You are the paramount chief
The high clergy of our people
Tell us, then, the source of your wisdom
“It is the free abandon of a child
She laughs, knowing not her poverty
She runs, knowing nothing of honor
She climbs, knowing the mango is ripe
Did you expect to come here seeing suffering?
We did not intend to become like you
We had not asked for these schools
Have you ever danced naked?
Do so, then tell me you learned nothing
Your hospitals have brought many afflictions
Our mothers once cut us open
Pouring the millet brew in the proper place
Yelling only in ululation, never in pain
When the children were so many
And passing on land became toilsome
Our wives digested their herbs
And we played sex without concern of tomorrow
Before you brought offices and titles
The elders would rise before the sun
Scattering earth upon itself
Until the night fire called us home
And the goats crowded us in delight
We would drink and dance and share our stories
Finally sleep would find us
But that was before you trapped our spirits in boxes
We knew every name from one hill and forest to the next
But our people now pass by one another in great haste
On the backs of foreign animals
Our hamlets are islands
Their outer lands, the waterways
Suitable only for moving, not for digging
So our wisdom lasts a moment
Just as a child lasts a moment before it matures
Our wisdom has become like wind
It once stood firmly in these plains
But now that you have come
It blows where it pleases.”