The REAL Origin Of The Word "Ungawa" & Various Ways That Word Has Been Used In The USA

Edited by Azizi Powell

Latest Revision- July 1, 2023

This pancocojams post shares information about the origin and examples of the use of the word "ungawa".

The content of this post is presented for etymological, historical and cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to those who contributed rhyme examples that are included in this post. Thanks also to the publishers of the videos that are mentioned in this post or that are featured in this post.

Special thanks to commenter Anonymous, Nov. 12, 2017 for information about Dizzy Gillespie's 1959 composition entitled "Ungawa". That is the earliest example of the word "ungawa" that I've learned about apart from the Tarzan movies.
 

****
ORIGINS OF THE WORD "UNGAWA"
From https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/wordoriginsorg/umgawa-t8045.html#.VcFKDf3wtv4 Word Origins Archive 15 (07-10/04)  [Numbers added for referencing purposes only]

1. Dr. Techie, Jul 20, 2004
"Originated in Tarzan movies, according to my recollection and this site*/

The movie-Tarzan's favorite utterance, "Ungawa" (also spelled Umgawa and several other ways), was the invention of MGM screenwriter Cyril Hume (and Weissmuller discoverer). For his books, Burroughs created a complete ape language. Hume, who adapted Tarzan, the Ape Man (1932) for the screen, reduced Tarzan's language abilities considerably by inventing the all-purpose command Ungawa, which could mean up, down, halt or go.

OED3 also has this in the draft enty for "mock word": "2002 Re: Usages of Foreign Words in Linguist List (Electronic Mailing list) 5 Feb., Is the word ngawa or ungawa a proper noun or an adverb or adjective. None of the above. In English it's an exclamation... It seems to be a mock word in origin, rather than a foreign word." This seems to be a quote fron an online FAQ."

** 
2. ozziemaland, Jul 20, 2004
"That draft for OED3, saying "In English it's an exclamation," IMO would be improved by calling it an imperative command as the attribution to Cyril Hume has it -- all purpose, up, down, etc. The Hume attribution is more specific and accords with my recollection of the Tarzan movies. Thanks for the post, Dr T."
-end of quote-

****
Umgawa!



pwgr2000 Uploaded on Dec 8, 2007

...This short excerpt is from the documentary, "Tarzan: Silver Screen King of the Jungle", which was the main bonus feature that accompanied the DVD set, The Tarzan Collection, Vol. 1.
-snip-
My transcription of that video:
Scott Tracy Griffin [White male], [identified as] Edgar Rice Burrough’s historian:
“The films used a combination of Swahili and made up words. One of my favorites is “Umgawa” which can mean anything we want it to mean. [smiling] It means “stop”, "go away", "come here", "danger", or “Elephant, carry boy to safety.” [laughing]. “Umgawa” is a terrific word and is another one of our cultural touchstones. [.27]

[another speaker, a White male]- “Originally, it meant “Get down”. But as time progressed, as the movies went on, it seemed to have a multiple layer of meaning. [chuckling]

[scenes from Tarzan movie: Tarzan talking to animals and to Black people in movies]

[same White male speaker] “And it became, you know, “Umgawa!” and everybody just rose to the occasion. [laughing] And they went into action.

[Video clip ends with a scene of Tarzan and Jane talking in a made up language].
-snip-
Notice that those speakers consider the word "umgawa" to be humorous. Yet, I find their humor off-putting since it seems to me that the writers portrayed the White Tarzan as being superhuman and the Black natives as being on the same level or lower than the animals, since both of those groups instinctively understood the different commands that Tarzan gave when he used the word "umgawa" or "ungawa".
-snip-
Added November 13, 2017
Hat tip to Anonymous, November 12, 2017 at 11:53 PM for mentioning the 1959 Dizzy Gillespie composition entitled "Ungawa". Here's a link to a YouTube sound file of that Jazz compositon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQXFeN8tYds.

