Doing Chumburung songs—A taxonomy of styles Gillian Hansford ...

or war or hunting. Some are nkyo̱rɔ iliŋ “praise songs” such as “We will follow
him”, some are asuŋ iliŋ “work songs” such as “I say do not cry again” and some
neither of these categories.
Palogo dancing has been dropped in some towns in recent years since the current
fashion for funerals is to hire a set of amplifiers, have “cassette iliŋ” and high-life
music to which they do a minimal dance, each person separately and with no
singing. There is so much competition to keep up with everybody else that the
recently deceased chief of one town is said to have instructed that there be no
“dance” when he died, but they should do traditional dancing for him. There is
no indication that any other styles of singing are dying out.
2. School songs
This next group of songs was sung for me when I visited schools as I toured the
area concerning starting to set up a literacy campaign. The initiative in each
place was that of the teacher.
The first of these songs (Example 6) used a borrowed tune, but its provenance is
unknown. This time the person being celebrated was me, my proverbial name
being Ba-ko̱te̱-ane̱. The second song (Example 7) is saddish, but not sufficiently
so that I classified it as a sorrow song (see Section 5). In the third, notice again
the phrases that encourage unity. All these songs, and fourteen more, were sung
by a class of children in Gurubi Primary school, teacher Miss Cecilie Dapah.
Three boys played expertly on pe̱ŋteṟe̱ŋ drums, and the others numbered about
twenty-five, both boys and girls.
Example 6
Ŋ yɛ n de mo̱ nyare̱ ko̱,
Ba te̱e̱ mo̱ ̀ ɛ Ba-ko̱te̱-ane̱,
Mo̱n' gyaŋŋaa mo̱ ̀ ooo
Mo̱n' waa mo̱ ̀ atuu.
I say I have a certain friend,
They call her They-imitate-us,
You should meet her ooo
You should give her a special welcome.
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