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Revision as of 23:21, 15 June 2022

இந்தப் பக்கத்தை தமிழில் வாசிக்க: பிரெண்டா பெக் ‎

Brenda
Brenda

Brenda Beck (Dr. Brenda E.F. Beck) (1940) is an anthropologist from Canada. She has done research on the folklore traditions of the Kongu region in Tamil Nadu. She published the complete oral epic Annanmar Sami Kathai ( Elder Brothers' Story) with references. She has published eight books and authored more than sixty research articles. Through these publications, she has introduced the basics of Tamil culture to a global audience. She is actively involved in the Tamil cultural activities of Canada.

Birth, Education

Brenda was born in Canada in the year 1940. Her father was employed in Beirut, Lebanon. When Brenda was 14 years old, her father took her on a tour to Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Afganisthan, Pakistan and India. She got introduced to Tamil culture during her travel from Coimbatore to Trichy. Brenda again visited Tamil Nadu in the year 1964 while pursuing her doctoral research in Anthropology at Somerville College, Oxford. She stayed at Olapalayam village near Coimbatore. She learnt Tamil language, wore sarees and traditional Tamil jewelry and became a member of the village.

Annanmar Swamy Kathai

In the year 1965, Brenda listened to two village bards, Ramasamy and Palanisamy, narrating the Annanmar Swamy Kathai, also known as Kunnudaiyar Kathai or Ponnar Sankar Kathai. This oral epic used to be narrated continuously by many bards spanning over several days. Thought to be set in the 14th century, Annanmar Swamy Kathai is passed through generations in the form of songs, dance and street plays and is considered as an epic among the ancestral tales of the Kongu region.

Brenda recorded the Annanmar Swamy Kathai that lasted for 38 hours spanning through 18 nights. She said, "The experience was magical. I was recording in cassettes and when I ran out of blank cassettes, I erased the North American folk songs and continued with the recording". Brenda has also collected the folk tales of Kongu region that is about twenty thousand pages in writing.

Brenda is putting forth the Annanmar Kathai in varieties of ways. A. Muttulingam records Brenda's statement as " I think of the days that I spent in the small village 50 years ago. I cannot forget the love and support of those people. Their art has a tradition of 500 years. I decided to take the Annanmar Kathai to the next generation".

Teaming up with the Indo - Canadian Ravichandran Arumugam, Brenda has created the illustrated books of Annanmar Swamy Kathai in Tamil and English. Based on Annanmar Swamy Kathai, she has created a video series of 13 hours duration in English consisting of 26 episodes. She has also created the graphic novel "Elder Brothers' Story: An Oral Epic of Tamil, The Legend of Ponnivala or Ponnar Shankar" . This novel was published by the Institute of Asian Studies and is now available online.

Works on Tamil

In the year 2016, Brenda developed an online software to teach Tamil to Tamil children who have emigrated to Canada. In the same year, she donated 10,000/- dollars to Toronto Tamil Education Center.

In the year 2018, Brenda created "Brenda Beck Tamil Programming Fund" and "Brenda Beck Tamil Digital Fund". Brenda donated 327,000 dollars to this fund to digitize Tamil books.

In the year 2018, on September 1 and 2, Brenda hosted Kongu family reunion at Manassas on behalf of the Kongu Association in Manassas, Virginia.

Brenda presents the Annanmar Swamy Kathai from two angles, one as a folklore and the other from an anthropological view. She co-ordinates the activities of Tamil Education in Canada. Brenda is the President of the charitable trust, "Sophia Hilton Foundation of Canada", that aims to promote learning through storytelling. The trust has published the Annanmar Swamy Kathai in various forms.

In the year 2019, with the assistance of Brenda, University of Toronto held its first Tamil Heritage Month celebration at Scarborough. Tamil Folk arts like Villu Paattu, (bow-song) were performed in this celeberation.

Cultural Contribution

Tamil folklore and anthropology were accounted by pioneers in Tamil cultural researchers like Robert Caldwell. Since 1940, these two were accounted as a cultural heritage and a collection of knowledge. People like Ki. Va. Jagannathan and Mu. Arunachalam have accounted this from the literary point of view whereas Na. Vanamamalai has marxist view to this account. Researchers abroad use the scientific techniques and systems based on social science to give an account on anthropology and folklore and Brenda was a pioneer among them.

Brenda conducted her research even before an educational system was formed for Tamil folklore and the universities accepted folklore as a seperate discipline. She has recorded the oral folklore tradition long before it was ruined by the intrusion of modern technology. In a way, Brenda's collections are a treasure to Tamil culture. Professor Sakthikanal published the print version of Annanmar Swamy Kadhai and Brenda's recordings of the same dates much before that. Brenda's live record of Annanmar Swamy Kadhai for 38 hours is first of its kind and such a recording is not possible now confirms its significance in the Tamil culture. Brenda has authored many articles on Annanmar Swamy Kadhai taking into account its literary and cultural aspects. Her efforts to make it an important part of the global folklore tradition is her major contribution to the Tamil cultural activity.

Works

Brenda has authored many articles in the research journals like Anthropologica, Current Anthropology, Journal of South Asian Literature, The Journal of Asian Studies, and Western Folklore.

  • Body Imagery of the Tamil Proverbs of South India
  • The Metaphor as a Mediator Between Semantic and Analogic Modes of Thought
  • The Logical Appropriation of Kinship as a Political Metaphor: An Indian Epic at the Civilizational and Regional Levels
  • The Right-Left Division of South Indian Society
  • The Three Twins
  • The Telling of a South Indian Folk Epic
  • A Praise-Poem for Murugan.

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