Rudyard Kipling,
“The White Man's Burden”, 1899.
Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.
Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
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Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.
Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"
Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.
Take up the White Man's burden--
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Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel, T
he easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!
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Derek Walcott’s (1930 –2017) “A Far Cry from Africa”
A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt
Of Africa. Kikuyu, quick as flies,
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
Corpses are scattered through a paradise.
Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries:
"Waste no compassion on these separate dead!"
Statistics justify and scholars seize
The salients of colonial policy.
What is that to the white child hacked in bed?
To savages, expendable as Jews?
Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break
In a white dust of ibises whose cries
Have wheeled since civilization's dawn
From the parched river or beast-teeming plain.
The violence of beast on beast is read
As natural law, but upright man
Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.
Delirious as these worried beasts, his wars
Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum,
While he calls courage still that native dread
Of the white peace contracted by the dead.
Again brutish necessity wipes its hands
Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again
A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,
The gorilla wrestles with the superman.
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I who am poisoned with the blood of both,
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
I who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
Betray them both, or give back what they give?
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
How can I turn from Africa and live?
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Okot p’Bitek’s From Song of Lawino:
1. “My Husband’s Tongue is Bitter”
My clansmen, I cry
Listen to my voice:
The insults of my man
The insults of my man
Are painful beyond bearing.
My husband abuses me together with my parents:
He says terrible things about my mother
And I am so ashamed!
He abuses me in EnglishAnd he is so arrogant.
My husband pours scorn
On Black People,
He behaves like a hen
That eats its own eggs
A hen that should be imprisoned
Under a basket.
His eyes grow large
Deep black eyes
Ocol’s eyes resemble those of the Nile Perch!
He becomes fierce
Like a lioness with cubs,
He begins to behave like a mad hyena.
He says Black People are primitive
And their ways are utterly harmful,
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Their dances are mortal sins
They are ignorant, poor and diseased!
Ocol says he is a modern man,
A progressive and civilized man.
He says he has read extensively and widely
And he can no longer live with a thing like me
Who cannot distinguish between good and bad,
He says I am just a village woman,
I am of the old type,
And no longer attractive.
Ocol is no longer in love with the old type.
He is in love with a modern girl;
The name of the beautiful one
Is Clementine.
Brother, when you see Clementine!
The beautiful one aspires
To look like a white woman;
Her lips are red-hot
Like glowing charcoal,
She resembles the wild cat
That has dipped its mouth in blood,
Her mouth is like raw yaws
It looks like an open ulcer,
Like the mouth of a fiend!
Tina dusts powder on her face
And it looks so pale;
She resembles the wizard
Getting ready for the midnight dance;
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And she believes
That this is beautiful
Because it resembles the face of a white woman!
Her body resembles
The ugly coat of the hyena;
Her neck and arms
Have real human skins!
She looks as if she has been struck
By lightning;
Or burnt like the kongoni
In a fire hunt.
I am not unfair to my husband,
I do not complain
Because he wants another woman
Whether she is young or aged!
Who has ever prevented men
From wanting woman?
The competition for a man’s love
Is fought at the cooking place
When he returns from the field
Or from the hunt.
You win him with a hot bath
And sour porridge.
The wife who brings her meal first
Whose food is good to eat,
Whose dish is hot
Whose face is bright
And whose heart is clean
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And whose are not dark
Like the shadows:
The wife who jokes freely
Who eats in the open
Not in the bed room,
One who is not dull
Like stale beer,
Such is the woman who becomes
The head-dress keeper.
I do not block my husband’s path
From his new wife.
If he likes, let him build for her
An iron roofed house on the hill!
I do not complain,
My grass thatched house is enough for me.
I am not angry
With the woman with whom
I share my husband,
I do not fear to compete with her.
Listen Ocol, my old friend,
The ways of your ancestors
Are good,
Their customs are solid
And not hollow
They are not thin, not easily breakable
They cannot be blown away.
By the wind
Because their roots reach deep into the soil.
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I do not understand
The way of foreigners
But I do not despise their customs.
Why should you despise yours?
Listen, my husband,
You are the son of the Chief.
The pumpkin in the old homestead
Must not be uprooted!
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2. “The Woman with Whom I Share My Husband”
Ocol rejects the old type.
He is in love with a modern woman,
He is in love with a beautiful girl
Who speaks English.
But only recently
We would sit close together, touching each other!
