The Baggara, meaning “cow-herders”, are composed of several Arab groups living in that part of the Sahel region between Lake Chad and southern Kordofan.
The fair ones, Mahmud’s three daughters,
Umm Misel daughter of Kir…
Oral Poetry from Africa
Filed Under: Relationship Poems
The Baggara, meaning “cow-herders”, are composed of several Arab groups living in that part of the Sahel region between Lake Chad and southern Kordofan.
The fair ones, Mahmud’s three daughters,
Umm Misel daughter of Kir…
Filed Under: Relationship Poems
A ChiChewa song from the southern region of Malawi about the perils of matrilocal marriage. The singer has married into “a women’s village”, Njenjema, where the land is inherited through the female line and everything is controlled by the wife’s family.
At Njenjema, do not dare
At Njenjema, do not dare…
Filed Under: Relationship Poems
A spirit possession song from the southern region of Malawi, sung in ChiChewa and opening for the outsider a window on the sufferings of a society where children had, and have, only a 50% chance of surviving infancy. For women like Effie Musa from whom this song was recorded in August 1982, witchcraft practiced by one of her neighbours was the only plausible explanation.
Maize has a Market
Sorghum has a Market..
Filed Under: Relationship Poems
A Kamba lullaby from Kenya for singing babies to sleep. The singer calls her child ‘Mama’ as a form of endearment by which a child is addressed as a parent.
Mama, child’s mother, don’t cry like a poor person.
You have come to me, you are crying more than I used to…
Filed Under: Relationship Poems
This is another version of the much-loved Swahili love song from the east African coast (see Serenade), probably the best known and most widely admired of all Swahili poems in translation. Like My Mwananazi, it is associated with Liyongo, the epic hero.
O lady, be calm and cry not out but attend to your suitors patiently,
listen patiently to them who have climbed up to your window…
Filed Under: Relationship Poems
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