TALLENSI PEOPLE: THE CUSTODIANS OF ANCIENT GURUNSHI TRADITIONAL SHRINES AND HOLDERS OF TRADITIONAL ANCESTRAL WORSHIP TRADITION
The Tallensi people are agriculturalist Gur-speaking people of the larger Gurune/Grunshie ethnic group living in the northern part of Ghana. They are part of the Gurune ethnolinguistic group now known as the Frafra cluster or Mabia family.
Tallensi dancing at annual Golib Festival at Tongo Hills, Ghana
The Tallensi people are the famous amongst the Northern tribe when it comes to the study of anthropology in Ghana and the World. Their traditional ancestral worship revolving around the famous shrines has attracted many toursits and anthropology across the world to come and study their culture and traditions.
Sweeping away Mansami’s evil Destiny. The rite of “sweeping” the patients with the white chicken. The bird is presented wings spread out for the “wife” to spit under the wing.Meyer Fortes
Tallensi people are also noted for their "Firstborns" showing special status in their tradition. “The reason for this strong emphasis on having a firstborn son or firstborn daughter is that a person can never achieve the fulfillment necessary to become a revered ancestor after death if he or she does not have children to carry on rituals.
Tallensi men
The birth of a firstborn son or firstborn daughter makes a man truly mature and fulfilled, and it represents his ascendance to the highest position in the society.”(Fortes, Meyer (1969)
Fetishes protector of Tongo hills, north of Ghana. The secret of the magic Tongo hills north of Ghana:
the village of Tengzug surrounded by fields of sorghum and sacred rocks and of holy shrines and meet Traditional priests, guardians of ancestral tradition.to visit the cave where is kept a powerful fetish that attracts pilgrims from all over Ghana, need to discover the chest and go barefoot, before meeting the animist priest dressed traditionally with an animal skin. Anthony Pappone
Location
Their country, which, for convience of reference may be called Taleland, embraces most of the southern
half of the district between the two Voltas and the western boundary. On the north it can e demarcated
only by an arbitrary boundary which extends in a wavy line from Zuarungu due east to the river. A typical
section of the district, Taleland includes the Tong Hills, the vicinity of which harbours the densestand
oldest settlements of the country.”
Tallensi people fetching water from the will, Tongo, Ghana
Ecology (natural environment):
It has been variously described as ‘parkland’, ‘savannah’, or ‘orchard bush’ country, terms which indicate
the sparse and uniform forestation characteristic of this zone. Stretching irregularly and almost right across
Africa, between the eight and the sixteenth parallels N. latitude, it merges into the Sahara on the north and
is bounded by the tropical rain forest on the south.”
Tongo Hills
“The climate of the Sudanese Zone exhibits two clearly defined seasons, a dry season lasting about half
the year (October to March) and a wet season lasting the remaining six or seven months (April to
Octobe). A characteristic feature of the dry season is the harmattan, a hot parching wind laden with fine
dust which blows from the Sahara, so strongly at times as to obscure the landscape in a haze which limits
visibility to a few hundred yards.
Heavy dew and mists cause the mornings to be chilly and bracing… p.m the sun blazes relentlessly through the faint haze; sunset ushers in a cool and balmy evening; and night brings a relatively marked drop in temperature.”
“Violent nocturnal tornadoes from the east and north-east, accompanied by lightning and thunder,
introduce the rainy season, during which the prevailing wind blows from the direction of the Gulf of
Guinea, to the south and south-east. During this season the temperature remains fairly stable throughout
the day. Though it is never as hot as in the hottest days of the dry season, the humidity makes it at times
excessively oppressive.”
Tallensi festish priest at Tongo Hills
Language
Tallensi people speaks Talni language,which is a branch of the Gur language group of the larger Niger-Congo language phylum. Gurune, Nankani, Booni, Talni, and Nab't together with some others are considered the major dialects of the Frafra people. However, Nab't and Talni could also be considered dialects of Mampruli; Mampruli, Kusaal, and Dagaare are in turn considered to be sister languages to Gurune. There are obvious linguistic similarities among these and the other languages of the Mabia language group (Bodomo 1994; St. John-Parsons 1960).
