Towards Preserving Indigenous Oral Stories Using Tangible Objects

Handcrafted beadwork produced by the BaNtwane people of South Africa is loaded with meaning. Communicating indigenous oral stories is important for passing on culture-specific traditions and community memory, such as the meaning of the handcrafted beadwork. Oral stories are told within the physical confines of the community. The community we focus on in this paper suffers from younger generations moving away physically, start preferring the English language over their mother tongue and digital over oral communication, and therefore this co-located storytelling process is interrupted. As part of the Story Beads project we have created an interactive system that incorporates a combination of physical objects and modern technology for recording and replaying oral stories that can help preserve the meaning of the handcrafted beadwork of the BaNtwane people.