Oral Poetry from Africa
Another of the thousands of poems associated with the Ifá oracle of the Yorùbá people (see also How Leopard got his honour). There are 256 different Odù or branches of Ifá poetry, and many hundreds of different poems are associated with each Odù. The Ifá priest learns these poems during many years of training.
The twisted wooden stump which crosses the road in a crooked way.
Ifa divination was performed for Lion…
I thought that with the inclusion of the Ifá poem, Lion refused to make sacrifice, that now would be a good time to repost one of my favourite poems, Tiger (From the Ifa Oracle) and to make a slight modification to the translation.
Ifa divination was performed for Leopard,
The one with the lovely and shining skin…
Odo, as practised by several Igbo-speaking communities in eastern Nigeria’s Enugu State, is the occasion when ancestral spirits return in the form of masked dances to share in important events, or simply to bridge the gap between the living and the dead. The dancers perform in public arenas and openly compete, both in their costume and in poetry.
May the gathering here listen,
listen:
for it’s the Odo that hears the market din…
A Hausa song from northern Nigeria, unusually for a war song performed by women. The song was recorded by the Hausa scholar C.G.B. Gidley in 1964.
Great Visitor, Son of Abdu,
Water it is that drowns whoever goes against it…
A Yorùbá Wedding Song, sung by the bride at the climax of the wedding ceremony, as she leaves her father’s house for her new husband’s, and setting out an ideal vision of her future life.
I loosen my head tie and bow down,
I shall be leaving now…
