Poetic justice. this neat phrase, once used to describe the Chopi musicians of southern Mozambique, refers to the rule in many African societies that allows poets an unusual freedom of speech. Sons may criticise their fathers, wives their husbands, workers their employers, and everybody the chiefs or officials who rule them, so long as it is done through poetry or song. It is a freedom which the rulers of some independent African States have found embarrassing and unacceptable.
From Isaiah Shembe’s Hymnbook
Three Zulu hymns. Isaiah Shembe, the founder and leader of the Zulu Church which bears his name, wrote many hymns. In them, Zulu and Christian traditions are united to express the aspirations of an exploited people.
I shouted day and night:
Why did you not hear me?
From the Kikuyu Hymnbook
A Gikuyu nationalist song from Kenya, from the days of the Independence struggle. These songs were performed in the forest where the fighters would camp, and later a number of the songs were published in what became known as the Kikuyu Hymnbook.
When our Kimathi ascended
Into the mountain alone…
Chief Seeiso and the Christians
An extract from a Sotho Praise-Poem from Lesotho. In 1926, there was a succession dispute over the Paramount Chieftaincy in which the Roman Catholic missionaries supported Chief Seeiso’s rival.
Seeiso accepts no cowards;
The children of the family of Mary he rejects:
It All Started with the Conversion
An extract from a Xhosa Praise-Poem addressed to Kaiser Mantanzima by the Praise-Singer Phakamile Yali-Manisi. It explains the present disastrous position of the Xhosa people as a consequence of the alliance between the missionaries and Sir George Grey, Governor of Cape Province 1854–61, in seizing Xhosa land and destroying the Xhosa economy.
It all started with the conversion,
We accepted the conversion in the belief that we were accepting God…
The Day of Resurrection
A Hausa poem from northern Nigeria. This is an Islamic poem, composed in writing but intended for public performance. The prospect of the day of resurrection is a warning to all who do evil.
Know you that tyranny will be darkness on the Day of Resurrection,
It is the word of the Messenger of God, Muhammed…
