Oral Literature in Africa (50 page)

(Mynors 1941: 206)

Sometimes the verbal parallelism is less exact, as in the Swazi ‘children’s part-song’ in which the children are divided into two groups that take turns in singing a line, then join together at the end. It is not an action rhyme, but depends on the words and tune alone for its attraction:

A
. and
B
.

Shishane is not to blame,

The blame is for Foloza,

He who says he alone is handsome.

The hoes of Mbandzeni

They go knocking against him,

The knocker of Njikeni.

Magagula, Magagula keep the clod of earth tightly squeezed in your—.

(given as quoted in Englebrecht 1930: 10–11)

A more complicated form is quoted from the Mbete where the rhyme builds up in a cumulative way. Two children take part:

and so on up to the tenth which involves the answerer repeating the whole sequence (Adam 1940: 132–3).
¹³

Other types of rhymes and songs are also recorded. There is the kind of catch rhyme exemplified by the Yoruba:

in which the point of the game is to try to get some child to say ‘blood’ after an inanimate object. A mistake results in laughter and sometimes a friendly beating (Gbadamosi and Beier 1959: 55; 67). There also seem to be plenty of songs enjoyed for their own sakes or for their usefulness in mocking other children. A Dogon child with his head recently shaved will be greeted with

Crâne nu, lonlaire!

Viens manger un plat de riz,

Viens manger un plat de potasse,

Viens manger un plat de mil.

(Griaule 1938
a
: 230)
¹⁴

while a Ganda child who has not washed may hear

Mr. Dirty-face passed here

And Mr. Dirtier-face followed.

(Sempebwa 1948: 20)

Or again, a kind of general comment may be made as in the humorous and rueful song by a Yoruba child;

Hunger is beating me.

The soapseller hawks her goods about.

But if I cannot wash my inside,

How can I wash my outside?

(Gbadamosi and Beier 1959: 54)

So far we have concentrated on rhymes and songs that are mainly valued for their words or music rather than their relation to action. But there are also many examples of songs sung to accompany games or dances, or forming an integral part of them. A minor example would be the counting-out rhymes of the Dogon where those partaking are gradually eliminated according to whose leg the last syllable falls on at each subsequent repetition.
²
Yoruba children similarly use a rhyme as part of a hide-and-seek game. The searcher faces the wall singing his nonsense song while the others hide. When he reaches the question part of the song the others must reply in chorus, giving him a clue to their hiding-places:

Now we are playing hide and seek.

Let us play hide and seek.

Hey, tobacco seller,

This is your mother here,

Whom I am wrapping up in those leaves.

I opened the soup pot

And caught her right inside

Stealing meat!

Who nails the root?

Chorus
. The carpenter.

Who sews the dress?

Chorus
. The tailor. (etc.)

(Gbadamosi and Beier 1959: 55; 68)

Other action songs are more complicated in that they are based on imitation or on definite set dance patterns. Shona children, for instance, have an imitative song in which they circle round and round imitating an eagle catching small chickens (Taylor 1926: 38). Again, there are the Hottentot action songs based on the common principles of a ring or of two rows facing each other (Stopa 1938: 100–4).

A more detailed account of action songs is given by Tucker, drawing on his observation of children at mission schools in the Sudan in the 1930s (Tucker 1933). His conclusion is that the songs and games were not introduced by the missionaries themselves (or at least not consciously), but whatever the truth of this, it is in any case suitable to end by quoting from this account in some detail. Schools are becoming increasingly important in the lives of more and more children in Africa, and it is likely that similar
singing games—from whatever source—are now widespread (and thus accessible to study) among school groups.

The children whose round games were studied were mostly boys from various Southern Sudanese peoples (Nuer, Shilluk, Dinka, Bari, and Lotuko). The games are played on a moonlit night in the dry season and the singing, mostly in strophe and antistrophe, is led by one of the boys and accompanied by hand-clapping, foot-thumping, or the action of the game. Often the words themselves count for little. Sometimes the meaning is almost slurred out of recognition, and in this ‘the Shilluks and Nuers are the greatest offenders, some of their songs consisting of mere nonsense syllables, which they themselves do not pretend to understand. (In such cases they usually give out that the words are “Dinka”)’ (Tucker 1933: 166). The translations are therefore rather free.

