A love song from Somalia.
Oh, you are like a kilt which a young dandy set out to choose,
Oh, you are like a costly ring for which thousands were paid
Oral Poetry from Africa
Filed Under: Relationship Poems
A love song from Somalia.
Oh, you are like a kilt which a young dandy set out to choose,
Oh, you are like a costly ring for which thousands were paid
Filed Under: Relationship Poems
A Bemba girls’ initiation song from Zambia. The song neatly describes the delicate balance of equality between husband and wife.
The man is the peak of the house:
That is what we have understood.
Filed Under: Relationship Poems
A ChiTumbuka girls’ song from Malawi, containing some amusing satire on western dress.
A man with a hat on, I say no:
How should I know he is bald,
Filed Under: Relationship Poems
A ChiLomwe girls’ song from Malawi, popular as a pounding song (sung by women using mortar and pestle to pound grain to flour). The bell is a bicycle bell.
I heard a bell ngili-ngili at the corner:
I thought it was my boyfriend, the son of Chipo,
Filed Under: Survival Poems
Six songs, all from Malawi, sung by women using mortar and pestle to pound grain to flour, the thud of the pestle providing the songs’ rhythm.
Pounding grain,
Pounding grain makes you cry…
Filed Under: Praise-Poems
A Bahima women’s Praise-Poem from Uganda. The chorus is repeated after each praise. The first five praises (Lines 1–12) refer to the whole herd of cattle, after which the singer proceeds to praise each animal separately.
They are as greedy as Ishe-Katabazi;
I want them to graze in the newly burnt grass of Rwanda.
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