Si-na ma-ma Si-na ba-bai Si-na ma-
ma Ma-ri-ya si-na ba-bai, si-na ma-ma.
Si-na ma-ma wa-ku le-wa na-ye, si-
na ma-ma, ma-ma ndi-we Ma-ri-ya.
The meaning of the words (collated from two printed sources and my own notes) is: ‘I have no mother, I have no father; I have no mother, Mary, I have no father; I have no mother, to be nursed by her; I have no mother—thou art my mother, O Mary!’ This song is often heard on the Shiré; but, containing as it does, a faint echo of Romanist teaching, probably originated in one of the Portuguese settlements on the Zambezi.
Another Shiré boat-song is Wachenjera kale, which, when I heard it, I took for a very à propos improvisation, having, I suppose, utterly forgotten the following passage from Livingstone’s Zambezi Expedition, which I must have read, but which struck me as quite new when I came across it a few months later. ‘In general they [the men of Mazaro or Vicenti on the Lower Zambezi] are trained canoe-men, and man many of the canoes plying to Senna and Tette; their pay is small, and, not trusting the traders, they must always have it before they start.... It is possible they may be good-humouredly giving their reason for insisting on being invariably paid in advance in the words of their favourite canoe-song, “Uachingere [uniformity in spelling African words is, even now, not much more than a pious aspiration], uachingere kale,” “You cheated me of old,” or “Thou art slippery, slippery truly.”’ I prefer the former rendering; and, moreover, my men repeated the Wachenjera thrice. There seemed to be no more of the song.
A very pretty corn-pounding song heard at Blantyre is as follows:—