**** 

MY SPECULATIONS ABOUT WHY AFRICAN AMERICANS CO-OPTED THE WORD "UNGAWA
Prior to the internet, most Black Americans knew very little about traditional African languages and very few of us had ever met any African people. Besides some American movies such as Tarzan movies and the movie about Shaka Zulu, most Black Americans rarely heard heard anyone speak any traditional African languages and I dare say that the only African languages that most Black Americans knew by name were Swahili, maybe Zulu, and maybe Yoruba. "Arabic" should be added to that list-and may be #1 on that list since forms of Arabic have been spoken in North Africa, West Africa, and East Africa for centuries. Some websites (for instance https://www.jumpspeak.com/blog/most-spoken-language-in-africa indicate that Arabic is the #1 most commonly spoken language in Africa while others say that Swahili is the most commonly spoken language in that continent (for instance https://www.pangea.global/blog/10-most-popular-african-languages/.)

Although we (Black Americans) weren't familiar with African languages, I bet that most Black Americans (and other Americans) knew the words "ooga booga" and "ungawa" and thought that those words represented the ways that Black people in Africa talked.

Read the information given above about the word "ungawa".

Here's some information about the word "ooga-booga from https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ooga_booga:

"ooga booga

(slang, humorous) Mimicking caveman speech. synonym ▲

Synonym: unga bunga

(slang, offensive) Mimicking African languages.

(slang, offensive) Mimicking Aboriginal Australian languages."
-end of quote-

Although websites such as the one cited above indicate that "ungawa" mimicked African languages, I've never come across any explanations of what elements in that word and/or what pronunciations are the same or similar to elements of African languages.

Here are my speculations about that subject:

1. People who aren't familiar with those languages believe (rightly or wrongly) that most words in traditional African languages begin with a vowel, and particularly with the letter "a" which was/is pronounced "ah".

2. Prior to the internet, African Americans were mostly introduced to African languages through books on traditional African names and Arabic names (Note that Arabic was introduced to North Africa, West Africa, and East Africa hundreds of years ago long before Africans were enslaved in the Americas and the Caribbean.) Many of the traditional African female names,  Arabic female names, and newly created or differently spelled African-ish names that became popular among African Americans end with the letter a. The "a" ending for those names is  pronounced "ah"-just as the word "ungawa" is spelled and pronounced. Examples of those names are "Aaliyah, "Malaika", "Keisha", and "Tamika",  

3. Another way that African Americans in those days were introduced to African languages was through the African American created seven day holiday Kwanzaa. The word "Kwanzaa" is an African American form of the Swahili word "kwanza" (meaning "first"). With the exception of the last day name "Imani", each of the days for Kwanzaa end with the letter "a": "umoja", "kujijagulia", "ujima", "ujamaa", "nia", and "kuumba". Those words reinforced the (incorrect?) belief that most words in traditional African languages end with the letter "a".

The made up word "ungawa" reminds me of an actual KiSwahili word "uhuru". Both of those words have three syllables and both begin with the letter "u" and end with a vowel. Uhuru Kenyatta was the fourth president of Kenya, East Africa from 2013 to 2022. However, I remember learning the word "uhuru" meaning "freedom" when I was a member of the afrocentric cultural nationalist organization the Committee For Unified Newark (CFUN) in 1967 to 1969.

Some websites indicate that "ungawa" is a KiSwahili word and give various meanings or no meaning for that word. Google Translate indicates that the Kiswahili meaning for the word "ungawa" is "flour", but I'm certain that that isn't what anyone chanting "Ungawa" then or now thinks that word meant or means.

The only other Swahili word that I remember chanting when I was a member of that afrocentric group was "Harambee!" (hah-RAHM-bay), meaning "All pull together". (Notice that although that "harambee" doesn't begin with a vowel, it ends with one.) I remember enthusiastically chanting "Harambee!" along with other members of that group while we pretended to pull a rope toward our body as is done during a tug of war game. Click https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harambee for more information about the word "harambee". word.

The only other Swahili word that I remember chanting when I was a member of that afrocentric group was "Harambee!" (hah-RAHM-bay), meaning "All pull together". (Notice that although that word didn't begin with a vowel, it ended with one.) I remember that group chanting "Harambee!" while mimicking the motion of pulling a rope as is done during a tug of war game. Click https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harambee for more information about that word. 

