Oral Poetry from Africa
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…
A Bahima women’s Praise-Poem, recorded in 1955 in Ankole, and recited by Rhoda Kenyonyosi, who described it as by an unknown composer and dating from 1950. (See also The Bahima Women Praise Their Cattle).
You Baronda,
wake up the ugly women…
A Bahima women’s Praise-Poem, recorded in 1955 in Ankole, and composed and recited by Ntamaare. The Bahima people are the cattle-herders among the Bayankole people of southwest Uganda. In these praises, originally in the Runyankole language, the subject is the cattle for which they are famous.
They are as greedy as Ishe-Katabazi:
I want them to graze in the newly burnt grass of Rwanda…
A song from the Embu region of Kenya, sung by women at work on their farms.
Ululate for me, my time for going home is not yet,
I shall go home as the sun sets…
An improvised recitation sung by a Yorùbá bride as she is escorted by musicians and relatives to her husband’s house. She speaks her mind about all the hopes and concerns that she has, whilst drummers announce her arrival.
Those who stand-let them stand well.
Those who stop-let them stoop well…
