Bring to mind the days of our fathers:

before the word came they wore grass skirts,

but you tended them on the slopes

like flocks on Mount Gilead.

We perish for lack of diviners

to ask about Africa's tracks,

so we took our sticks and set out

to find our far-famed home.

Long ago the whites brought the word;

we're confused that it bends with the wind:

over there it's with God, over here it flogs us.

I'm quite confused: I'd better scram.

There are tears today in African homes,

we're swept off bound in the stream of despair.

Christians, because of this schooling of ours

we're Christians by day, but hyenas by night.

Long ago God's word arrived

but recent events confuse us.

Return to your roots, black man of Africa:

we're swept away in the stream of despair.

It didn't seem much, but we're drowning;

we say we'll escape and regroup.

We pinned our hopes on a miracle:

some died with nothing to show for it.

We perish for lack of diviners

as if every home housed a witch.

We make a big thing of this schooling:

we're swept away in a stream—nothing's left.

All this applies to us, my people:

we poured out our homestead and left it.

Our treasures are gone and we bear the blame:

we shunned our home for a flash in the pan.

Strangers to us, the shades depart

and we sink in the stream of despair;

we're not drowned yet, we bob up and down:

perhaps the shades will take up our case.

We're swept off in bowls of white people's liquor,

we're swept off by this schooling we valued:

today our voice, drowned in a whirlwind,

calls faintly from the skies.

Ntsikana brought the word long ago.

I lost the thread: who doesn't know?

We shunned our customs, blaming Africa,

and turned into long-tailed birds.

Peace!!