****
All of this to say that African Americans "flipped the script" on the history of the word "ungawa" as a word that was associated with the negative fictional movie character Tarzan. Instead of accepting that negative association, we (African American) co-opted the word "ungawa" and use it as an expression of Black unity and power.

****
TITLE OF DIZZY GILLESPIE'S JAZZ COMPOSITION
"Ungawa", a song recorded by Dizzy Gillespie on his 1959 album The Ebullient Mr. Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie - Topic, Nov 8, 2014

Provided to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises

Ungawa · Dizzy Gillespie · Francisco "Chino" Pozo · Les Spann

1959 Jazz Essentials
-snip-
The word "ungawa" is only spoken two times in this 1959 Jazz composition-near its beginning and its end. That is the only vocalization in this composition.

"Ungawa" is pronounced "oon*-GAH- wah". This is the same way I've pronounced it and also heard it pronounced. 
*"oon" rhymes with the English word "soon", "moon", and  "tune". 

****
BLACK POWER CHANTS
As a member of a Black cultural nationalist organization, The Committee For Unified Newark (CFUN), I remember chanting "Hey, Ungawa! We got the power." and "Ungawa! Black Power!" around 1967 or 1968 (in Newark, New Jersey). I'm not sure if I thought that "ungawa" was a real African word. I certainly didn't know that it was based on the Swahili word "umgawa".

To my knowledge, I've never read any definition of ungawa besides the line "Ungawa - that means "Black power" which is a core part the children's rhyme "Ah Beep Beep". (Some examples of that rhyme are given below). But, I wonder if "ungawa"'s meaning was conflated for us with the Black pride and Black determination that was conveyed by the KiSwahili word "Uhuru!" (meaning "Freedom"). "Uhuru" (ooh-HOO-roo") was one of the few Swahili words that CFUN members knew and used as a chant.

****
THE WORD "UNGAWA" USED IN CHILDREN'S BLACK POWER/ PUERTO RICAN POWER RHYMES [Updated July 31, 2022]
Most of the examples of the children's rhyme which I've titled "Ah Beep Beep" (based on their first line) and other children's rhymes and chants that include the word "ungawa" not only express Black pride, but also appear to express antagonism toward White people. However, as is the case with other confrontational children's rhymes, some children may have recited these rhymes without playing much attention to what the words in the rhymes really meant.

Examples:
1. [no title given]
I'll be I'll be
Walking down the street,
Ten times a week.
Un-gah-wah, un-gah-wah (baby)
This is my power.
What is the story?
What is the strike?
I said it, I meant it,
I really represent it.
Take a cool, cool Black to knock me down.
Take a cool, cool Black to knock me down.
I'm sweet, I'm kind.
I'm soul sister number nine.
Don't like my apples,
Don't shake my tree.
I'm a Castle Square Black.
Don't miss with me.
-John Langstaff and Carol Langstaff, editors Shimmy Shimmy Coke -Ca-Pop!: A Collection Of City Children's Street Games And Rhymes (New York, Doubleday & Company, 1973, p. 57)
-snip-
Notice the very close similarity with the beginning of this rhyme and the rhyme that was featured in the 1988 movie Big.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2011/12/sources-of-movie-bigs-rap-shimmy-shimmy.html Sources Of The Movie Big's Rap Shimmy Shimmy Coco Pop, Part 3 for more discussion about the possible sources for that featured rhyme.

****
2. AH BEEP BEEP
"Ah Beep Beep
Walkin down the street
Ugawa. Ugawa
That means Black power.
White boy.
Destroy.
I said it. I meant it
And I'm here to represent it.
Soul sister number 9
Sock it to me one more time.
Uh hun! Uh Hun!"
-Tracey S.,(African American female}; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; childhood remembrance,1968); collected by Azizi Powell, 2000
-snip-_
Comments that the informant shared with me about that rhyme can be found on this Mudcat thread that I started: http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=112857#2392802 Number Nine In Songs & Rhymes

**
3. AH BEEP BEEP
..."it wasn't until recently that I remembered playing a clapping game with my friend in Kindergarten in our school yard. Together we sang:

