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Utendi wa Ayubu

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Alice Werner
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Extract

This poem is mentioned by Steere (in the Preface to his Swahili Tales, p. xii) in the following terms: “I should have been glad to have exhibited the whole of the ‘Utenzi on Job’, which was the best I met with, but my authority could give me no more than the beginning, my copy breaking off short in the council of the fiends as to how to avail themselves of the permission to vex Job [st. 37–46]. The stanzas I have printed [1–6 in an imperfect form] are followed by a confession of God's greatness and a long commemoration of Mohammed, his family, and chief followers. Then there is an account of Job's prosperity, mentioning, amongst other things, the ducks and fowls which he had; then the colloquy between Satan and the Almighty, and the planning of the temptation. The language of this Utenzix is singularly clear and intelligible.”

Type
Papers Contributed
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , February 1921 , pp. 85 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1921

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References

1 Utenzi is the Mombasa and Zanzibar form of the word current in Lamu Swahili as utendi. Steere explains it as meaning a religious poem. But a Lamu informant says that an Utendi may deal either with religion or war (rnamho ya vita). It might therefore be called an epic—but that the religious poems are not always of a narrative character.