A literary study of Kasem lullaby

Abstract

This study engages the literary anthropology to explore Kasena lullabi. Literary anthropology has been used widely to study myth, folklore, belief systems, traditions, culture and the entirety of human activities and thoughts. Three objectives: (1) to investigate the classification of Kasem lullaby, (2) to discuss the structure of Kasem lullabi, (3) to examine the themes found in Kasem lullabi, guided the study and a total of thirty respondents were involved in the data collection using enterviews and observations. Collected data was analysed descriptively. The findings show that (1) Kasem lullabi are based on six classifications namely: generally sung lullabi to calm babies from crying, generic lullabi, scary lullabi, baby feeding lullabi, danceable lullabi and lullabi sung to put babies to bed. (2) The structure of Kasem lullaby comprises 1 - 5 lines. (3) The themes in Kasem lullabi include theme of love and care, praise, joy, regret, frustration, anger, and theme of endurance and risk.