Oral Poetry from Africa
An Akan song from Ghana, sung by professional hunters. The song’s argument is that hunters, with all their skills and bravery, are greater than chiefs, who depend on hunters for their luxuries.
Is the chief greater than the hunter?
Arrogance! Hunter? Arrogance!…
An Ashanti drum poem from Ghana (see The Drum-History of Mampon for more about drum poems). The poem is praising the Earth which supports us in life and receives us in death.
Earth, condolences,
Earth, condolences…
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,
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.