"Ah beep beep, walking down the street
10 times a week
Ungawa, black power, Puerto Rican power
I said it, I meant it and now I represent it"

I've heard similar references in old school popular songs, but have never been able to track the origin of this game. Obviously it has some roots in the 1960s civil rights movement with black power and the neighboring Puerto Rican rights movement that developed like that of he Young Lords Party."...
-Yasmin Hernadez, memories of childhood in a mixed Latina/o and African American neighborhood of New York City, 1980s (sent by email February 24, 2004
-snip-
In that same email Yasmin Hernadez included two examples of "Tweeleelee", one of which was quite risque. Hernadez wrote "my interest came about in how adult themes manifest in children's games....They are with looking into as they do serve as part of our children's early impressions of gender roles in their community"...

**
4.
"OMG i'm finally remembering it...

ahh beep beep walkin down the street
10 times a week...

ungawa, ungawa this is black power
destroy
white boy

i said it
i meant it
i really represent it

i'm a soul soul sista from a soul soul town

aint too many sista gonna keep me down.

if you don't like my apples
don't shake my tree

cuz i'm a soul soul sista named... Ja-nie

LOL
again i'm not black.
-Guest, janie (Guest, duh) http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=6600 Downtown Baby; 2/29/2009

Note: This blogger posted two examples of this chant in that discussion thread. The first example was incomplete.

There are several other very similar examples of this rhyme in that discussion thread, including one with the "n word". All of those examples "happen" to be from New York City. This may be an interesting coincidence or it may be because the New York City area is where that rhyme originated.

**
From http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ungawa [given hereafter as "urbandictionary:ungawa"]
"Ungawa
Like the other guy said, it seems to originate in Tarzan movies but it was co-opted by Black teens in Oakland during the 70s (I'm okay about being corrected here - earlier?) as a slang power-grunt.

I'd love to see someone provide additional words to my example. It's been a LONG time...

Foot-stomping chant (by late 70s it was used by cheerleaders and double-dutch):

Ungh, ungawa
Momma's got the powa
I said it, I meant it
I'm here to represent it
My back is achin', My belt's too tight
My hips are shakin' from left to right...""
-by Suzy from Oakland June 03, 2008
-snip-
I wonder if that blogger got the term "foot stomping chant" from my now inactive cocojams.com website. I coined the term "foot stomping cheers" around 2002 and used it extensively on tht website as a referent for synchronized, choreographed, call & response group cheers that were (are?) mostly performed by African American girls 5-12 years old. ("Shabooya Roll Call" is a relatively well known example of these cheers, although the performance of that cheer in the 2005 movie Bring It On: All Or nothing is quite exagerrated. I've never known "Ungawa" cheers to be used in Double Dutch jump rope, but that certainly is possible.

The verse beginning with the line "my back is achin" is lifted from the widely known "Bang Bang Choo Choo Train" children's rhyme.

****
THE WORD "UNGAWA" USED IN CHEERS
By at least the mid 1970s, the word "ungawa" is documented to have been used as an exclamation in certain children's and teenagers' cheerleader cheers. This use was apart from that word's Black power connotations.

Examples:
From http://wordoriginsorg.yuku.com/topic/8045/Umgawa#.VcFKDf3wtv4 “ungawa”
aldiboronti, Jul 21 04
A variation [of a brief clip of this rhyme given by an earlier blogger] from 1976:

Unnh, Ungawa! Soul powah!
Whuh choo gonna do?
Cut the boogaloo!
C stands for cut, B stands for boogaloo --
The mighty, mighty Tigers gonna sock it to you!
Cause when you're up, you're up,
An' when you're down, you're down,
But when you're up against the Tigers,
You're UPside DOWN!
-snip-
"Boogaloo" was the name of a United States Latin/Rhymn & Blues music & dance genre that was popular for a brief time in the 1960s
-snip-
Also, read these comment and chant for an example of how Black creative content is appropriated by White people who use it without any awareness of that content's Black origin, purpose, or meaning:
http://www.sflforums.com/showthread.php?tid=3811
Jenn, 02-24-2012
"I was a member of the Alpha Gamma Tau society at BJU [Bob Jones University]. We had a cheer that went like this:

Honk, Beep Beep, Walkin' down the street
sayin' ten times a week that the Eagles can't be beat
sayin' Ooo Ungawa Eagles got the Power
sayin' Ooo Ungawa Eagles got the Power

Now I never knew what the heck is Ungawa or ever heard it anywhere else, until just now watching a movie on Netflix about inequality in the South and after a funeral the angry black people start marching and chanting:

Ungawa! Black Power! Ungawa! Black Power!

