Oral Poetry from Africa
An Ngoni song from northern Malawi, sung at girls’ initiation ceremonies. The Ngoni were driven into exile by Shaka Zulu’s conquests, and this song presents Shaka’s achievements from the point of view of people who suffered from them.
It is because of Zwide, chief of the Soshangane people
That though I lie down I cannot sleep…
A ChiSena prayer to Chauta (God) from southern Malawi. The prayer is led by an elder, with the people responding in chorus.
Chauta we beseech you, we beseech you!
You have refused us rain, we beseech you!…
A ChiSena funeral song from southern Malawi on the theme of equality in death, for rich and poor, black and white.
This path, yes, this path, yes,
think carefully of this path, o‑ye…
The Tumbuka people live in eastern Zambia and northern Malawi, their homeland split by the border drawn by the British in 1890. But forty years before, the Tumbuka had suffered an earlier invasion, by Ngoni people fleeing the rise of the Zulu nation in south-east Africa. After many wanderings, the Ngoni settled in the Tumbuka heartlands, bringing with them a new cattle-based economy, new patterns of settlement and new systems of marriage.
We, today’s orphans,
We, today’s orphans…
A very old Ngoni poem from Malawi. This was a poem traditionally performed at weddings, but became popularly sung at other occasions such as church meetings. The refrain, ‘the earth does not get fat’, refers to the earth constantly consuming the dead.
The earth does not get fat.
It makes an end of those who wear the head plumes
A ChiTumbuka girls’ song from Malawi, containing some amusing satire on western dress.
A man with a hat on, I say no:
How should I know he is bald,
