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…
Oral Poetry from Africa
Filed Under: Praise-Poems
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…
Filed Under: Praise-Poems
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…
Filed Under: Survival Poems
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…
Filed Under: Relationship Poems
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…
Filed Under: Protest & Satirical Poems
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…
Filed Under: Pleasure Poems
A song of the Luo people, from Kenya. This is a courtship poem, sung by young women as they approach where their lovers are staying. It is sung in a curiously artificial style, intended to show off the girls’ voices. The doree ree yo is a passage of very high-pitched vocal acrobatics, compared by the singer to birdsong.
I am possessed,
A bird bursting on high with the ree lament
This site opens a window on something that will be new to most people, namely, the vast amount of superb poetry hidden away in the 3000 different languages spoken in Africa … More