Only recently I would play
On my bow-harp
Singing praises to my beloved.
Only recently he promised
That he trusted me completely.
I used to admire him speaking in English.
* * *
Ocol is no longer in love with the old type.
He is in love with a modern girl;
The name of the beautiful one
Is Clementine.
Brother, when you see Clementine!
The beautiful one aspires
To look like a white woman;
Her lips are red-hot
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Like glowing charcoal,
She resembles the wild cat
That has dipped its mouth in blood,
Her mouth is like raw yaws
It looks like an open ulcer,
Like the mouth of a fiend!
Tina dusts powder on her face
And it looks so pale;
She resembles the wizard
Getting ready of the midnight dance;
She dusts the ash-dirt all over her face
And when little sweat
Begins to appear on her body
She looks like the guinea fowl!
The smell of carbolic soap
Makes me sick,
And the smell of powder
Provokes the ghosts in my head;
It is then necessary to fetch a goat
From my mother's brother.
The sacrifice over
The ghost-dance drum must sound
The ghost be laid
And my peace restored.
I do not like dusting myself with powder.
The thing is good on pink skin
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Because it is already pale,
But when a black woman has used it
She looks as if she has dysentery;
Tina looks sickly
And she is slow moving,
She is a piteous sight.
Some medicine has eaten up Tina's face;
The skin on her face is gone
And it is all raw and red,
The face of the beautiful one
Is tender like the skin of a newly born baby!
And she believes
That this is beautiful
Because it resembles the face of a white woman!
Her body resembles
The ugly coat of the hyena;
Her neck and arms
Have real human skins!
She looks as if she has been struck
By lightning;
Or burnt like the kongoni
In a fire hunt.
And her lips look like bleeding,
Her hair is long,
Her head is huge like that of the owl,
She looks like a witch,
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Like someone who has lost her head
And should be taken
To the clan shrine!
Her neck is rope-like,
Thin, long and skinny
And her face sickly pale.
* * *
Forgive me, brother,
Do not think I am insulting
The woman with whom I share my husband!
Do not think my tongue
Is being sharpened by jealousy.
It is the sight of Tina
That provokes sympathy from my heart.
I do not deny
I am a little jealous.
It is no good lying,
We all suffer from a little jealousy.
It catches you unawares
Like the ghosts that bring fevers;
It surprises people
Like earth tremors:
But when you see the beautiful woman
With whom I share my husband
You feel a little pity for her!
14
Her breasts are completely shrivelled up,
They are all folded dry skins,
They have made nests of cotton wool
And she folds the bits of cow-hide
In the nests
And call them breasts!
O! my clansmen
How aged modern women
Pretend to be young girls!
They mould the tips of the cotton nests
So that they are sharp
And with these they prick
The chests of their men!
And the men believe
They are holding the waists
Of young girls that have just shot up!
The modern type sleep with their nests
Tied firmly on their chests.
How many kids
Has this woman sucked?
The empty bags on her chest
Are completely flattened, dried.
Perhaps she has aborted many!
Perhaps she has thrown her twins
In the pit latrine!
15
Is it the vengeance ghosts
Of the many smashed eggs
That have captured her head?
How young is this age-mate of my mother?
* * *
The woman with whom I share my husband
Walks as if her shadow
Has been captured,
You can never hear
Her footsteps;
She looks as if
She has been ill for a long time!
Actually she is starving
She does not eat
She says she fears getting fat,
That the doctor has prevented her
From eating,
She says a beautiful woman
Must be slim like a white woman;
And when she walks
You hear her bones rattling,
Her waist resembles that of the hornet.
The beautiful one is dead dry
Like a stump,
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She is meatless
Like a shell
On a dry river bed.
* * *
But my husband despised me,
He laughs at me,
He says he is too good
To be my husband.
Ocol says he is not
The age-mate of my grandfather
To live with someone like me
Who has not been to school.
He speaks with arrogance,
Ocol is bold;
He says these things in broad daylight.
He says there is no difference
Between me and my grandmother
Who covers herself with animal skins.
* * *
I am not unfair to my husband,
I do not complain
Because he wants another woman
Whether she is young or aged!
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Who has ever prevented men
From wanting women?
Who has discovered the medicine for thirst?
The medicines for hunger
And anger and enmity
Who has discovered them?
