In South Africa, oral poetry has been studied as literary/aesthetic material, a viewpoint that saw the performance of oral poetry as a hindrance. Using aspects of linguistic, orality, anthropological, and political views, language use in 11 Ndebele 'izibongo' oral praise poems is discussed. An examination of the distribution of linguistic features is used to show that via these rhetorical devices, especially metaphor, Ndebele 'izibongo' poetry is used as a resource to assert or gain power. (LLBA 1999, vol. 33, n. 4)