Leeba

Mohapeloa wrote many songs about birds, becoming aware of them particularly while he was taking sunbaths in 1929-30 as a cure for tuberculosis. He told his daughter-in-law that he used to sit “listening to the birds chirping” and “started to love nature, started to appreciate what was around him. He started to appreciate the countryside. He thought, ‘this is a wonderful country, I can write a lot about it’” (Nts’iuoa Mohapeloa, Author’s Interview, 28 Sep. 2006). Dove calls are the most common natural sounds in Africa, and in Lesotho there are several species of dove and pigeon. Mohapeloa doesn’t just imitate the dove’s call in ‘Leeba’, but also uses it to represent the hiccupping of a drunkard.