Oral Literature in Africa (24 page)

His spear is terrible.

The Ever-ready-to-meet-any-challenge!

The first-born sons of their mothers who were called for many years!
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He is like the cluster of stones of Nkandhla,

Which sheltered the elephants when it had rained.
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The hawk which I saw sweeping down from Mangcengeza;

When he came to Pungashe he disappeared.

He invades, the forests echo, saying, in echoing,

He paid a fine of the duiker and the doe.

He is seen by the hunters who trap the flying ants;

He was hindered by a cock in front,

By the people of Ntombazi and Langa [mother and father of Zwide]

He devoured Nomahlanjana son of Zwide;

He devoured Mdandalazi son of Gaqa of the amaPela;

He was lop-eared.

He devoured Mdandalazi son of Gaqa of the amaPela;

He was lop-eared.

The Driver-away of the old man born of Langa’s daughter!

The Ever-ready-to-meet-any-challenge!

Shaka!

The first-born sons of their mothers who were called for many years!

He is like the cluster of stones of Nkandhla,

Which sheltered elephants when it had rained …

The Eagle-which-beats-its-wings-where-herds-graze!

He drove away Zwide son of Langa,

Until he caused him to disappear in the Ubani;

Until he crossed above Johannesburg and disappeared;

He crossed the Limpopo where it was rocky;

Even though he left Pretoria with tears.

He killed the snake, he did not kill it in summer,

He killed it when the winter had come.

(Grant 1927: 211–3)

In more purely panegyric vein is the briefer praise poem to Moshesh, the famous Southern Sotho chief:

Nketu (frog) of the regiment, companion of Shakhane and Ramakh-wane,

Stirrer-up of dust, you came from the centre of the plateau of Rathsowanyane,

The child of the chief of Qhwai saw you,

You were seen by Ratjotjose of Mokhethi;

Cloud, gleaner of shields,

When Nketu is not there among the people,

The leaders of the regiment cry aloud and say, Nketu and Ramakhwane,

where are you?

(Lestrade 1935: 10)

The main topic tends to be the chief’s military exploits. However, other subjects are also introduced. Among the Swazi a leader’s praise poems are always known by all his followers, and include references not only to his actions in war but also to acts of generosity and to his skill and achievement in hunting. Comments on personality,
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and criticism which can provide a kind of social pressure on an unpopular chief, are not uncommon, and sometimes sarcastic or even insulting remarks are included which, among the Ngoni at least, are said to represent a high kind of praise—such comments are so ludicrous that they could not possibly be true (Read 1937: 22). Praises composed more recently may include references to, for instance, winning a case in the High Court (Morris 1964: 84ff.), travelling abroad to work in European areas, or dealing with tax collectors (Schapera 1965: 4, 229). But it remains true that the most outstanding and beautiful of the traditional praises are those to do with war (and often more peaceful exploits are expressed in military terms).

Various stock topics about the hero’s military actions are described in, for example, most Sotho praise poems.
²⁰
These include the leader’s temper before the battle, his journey to the field, his fighting, his victims, the booty, and finally his return home, all portrayed in emotional and high-flown terms. The basis of the events mentioned is authentic, but the emphasis is on those incidents in which the hero excelled. Thus even if reverses are mentioned, they are expressed euphemistically. Even if a war was lost, the hero won one of the battles. Or a rout may be admitted to throw into greater contrast the hero’s second and more vigorous offensive. The opponents are frequently referred to in contemptuous terms, compared, for instance, to a small and despicable ox, or to a bull without horns fighting against a conquering and triumphant bull. In these praises it is usually the chief himself who is the centre of attention, but his companions and relatives may also be mentioned and their support is seen to add to the hero’s prestige and success.

