Structural Patterns in the Performance of a Xhosa Izibongo

Abstract

P RAISE POETRY, in formulation of Ruth Finnegan, is the type for court poetry and is one of most developed and elaborate poetic genres in Africa (111). It is a form of poetry encountered not only throughout Africa: praise poetry is a significant mode of poetic expression in Middle East and in Polynesia, in early western Europe (clearly testified among ancient Greeks, Celts, and Germanic peoples, for example) and in Asia.' Praise poems are essentially exercises in individuation (the term is Kwesi Yankah's), encapsulating in a concatenation of discrete nominal references distinctiveness of a person, comprising often elliptical allusions to lineage, physical and moral characteristics, and actions in subject's public career. Although they traffic in historical allusions and references to ancestors, praise poems are rooted in present, and readily respond to context of performance, expressing exultation after battle, for example, gratitude at a gift, or grief for dead at a funeral.2 Traditions of praise poetry seem readily to adapt to altered social circumstances: a tradition of poetry in praise of secular rulers may be exploited to refer to newly-introduced Christian God or to ecclesiastical leaders; or, with removal of royal patrons, poets