In the dry season the sun shines
And rain falls in the wet season.
Women hunt for men
And men want women!
When I have another woman
With whom I share my husband,
I am glad.
A woman who is jealous
Of another, with whom she shares a man,
Is jealous because she is slow,
Lazy and shy,
Because she is cold, weak, clumsy!
The competition for a man's love
Is fought at the cooking place
When he returns from the field
Or from the hunt,
You win him with a hot bath
And sour porridge.
The wife who brings her meal first
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Whose food is good to eat,
Whose dish is hot
Whose face is bright
And whose heart is clean
And whose eyes are not dark
Like the shadows:
The wife who jokes freely
Who eats in the open
Not in the bed room,
One who is not dull
Like stale beer,
Such is the woman who becomes
The head-dress keeper.
I do not block my husband's path
From his new wife.
If he likes, let him build for her
An iron roofed house on the hill!
I do not complain,
My grass thatched house is enough for me.
I am not angry
With the woman with whom
I share my husband.
I do not fear to compete with her.
All I ask
Is that my husband should stop the insults,
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My husband should refrain
From heaping abuses on my head.
He should stop being half-crazy,
And saying terrible things about my mother.
Listen Ocol, my old friend,
The ways of your ancestors
Are good,
Their customs are solid
And not hollow
They are not thin, not easily breakable
They cannot be blown away
By the winds
Because their roots reach deep into the soil.
I do not understand
The ways of foreigners
But I do not despise their customs.
Why should you despise yours?
Listen, my husband,
You are the son of a Chief.
The pumpkin in the old homestead
Must not be uprooted!
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Kamau Brathwaite’s “The Arrivants”
Bermudas
begins to breathe gently into green
into light & light green
until there are like blue
ribs upon the water. dreaming
and the ribs of water’s colour are the gills
of the first fish breathing
the first land the first eye
-lann
until there is what should not be here
on the water
white
footsteps of sand from the bottom of the ocean
become the thin road to Eleuthera
long & thin upon the water walking
until there is suddenly a black stone
a dark
veil kabala surrounding by whorls
of worship green water scallops
folding into themselves like soft
jewels the first huge fish
out of creation
w/ribs veins glimpse
of a tail & deep channels in between
where they will be mountains & ridges
& villages & ozure indigo sunsets
of lapis lazuli & white salt marking its finely corrugated edges
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& stretching out into thousands of tongues. miles
of soft drifting labials. like pellucid love
on the water. this fish
from the air of so many so many untangles
& 10 thousand years later there are trees
glistening sunlight & listening rain & white streets
& houses & people walkin bout & talkn to each other on the water &
across
its blue echo
& thinking of horses & houses & now soon after midday there are great
ob
-long blotches like a stain
of milk & a great spider spreading itself along the pale glazing bottom of
the water. and this great planet passing upwards towards us
out this silence & drifting & blessing of the water
Bread
Slowly the white dream wrestle(s) to life
hands shaping the salt and the foreign cornfields
the cold flesh kneaded by fingers
is ready for the charcoal for the black wife
of heat the years of green sleeping in the volcano.
the dream becomes tougher. settling into its shape
like a bullfrog. suns rise and electrons
touch it. walls melt into brown. moving to crisp and crackle
breathing edge of the knife of the oven.
noise of the shop. noise of the farmer. market.
on this slab of lord. on this table w/ its oil-skin cloth
on this altar of the bone. this sacrifice
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of isaac. warm dead. warm merchandise. more than worn merchandise
life
itself. the dream of the soil itself
flesh of the god you break. peace to your lips. strife
of the multitudes who howl all day for its saviour
who need its crumbs as fish. flickering through their green element
need a wide glassy wisdom
to keep their groans alive
and this loaf here. life
now halted. more and more water add-
itive. the dream less clear. the soil more distant
its prayer of table. bless of lips. more hard to reach w/ penn-
ies. the knife
that should have cut it. the hands that should have broken open its victory
of crusts at your throat. balaam watching w/ red leak
-ing eyes. the rats
finding only this young empty husk
sharp-
ening their ratchets. your wife
going out on the streets. searching searching
her feet tapping. the lights of the motor-
cars watching watching round-
ing the shape of her girdle. her back naked
rolled into night into night w/out morning
rolled into dead into dead w/out vision
rolled into life into life w/out dream
Soweto
Out of this roar of innumerable demons
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hot cinema tarzan sweat
rolling moth ball eyes yellow teeth
cries of claws slashes clanks
a faint high pallor
dust
oceans rolling over the dry sand of the savanna
your houses homes warm still with the buffalo milk
bladder of elephant . tusk of his stripped tree
sing soft clinks
but the barracks
the dark dark barks of the shark
boys
the cool juice of soweto . . .
