A Zulu song about a young migrant worker who has left home to seek jobs in Johannesburg and the search made by his siblings to find him.
We were sent by our parents
To search for our father’s child…
Oral Poetry from Africa
Filed Under: Protest & Satirical Poems
A Zulu song about a young migrant worker who has left home to seek jobs in Johannesburg and the search made by his siblings to find him.
We were sent by our parents
To search for our father’s child…
Filed Under: Protest & Satirical Poems
Another attack on the damaging effects of labour migrancy to South Africa. In this extract from a Tswana Praise Poem, the poet appeals movingly to Chief Molefi Kgafela, who ruled 1929–1936, to bring home all the young men and women from Cape Town, Natal, Johannesburg and Rustenburg.
Seek the strays, child of the Makuka,
Bring home the human strays…
Filed Under: Protest & Satirical Poems
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…
Filed Under: Protest & Satirical Poems
Improvised by the imbongi Nelson Title Mabunu at Umtata, Transkei, December 17 1970, in the course of a long poem in praise of Chief George Matanzima, co-leader of the illegal Transkei Bantustan. Mabuno was Matanzima’s official imbongi. He was a bitter enemy of the Xhosa poet Melikhaya Mbutuma, who was imbongi to the Thembu paramount chief Sabata Dalindyebo.
What do you want me to say, child of Opland?
What do you want me to say, fair-skinned one?..
Filed Under: Protest & Satirical Poems
The following Sena song exists in many versions throughout the area of the lower Zambesi river in Mozambique, dominated from 1890 by an English company which came to be called Sena Sugar Estates. The original ‘Paiva’ was Ignacio Paiva Raposo, who in 1874 rented an estate (or ‘Prazo’) near the confluence of the Shire and Zambesi rivers.
Paiva,
Wo-o‑o, Wo…
Filed Under: Protest & Satirical Poems
Three Zulu songs from Johannesburg about the notorious Pass Laws of the Apartheid era. All Africans were required to carry a special pass, permitting them to be in the city.
Take a visit to Johannesburg:
You will see big crowds…
This site opens a window on something that will be new to most people, namely, the vast amount of superb poetry hidden away in the 3000 different languages spoken in Africa … More