Nupe oral literature genres III
Spoken genres, gã̀gã,̀ are as follows;
Proverbs. These are usually known as gàmǎgà, which also applies to
‘story’, ‘allegory’, ‘idiom’ and sometimes also ‘riddle’.
A typical Nupe proverb;
Giama gà ánìkĩ̂, zũ̀yě ásũ Sòkó
When a chameleon stumbles,
God is put to shame
The capacity to weave proverbs
into oratory was traditionally seen as part of the quality of a good speaker, although this is
becoming less so, as the proverbs themselves become more
obscure.