Oral Literature in Africa (42 page)

Songs associated with birds are very common. Sometimes the song is envisaged as sung by the bird itself, and at least in part is an onomatopoeic representation of the call. We could instance the many lyrics supposed to be sung and exchanged by birds among the Beti of the Cameroons. The
ngiai afan
(genderme silvatique) sings of the insecurity of life:

(Anya-Noa 1965: 129)

The female
kolvodo ban nga
(magpie) in one of her songs praises the virtues of work:

(Anya-Noa 1965: 124–5)

The Zulu songs attributed to birds attempt to represent something of the nature and appearance of the bird as well as its cry—and cast a sly glance at humanity too. The bird called
uthekwane
(hammerkop or heron) is pictured strolling gracefully by the waterside, with his fine-looking crest and shapely thighs—symbolizing vanity:

I myself, have often said:—
Thekwane
! You, with your crest, your leisurely strolling when frequenting the spring, at the time it has been opened up—mark you as a very fine fellow. You have large thighs. (Dunning 1946: 44)

Other Zulu bird songs involve interchange between the hen and the cock, the male in deep bass, the hen higher. The song of the
insingizi
(hornbill or turkey-buzzard) is really a comment on married life, particularly the last line of the cock’s exhausted rejoinder to his wife’s constant nagging:

Hen
. Where, where is (the) meat? Where, where is (the) meat?

Cock
. There’s none, it’s up in the trees above (
bis
)

Hen
. Where, where are the worms? (
bis
)

Cock
. There are none, there are no worms (
bis
)

Hen
. Are there none, are there none over there? (
bis
)

Cock
. Oh! get away with you! Where will I get them from? (
bis
)

Hen
. Look for them, look for them over there (
bis
)

Cock
. There are none, there are none over there (
bis
)

Hen
. I am going, I am going, I am going home to my people (
bis
)

Cock
. Go, go, you have long since said so (
bis
).

(Dunning 1946: 33)

Most elaborate of all is the song of self-assertion attributed to the
iqola
, the fiscal shrike. In it the cock utters his proverbial cries of
‘Goshi! Goshi! Dadi! Dadi!’
, cries which are supposed to describe the sounds made by the movements of his wings and feet as well as the ejaculations he utters as part of his great display. He is pictured as turning his head to the right, then to the left, surveying himself in self-admiration. His cry really amounts to saying ‘I am the personification of everything that is Majestic and Powerful and my ornaments jingle and rattle in perfect rhythm’. He sings:

Goshi! Goshi! Dadi! Dadi!

Who do I kill (stab)? Who do I kill? Who do I kill?

I kill the relations of these (indicating his victims) outright! outright!

I kill the relations of these outright! outright!

I kill the relations of these outright! outright!

Sanxokwe, Sanxokwe (addressing her Majesty)

I’ll pay your bridewealth (lobola) with a red beast

I’ll pay your bridewealth with a red beast

I’ll pay your bridewealth with a red beast.

When men drink beer, they become intoxicated,

They take up their sticks

And they (the sticks) clashing together sound
xakaxaka, xakaxaka, xakaxaka
.

I have been across the Umdawane
¹⁰

Where I ate up the big dance.
¹¹

I caught a small bird, I fixed it on the end of a slender twig very early this morning.

I repeated this by catching a Fantail Warbler early this morning

And fixed it on the end of a slender twig.

I drank the blood of a bird early this morning.

I struck its little stomach, it became red with blood at that very moment,

Because I am the King of Birds.

Goshi! Goshi! Dadi! Dadi!

Bayede! Bayede!
(Salute me royally)
Khuleka! Khuleka
! (Make obeisance to me)

Nkosi! Nkosi
! [Address me as] King!

(Dunning 1946: 45–6)
¹²

Finally, in a rather different style, is the brief but pathetic Nyanja song of the unloved night-jar:

Moon, you must shine, shine that I may eat the tadpoles;

I sit on a stone, and my bones all rattle.

If it were not for my big mouth,

The maidens would be crying for me.

(Rattray 1907: 164)

Songs about, or attributed to, animals seem to be less common than those associated with birds. But some certainly exist particularly in South and Central Africa. The brief Hottentot song about a baboon gives a vivid little picture of his typical occupation:

There, I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’ve got you …

Crack, crack, what a louse …

It bit me, what a louse …

Crack, crack, what a louse …

It bit me, what a louse …

(Stopa 1938: 101)

and is cast in the typical form of a sung lyric, with plenty of scope for repetition and, apparently, for chorus responses. Among the South African Bantu the tradition of praising seems still strong, and recent praises (although strictly of a different order from the songs quoted in this chapter) are much more simple and lyrical in concept than the lengthy and grandiose praises of traditional culture.Thus Hurutshe men describe a hare:

Ga-re-ya-gaa-koo
!
¹³

Son of the little dark brown one with spots,

Little yellow one, leaper from the stubbles,

Yonder is the son of the little dark brown one

Leaper from the treeless plain

Leaper from the trunks of trees;

It leaps up, and stretches its tail

And it places its ears on its shoulders

Ga-re-ya-gaa-koo
!

(Merwe 1941: 328–9)
¹⁴

Among pastoral peoples, songs are often composed and sung in praise of individual beasts. Cattle come to mean far more to their owners than mere economic sustenance, and are accepted as emotional and evocative topics for deeply felt expression. This can be seen in the songs collected by recent investigators from the Nilotic cattle-keeping people, and also from a Dinka song published early in the century. The individual singer typically praises his own bull in an outpouring of personal pride:

My Bull is as white as the silvery fish in the river; as white as the egret on the river bank; as white as new milk.

