# Somali work songs and children's verse: from the mortar to the watering well

> Somali work songs (hees hawleed) and children's verse: mortar songs, watering songs, butter-churning songs and children's rhymes, and how their metres work.

Source page: https://calankii.com/en/society/somali-work-songs/
Last checked: 2026-11-13
Publisher: Calankii (https://calankii.com)

## A song for every task

The Djibouti scholar Maxamed Cabdillaahi Riiraash (Rirache), working with Cabdi Migane and Cumar Macallin, set out to identify the small Somali song forms. He wrote that "as an oral society Somalis devised songs for every type of work", and that their short lines and steady rhythm let every herding child learn them young ([Rirache, Somali poetic genres](https://archiv2.sfd.at/akademie/2002/klassen/dirie/vorlesung/somalipoetry.pdf)). He found most short forms in children's verse and treated them as the base of the longer forms.

Zainab Mohamed Jama notes that much work poetry was composed by women and has become a folk form with no named author ([Jama 1994, Oral Tradition 9/1, p. 187](https://journal.oraltradition.org/wp-content/uploads/files/articles/9i/9_1_complete.pdf)).

## Work songs Riiraash recorded

Riiraash measured each line by its vowel units, a long vowel counting two, and by how the line splits into two balancing halves ([Rirache](https://archiv2.sfd.at/akademie/2002/klassen/dirie/vorlesung/somalipoetry.pdf)):

- **The mortar song (mooyaha)**, sung by women pounding grain. It is the shortest form found: four units, 2 and 2. *Mooyaha / magacii* ("The mortar, what is its name?").
- **The watering song (shubaal)**, sung at the well. Six units in three pairs: *Geelu geel fulay* ... *Haka daba fulo*.
- **The butter-churning song**, sung while shaking milk in the **dhiil** or **khode** vessels: ten units, 4 and 6. *Haantii Buroy ii bax* ("O milk vessel Buro, give me butter").

## Children's verse

- **Maqalay warlay**, sung while driving young lambs: seven units, 4 and 3. The lines run *Maqalay warlay / Ma laguu warramay / Ina Cali la dilay* ("O little lamb that has not heard, were you not told that Cali's son was killed?").
- **Waryaa waraabe**, a rhyme to the hyena: seven units, 3 and 4, with fixed positions. *Waryaa waraabe / Xaggeed ku roori* ("Hey hyena, where are you running to?").
- **Heellada Butiile**, about Buti, a monster from a children's story: eight units, 4 and 4.
- **Maroodi cadhoole**, about an elephant with a skin disease: eight units, 4 and 4, with every position fixed.

All examples are from Riiraash ([Rirache](https://archiv2.sfd.at/akademie/2002/klassen/dirie/vorlesung/somalipoetry.pdf)).

## Dance songs

The **marjuuqa**, used at certain points in the **sedexlay** folk dance, has six units split 2 and 4, as in *Naa malayko / May linkayga* ([Rirache](https://archiv2.sfd.at/akademie/2002/klassen/dirie/vorlesung/somalipoetry.pdf)). The **hirwo**, also called wiglo or dhaanto, joins two watering-song lines into one: *Sidii cirku hoo / ray meel Cossobloo*.

## How long forms grow from short ones

Riiraash writes that new forms come from adding or dropping vowel units. The four-unit mortar line plus three units gives *Maqalay warlay*; plus five gives the **jiifto**, the metre of most dance songs; plus six gives the butter-churning song. Adding one short vowel to *Maroodi cadhoole* gives a line of the [geeraar](/en/society/geeraar/) ([Rirache](https://archiv2.sfd.at/akademie/2002/klassen/dirie/vorlesung/somalipoetry.pdf)). He concluded that "genre formation is a continuous process in Somali poetry" and that modern poets keep making new metres by joining old ones.

## Read more

- [Somali poetic metre](/en/society/somali-poetic-metre/)
- [Somali music](/en/society/somali-music/)
- [Somali poetry](/en/society/somali-poetry/)

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