Before I get to the song,I should mention that Miriam Makeba was pretty special, herself. Often known as Mama Africa, Makeba was the first artist from Africa to popularize African music around the world. Her songs raised awareness about apartheid, and about the injustices faced by South Africans as listeners learned more about the singer. In response to Miriam’s outspokenness, the South African government revoked her passport in 1960, and then her citizenship in 1963.
Many readers will have been too young – if they were yet born at all – to remember Miriam Makeba’s 1959 single, “Pata Pata,” or even when Makeba re-recorded it in 1967. It was a remarkable song which you can see Makeba sing below on the Ed Sullivan show in 1967 when it gained international fame. It’s old footage, so bear with it, and listen carefully to hear what makes this song so unique. And yes, this is a dog post. Eventually.....
It wasn’t until 1990 when the apartheid system collapsed that Makeba was finally able to go home. Eighteen years later in 2008, Miriam Makeba died of a heart attack after performing in a concert in Italy. She was 76.
I hope you listened to the song in the post before this because it's important. Pata Pata is an Afro-pop dance song that popularized African rhythms and melodies by blending traditional Xhosa music with modern pop elements.
What this has to do with purebred dogs underscores a tenet of National Purebred Dog Day. If we lose a breed because of neglect or war, we lose the legacy of the culture which created or nurtured it.
Several breeds originated in South Africa including the Boerboel, Basenji, and Rhodesian Ridgeback. There is one other breed – the Africanis – that may cause some dog fanciers to ask me why I mention what some consider to be a landrace when I always talk about purebred dog breeds. I have an answer.
Xhosa is the 2nd most common language in South Africa after Zulu, and if you listened carefully to Makeba sing, you heard “clicks.” Like Zulu & 6 other African tongues, clicks are phonetic elements of Xhosa. And it’s harder to do than it looks. Each click in Xhosa is followed without any pause by a vowel sound. When each type of click is paired with one of six vowel sounds, it makes for a total of 18 click sounds in the Xhosa language.
My answer is to name the Canaan Dog, Carolina Dog, Korean Jindo, and Basenji.
At one time, the aforementioned breeds were regarded as landraces (and there are more if I include breeds whose ancestors were primitive, aboriginal, or village dogs).
Landraces typically evolve through natural processes, often in isolated areas, which helps maintain their genetic integrity. Over time, a person or people identify certain populations of dogs to be so consistent as to resemble a breed.
While some of these populations may have more phenotypic variety than would be found in standardized breeds, most breed true, and the Africanis may be such a dog.Visitors to South Africa may have dismissed the Africanis to be the stereotypical plain brown street dog seen around the world, but many others consider it to be the original dog of Africa, a distinct breed endemic to southern Africa with a lineage that goes back at least 7,000 years.
A distinct genetic makeup led the Kennel Union of South Africa to recognize the Africanis as an emerging breed, but some objected to the dog being called an emerging breed rather than as a landrace,. In the end, the Union decided unanimously to remove all references to the breed from the KUSA website.
While there’s still a feral population in South Africa, people are recognizing that the playful, friendly, and loyal Africanis is a marvelous family pet.
Only in the 21st century did the dogs begin to shed the “mutt” image because of 2 dog experts who studied dogs they encountered in rural KwaZulu-Natal kraals and homesteads. One of them gave the breed its name based on the Latin for dog – “canis,” and the dog’s place of origin, Africa.
They concluded that the dogs were not a “stew” of common mutts, but dogs with a distinct and consistent set of characteristics and behaviours. In other words, a breed
Living through the last few years have made me see conspiracies everywhere - so maybe it's me, but there's something sketchy about these California fires.....
There is an arrogance borne of entitlement that rolls off California liberals like the rest of us shed skin cells. The inept response to the fires was less intentional than it is evidence of hubris that nothing bad will happen to these people.
What I find sketchy is not only the intensity of the fires that reminds me of Maui, but what caused them, and how they spread.
IMO terrorism shouldn't be ruled out. Los Angeles County is the largest county economy in the US.
Research by Verdant Labs using political-contribution data found that among public school English teachers, there are 97 Democrats for every 3 Republicans, & it's even more one-sided among health teachers with 99 Democrats for every one Republican.
Did you know that the largest union in the country is the National Education Association?
Most of the money it collects in dues goes to UniServ grants that pay salaries of collective bargaining specialists.
I never understood how polls between Harris and Trump could be so tight when the differences between them were so stark. How, I wondered, could anyone willingly vote for someone bent on leading the country into the "promised land" of marxism. Did no one know how awful Marxism is?
When I expressed this bafflement to a friend, he pointed out that two generations have been educated in public schools.
By now it's probably apparent that I'm a Sasha Stone groupie-from-afar. Lines like this one from the former leftie are the stuff of memes. In fact, I'm inspired to make me one. See if you don't agree:
"To be on the Left in America is to live in one long emergency."
I have my own thought on what its like to be MAGA in America over the last several years, but one thing at a time.
Off to work on a meme. For now here's a link to Sasha's piece:
I waver between despair borne of the realization that the left cannot afford a Trump victory, and the hope that maybe, God will give us a Red Sea miracle.
I vacillate between wondering if we're in End Times, or enduring a miserable 4th Turning.
I wonder how to endure should they successfully install Harris even as I dehydrate & can vegetables for the inevitable chaos if Trump prevails.
Did I mention that I got holster qualified the other day?