Poetry, song and stories
Somali work songs and children's verse: from the mortar to the watering well
Somalis have short song forms for almost every task: pounding grain in the mortar, watering camels (shubaal), churning butter, marching lambs. Children's songs such as 'Maqalay warlay' and 'Waryaa waraabe' use the same short metres. Scholar Maxamed Cabdillaahi Riiraash describes these as the building blocks of the longer forms like the jiifto and geeraar.
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). 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).
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):
- 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).
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). 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 (Rirache). 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
Sources
- Rirache, Somali poetic genres · archiv2.sfd.at
- Jama 1994, Oral Tradition 9/1, p. 187 · journal.oraltradition.org
Toosoo!
Calankii is made by Toosoo, which works for one united, prosperous Somalia.
Can you help with Somali work songs and children's verse: from the mortar to the watering well? Tell us what you can give.
I want to help with this
Same era
- Australia18,401 people of Somali ancestry and 8,101 born in Somalia lived in Australia at the 2021 Census, more than half in Victoria. History, work, issues.
- Birmingham (Somali diaspora)About 17,000 to 21,600 Somalis live in Birmingham (Census 2021), mostly in Nechells, Newtown, Small Heath and Alum Rock. History, work, health and ties home.
- Denmark (Somali diaspora)21,885 people of Somali origin lived in Denmark in 2026, half born there. Numbers, history, work, permit reviews, and ties home.
- DjiboutiAbout 13,900 refugees from Somalia live in Djibouti (Aug 2026): numbers since 1990, Ali Addeh, Holl-Holl, the 2017 refugee law, Arta 2000 and 2025 returns.
- Ethiopia (Somali refugees and the Somali Region)About 368,000 refugees from Somalia live in Ethiopia (Oct 2026): numbers since 1988, Dollo Ado, Jijiga, Addis Ababa's Bole Michael, the law and aid cuts.
- Finland (Somali diaspora)28,167 Somali speakers lived in Finland at the end of 2025, more than half in Helsinki. Numbers, history, work, leaders and ties home.
Keep reading
- Somali poetry (maanso): the forms, the poets and its place todaySomali poetry explained: gabay, geeraar, jiifto, buraambur and alliteration; poets from the Sayyid to Timacadde, Hadraawi and Gaarriye; the Deelley debate.
- Somali poetic metre (miisaan): how gabay, geeraar and jiifto are measuredHow Somali poetry is measured: long and short vowels, the miisaan of gabay, geeraar, jiifto and work songs, and the scholars who decoded it from 1976.
- Geeraar: the short-lined Somali poem once recited on horsebackThe geeraar metre of Somali poetry: its line, its fixed core, the particles that do not count, its history on horseback, and Faarax Nuur's poem.
- Somali women's poetry: buraambur and the poets who broke throughBuraambur and Somali women's poetry: the form, why women's poems did not travel, and how radio, cassettes and groups like Allah-Amin carried them.
- Somali music: from balwo and heello to Waaberi and the Mogadishu bandsA history of Somali music: balwo, heello and qaraami, Abdullahi Qarshe, Radio Hargeisa, Waaberi, Magool, the Mogadishu bands, the war years and the revival.
- Balwo: the short love song that began modern Somali musicBalwo, the Somali love song genre: Abdi Sinimo and the first balwo, the different accounts of where and when, the first balwo band in Borama, religious opposition, and the move to heello.