Oral Poetry from Africa
A Yorùbá song, partly satirical, partly pragmatic. Sourced from the Black Orpheus magazine that was founded by Ulli Beier in 1957 and co-edited by Wole Soyinka and Es’kia Mphahlele.
My wife told me
I go to the market…
A Hausa song from northern Nigeria. The singer is longing for a child. It is from an anthropological record of the Hausa people, partly compiled from an oral account given by Baba (1877–1951), the daughter of a Hausa farmer and Koranic teacher, and translated by May K. Smith.
May Allah give me a true friend whether he’s small or big,
Even an infant sucking at the breast, or one lying in the womb…
An Acoli girl’s love song from northern Uganda, collected and translated by the famous Ugandan poet Okot p’Bitek, author of Song of Lawino. It would be sung during the ortak or courtship dance.
Where has my love blown his horn?
The tune of his horn is well known…
A Hausa song from northern Nigeria, popular with women. It is from an anthropological record of the Hausa people, partly compiled from an oral account given by Baba (1877–1951), the daughter of a Hausa farmer and Koranic teacher, and translated by May K. Smith.
The barber doesn’t want a burning passion:
He doesn’t wish it to break him up…
A thrift-club, known in Yorùbá as Esusu, is a voluntary society which helps its members to raise money. Every member pays a fixed sum of money regularly at a fixed time (say every fifth or ninth day).
All you persons of prestige here gathered together,
I greet the woodcock with its characteristic ‘mese’ cry…