I go online searching for this and I find...

Ah Beep Beep
Walkin down the street
Ungawa. Ungawa
That means Black power.

HAHAHAHAHAHA ROTFL

If only the Bob Joneses had known the origin of our chant.
-snip-
Several other commenters wrote that that fact that BJU [Bob Jones University used a chant that they felt originated as a black power rallying cry was “all kinds of ironic and amusing.” That is because Bob Jones University has a public reputation of being intolerant. For instance, that university prohibited (still prohibits?) interracial dating.

**
From http://halton-hamilton.tripod.com/id15.html
"We Have the Power

This is a great morning cheer, because of the aches and pains we all get from a lack of sleep at three day :)

My back is achin'

My belt’s too tight

My hips are shakin' from left to right

Say OOH! Ungawa! We have the power!
-snip-
Notice that the original phrase “black power” is changed to “we have the power” in this rhyme. The replacement of “we” for “black” significantly changes the meaning of that cheer. Instead of “black power!” being a response to injustices experienced by Black people, the word “power” is defined as the energy that everyone needs to have to make it through each day.

****
Update: July 31, 2022: Ungawa in a children's rhyme and in a children's cheer
From https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/wordoriginsorg/umgawa-t8045.html#.VcFKDf3wtv4

language hat
Jul 21, 2004
"Shortly after my move to NYC (at the start of '81) I was introduced to a ditty of which I now remember only the beginning:

Ungawa! Black powah!
White boy: destroy!
I said it, I meant it,
I'm here to represent it...

(If only I could remember the rest, I could bask in my lost hipness...)

**
aldiboronti
Jul 21, 2004

A variation of lh's rhyme, from 1976:

Unnh, Ungawa! Soul powah!
Whuh choo gonna do?
Cut the boogaloo!
C stands for cut, B stands for boogaloo --
The mighty, mighty Tigers gonna sock it to you!
Cause when you're up, you're up,
An' when you're down, you're down,
But when you're up against the Tigers,
You're UPside DOWN!

 

CocoaHigh"

****
THE WORD "UNGAWA" USED IN A CHILDREN'S CAMP SONG
Here's an example of the word "ungawa" used in a Boy Scout camp song:
From http://www.denverboyscouts.org/openrosters/DocDownload.aspx?id=25480
Peaceful Valley Songbook - Denver Area Council
[boy scout camp songs, page 32]

MEN FROM NAIROBI
We are men from Nairobi and our team’s a good one
We play the Watusi, they’re seven feet tall
Oh the cannibals they eat us, but they’ll never beat us
Cause we’re from Nairobi, the best of them all

Chorus
singing
Ungawa-ungawa
Ungawa-ungawa
Ungawa-ungawa
Ungawa-wa –wa

They sent fifty men down from Kilamanjaro
But they didn’t have what it takes NO! NO!
We took all the losers out to the jungle
And we tied them up for the snakes WHAT A BITE!

Chorus

Remember the pygmies they came from Zambezie
We played them round this time last year LAST YEAR
Their number one player was disqualified
When he fell on a Nairobi shaft WHAT A SHAFT GET THE POINT?
PRETTY SHARP!

chorus
-snip-
Although this camp song was probably created and sung just for fun, I consider its words to be problematic because they reinforce an American and Western cultural image of Africans as being cannibals and people who still fight with spears. The song also conflates African physical locations and ethnic groups. In doing so, it may contribute to misinformation about Africa and the idea that Africa is one country instead of a continent made up of fifty four nations.