Tallensi boy
History
Tallensi history just follows that of their parent tribe, frafra. However, the oral traditions of the community at TongoTengzuk claim that their ancestors have always been there, or alternately, sprouted from the ground or descended from heaven (Gabrilopoulos 1995), as do the other indigenous Talensi living around the base of the hill. Those Talensi known as Namoos at Tongo, who are actually migrant Mamprusi, acknowledge the antiquity of the real Talensi living on the hill or at the foot of it, and affirm peaceful coexistence with their neighbours (Fortes 1945, Rattray 1932).
Tallensi Dancers. Photograph by Meyer Fortes, July - September 1934
Tallensi People
Upper East Region, Ghana
For centuries the Tongo hills formed part of a frontier belt between centralized states. The conquest states of Dagbon and Mamprugu lay to the south and those of the Mossi kingdoms to the North. By the time of European contact, the Talensi were sedentary horticulturists with a loose, acephalous political organization. Tongo-Tengzuk was recognized as an established site of sacred power with the arrival of colonial rule at the end of the nineteenth century. It was one of the last areas in Ghana to submit to British rule; only in 1911 did a British military expedition storm the hills and end the resistance. The Tallensi were evicted and access to the area banned. In 1915, the British found out that many people had clandestinely returned to the hills and a second assault was launched in the same year. By the 1920s many people had returned to the area because of its sacred power.
Tallensi Gologo dancers at the Golibdaana House, Tengzug
Economy
“The entire unit of food economy thus draws its main supply of grain, the staple foodstuff, from a
common source. But every household, every primary family, and indeed every individual other than young
children has a degree of economic independence, which is limited only by the obligations to the bigger
unit. An industrious householder usually possesses some poultry and perhaps sheep and goats of his own,
supplies a good deal of the minor crops consumed by his own wives and children, and even some grain to
augment his wives’ rations from the main store. Every woman, again, adds to the food supply of her
primary family by her own efforts. If she is a market trader or potteress, for example, she will have money
of her own, will sometimes purchase extra foodstuffs and may invest in live stock which will eventually
go to her sons. Her husband has no powers of disposal over her property. If he uses any of it, by her
permission, it is a debt which must be repaid."
Tallensi women in Sorghum farm
Main carbohydrate staple(s): In South of the [Gambaga] scarp a form of shifting cultivation is customary, and yams (Dioscorea spp.) are grown on a large scale side by side with millet (Pennisetum typhoides, var.), guinea corn (Sorghum vulgare), and maize (Zea mays). North of it yams will not grow easily and cereal crops form the staple food supply.”
Main protein-lipid sources: It is rare for the Tallensi to consume meat/lipids: “A well-to-do compound may have a cow or two, even several cows, or a couple of donkeys, but the ordinary man usually comes into possession of these animals only in the form of bride-wealth, which will as likely as not be used immediately to pay a debt or, more rarely, to make a special and urgent sacrifice. In any case, a cow is never slaughtered specifically for food by the average man.” Sheep and goats are owned by all but the poorest; but again, no one would wantonly slaughter an animal for food.
Sexual division of production
The bulk of agricultural labour falls to the lot of men, though women and children help in planting.” This all important agricultural production is organized through the joint family, living in one compound, under the leadership of the compound head. He is responsible for the sorting, selection, preservation and storing of grain, the control of distribution, the organization of labour, etc. He also holds the land from which the unit of food economy gains sustenance.” The men do the heavy work of farming and care for the livestock.
The most exacting task in a woman’s routine is the provision of firewood and water. Little time can be available for more direct participation in production, especially as cooking, the most important task for the woman, must take up a considerable proportion of her time. She usually prepares two meals per day, and must always provide relish and contrive some variation in the meals.”
Trade:
All compounds share in the export trade in fowls; wage-labourers bring money back home. Fifty-four
percent of compounds own some cattle, which are principally used in marriage transactions, but also serve
as a marketable reserve in time of famine, an advantage enjoyed by owners of large herds over others.
Livestock are increasingly used as commodities in ordinary exchange, rather than in marriage transactions alone. Great quantities of cloth are imported and must be paid for. Yams and other foodstuffs are imported.
There are markets in Taleland. In the past the principal one was at Ba’ari; this used to be raided by men
from the Tong Hills. Foreign trade was also carried on with caravans on the North-South route…
Land tenure:
Patrimonial land is inherited within the lineage from fathers to sons in order of seniority by generation or
by age. It is plain that such land cannot provide for the needs of rapidly-growing lineage, and the records
of borrowing, pledging, and sale of land, together with evidence of migration, make this clear.
