Portion - universityofafricanart.org

Of their skins.
People thought together went
Sex, drinking and music
In those days at our village.
I was allowed to play around
In real life as in music.
For all the others
It was prime taboo.
A farmer was supposed
To be just as serious
As a shrine priest.
But a shaker of beaded gourds
Had not any
Tax to pay .
If players fancied a wife,
They paid no dowry.
On the reverse,
Inflamed ladies paid them dowry
If ladies desired a bard.
He kept refusing dowries
From the fair sex
As oil shuns water.
Cases were myriad
Of kindled swoons
Who faintly stuffed my pocket
With their dowries
Of two leopard teeth,