Oral Poetry from Africa
An Akan dirge from Ghana. Owusu was a Mass Education Officer, killed in a car accident in 1952. The dirge is sung by his former landlady, a trader called Koramma, who mourns him as if he were her brother.
Valiant Owusu,
The stranger on whom the citizen of the town depends,
A Kipsigi song from Kenya. The old man is appealing to his clan, the Kapmorosek, after his son has been murdered and his cattle stolen in a raid by a rival clan.
Send a message to the Kapmorosek,
Tell them I am not as in past years:
An Acoli dirge from Uganda. The ceremony of Yokko Pala, in which a widow chooses a new husband, is held three or four months after the Guru Lyel, the feast held in honour of the deceased. See also Close To Her Husband.
If death were not there,
Where would the inheritor get things?