The keystone of the institutional framework of Tale agriculture is security of land tenure…The landowning unit is a segment of a maximal lineage and its property are an aspect of its corporate relationship to the maximal lineage and clan. Within a settlement the stretch of land parceled out into farm plots corresponds to the clan occupying that locality as it segmented into a hierarchy of lineage units.
All segments of the clan of the same order are equal to one another. They have an equal weight in the
structure of the clan, equal power in its affairs. The have, in consequence equal property right (though not necessarily equal amounts of property), equal opportunity for holding and farming land (though not
necessarily equal achievement), and equal social duties to one another…Just as members of the same clan
must not kill one another or abduct one another’s wives, so they must not trespass on one another`s land. For this would wreck the mutual loyalties of segment to segment and make impossible the maintenance of the reciprocity of rights and duties on which their corporate life depends. There is, in other words, a general
body of jural and moral norms, binding on all members of the clan and cementing its solidarity, and supported by the powerful sanctions of the ancestor cult and the Earth cult. The security of land tenure is
guaranteed by this.
Tallensi elder
Family system
The Tallensi have one of the most consistent patrilineal and patriarchal family systems as yet observed in Africa . At the peak of the cycle of family development the homestead is normally occupied by family group consisting of an old man his adult sons and possibly sons together with the wives of these men and all their unmarried children. This is the ideal every man aims at. Three generation patrilineal polygynous families are common.
Tallensi old man and his grandchildren
By the rule of lineage exogamy daughters marry out Men are born grow up and live their lives in the same place and often homestead. Even if they spend many years working in Southern Ghana they can and normally do return freely to their natal homes when they wish to do so. Women live in their parental home as daughters and move to their husbands homes as wives and though the physical distance of the move may
be less than mile the social distance is felt to be significant. Furthermore the men of lineage united by ties of common patrilineal descent which go back many generations tend to live near one another.
Since by the rules of classificatory kinship they are all brothers fathers and sons to one another the feeling of family solidarity embraces whole cluster of kinship-linked parental families each of which however has its separate house or part of house. Thus the core of every community is group of patrilineally linked men and it is they who hold the reins of authority and power in regard to land and livestock the control of women and children and especially in the all-important religious cult of ancestor worship.
House at Tongo with shrine at the front
At the same time women have remarkable degree of autonomy. Throughout life they keep in close touch with their own parental kinsfolk Indeed as among other African patrilineal peoples the brother plays an important part in life as the indulgent protective non-authoritarian counterpoise to the father and paternal kin wife with children is entitled to have her own apartment which is the private domain of herself and her children.
The room both in reality and in the imagery and conceptualisation of family structure is the heart of the family. Sexual relations between husband and wife are prohibited from the time of birth until it can run about and feed itself. Thus children are normally spaced at three-yearly intervals approximately and immediately successive matri-siblings are believed and expected to have strong feelings of rivalry which they often display in early childhood
Tallensi Children of Tongo Hills, Upper East Region, Ghana
From point of view then his life space falls into series of zones corresponding to successive stages of development. The innermost zone is centred on his mother and her room next comes the zone of the father-centred homestead associated with the ideas of half-siblingship and of paternal authority and then operative increasingly after the age of about five the cluster of related families contrapuntal pattern of social organisation in which patrilateral and matrilateral relationships are balanced against each other is fundamental in all spheres of Tallensi social structure and personal attitudes.
Attachment to the family and respect for the father remain so strong that educated young men working as clerks teachers etc. continue to live in their parental homes and to contribute to the family income just as their fathers did before them.
Men and women take equal delight and show equal affection and indulgence in looking after their young
children. Corporal punishment is very rare. Obedience to parents is built into the domestic routine and the value system rather than enforced by coercion Individuals even quite young children have large measure of independence within the framework of duty to the family.
Notable aspect of Tallensi culture is the way which their family system is mirrored and sanctioned in their ancestral cult. The shrines dedicated to the departed ancestors are placed all over the homestead and when not receiving sacrifice or worship are quite informally used as tables or seats. This shows vividly how the ancestors continue to form part of the family almost as if they were still among them They have in fact been reincorporated in the family in their spiritual identity.
