Pounding grain makes you cry, begins the second poem of this section. The song draws up a list of hardships which could be continued almost indefinitely. These poems are about farming and hunting, about pounding and foraging, about cattle-herding and cattle-raiding, and about warfare against neighbouring peoples and against colonial invaders. They deal with the difficulties of survival where famine, disease and violence are constant threats.
Three Birds
A Yorùbá song from Nigeria, chanted in praise of adornment and flamboyant clothes. The fashions of humans are compared with the bright, rich colours of various birds of the forest.
Three birds in all
There are, in the forest bounds,
The Kalela Dance
A song from the Kalela Dance of the Zambian Copperbelt. The original language of this song is a form of Bemba spoken on the Copperbelt and easily understood by other people working in the mines. Most of the songs comment satirically on life on the Copperbelt.
The Watchtower were trying cunningly to convert me on Saturday,
That I should go to their meeting-place at two o’clock on Sunday.
Hark How the Music Thunders
A Chopi song from southern Mozambique. This song is taken from one of the Chopi Migodo (sing. Ng’godo). These are long entertainments, each lasting for some forty-five minutes, played on orchestras of massed timbila, or xylophones.
Hark how the music thunders!
Listen with your wives and hear the call.
Riddles — It Goes Outside
O jade ko da enu ona koja.
It goes outside, it does not cross the threshold.
Riddles — A Black Woman
Debbo baleejo metta-hakkiiloojo.
A black woman with a nasty temper.