Most of the singing games are based on the principle of a ring, the players squatting or standing in a circle. In one, the equivalent of ‘Hunt the slipper’, the players sit in a circle with their feet under them. The leader in the middle of the ring has to find a bracelet which is being passed surreptitiously round the ring. He sings, answered by the others as they slap their knees in time to the song:

repeated over and over until the leader successfully challenges one of the circle who, if caught with the bracelet, has to take the leader’s place in the centre. (Ibid.: 166–7) Another action song based on a ring is a type of counting-out game:

The boys sit in a circle, or, it might be, at right-angle, with their feet stuck out straight in front of them. An elder boy squats on his haunches before them and chants a queer formula, much longer than any European equivalent, tapping the feet as he chants, till the last word is said. The foot last touched is ‘out’ and the owner must sit on it. He goes on in this way till everybody is sitting on both his feet, i.e. practically kneeling. He then begins with the first boy of the line. There is a formula and response, and then he bows down in front of the boy with his eyes shut and his head almost touching the boy’s knees. The boy has to stand up without touching the man’s head with his knees. (He may use his hands to help himself, if he wishes.) If the man hears the boy’s knees creak as he rises, the boy is made to stand on one side. If his knees do not creak, he stands somewhere else. Soon we have two groups—creaky and non-creaky knees. (Of course, the longer one is forced
to sit on one’s feet, the greater the likelihood of creaky knees!) … The game ends with the non-creaky knees pursuing the creaky knees and punishing them (Tucker 1933: 169–70).

Another ring game is the Lotuko one in which a boy in the centre, ‘the ape’, has to try to grab the leg of one of the boys dancing round him in a ring and to upset him. If he succeeds, they change places:

Here he goes around to steal

Break away

Bad ape
.

Break away

Bad ape
.

(Ibid.: 170)

There are also a number of games based on the idea of the arch or the line. In one the boys line up in two opposing ranks and one line advances slowly towards the other, which retreats, both sides singing:

The foreigner

Chin of a goat

The foreigner comes striding haughtily

With his red skin.

This is repeated several times, the two lines taking it in turn to advance. Suddenly the pace and verse change. Those advancing now run stiff-legged and try to kick the others’ shins, again singing over and over:

Why does the stranger hurry so?

Ha! ha! hurry so.

Why does the stranger hurry so?

Ha! ha! hurry so.

(Ibid.: 182)

Tucker comments that ‘this game is definitely a hit at the white man. The “chin of a goat” in the first song refers to the beards of the R.C. missionaries (beards being considered unseemly among the Nilotic tribes); while the kicking in the second song is thought to be a skit on the average official’s use of his boots when angry or impatient’ (Tucker 1933: 183).

Chasing and following games also take place to sung words. In the Acholi version of ‘Follow my leader’ the boys stand in single file, holding each other’s waists, and the leader takes them in a closing circle to the words of the song ‘close in’, then worms his way out again, singing ‘open out’. The words of the song form the background. The verse ‘A dula dul dula na dula dul. A dula ye. Dula na dula dul. A dula kuk! Dula na dula dul. A dula ye’ means ‘close in’, while the same tune, with
gonya
instead of
dula,
means ‘open out’ (Ibid.: 179).

Finally there are imitations of animals. Some of these occur in chasing games like the Shilluk ‘Lion and sheep’, but in others the imitations seem to be taken more seriously. In one a boy doubles himself up to represent a frog and tries to jump backwards in a circle without falling over, in time to his companions’ song:

Jump up and down,

Up and down
.

Jump up and down,

Up and down
.

I shall jump again,

Up and down
.

I shall jump again,

Up and down?

(Tucker 1933: 185)

In ‘Bush-buck in a trap’ the success of the game depends on the exactness of the leader’s imitation of the animal:

The boys stand in a ring, holding hands. One boy is in the middle, and he is ‘Gbodi’, the bush-buck. He sings suiting his actions to the words, and the others reply, copying him.

Thus, for example:

Gbodi shake your head, Gbodi shake your head.

Kango
.

Gbodi crouch down, Gbodi crouch down.

Kango
.

Gbodi scratch your ear, Gbodi scratch your ear.

Kango
.

Gbodi stamp your foot, Gbodi stamp your foot.

Kango
.

Gbodi snort and snuffle, Gbodi snort and snuffle.

Kango
.

Gbodi break away now, Gbodi break away now.

Kango
.

At the words ‘Gbodi break away now’, he makes a wild dash for safety, and tries to break through the circle. If he fails, he has to act ‘Gbodi’ again (Ibid.: 184).

These are only a few of the singing games recorded by Tucker,
¹⁵
and he himself claims to give only a random selection. But even this, he considers, ‘picked up casually from different corners of the Southern Sudan, and
covering primitive races with mutually unintelligible languages, should serve to show the main foundations on which the great majority of children’s singing games are built … These foundations are, to all intents and purposes, identical with those that underlie the forms of European children’s games, viz. the
ring,
the
arch
and the
line
’ (Tucker 1933: 184).

It seems clear that many such singing games and other types of children’s songs remain to be collected or analysed.
¹⁶
At the moment little can be said about the distribution of different types, the transmission of these forms among the children themselves, the degree of individual originality as against conventional forms,
¹⁷
or the incidence of topical or other comment. What does seem certain is that the growing numbers of school children in contemporary Africa are likely more and more to develop their own distinct and conventional songs and games—increasingly it is in the schools that these can most easily and fruitfully be studied.