Essentially all ancestors worshipped are translated parents Both paternal and maternal ancestors are thus worshipped. All ancestor figures are invested with mystically punitive as well as but rather more than beneficent qualities but significantly enough maternal ancestors and ancestresses who are extensions of the loving and self-sacrificing mother to whom unqualified affection and trust are due are believed to be more vindictive than paternal ones who represent the respected and legally supreme father.
From the point of view of their descendants the ancestors are perpetually demanding recognition service and propitiation by means of libations and blood-sacrifices claiming the credit for good fortune and more usually asserting their rights by inflicting misfortune sickness and above all death. Being unpredictable their
intervention only gets known after the event when diviner is consulted to discover the ancestral agent of an illness or death. Ancestors can be seen as the projection in symbol and concept of the coercive authority and superior power that lie behind the affection and devotion of parents especially fathers for their children In another ancestor worship may be seen as mechanism for dealing with the ambivalence in the relations of parents and children which Tallensi custom openly recognises. For example man and his first born son and prospective heir are deemed to be rivals and are therefore obliged to avoid certain forms of intimate contact and similar rule applies in an attenuated form to woman and her oldest daughter. Furthermore man does not achieve the status of full jural independence until his father dies no matter what his age may be.
In some ways ancestors are much like small children or very old people noticed only when they make nuisance of themselves by their demands or by getting ill. Then they must be placated and one can relax until the next outburst.
Tallensi Fetish priest at Tenzug
Marriage and Divorce
In Tallensi traditional marriage, "the bridegroom’s guardian must send the placation gift (lu sendaan) to the bride’s guardian, and must pay a proportion of the bride-price acceptable to the latter. A wife is usually espoused (sol) by paying the bride-price of four head of cattle or their equivalent in installments over a number of years. If he does not fufill these jural requirements, a man has no rights to and over his wife.”
Tallensi society frown s on a woman committing adultery. A woman who commits adultery exposes her husband and children to mystical dangers…she is haled to the homestead of the head of her husband’s medial lineage and subjected to the ordeal of entering the gateway. If she confesses she may enter safely. If not, the lineage ancestors will cause her to get ill if she enters the gateway. This is a powerful sanction of marital fidelity among women and is one reason why adultery is not very common.”
Tallensi woman
There is hardly a divorce case in Tallensi society, however, a marriage sometimes break up when a woman commits adultery. “A marriage breaks up either through the action of one of the spouses, generally the woman, or through that of the wife’s guardian. The Tallensi have no formal procedure for divorce. If a man
wishes to get rid of a wife (which happens very seldom) he generally does so by with-holding the bride-price, so that her guardian eventually recalls her, or he makes her life so uncomfortable that she deserts him. If a woman decides to leave a husband, she simply absconds. She may do so because she dislikes him, or because he does not feed her well enough, or neglects her sexually or otherwise, or, natives say, out of mere caprice. All women, according to the men, are fickle and gullible; a plausible suitor can seduce any woman. So if a young wife goes to visit her parents and stays longer than two or three days, her husband, be he an ardent young man or a sober greybeard, hurries off to fetch her, usually in considerable dudgeon, for fear that she may be abducted by another man.”
Tallensi woman and his husband at their compound, Tongo Hills
Political system: (chiefs, clans etc, wealth or status classes)
The politico-ritual integration of a Tale clan is focused in the politico-ritual office or offices vested in it or
in its component maximal lineages. These offices are either chiefship (na’am) (or its equivalent, the senior
office connected with an External Boyar) or tendaanaship. Chiefship is primarily associated with the
Namoos, though not exclusively so, tendaanaship with the clans and maximal lineages claiming to be the
autochthonous inhabitants of the country, though, again, not exclusively so.
Portrait Traditional priest in the cave of the sacrifices of tengzug, north of Ghana by anthony pappone photographer
Both chiefship and tendaanaship are, to the natives, unitary institutions made up of offices distributed among a number of clans and lineages. The range of these institutions is not even limited to Taleland. All chiefs are ‘brothers’ since they derive their office from a common source, the Paramount Chief of Mampurugu; all tendaanas, similarly, are ‘brothers’ since their office has the same function and ritual value everywhere in relation to the Earth. The chain of ritual collaboration is one expression of this notion. Among the Tale chiefs the Chief of Tongo ranks highest. He has no political, administrative, or judicial authority over any other
chiefs, or any other clan than his own, but his office incarnates the quintessence of na’am. He represents
all the chiefs of the country in the ritual attributes of chiefship.Tendaanas, in keeping with the elaborate
segmentation of the clans in which this office is vested, are more equal in status. But in every cluster of
closely interdependent contiguous clans there is one tendaana who ranks higher than his confreres. The
Gbizug tendaana ranks above the tendaana of Zubiun, Gbeog, and Wakii, and the Doo tendaana above the
other Tenzugu tendaanas.
