Ogoni Children’s Lullabies, Rhymes And Songs

Parents, siblings, relatives and nurses are aware of the simple needs of children which are hunger, thirst, cold, heat and clothes.  Other themes are sorrow, joy and the environment.  The mind of the child is developed to be acquainted with material and immaterial culture of his people.  The simple themes are developed in the form and language of the child –simple to comprehend and rhythmical to retain in the mind.

     The child is the youngest being among humans.  This makes everyone to give him attention and care.  He has not known how to speak the human language; he uses instinct to express his desires for food and water.  The child cries for attention which is the symbolic demand for either of the things mentioned or sleep.

     Every parent, trained nurse or experienced adult examines the child when he cries and determines the particular need of the child.  The mother knows when the child cries for breast milk and gives it to him; he becomes pacified immediately showing that the language of crying has sent the right signal to the decoder, the mother, who has done the exact thing.  The same thing applies to the need of thirst.  The mother knows when it is the right time to give the child water as well as the right quantity to give.

     Cold is one of the themes of the songs.  The mother observes the child and clothes him when he needs clothes, or when there is excessive heat and the need arises to stripe the child naked.  Either of the conditions could make the child demand attention.  The details may not be stated in the songs but crying is a vehicle of interpretation and understanding of the child.

  Knowledge is a theme of the songs; adults want the child to be acquainted with the environment and the objects in it.  The child hears an adult sing the song of lion eating goat or fowl and learns about the objects in the environment.  He comes to know that lion is stronger and a carnivorous animal while the other is a domestic and harmless animal.  He is warned not to go to the river alone to fetch water or the shore to fetch firewood; he learns in the process that he could drown, only those who have learned how to swim could fetch water.

     The child learns ethics of the society from some of the songs. One is the song about a child who is given stolen fish; he reports the incident to the mother on arrival from farm and adds that he also ate the fish.  He is taught in the process that stealing is not good; those who do so are disregarded.

     The child is encouraged to run errands for elders; a child who does so is praised as a good child while the one who refuses is a naughty one.  He learns to please parents and elders in this regard.  This makes him gain acceptance into the society.

  The child must learn how to work hard like elders.  He should not sit idle and wait for elders to cook and prepare food for him; he could wash plates or run errands.  He should participate in communal farming.  The latter is about economic relations and hard work; a song tells a story of a woman who does not join the owners of a farm to weed nor plant crops but is the foremost participant in harvesting the crops.

     The male child and the female child are taught neatness through rhymes; they sing at one another in a duel stating that each stinks and invariably demand for the obvious.  Only the child who is neat is cherished and loved; he does not stink, his friends do not run away from him or her.

   Game rhymes help the child to overcome tedium; he relaxes his muscles in playing; he prepares for another time of learning after the games which help to condition his body and mind.  They help him to be acquainted with certain sounds and actions.

The child learns socialisation through rhymes.  He interacts with his fellow children in learning the rhymes.  He competes with them to be familiar with sounds, objects and the language of the clan. He may become outstanding through learning from the adult and later leading his friends in singing the rhymes, perhaps teaching other children unfamiliar wih them.

     Counselling may take place in nursery or primary sections of formal education.  Indeed, it may be within the traditional society.  A child may be talented in singing and dancing; he could be advised to continue with them; he could take either of them as vocation, or become a theatre artist in life.  Either may become very obvious at the secondary level when consolidation has taken place or if new areas of interest come to the fore, he could decide for any other career.

     Praise epithets are predominant in songs for the child.  The child is praised as good and handsome.  He is a child of valour and a child of lion.  These are some of the praise names given to the child to make him happy; he is encouraged to develop the praise qualities in the praise songs.  Some praise songs for children terminate in counterpoints of dispraise; irony, understatement and invective are used in them; they interplay to dissuade the child from developing bad traits.  This category of songs praises and mocks the child.

     The adult is regarded as good if he buys fish for the child, agidi or any other food from the market.  This is not stated obviously in the songs but covertly through soliciting for the co-operation of the child through the expectations of the adult and his role to the child.  The adult is the dominant personality who participates in the two dominant rhythms of joy and sorrow in the life of the child.  He does these through words and gifts or food.

     The language of rhymes is simple.  The simplicity derives from short words, short lines, rhythmic words and repetition of vowel sounds.  These also account for the musicality of the rhymes.  The simple language enables the child to comprehend the rhymes while the vowels, sounds, short phrases and sentences make the rhymes memorable.  The child of six learns how to sing the songs along with the adult.

Few rhymes rise beyond plain language to symbolism.  The symbols ‘rain’ and ‘frog’ in one rhyme connote abnormality or excessive crying ‘Great drops of rain’ are depicted as hindering ‘the movement of a frog’; the symbols connote excessive crying of a child; his crying disrupts a peaceful atmosphere and prevents adults from working.

   Indeed there are lullabies, rhymes and songs in Ogoni.  Some of them are about the behaviour of children, lulling them to sleep and their games; some are about the adult world: professions, attitudes and biological traits of parents.

   Do the songs portray consciousness? What kind? The simple world of the child and the worldview of the people constitute the consciousness.  The psychology of the child, the environment, relations of the adult to the child, simple expectations of the child and the expectations of the adult for the child are layers of meaning behind the rhymes, lullabies and songs.  Some of them reveal realities of the adult world.  Realities about the child and adult world meet in them; the proportion of the earlier is greater; the latter anticipates his growth and participation in the adult world.

Dr Ngaage is of the Dept of English and Literary Studies, Niger Delta University State.