The wars in which these heroes are depicted as fighting are varied. Many of them are against neighbouring peoples in South Africa and involve not only pitched battles but more mobile cattle raiding. Others are between rival contenders for power in one area, such as Shaka’s hostilities with some of his rivals. Wars against European invaders are also frequent occasions for praise poems—and, as Norton puts it, one may wonder whether the exploits of the conquerors were celebrated in as poetic and elevated a manner as some of those of the conquered (Norton 1950: 23).
Here, for example, is a poem praising the bravery of a Swazi king, Mavuso, who was involved in fighting with the Afrikaaners:

Mavuso of Ngwane,

Dangazela [i.e. Mavuso] of Ngwane of Sobhusa.

News of war eats the child still in the womb.

If a person can walk he would have run away.

Flee ye by all the paths,

Go and tell the news to Mpande of the Zulu:

Say one elephant ate another,

And covered it with dress material and quantities of beads.

Those who ran away swore by Lurwarwa,

Saying, ‘Mswazi [early king and prototype] will not return, he is killing’

He fights in the darkness, when will the dawn come?

O chief that fights with the light of burning grass until the dawn comes.

They were saying that Mswazi was a boy herding calves;

We shall never be ruled by the hoe stood in the door of Majosi-kazi.

He will rule Mkuku and Msukusuku.

O one who comes in and goes out of sandy places,

O bird of Mabizwa-sabele

You are called by Shila of Mlambo,

For him you asked cattle from Mhlangala,

You are asked by Mawewe to ask cattle from Mzila of Soshan-gane.

Dutchmen of Piet Retief, we do not approve of you,

We blame you

By stabbing the chief who was helping you.

You cry at the grave of Piet Retief,

You cry at the grave of John.

O one alone without an advocate

Although Ntungwa had one:

Our chief who can stab,

I never saw a man who could stab like him.

He stabs with an assegai until he tires.

Mngqimila who bears a headdress of feathers,

Mababala who arms on a bad day,

Lomashakizela [one-who-goes-quickly], Lomashiya impi [one-who-leaves-his-army-behind],

Bayete, Bayete.

(Cook 1931: 193)

III

The Southern Bantu praise poems are largely built up of a series of praise names and praise verses. These praise names can be either category terms—a cock is ‘the aggressive one’, the class of cattle ‘the horned one’ or ‘God of the wet nose’ (Sotho)—or individual terms, as when a particular
bull is ‘biggest in the herd’. Clan praise names are used in formal address to clan members; a Tswana clan, for instance, has the praise name
Mokzvena
(from
kwena,
a crocodile, the symbol of the clan), so an individual of the clan may be called by the general praise name of
Mokzvena
. In addition many individuals have their own laudatory epithets which refer to their character or their deeds; these epithets are usually bestowed on kings, leaders, and outstanding warriors. Thus we meet the Zulu ‘Sun-is-shining’, ‘Fame-spread-abroad’, or the Venda ‘Devouring Beast’, ‘Lord of the Lands’, or ‘Huge Head of Cattle’. Sometimes the praise name is expanded so that it takes up a whole line (as in the Zulu ‘Herd-of-Mtsholoza-he-escaped-and-was-killed’), and certain prominent people are praised with a whole string of names: Shaka, for instance, is said to have had several dozen.
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Sometimes the hero is also referred to by the name of his clan’s symbol or other animal—as, for instance, a crocodile, lion, rhinoceros, or elephant—and much of the poem is thus built up oh a sustained metaphor, almost allegory, about the animal which represents the hero. Some poems seem to make special use of these praise names, but in all of them the inclusion of these colourful epithets adds both grandeur and imagery to the verse.

Besides individual praise names (often just one word in the original) there are praise verses or praise lines in which one laudatory phrase takes up at least a whole line in the poem. One of the Sotho praise verses about the class of cattle runs: ‘The beast lows at the chief’s great place; if it lows in a little village—belonging to a commoner—it is wrong’, while Dingane’s silent and cunning character is referred to by ‘The deep and silent pool is calm and inviting, yet dangerous’, a Venda chief is ‘Light of God upon earth’, and Shaka is described as ‘The play of the women at Nomgabi’s’.