Chiefs and tendaanas had no political power, as we understand it, before the coming of the white man.
They had no administrative, or executive, and only rudimentary judicial powers. They were the leaders
and not the rulers, the fathers and not the princes of their clans.
Food taboos:
There are many restrictions and taboos commonly associated with menstruation in traditional Ghanaian
thought and practice. There is a widely recognized traditional taboo on a menstruating woman’s cooking
food for any man including her husband. It may be thought necessary to protect even crops from her evil
influence…She may not be allowed to enter any stream to get water.
Firstborn Son and Father
“When a boy is 6 years of age, he may not eat from the same dish as his father. This is a taboo. Other taboos relate to the use of the father's weapons, the father's clothes, or the father's tools. Furthermore, when a son arrives at adolescence, around the age of 12 or 13, he cannot enter the house compound at the same time as his father. If, for some reason, the son violates this taboo, then there must be purification rites.
o Firstborn Daughter and Mother
“The firstborn daughter cannot look into her mother's storage containers, vases, pots, or tubs; this is a taboo.”
Death and afterlife beliefs
When a person dies, it is the firstborn son or daughter who leads in the ritual ceremonies. Only
at this moment can the son actually put on his father's cap and his father's cloth and walk in the
father's shoes.”
Everything in the Tallensi society works together to maintain this balance between the secular lineage and
the ancestral dead. “From the point of view of their descendants, the ancestors are perpetually demanding recognition, service and propitiation by means of libations and blood sacrifices, claiming the credit for a persons good fortune, sickness and above all death. Being unpredictable, their intervention only gets known after the event, when a diviner is consulted to discover the ancestral agent of an illness or a death.”
The Sacred Crocodile
Among the Tallensi tribe there is a belief in the sacred crocodile. As Meyer Fortes highlighted in his ethnographic work "The concept of the person", special crocodiles in special pools are considered persons among the Tallensi. No local man, indeed no Tallensi would dare kill or injure a sacred crocodile. Every Tallensi knows that these crocodiles are the incarnation of important clan ancestors. To kill one of these is like killing a person. It is murder of the most heinous kind and it would bring disaster on the whole clan.
However, not all crocodiles are considered persons (ni-saal) for instance, in the rivers that are fished in the dry season - is not a person, not sacred. It can be killed and eaten.
The cultural landscape of Tongo-Tenzuk
BENJAMIN WARINSIE KANKPEYENG
Head of Regional Office, Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, Bolgatanga
TRADITIONAL CONSERVATION PRACTICES
The Tongo Hills, embracing the unique cultural landscape of Tongo-Tengzuk, are located only ten miles from Bolgatanga. The area is of outstanding natural beauty and cultural richness. The hills, with their amazing rock formations, caves and natural rock shelters, are the sacred epicentre of the Talensi, an ethnic group in northern Ghana. Over countless generations, through work and play, in their buildings and rituals, the Talensi at Tongo-Tengzuk have managed to master their unique environment.
Tengzuk shrine in the village of Tongo
Interdependence between Nature and Culture.
The environmental mastery at Tongo-Tengzuk has come about through effective use of land for buildings, agriculture (which engages about ninetyeight percent of the population) and shrines. The local architecture blends seamlessly into the natural environment, while also creating human order within nature. The design and placement of structures has served the social needs of the community for many centuries and is carefully preserved through tradition. The houses mirror the social and ideological relations among the Talensi. The footpaths, the shaded spaces, the shrines and groves, cattle kraals and granaries, reflect the cosmological system and sociopolitical structures. The numerous compounds, clustered among the rocks of the hills, produce a landscape of extraordinary beauty and tranquillity, typical of a superb example of the interdependence of nature and culture, of humans and their environment. Retention of water for agricultural purposes is achieved through careful rock terracing. Some rocky areas are used for processing foods: threshing, pounding or grinding grains and shea butter. Some of the caves, rock boulders, rocky pavements, land and groves are sacred or serve as shrines for the community.
