Oral Poetry from Africa
A Bahima women’s Praise-Poem, recorded in 1955 in Ankole, composed and recited by Kempumbya, wife of Ntumu. (See also The Bahima Women Praise Their Cattle and Bahima Women’s Praises).
She does not sit just as if she were placed there;
She does not shame her husband’s kraal…
A Bahima women’s Praise-Poem, recorded in 1955 in Ankole, and recited by Rhoda Kenyonyosi, who described it as by an unknown composer and dating from 1950. (See also The Bahima Women Praise Their Cattle).
You Baronda,
wake up the ugly women…
A Bahima women’s Praise-Poem, recorded in 1955 in Ankole, and composed and recited by Ntamaare. The Bahima people are the cattle-herders among the Bayankole people of southwest Uganda. In these praises, originally in the Runyankole language, the subject is the cattle for which they are famous.
They are as greedy as Ishe-Katabazi:
I want them to graze in the newly burnt grass of Rwanda…
