Urhobo Children’s Aboriginal Songs: Values and Benefits

Abstract

Over the years, the Urhobo of Delta State place high value on their indigenous music. From history, their children learnt many of their cultural values through the performance of folksongs. This played pivotal roles in indigenous musical and non-musical knowledge transfer to the children and as well, served as a means of cultural knowledge integration. Today, this practice is gradually fading away due to civilization and the Eurocentric nature of the Nigerian educational system. This paper therefore, focuses on Urhobo children’s aboriginal songs, taking cognizance of their values and benefits. Using interview and observation as the main instruments for data collection, the study reveals that indigenous songs are didactic in nature and assist to thrive entertainment performed among the Urhobo pre-colonial period. The paper recommends that indigenous songs should be the source of early music learning at pre- and basic schools’ levels of education in order to enhance their preservation and sustenance.