Historical Background
The oral traditions of the community at TongoTengzuk claim that their ancestors have always been there, or alternately, sprouted from the ground or descended from heaven (Gabrilopoulos 1995), as do the other indigenous Talensi living around the base of the hill. Those Talensi known as Namoos at Tongo, who are actually migrant Mamprusi, acknowledge the antiquity of the real Talensi living on the hill or at the foot of it, and affirm peaceful coexistence with their neighbours (Fortes 1945, Rattray 1932).
For centuries the Tongo hills formed part of a frontier belt between centralized states. The conquest states of Dagbon and Mamprugu lay to the south and those of the Mossi kingdoms to the North. By the time of European contact, the Talensi were sedentary horticulturists with a loose, acephalous political organization. Tongo-Tengzuk was recognized as an established site of sacred power with the arrival of colonial rule at the end of the nineteenth century. It was one of the last areas in Ghana to submit to British rule; only in 1911 did a British military expedition storm the hills and end the resistance. The Tallensi were evicted and access to the area banned. In 1915, the British found out that many people had clandestinely returned to the hills and a second assault was launched in the same year. By the 1920s many people had returned to the area because of its sacred power.
Stone shrine at Tenzug
Conservation Practices
The conservation of the Tongo-Tengzuk cultural landscape site is tied up with the Talensi worldview. The site contain numerous sacred shrines including earth shrines (tengban) and ancestral shrines (ba’ar). The Talensi believe in a supreme being and worship this being through lesser gods represented by a host of natural features in the form of rocks or boulders, cliffs, caves and constructed ancestral shrines. Paramount among the earth shrines is Tonna’ab, nestled in the cliffs to the west of the settlement at the section called Kpatari, which has provided the area with enormous sacred power for both the Talensi and other ethnic groups in Ghana. Tonna’ab has dominated the religious topography of the area as well as attracting pilgrims from surrounding populations (Guruni, Kusasi, Builsa, Dagomba and Mossi). It has also been viewed historically by the Akan in southern Ghana as a site of potential ritual power. Rattray (1932) observed the presence
of wealthy Asante businessmen and women in the area. Tonna’ab is a benevolent, protective, and curative shrine that abhors evil. It has been the unifying factor for the Talensi and continues to flourish today.
At Kpatari there are two sacred groves, Bonab and Nnoo, that also greatly influence the culture of the entire Talensi community. Bonab performs the same ritual functions as Tonna’ab. The Nnoo shrine serves as the home of the Golib god. The Golib god has a lot of influence on the agricultural life of the community, ensuring the maintenance of several cultural practices in the area. The Gologo festival, which takes place at the end of the dry season or the beginning of the rainy season, is celebrated to reinforce the community belief in the Nnoo shrine or Golib god.
The historical establishment of, and adherence to, many taboos and norms in respect to the needs of the Golib god has helped to evolve and maintain a number of traditional conservation practices which over the years have preserved this unique cultural landscape. These taboos, norms and penalties have been instituted to strengthen the relationship between the Talensi and this god or shrine. The social conventions of the Talensi, which have a strong ideological background related to ancestor worship, also serve to conserve the cultural landscape.
Tongo Hills, shrine
Architecture
A cursory examination of architectural variation at Tongo-Tengzuk reveals two architectural types: at Kpatari and Bonchiig, there are only flat mud roofs, while all other settlement have roofs of thatch or modern materials (aluminium or galvanized sheets). The difference is explained by the fact that the Golib god abhors fire and therefore thatch, as it can cause a gusting fire. The displeasure of the god can bring about catastrophes within the community, such as drought, poor crop harvest and sicknesses. Consequently, there is a proscription against the use of thatch in construction by the Kpatari and Bonchiig communities, where the three important shrines of Tonna’ab. Bonab and Nnoo are located.
Historically, all worshippers of the Golib god from the external Bogyar clan (the real Talensi and not the Namoo or migrants) celebrated the spring festival of Gologo and autumn festival of Boaram and upheld this proscription, but today the situation has changed. Only the Kpatari and Bonchiig communities continue to adhere to the regulation and hence their houses consist of mud structures, except for a few rooms built with cement by wealthy individuals, though even these retain a flat roof.
