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,
Oral Poetry from Africa
Filed Under: Pleasure Poems
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,
Filed Under: Pleasure Poems
A Gikuyu herdsboy’s song from Kenya. It sets up a chain of language which links together humorously all aspects of life (see also Who Will Throw Goat’s Dung at Me?).
Honey-bird, honey-bird,
Get arrows, get arrows…
Filed Under: Pleasure Poems
A Nandi children’s song from Kenya, a humorous word-chain that links together all aspects of the children’s future life.
Who will throw goat’s dung at me?
What will you do with goat’s dung?..
Filed Under: Pleasure Poems
A Shona children’s song from Zimbabwe. “Zinjanja”, mentioned in the chorus, refers to a hill to the east of Harare where the ruins of an ancient temple are located. This is believed to have been built by the Torwa Rulers who lived there from approximately 1450 to 1693 AD.
There were once some girls,
There were once some girls,
Let’s go to Zinjanja…
Filed Under: Pleasure Poems
This song was recorded by Romanus N. Egudu (n.d.) in the Udi Division of Igboland, Nigeria. The song is a pleasant game with words, but it can be taken in different ways. The boy has lost his pet rat. Everyone knows where the rat is. Is the problem that they daren’t approach the leopard’s house? Or is it implied that the leopard has eaten them all?
The boy was looking for his rat.
Nda
His rat was hiding in leopards’s house…
This site opens a window on something that will be new to most people, namely, the vast amount of superb poetry hidden away in the 3000 different languages spoken in Africa … More