ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on both the traditional and the current position in that continent, with conclusions based on a combination of ethnographic work, documentary sources, oral tradition and images. Although less known than children’s lore elsewhere, especially that so well documented by Peter and Iona Opie, children’s play in Africa has long been recorded and admired. The explicit purpose of riddles, then, is almost invariably amusement. Commentators have, however, predictably pointed to many of their incidental functions as well. The nonsense frequently takes the form of a kind of follow-up or progressive rhyme, usually in dialogue. In one form or another, this type of verbal play has been recorded from several parts of the continent. The children whose round games were studied by Tucker were mostly boys from various Southern Sudanese peoples. The Kuanyama Ambo of South West Africa use antiphonal love poems in courtship, with call and response between man and girl.