The establishment and maintenance of the building tradition at Tongo-Tengzuk has been due to the passing of the essential elements of building construction or conservation from members of the older knowledgeable generation to their successors. The transmission of the knowledge is conducted verbally or by demonstration. Oral traditions can be formulaic in nature (Gabrilopoulos 1995) and their transmission includes mnemonic devices.Building is a semi-permanent occupation, conducted and supervised by experienced individuals in the community. These individuals, who are also farmers, will help families who wish to build new compounds, as well as those who are expanding or maintaining existing ones. One does not train formally to be a builder. Individuals and youngsters acquire knowledge of building techniques by seeking out experienced builders or relatives who will engage them in informal apprenticeships. As they help, they learn the rules of traditional design, construction and traditional norms relating to the built form.Several factors limit the location and the form of the building. These include the availability of building materials, natural features and obstructions,
minimal requirements for shelter and comfort, and, above all, social and ideological needs. The building process among the Talensi is negotiated and practised according to convention. In addition, the compound
is constructed in a manner ‘facilitating domestic life segregating activities, animals and people, reinforcing
relationships and affirming beliefs, the structure of the compound, in concert with its occupants use’
(Gabrilopoulos 1995), and it has its own social logic.
The social conventions of the area provide another source or impetus for the conservatism displayed with respect to the conservation of the built environment. ‘Social conservatism reduces anxiety about the range of actions that a particular actor may take. Modifications to the built environment have a logic of their own, that must be negotiated within the community’ (ibid.). Rich individuals who could afford to purchase modern materials are pressured by the community to conform to the village planning norms and to use more traditional ones instead.
Building work is conducted from January to April. Women and men both contribute to the construction and maintenance of buildings. Women carry the mud and men do the actual building. Maintenance is necessary during each dry season. Wind, rain, fire, and human and animal impacts contribute to the deterioration of the mud structures. Mud is best conceptualized as a semi-permanent material. Replastering is usually done annually. Courtyards are repaired in general every two years. Mud roofs are repaired somewhat more frequently because of the direct rainwater impact. High traffic areas, steps, and walls that suffer impacts from livestock are repaired frequently. Thatch roofs outside Kpatari are replaced every three years. Compounds are also remodelled to accommodate changes in social relations in the house: men acquire new wives and sons come of age, marry and beget children. Entire new courtyards may accrete onto the compound. Additional ancestor shrines are added after the death of more elders or landlords. Compounds consist of round and square rooms, except for the Dakore’s house which contains important oracles for the community and consists of only round rooms because the oracles abhor any other form.
Farmland and Shrines
The rock boulders forming the stone terraces prevent fires, set to burn stalks in preparation for the next season, from getting out of control because of the Golib god. Stone terracing effectively retains and checks water erosion for farming purposes. The terracing helps to preserve the fertility of the soil. The proscription against gusting fires has helped to preserve the natural vegetation around the shrines.
Tradition also prohibits the cutting of the trees, shrubs and grasses around the three shrines. There are prescribed walkways to each shrine.
Natural Landscape
The community has resisted attempts to destroy the physical or natural landscape of the area. For example,
their Tallensi neighbours at Wakyii, a village at the base of the hill, gave a concession covering parts of
the hill under their control to a quarrying company, allowing degradation of the area. In contrast, the Tengzuk community violently resisted attempts by the same company to extend their operations beyond the foot of the hill. Complaints were made to the district and regional authorities, and to the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (the national institution responsible for the preservation of the material cultural heritage) by the leaders of the Tengzuk community. Steps have now been taken by these governmental agencies to stop the quarrying operations.
Legal Protection
Traditionally, the earth-priests of the seven sections of Tengzuk, namely, Sameed, Sakpiega, Tamboog,
Gundari, Nanchieyir, Kpatari and Bonchiig, as well as the custodian of Tonna’ab, enforce the laws on
the use of the natural and cultural environment. The Goldana, the most senior earth priest, acts as the chief.
The Tongo-rana, paramount chief of the Talensi, has only administrative responsibility with respect to
traditional political matters. The Bolgatanga District Assembly has been enthusiastic about, and interested
in, the preservation of the site, since it has potential for tourism development. The assembly has a plan to
construct a road from the base of the hill through to the end of the settlement. It has also demonstrated its
interest by providing funds for the limited ethnographic documentation and mapping of the settlement by the
Upper East Regional Museum, Bolgatanga. The Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, empowered by law NLCD 387 of 1969 for the preservation of the material culture of Ghana, has identified and nominated the settlement to UNESCO for consideration as a world heritage cultural landscape site.