out of this dust they are coming
our eyes listen out of rhinoceros thunder
darkness of lion
the whale roar stomping in heaven
that black bellied night of hell and helleluia
when all the lights of anger flicker flicker flicker flicker
and we know somewhere there there is real fire
basuto mokhethi namibia azania shaka the zulu kenyatta the shatt
erer the maasai wandering into the everlasting shadow of jah
daughters lost daughters
bellowing against bullhorn and kleghorn
bellowing against bargwart and the searchlights of dogs
bellowing against crick and the kick in the stomach
the acrid wretch against the teeth
bellowing against malan malan malam malan
and boer and boerwreck and boertrek and truckloads of metal
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helmet and fusil and the hand grenade
and acid rhodes and the diamonds of oppenheimer
the opulence of voortresshers the grass streiders . . .
suddenly like that fire the crows in johannesburg
you were there
torn. in tears. tatters
but the eyes glittered and the fist
clenching around that scream of your mother bled
into a black head of hammers
and the night fell howl
on soweto
the night fell howl
on soweto
and we who had failed to listen all. those. foot. steps
who had given you up like a torn paper package
your heroes burning in your houses
rising from your dust bowls
flaring from the sky
listen now as the news items lengthen
gathering like hawks looking upward like the
leopard plunging into the turmoil like the
constrictor
and that crouch/shot
shout out against that beast and pistol
the police who shot patrice who castrated kimathi
and clattering clattering clattering clattering
the veldts gun metals wings
rise from their last supper their hunger of bones
bomba
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and the daniels sing
ukufa akuqheleki kodwa ke
kuthiwa akuhlanga lungehlanga
lalani ngenxeba nikhuzeka
and we are rowing out to sea where the woman
lived with her pipe and her smoke
shack
and her tea in the tea
pot
tankard of hopes
herbs
lamagora afele
izwe lawo
and we are rowing out to sea
where there are farms
and our farmers laid waste the land
to make honey. we are the bells of the land . . .
dumminit
dumminit
lit by lantern and lamp
damp
dumminit
ash/can
kero
sene glow
can
dle &
glare
dumminit
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hitting the head of the h/anvil
huh
drumminit
?
his school/book
huh
but to learn
blood
what is blood
hah
but to bless
dream
and that hill now under the ocean
and the pages splashed with his blood
and that bullet a hero a hero herero . . .
once the germans destroyed every sperm
in your village every man who could walk
every nim growing into the noom and nam of yr man/hood
they stripped skin and made catapults skulls were their pelmets
upon the wall
and the torn feet cracked and stacked and streggaed
rubbish heap . dog howl . cenotaph
and for days there was stench over the grasslands
and for months there was silence upon the trees
cow . goat . udder . manyatta
bantustan upon the land . . .
and then it was gone like all hero hero herero
like your canoe upon the land . . .
walking back down now from the shores of kikuyu water
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washing back down now from Swahili laughter
zimbabwe kinshasa limpopo
always limpopo the limper the healer
it comes down from the ruins of the north
from the lakes of the luo
from the sunlights and sunrise of the east
as antient as sheba as wise as the pharaohs
as holy as the early morning mists of ityopia
an i
man
tek long
time to
reach hey
but a
bomb
an de lim
popo drop
down
an de
dread
come
an de
wreck
age soon
done
soon
soon
Soweto
we have waited so long for this signal
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this howl of your silence
this heat of herero this hero
and i beheld the great beast strangled
howling in its chains
led by the fetlocks
and the opulence useless
and the long guns shattered and silent
and we rise
mushroom
cloud
mau mau
Kilimanjaro
silvers of eagles
tears
savannas
nzingas of rivers
umklaklabulus of mountains
and the unutterable metal of the
volcano
rising
rising
rising
burning
soon
soon
soon
soweto
bongo man a come
bongo man a come
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bruggadung
bongo man a come
bongo man a come
bruggadung
bruggadung
bruggadung
bruggadung
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