A children’s song from the Nandi of Kenya (see also Who Will Throw Goat’s Dung at Me for another Nandi song for children) celebrating the arrival of the new moon.
When the moon is new
The children, if they are Nandi,
The Incompetent Hunter
Buganda Songs
The Kingdom of the Ganda people is the largest of the traditional kingdoms making up Uganda, comprising all of Uganda’s central region, bordering Lake Victoria, and including the capital Kampala.
Nanayanja,
beat the drum, let it speak out…
Zulu War Song
A song composed to celebrate the defeat of the British army under Lord Chelmsford at the battle of Isandlwana in January 1879. The defeat brought a decisive end to the first British invasion of Zululand.
Thou the great and mighty chief!
Thou hast an army!..
What Happened in Olenguruone?
Olenguruone is in Nakuru County, in Kenya’s Rift Valley, at the heart of Gikuyu homeland. In the days of Mau Mau, when the fighters for Kenya’s independence made the neighbouring forest their base for attacks on British settlers, the colonial authorities cleared the region under a forced resettlement (or “villagisation”) programme, deporting those who resisted to the detention centre at Yatta or to prisons in Nakuru and Nairobi.
The great sadness occurred in Olenguruone.
Children and livestock were weeping in the heavy rain and bitter cold..
Defeat of the Infidels
This Somali Gabay was composed by Muhammad Abd Allah al-Hasan (1856 — 1920), the religious and military leader. Known to the British as the “Mad Mullah”, he established the Dervish state in Somalia, and fought against British, Italian and Ethiopian forces, before eventually being defeated by the British in 1920.
To begin with, I had neglected poetry and had let it dry up
I had sent it west in the beginning of the spring rains…