Praising Heroes with Superior Morality in Hausa Songs: A Treatise of Courage

The aim of this article is to examine the role played by Gobir’s courage in protecting the city-state and the significance of superior morality in dousing problems that courage might cause and its importance to spectator(s) as portrayed by the lyrics of the song, Bahagon Gulbi. The song features some qualities of war and is a court song, which consists of courage and manliness and the immemorial character of Gobirawa time. Using the purposive sampling strategy, thirteen stanzas (13) were selected from the song while examining courage and superior morality. The findings revealed that the lyrical structures of the song motivated Gobirawa’s confidence, courage and wisdom of their heroes accordingly. In other words, the singer’s superior morality guides his courage to benefit from wisdom in praising heroes to go to war and defend the city-state and not be afraid of nothing but believe in Allah because one may die even at home. Akwara’s sermon to Gobirawa has faith in dying while protecting the city-state as a noble death and respecting superior authority as superior morality. With this belief in mind, he encourages his master to pay homage to Sarkin Musulmi Muhammadu Tambari (1924-1930) for peace and harmony to reign significantly between the two states. Succinctly, the song celebrates, encourages and appreciates Gobirawa to reinvent while learning from the past.