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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Hausa Poetry on the Nigerian Civil War |
Author: | Furniss, Graham L. |
Year: | 1991 |
Periodical: | African Languages and Cultures |
Volume: | 4 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 21-28 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Nigeria Northern Nigeria |
Subjects: | Hausa civil wars oral poetry poetry Nigerian-Biafran War Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Literature, Mass Media and the Press Ethnic and Race Relations |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/1771678 |
Abstract: | During the civil war years (1967-1970) in Nigeria, a considerable body of material in verse was produced in Hausa, much of it the result of a 1968 poetry competition asking for poems in praise of the Federal forces. The author shows how this war poetry exploits the three major categories of Hausa oral and written verse, namely, praise, vilification and narrative. The war poems of praise are interesting in that they praise not only the great men of the society but also the ordinary soldiers. The poems of vilification, again highly personalized, focus for the most part on Ojukwu, the Biafran leader. The narrative poetry gives an account of events preceding the war and the sequence of events during the war itself. Bibliogr., notes. |