Oral Poetry from Africa
This Yorùbá Ìjálá (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…
A Hausa song from northern Nigeria, unusually for a war song performed by women. The song was recorded by the Hausa scholar C.G.B. Gidley in 1964.
Great Visitor, Son of Abdu,
Water it is that drowns whoever goes against it…
An Akan song from the Ashanti region of Ghana, sung by women at work on their farms. See also Farming Song.
Where is the owner of the bush farm?
Hold back the sun!..
A Dinka song from South Sudan. The young men singing this song consider themselves as a special age-set, using their education to ‘change the land’. Their mothers must learn that, in the modern world, clothes and pens are more important than cattle as wealth.
Our junior age-set in white gathers at Abyei,
The school is convened…
Another Ìjálá or hunter’s poem from the Yorùbá of Nigeria (see also the poems Elephant, Buffalo, Five Creatures and Hunters’ Salutes). This one is a salute to Fabunmi, celebrating both his skills as a hunter and his generosity towards others.
Oolo of Iware Forest,
why is it we no longer see Fabunmi…
