PATTERNS OF OROMO LYRICS

PATTERNS OF OROMO LYRICS

By Assefa Tefera Dibaba (PhD)
Indiana University 

The poetics of liberation to define and sustain a unified narrative of the nation can take many forms. A liberation narrative spanning the long protracted Oromo national struggle can take the form of lyrics and folksongs, poems, storytellings, oral history, pictures (photography and videography), and paintings, live performances and festivals like Irreecha, Buttaa, and Gumi (Gaayo). This brief essay draws on one song by Leencoo Daye and presents some accounts of contemporary Oromo lyrics and folksongs.

It is Christmas. And I got a Christmas gift this Oromo (folk) song (Leencoo Daye's "Dibaabee Koo" / "My Shade") early on this morning from one generous Oromo immigrant whom I esteem most and call Wami. I love the song and value the gift for its own sake and for it made my day!

I thought it is true Christmas is not a time or a reason nor a cause; it is a state of mind or turn in our heart that rules our thoughts, words and actions to say/do good to others! So being, Christmas, I thought, should be less a religious creed than a personal principle to be and do good to others (and to ourselves) not as a seasonal adjustment but as a personal pattern of thought to follow! Now I turned to this song from Wami and felt it my social responsibility to share a few words not just about this particular song but also about the narrative trends the Oromo songs are taking to date.

In "Dibaabee" like other current Oromo lyrics, the dialogic mode of communication or the "kottu-dhufee" Gadaa mode of call and response, is significant (see the link below). Qarree says most empathically,

ati qeerroo anis qarree
kan koo malee kan kee hin barree
an hin beeku naa cabuu kee
na dhukkuba dhukkubi kee

we are both youth and owe much but
unaware of your hurt and loss I was
I owe you much and I pledge
your hurt is my hurt of this age

And Qeerroo responds in a most philosophically and metaphorically laden tone:

duuti haadha leencaa
waraabessa hin quuquu
harki harka malee
miilli harka hin dhiquu

the death of the lioness hurts the cub
what hurt is it to the hyena anyway!
two hands in unison can wash & clean each other
not a foot but hand for a hand is a match ever!

The theme of this song can be subsumed in the saying, "Near is your shirt, nearer is your skin!!"

A recurrent observation of Oromo songs shows that the narrative trend of the songs lead back and forth into one another creating a non-ending turns and twists of paradoxes and symbolic representations of nuances, unity and diversity embedded in Oromo world view.

The Oromo creative originality, the leaps and tides of the imagination (ILYAADA)—the artistic earthquake which the Waa-hin-yaannee buffoons tried to quiet in vain—draw on this historical paradox of “being” and “becoming” of “Oromummaa/Oromoness. For instance, Hacaaluu Hundessaa’s critique of the persistent social fear and desperation was clearly expressed in his phenomenal lyric titled “Maalan Jira!” (Distracted), which was soon negotiated by his another equally impressive song—“Jirra! Jirra!” (“WE HAVE!”). This Hacaaluu’s latter song is an eventual (not of an immediate consequence) turn of fear of distraction, disintegration and degeneration that haunted us in his “Maalan Jira!” into a song of hope of unity, integration, and harmony among the Oromo—one can think of Hacaaluu’s recent performance at the Millennium Hall.

Many more Oromo songs are examples of dislocation and paradoxes and describe a chronic situation of historic loss, infertility, and oblivion which colors almost all Oromo lyrics. For instance, Jambo Jote’s “Raada Gaarre” / “Infertile Heifer” is the song rich in Oromo national aspiration toward SELF RULE as opposed to uncritical conformity, submissiveness, acquiescence-- the song to which the Qeerroo and Qarree Oromo youth reacted passionately.

In my another essay I discussed that following the ongoing mass protest, Galana Garomsa, another young folksinger, came up with this revolutionary theme of historic grief of loss injected into the genre of a love song titled “Amala Kee,” meaning, “Your Vibe”:

Salgan Haroo Abbaa Makoo
Iddoo gabaa hin qotani.
Dur manni keenya asoo
gamoo itti ijaarattanii.

The nine pools of Abba Makoo,
It is taboo to plow a marketplace.
Oh, our home used to be here—
They evicted us to erect these buildings.

This sense of grief colors Oromo songs in praise of the ancestral (home)land, FINFINNE, as a metaphor of wholesomeness and regeneration, as a meeting ground of the ancestral spirits (ayaana) of the strong breed, amid the ongoing national struggle for democratic rights. It is a song of restoring the broken hope and fixing the mutilated dreams.

In these lines Hacaaluu reiterates the deep-seated resentment about divisions and the historical loss:

Gullalleen kan Tufaa
Gaara Abbichuu turii
Galaan Finfinnee dha..see
Silaa akka jaalalaa
5 Walirraa hin fagaannuu
Jara t’ nu fageessee!

Gullalle of Tufaa
Abbichu’s mountainous land
And Finfinne of Galan
Love contains all
We never chose to grow apart,
But they pushed us apart to fall!

The ethnonyms Gullalle, Galan, and Gaara Abbichu represent in the song the lineages of the same name of the Tulama branch which Major Harris of the British envoy wrote of his eyewitness account in the first half of the 19th century.

This narrative pattern follows the trends of those lyrics by Ali Birra, Laggasa Abdi, and more. The current Oromo protest songs built in love lyrics express the unheeded deep seated Oromo resentment and the decades of protracted struggle for democratic justice.

Finally, as we pull the weeds and mound up the dirt on the border between, lets keep singing and making more new work songs. Along this journey TOGETHER note that the work song is part of the work, not a work itself! Daboon dhaqa hin geerartu, gala geerarti!

Thank you Biftu for sending to me this link to the lyric Dibaabee on Youtube and Wami for this priceless and most inspiring Christmas gift!

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Leencoo Daye, "DIBAABEE KOO" ? "MY SHADE", 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LGoTcdKul4