Zezeru in the District of Salisbury." Versions of a paper by Bruno Gasse on the "History of Chimanda Reserve" are also included, as are his commentaries and translations of recordings of Shona songs with Hugh Tracey. There are collections of stories and poetry from S. M. Mutswairo, W. B. Chivaura (possibly former students), and the missionary Reverend Francisque Marconnès, author of Comparative Bantu Phonetics with special reference to the Mashonaland dialects of Karanga and other works.

Fortune's academic predecessor and mentor, linguist Gérard Paul Lestrade (1897-1962), was (from 1925) the first head of the anthropology section of the South African Native Affairs Department. Included are a half-dozen of his lectures on national languages and related topics. Clement Martyn Doke (1893-1980) was among the first linguists in Africa to abandon a Eurocentric approach. Included is Fortune's undated draft bio-bibliography (published as part of the 1970 G. K. Hall Catalog of the Doke Collection), and a 95 page manuscript bibliography of Bemba group dialects (apparently in Doke's handwriting).

A wide variety of notes, lectures, lessons, draft manuscripts, corrected publications with editorial marks, commentaries, offprints, and successive editions of Fortune's own publications are included. Several items relating to cave paintings, including newspaper clippings and an indexed, annotated scrapbook of photographs of rock paintings indicate Fortune's apparent interest in Zimbabwean prehistory. His own secondary school grade reports, exam results, awards, degrees, portraits, and two honorary Doctor of Literature diplomas document a lifelong record of distinction in all of his academic pursuits.