VERBAL ART FORMS AS POETIC LICENCE FOR WOMEN: THE CASE OF ILIMA – WOMEN’S WORK SONGS

Cultural songs are one of the highly formulaic verbal art forms through which African women mediate contradictions by commenting on their personal fortunes and tribulations in their married lives. In this medium they may express sentiments that go against the principles of modesty where utterances expressed in everyday social interaction are condemned but where the same ideas expressed in songs are viewed as extraordinary leading to sympathizing with the opinions conveyed. By means of oral melodic forms, therefore, women express true feelings that would otherwise in terms of hlonipha custom be perceived as violating their moral code had they been expressed in an everyday ordinary language. The basis for this article is my PhD study that was carried out between 2004 and 2007 and which interrogated the nature of women’s songs (Zondi, 2008) This discussion only focuses on songs gathered at one of the five women’s social event referred to as ilima- a collective word referring to a group of women who come together with an aim of assisting a fellow woman complete an otherwise time consuming and laborious home based activity. The shared labour manifests ubuntu which is one of the philosophies of life among Africans.Â