Oral Poetry from Africa
The subject of The Cattle Killing is one of the most baffling and controversial events in African history. In the spring of 1856, a teenaged Xhosa girl called Nongqawuse went to fetch water from a pool near the mouth of the Gxarha river. On her return, she told Mhlakaza, her uncle who was a diviner, that she had spoken with a group of the ancestors.
Letshitshiba
Le-tshi-tshi-ba
There occurred a problem and a confusion…
An Ngoni song from northern Malawi, sung at girls’ initiation ceremonies. The Ngoni were driven into exile by Shaka Zulu’s conquests, and this song presents Shaka’s achievements from the point of view of people who suffered from them.
It is because of Zwide, chief of the Soshangane people
That though I lie down I cannot sleep…
A Dinka song from South Sudan. It describes the plight of refugees who fled into Zaira in the 1960s from the war between the Khartoum government and the Anyanya nationalist movement in the south.
Gentlemen grind their grain in the land of the Congo;
The Dongolawi, the Arab, has remained at home…
This Yoruba Ijala (Hunting Poem) is different, praising not an animal but a plant. Cassava, also called manioc or tapioca, is a root vegetable, rich in starch, but not so nutritious as yams or maize, and consequently grown only along the farm’s boundary.
Lafunyinrin,
a stand-by cheering the despondent…