A praise poem is in general built up of these smaller units which are often loosely linked together into stanzas.
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These stanzas follow in varying orders in different versions. The order is variable because the different stanzas are often linked not by specific meaning but by their general application to the hero of the poem; it is often as important to convey a general picture of his actions and character as to present his exploits in a narrative within a chronological framework. The whole composition is extremely fluid, with given stanzas sometimes appearing, sometimes not, or some versions combining into one poem what others give as two or even
three distinct praises.
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Thus each type (praise name, verse, stanza, and poem) is an extension of the previous kind, and the literary significance which is attached to each finds its fullest expression in the complex and extensive poem.

Any discussion of the formal structure of praise poems must include some reference to prosody (see especially Lestrade 1935, 1937; Grant 1927: 202; Mofokeng 1945: 136ff.). This is a difficult topic, but it seems that there is some kind of dynamic stress which, in addition to other stylistic features mentioned below, is one of the main characteristics which distinguish this art form as ‘poetry’. The division into lines is in most cases indicated fairly clearly by the reciter’s delivery, so that certain groups of words are pronounced together in the same breath, followed by a pause, and fall together in terms of sense, sometimes consisting of a formalized ‘praise verse’ of the kind already described. Within each of these lines there are normally three or four groups of syllables (or ‘nodes’, as Lestrade terms them), each group marked by one main stress but containing any number of other syllables. This ‘node’ sometimes consists of just one word (or is dynamically treated as one word). The main stress is sometimes on the penultimate syllable of the ‘node’, followed by a brief break; the stress on the last ‘node’ of the line is usually the strongest, and is followed by a more pronounced break. A stanza—and, ultimately, a whole poem—is thus made up of a succession of these lines, each consisting of three or four ‘nodes’ following each other indiscriminately. There seems to be no attempt at regular quantitative metre, for the stanzas are made up of irregular numbers of lines each with varying numbers of syllables, but the variety in syllable numbers (by some considered a mark of richness in itself) is bound together not only by the over-all pattern of this strong stress rhythm, but by repetition, parallelism, and other devices to be discussed below.

The overall pattern is also brought out by certain melodic features in the actual recitation. This has been studied in some detail in the case of Southern Sotho and especially in Zulu praise poetry (Mofokeng 1945: 136ff.; Rycroft 1960, 1962). In the delivery there is some musical use of pitch, even though the actual tones are too close to the tones of normal speech for the poems actually to count as ‘songs’. The melodic aspect centres round a limited series of notes, enough to provide a contrast with the less formalized speech
of ordinary prose. The ends of stanzas in particular are brought out by the lengthening and special pitch (often a glide) of the penultimate syllable. This amounts to a kind of concluding formula, melodically marked, for each stanza (a detailed description is given in Rycroft 1960).

The example quoted by Lestrade may serve to bring out more clearly the effect of the penultimate stress (marked by an acute accent) in the ‘nodes’ and at the end of each stanza. This is a praise poem of Moshesh:

(Lestrade 1935: 4–5)

The poetic style of these poems emerges more fully when one considers the language and form of expression in some detail.
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The language differs from that of ordinary prose (and to a large extent from that of other poetic genres among the Southern Bantu) in its archaic quality as well as the introduction of foreign words which add colour to the poem. Alliteration and assonance are both appreciated and exploited by the poet.
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As well there are many syntactic constructions peculiar to the poems: the use of special idioms and of elaborate adjectives and adjectival phrases means that there is a special style which has to be mastered by a composer of
praise poetry. Long compounds abound, many of them in the form of the praise names mentioned already, and built up in various ways: from a predicate and object (‘Saviour-of-the-people’), predicate and adverb (‘The-one-who-sleeps-in-water’), noun and adjective (‘The-black-beast’), noun and copulative (‘The-cliff-white-with-thick-milk’), and several others. In Southern Sotho praises, prefixes and concord also appear in characteristic ways, with certain rare omissions of prefixes, and with contractions. There are special prefixes suitable for praising, for example
se
-, which indicates the habitual doing of something and is common in praises to suggest the hero’s habit or character, and
ma
-, which appears in names with the idea of doing something extensively or repeatedly.