This is a saga of an African tribe who lived a long time ago; a very long time before the coming of the first Europeans to their part of the world. It is a narrative verse which finely blends the elements of prose and poetry to tell a story that takes the reader over distant lands, to bear witness to the exploits of a people whom the reader would never otherwise get to see.
Genre: POETRY / AfricanChapter 1
A very long time ago,
At a time where but few memories can still go
A maiden was a slave in a distant land
She lived to daily labour with her hands
I know not of the state of her mind,
Or whether her master was cruel or kind
This was a moment in time,
When men journeyed all the time,
To distant lands across tempestuous seas,
With a gospel of faith and hope and peace,
For the heathen souls and ‘uncivil’ tribes,
That they may learn of a Saviour who heal by His stripes
And so it was that the slave was baptised
And the ways of her heathen people she thence despised
A Christian slave for a Christian master she became
But a slave she was all the same;
For though she was free of the ways of the heathen,
She still longed for freedom every now and then.
Chapter 2
Days came and went
And changes bore testimonies of seasons spent
Into a woman had the slave grown,
That for desire did many a man groan
But for a wife did it never with her master’s people agree;
For they were such who put great store on pedigree;
And a slave girl for a wife was to the status, a stain,
Whether she be heathen or Christian.
But into slavery she was never born
Once, she was a free-born,
Until circumstances dealt her an unpleasant hand,
And cast her off to slave in a distant land
She hoped and dreamed to be free someday,
Chapter 3
Once, some heathen merchants came by
With cowry shells they came to buy
Alas! These merchants were the slave woman’s tribesmen
And she was glad to hear the familiar dialect of these men
| Language | Status |
|---|---|
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Spanish
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Translation in progress.
Translated by Elizabeth Briones Jaimes
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