A Yoruba Ìjálá (hunting poem) from Nigeria

Buffalo, we salute you:
Butterfly of the savannah
skimming along without touching the grass:
Corpulent (fat) beast,
equally at home in the thick forest
and in the wooded plain:
You have not presented the hunter with a wife
and yet he prostrates himself before you
Hunters pose ceremonially on the head
of the elephant they have just killed,
But who would dare pose on the head of a fallen buffalo,
the raging buffalo of the bone-hard horns?
Let the hunter whose medicinal charms have lost their potency
give up chasing the buffalo
In case the beast accidentally devours him like grass.
The demon who frightens a young hunter,
making him scramble up even the thorniest tree:
The demon who has razors at the tips of his horns:
Buffalo, ancient beast,
when you hear roaring
and there is no rain,
that is the buffalo!

Thanks to Africanpoems.net. You can read the poem on their site here:
http://africanpoems.net/praise/buffalo/