Oral Poetry from Africa
A Shona song from Zimbabwe, sung by a mother at a dance in praise of her daughter’s singing. What is especially admired is a voice higher and purer than all the others, like the new moons flute.
E! There’s my one, drowning all the others.
Listen, girls, and hear what she’s to sing!
Kakomana kanoridza mumhanzi kakafenegera
The little boy blows his trumpet with his chest thrown out.
Five Swahili songs from the Beni Dance which is popular throughout East Africa. Beni first became popular in Swahili-speaking communities at the end of the nineteenth century.
We Marini are the people of Paradise;
We long to go to our home on the coast.
These Arinoti are people of Hell.
A Shona song from Zimbabwe, praising the Mbira-player for his musicianship. The Mbira, which is sometimes called a hand-piano, is described in Lines 24–29. It has two (sometimes three) keyboards, made of metal strips, which are plucked with the thumbs, and it is set in a hollow gourd to increase the resonance.
Strike the Mbira, Expert With The Rattling Shells!
It is he The Mbira-Shatterer of whom you hear nothing but praise,
A Yorùbá song from Nigeria, chanted in praise of adornment and flamboyant clothes. The fashions of humans are compared with the bright, rich colours of various birds of the forest.
Three birds in all
There are, in the forest bounds,
