Oral Poetry from Africa
Previous poems about Ògún, the Yorùbá god of blacksmiths, hunting and warfare, have praised this Òrìṣà as a terrible but necessary god. Terrible in that he is the personification of war, necessary in that he represents victory through conflict.
It is now high time for me to say as follows:
It is the god Ògún that I worship…
Another Oríkì (praise poem) dedicated to the Yorùbá goddess of trade and wealth, Aje (see also Salute to Aje, Goddess of Wealth).
The man who poverty makes a beggar among friends
Knows how the world dodges the needy…
A previous poem for the Yorùbá trickster god Èṣù, or Eshu (see Eshu, God of Fate) describes him as a deity who loves disrupting the laws of probability and creating impossible contradictions of time and space. As an Òrìṣà who crosses boundaries, his shrines are usually located at crossroads and at the entrances to homes. Another important station for Èṣù is the marketplace.
People of the market, clear the way!
We are coming through the market gate…
A poem sent to us by Amore David Olamide, praising the Ijebu people of Yorùbáland. The Ijebu kingdom was formed around the fifteenth century and due to its position on the trade routes between Lagos and Ibadan became wealthy and powerful in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Ijebu have historically been praised for their business acumen and talent for trade.
If Ijebu prefer,
They will weave it a bit…
A modern poem in praise of Efunsetan Aniwura, a Yorùbá woman who rose to a position of great wealth and political power in Ibadan, Nigeria, during the mid-19th century.
Elegbe, let us not toy with a raging fire
for if the thumb get burnt,
all fingers shall suffer…
