Kaffir baby, Kaffir baby,
Going to the kraal,
Are you really comfortable
Hanging in your shrawl?
Niddle noddle, niddle noddle,
Goes your little head,
Keeping time, all willy nilly,
To your mother's tread.
Any little English baby,
In your place, would bake:
If its head went wag as yours does,
O how it would ache!
When you grow a little bigger
You will run all bare,
In the heat of summer weather
And the winter air.
Any little English babies --
Babies such as I --
If they lived the life that you do,
I am sure, would die.
Yet you look quite fat and happy
Hanging in your shawl,
And, when you're a grown-up Kaffir,
You'll be strong and tall.
You will drive a team of oxen,
You will sow and dig --
Just the things that I should like to
Do, when I am big.
Notes
1] Kaffir: Bantu (black African).
2] kraal: "A village of Southern or Central African native peoples, consisting of a collection of huts surrounded by a fence or stockade, and often having a central space for cattle, etc."
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Comments
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A poem simulating a white child in Africa chanting as children do. Acceptable then but now...?
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