Oral Poetry from Africa
An Akan poem from Ghana, sung by women in praise of the returning warrior. The camel blanket and the sandals on which Agyei is described as treading are metaphors for the men who are carrying him in triumph on their shoulders.
He is coming, he is coming,
Treading along on camel blanket in triumph.
A Shona Praise-Poem from Zimbabwe, sung by the blacksmith’s wife in praise of her husband. His skills seem almost supernatural (he is a ‘craftsman’, a ‘wizard’, an ‘expert’), and his hoes, axes, hatchets, adzes and knives are bringing great wealth to his family.
Today this place is full of noise and jollity.
The guiding spirit that enables my husband to forge makes him do wonders.
A Gonga Praise-Poem from the Kafa High lands of south-west Ethiopia. The poem records the drama of a succession dispute.
SINI
After the death of Gamma Kegocci,
Tumi Taki has left me empty-handed.
Three extracts from the long Zulu Praise-Poem about Shaka, the Zulu king. Shaka succeeded Dingiswayo as head of the Zulu clan in 1818; by the time of his assassination by Dingane in 1828, he had become King of the Zulu nation.
Dlungwana son of Ndaba!
Ferocious one of the Mbelebele brigade,
A Tswana Praise-Poem from Botswana, chanted in praise of Seepapitso, chief of the Ngwaketse people 1910–16. Seepapitso’s main achievement was to improve local water supplies by building dams and sinking boreholes. He is also remembered for his defeat of a party of Boers who in 1914 invaded his territory in an attempt to cross into Namibia.
Hey there, men of the Buffalo-thorn,
Do you still argue with me?
A Zulu Praise-Poem, in praise of Ndaba, Shaka’s great-grandfather and the first Zulu king.
Ndaba, son of Sonani, they say ‘What wrong did he do?’
Since the people are living with their herds
