Oral Poetry from Africa
An extract from a Kanuri Praise-Poem from the ancient kingdom of Bornu in northern Nigeria (see also The Sultan of Bornu). The Gumsu was the chief wife of the king of Bornu, and the Gumsu praised in this poem was the wife of Sultan Arri Umarmi, 1645–85.
Queen Gumsu,
owner of Maradi town,
never looks behind her…
A Bahima women’s Praise-Poem, recorded in 1955 in Ankole, and recited by Rhoda Kenyonyosi, who described it as by an unknown composer and dating from 1950. (See also The Bahima Women Praise Their Cattle).
You Baronda,
wake up the ugly women…
A Kanuri Praise-Poem from the ancient kingdom of Bornu in northern Nigeria. The Yerima was an official responsible for the defence and general administration of the northern part of the Bornu kingdom, and was invariably the grandson of a Sultan.
Hi! Young lady!
Be careful young lady!…
A Bahima women’s Praise-Poem, recorded in 1955 in Ankole, and composed and recited by Ntamaare. The Bahima people are the cattle-herders among the Bayankole people of southwest Uganda. In these praises, originally in the Runyankole language, the subject is the cattle for which they are famous.
They are as greedy as Ishe-Katabazi:
I want them to graze in the newly burnt grass of Rwanda…
Another song from the Kalela Dance of the Zambian Copperbelt (see also the Kalela Dance). The original language of this song is a form of Bemba spoken on the Copperbelt and easily understood by other people working in the mines.
Mothers, I have been to many courts
To listen to the cases they settle…
Oyewumi Alabi was a nineteenth century chief of Ibadan. He was preceded by two chiefs whose reigns were marked by prodigies — a stream breaking forth, a comet appearing. Under Oyewumi Alabi, the colonial hut tax was first imposed.
In Aburu’s reign,
A stream broke forth in the sacred grove…
