This is another Yorùbá Ìjálá (hunting poem) that was first translated into English in Ulli Beier’s Black Orpheus magazine.
You cannot dispute the forest with a rat.
You cannot dispute the savannah with the buffalo…
Incantation
The Yorùbá believe in Atunwa, reincarnation within the family. Yorùbá funeral songs such as Slowly the Muddy Pool Becomes a River and Where are You Now? incorporate the symbolism of loved ones returning in other forms. This poem is a grief-stricken Yorùbá prayer, inviting a dead child to be born again.
Death catches the hunter with pain.
Eshu catches the herbalist in a sack…
At a Thrift-Club Feast
A thrift-club, known in Yorùbá as Esusu, is a voluntary society which helps its members to raise money. Every member pays a fixed sum of money regularly at a fixed time (say every fifth or ninth day).
All you persons of prestige here gathered together,
I greet the woodcock with its characteristic ‘mese’ cry…
Hyena
To Palm Wine
Palm wine is an alcoholic beverage created from the sap of various species of palm tree. This is a popular Yorùbá song in praise of the drink.
Alimotu of the gourd
Lamihun in the fibrous clump…
Where are You Now?
Another Yorùbá funeral song from Nigeria. (See also the poem ‘Slowly the Muddy Pool Becomes a River’).
The hunter dies
and leaves his poverty to his gun…