Here's information about the African references found in this song:
"Nairobi" is the capital of Kenya, East Africa.

**
"Watusi" is a referent for the "Tutsi" ethnic group that primarily come from the African nations of Rwanda and Burundi. Significant populations of Tutsis are also found in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutsi. Note that the Tutsi ethnic group aren't from Kenya.

Tutsis are considered to be the tallest people in the world.

**
"Kilamanjaro"- Mount Kilamanjaro, located in Tanzania, East Africa, is the tallest mountain in Africa.

**
"pygmies"
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmy_peoples
"A pygmy is a member of an ethnic group whose average height is unusually short...

The term is most associated with peoples of Central Africa, such as the Aka, Efé and Mbuti.[3] ...If the term pygmy is defined as a group's men having an average height below 1.55 meters (5 feet 1 inch), then there are also pygmies in Australia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Andaman Islands,[4] Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Bolivia, and Brazil,[5] including some Negritos of Southeast Asia."

The term pygmy is sometimes considered pejorative. However, there is no single term to replace it.[7] Many prefer to be identified by their ethnicity, such as the Aka (Mbenga), Baka, Mbuti, and Twa.[8] The term Bayaka, the plural form of the Aka/Yaka, is sometimes used in the Central African Republic to refer to all local pygmies. Likewise, the Kongo word Bambenga is used in Congo."

**
Zambezie
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zambezi
"The Zambezi (also spelled Zambeze and Zambesi) is the fourth-longest river in Africa, the longest east flowing river in Africa and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa... The 2,574-kilometre-long river (1,599 mi) rises in Zambia and flows through eastern Angola, along the eastern border of Namibia and the northern border of Botswana, then along the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe to Mozambique, where it crosses that country to empty into the Indian Ocean."

****
OTHER EXAMPLES OF THE HOW THE WORD "UNGAWA" HAS BEEN USED
From "urbandictionary:ungawa"
"ungawa
The word Tarzan used to communicate to the animals; Also used by Dave Chappelle in the racial draft episode as a parody for how white people address other races.
"Ungawa! There's a white man talking here! "
by hellyea August 30, 2005
-snip-
Dave Chapelle's racial draft os a comic sketch that was based on the idea that specific races could draft African American individuals or groups (such as the Wu Tang Clan Hip Hop group) the same way that foot ball players are drafted by professional football teams. The White man saying "Ungawa" and expecting everyone else to be silent is similar to Tarzan saying "Ungawa" and animals and Black people immediately responding to that word by doing what Tarzan wanted them to do.

**
From http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=20190 Ungowah": from where? [hereafter given as straightdope.com: ungawah"]
03-22-2000,ChiefScott
"Ungawah, ungawah, ungawah... heh!
Ungawah, ungawah, ungawah... heh!"

This the rousing cheer of Young United Nations Conference (as recited by an "African" Eddie Murphy and a "Jamaican" Dan Akroyd in Trading Places)..."

**
03-22-2000, Ophanim
"I heard it as "Honk Honk Ungawaa Black Power!" On the old Showtime sitcom Sherman Oaks. I think it was the one with the racist parrot."
-snip-
Here's information about the American sitcom Sherman Oaks from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117629/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl
"Sherman Oaks (1995–1997)
Plot Summary
A comedy about a wealthy plastic surgeon living with his family in Sherman Oaks, California. Dr. Baker, the plastic surgeon and his family are the subject of a documentary being made by a young filmmaker who has moved in with them and tapes their every move. The doctor's wife, a yoga loving, new ager; his daughter, the slutty bimbo; his son who thinks he's black, even though he's not; and his other son who is an NRA card carrying Republican. The show follows their superficial lives as the documentary filmmaker tapes all of it with hilarious results.
-snip-
Although the blogger -and others-might have considered the phrase "Black power" to be racist, I don't agree. In some ways, that phrase is similar to the recently coined slogan and movement "Black Lives Matter" because the word "also" or "too" should be understood, i.e. "Black people should also have power" and "Black Lives Matter, too" (as well as the lives of White people and the lives of any other racial or ethnic population).

****

Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.