Oriki is praise poetry and it is one of the most sophisticated oral genres anywhere. Every orisha has one; so does every town, every lineage, every king, every individual, and even particular animals and plants. It consists of accumulated epithets, allusions to incidents, boasts, warnings and compressed history, and is performed at speed with tonal precision. Because Yoruba is a tonal language and the talking drum reproduces the tone patterns of speech, a drummer can play an oriki and a knowledgeable listener hears words — so drumming at a festival is literally addressing the orisha by name. Oriki are learned in the family, typically from grandmothers, and being unable to recite your own lineage's oriki is a real social deficiency. Karin Barber's work on oriki in the town of Okuku established it as a subject of serious literary study, and it remains the most thorough account of how the genre actually functions in ordinary life.