His bellowing is like the roar of the Turk’s cannon from the great river.

My bull is as dark as the rain-cloud, that comes with the storm.

He is like Summer and Winter; half of him dark as the thundercloud; half of him as white as sunshine.

His hump shines like the morning star.

His forehead is as red as the arum’s [hornbill] wattles. His forehead is like a banner; seen by the people from afar.

He is like the rainbow.

I shall water him at the river, and drive

My enemies from the water with my spear.

Let them water their cattle at the well;

The river for me and my bull.

Drink, O Bull, of the river. Am I not here with

My spear to protect you?

(Cummins 1904: 162)

But songs describing animals, or even birds, are apparently far less common than those in which the main interest is human life. In fact this can be seen even in many of the songs ostensibly about birds, for the bite of the comment is often its veiled relevance for human action, character, aspiration, or absurdity. There are lyrics about every facet of human activity. Love and marriage are probably the commonest themes, and the remainder of this section will illustrate some of these songs.

Marriage is a topic that can be treated many different ways. Not only its attractions are indicated in song, but also its difficulties or absurdities. Thus one of the Ganda songs connected with marriage lightly warns young suitors:

When he sees a pretty girl he falls for her,

‘I will go with you, let us go.’

Not knowing that he is going with a girl with a fiery temper.

(Sempebwa 1948: 17)

Among the Shi of the Eastern Congo, again, marital relationships are the most common single subject in songs, many of them concerned with marital and pre-marital strife. One of the popular forms is a song describing a girl’s rejection of her suitor because she thinks him too poor:

‘You want to marry me, but what can you give me?

A nice field?’

‘No, I have only a house.’

‘What? You have nothing but a house? How would we live? Go to Bukavu; there you can earn plenty of money. You can buy food and other things.’

‘No, I won’t go. I don’t know the people there. I have always lived here, and I know the people and want to stay here.’

‘You are a stupid man. You want me to marry me but you have nothing. If you don’t go to Bukavu and earn money to buy me things then I won’t marry you’.

(Merriam 1954: 45)

A different point of view is expressed in one of the many Chopi songs on this subject. Here the girl is pictured as sad and solitary without her husband; like so many others he has gone off many hundreds of miles to work in the mines. And yet there is something in common—a comment on a woman’s demand for material possessions:

I am most distressed,

I am most distressed as my man has gone off to work,

And he does not give me clothes to wear,

Not even black cloth.

(Tracey 1948
a
: 46)

The number of love songs recorded is surprising—at least to those brought up to the idea that the concept of personal love is bound to be lacking in African cultures. Even the idea of courtly and romantic love is not always absent. It seems, for instance, to occur to some extent among the Hausa, whose rich tradition of love poetry is now influencing
surrounding people.
¹⁵
Fletcher quotes a simple Hausa song of love, ‘To Dakabo, a maiden’:

Dakabo is tin!

Dakabo is copper!

Dakabo is silver!

Dakabo is gold!

Where greatness is a fortune

The thing desired is (obtained only) with time.

Thy things are my things,

My things are thy things,

Thy mother is my mother,

My mother is thy mother,

Thy father is my father,

My father is thy father!

Be patient, O maid!

Be patient, young maiden!

(Fletcher 1912: 65)

The Somali
balwo
(later called
heello
) are even more striking examples of romantic and emotional love poetry (see especially Andrzejewski 1967). These are short lyric love poems that have become popular recently and are particularly associated with the new urban generation. The
balwo
is characterized by extreme brevity—it usually consists of only two lines—and a condensed and cryptic imagery expressed in ‘miniature’ form. It is sung to a distinct tune with syncopated rhythms, but there are relatively few of these tunes and thousands of different poems. There are two, related, themes in these lyrics: first, those addressed to a beloved woman, in hope of marriage; and secondly those to a woman admired from afar off, even one seen only once whom the poet can have little hope of seeing again. This theme of romantic and frustrated love gives rise, it seems, to genuine and deeply felt emotion, expressed in a condensed and symbolic form arising from one central image:

Woman, lovely as lightning at dawn,

Speak to me even once.

I long for you, as one

Whose dhow in summer winds

Is blown adrift and lost,

Longs for land, and finds—

Again the compass tells—

A grey and empty sea.

(Laurence 1954: 31)

If I say to myself ‘Conceal your love!’

Who will conceal my tears?

Like a tall tree which, fallen, was set alight,

I am ashes.

(Andrzejewski 1967: 13)

My heart is single and cannot be divided,

And it is fastened on a single hope; Oh you who might be the moon.

(Andrzejewski and Lewis 1964: 146; also pp. 49–51)

The romantic love poem is not just confined to the coast. The Nyamwezi of central Tanganyika around Tabora can sing:

My love is soft and tender,

My love Saada comforts me,

My love has a voice like a fine instrument of music.

(Tracey 1963: 20)

Not all African love songs, however, are in the romantic, even ecstatic vein perhaps more typical of areas like Hausa country or the East Coast, long influenced by Arabic culture. There are many ways of describing this fertile theme. The Kuanyama Ambo of South West Africa have a series of brief antiphonal love poems used in courtship, with call and response between man and girl. Usually some analogy of a general rather than a personal kind is made between nature and human relationships: