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…
In October 1944, a company which came to be called Arrozal was awarded (by the Rice Propaganda Division) the rice concession for the lower Zambesi valley in colonial Mozambique. This granted the concession-holder, a man called Ruy Pereira de Lima, the right to levy four sacks from every adult woman in the area, paying them one-third of the market value…
An Akan song from the Ashanti region of Ghana, sung by women at work on their farms. See also Farming Song and Pounding Songs.
Where is the owner of the bush farm?
Hold back the sun!..
A Lomwe woman’s song from central Mozambique. The singer is forced to grow cotton for the Companhia dos Algodões de Moçambique, owner of the cotton concession for the district of Ile. Her earnings are a derisory 5 escudos.
I suffer, I do
Oyi-ya-e‑e…
An Embu pounding song from north eastern Kenya, close to Mount Kenya. Pounding songs are sung by women using mortar and pestle to pound grain to flour, the thud of the pestle providing the songs’ rhythm (see also Pounding Songs). In this poem the singer pounds malted-millet grain to be made into millet beer for her husband, Mwaniki.
Let me pound beer, pound it for Mwaniki:
He is the one who drinks dilute beer…
A Bahima women’s Praise-Poem, recorded in 1955 in Ankole, composed and recited by Kempumbya, wife of Ntumu. (See also The Bahima Women Praise Their Cattle and Bahima Women’s Praises).
She does not sit just as if she were placed there;
She does not shame her husband’s kraal…
