The interconfessional Chichewa translation (publ. 1999) uses the ideophones noninoni and chuchuchu in Song of Songs 5:5. Noninoni is used to emphasize a smooth and slippery substance with a tactile and sensual component (“my hands were slick with myrrh”) and chuchuchu describes a the sound of a gentle, continuous dropping. (Source: Ernst Wendland)
Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)