Conclusions
Tongo-Tengzuk is a masterpiece of a cultural landscape, one that the Talensi community have attempted over the years to preserve for posterity, despite increasing threats from modernity and little outside intervention or support. Limited research has provided some knowledge about the community’s ethnography and history (Allman 1999; Fortes 1945; Gabrilopoulos 1995; Kankpeyeng 2000; Rattray 1932).
The community has conserved the site for several decades by relying on traditional methods, inspired and strengthened by their worldview. The TongoTengzuk community’s relationship with staff at the Upper East Regional Museum has demonstrated its enthusiasm and support for any assistance to preserve the site for posterity. Preserving the site for posterity will require detailed research work on the ethnography, archaeology, traditional architecture, soil management and environmental techniques This research will provide us with an understanding of the chronology of the site, the kinds of materials needed to conserve it, and those philosophical and psychological elements within the community that stimulated its preservation. The application of modern conservation techniques will greatly enhance the preservation of the site. Equally important is support for the community and education to help its members maintain their traditional culture in the face of the many present-day challenges that confront them.
Bibliography
Allman, Jean (n.d.), ‘A Brief on Tongo-Tengzuk’.
Unpublished paper submitted to Ghana Museums
and Monuments Board.
Fortes, Meyer (945), The dynamics of clanship among
the Talensi (Oxford University Press).
Gabrilopoulos, Nick (995), ‘Ethnoarchaeology of the
Tallensi Compound (Upper East Region, Ghana)’.
A Master of Arts thesis submitted to the Faculty of
Graduate Studies, University of Calgary, Canada.
Kankpeyeng, Benjamin Warinsie (2000), ‘A Brief on
Tongo-Tengzuk’. Unpublished paper submitted to
the Bolgatanga District Assembly.
Rattray, R. S. (932), The tribes of the Ashanti
Hinterland, Vol. II (Oxford University Press).
Upper East Regional Museum (n.d.), ‘The Cultural
Landscape of the Tongo Hills’ (exhibition brochure)
Sourcehttp://www.iccrom.org/pdf/iccrom_ics02_traditionalpractices_en.pdf
Tallensi dancing at annual Golib Festival at Tongo Hills, Ghana
The Tallensi people are the famous amongst the Northern tribe when it comes to the study of anthropology in Ghana and the World. Their traditional ancestral worship revolving around the famous shrines has attracted many toursits and anthropology across the world to come and study their culture and traditions.
Sweeping away Mansami’s evil Destiny. The rite of “sweeping” the patients with the white chicken. The bird is presented wings spread out for the “wife” to spit under the wing.Meyer Fortes
Tallensi people are also noted for their "Firstborns" showing special status in their tradition. “The reason for this strong emphasis on having a firstborn son or firstborn daughter is that a person can never achieve the fulfillment necessary to become a revered ancestor after death if he or she does not have children to carry on rituals.
Tallensi men
The birth of a firstborn son or firstborn daughter makes a man truly mature and fulfilled, and it represents his ascendance to the highest position in the society.”(Fortes, Meyer (1969)
Fetishes protector of Tongo hills, north of Ghana. The secret of the magic Tongo hills north of Ghana:
the village of Tengzug surrounded by fields of sorghum and sacred rocks and of holy shrines and meet Traditional priests, guardians of ancestral tradition.to visit the cave where is kept a powerful fetish that attracts pilgrims from all over Ghana, need to discover the chest and go barefoot, before meeting the animist priest dressed traditionally with an animal skin. Anthony Pappone
Location
Their country, which, for convience of reference may be called Taleland, embraces most of the southern
half of the district between the two Voltas and the western boundary. On the north it can e demarcated
only by an arbitrary boundary which extends in a wavy line from Zuarungu due east to the river. A typical
section of the district, Taleland includes the Tong Hills, the vicinity of which harbours the densestand
oldest settlements of the country.”
Tallensi people fetching water from the will, Tongo, Ghana
Ecology (natural environment):
It has been variously described as ‘parkland’, ‘savannah’, or ‘orchard bush’ country, terms which indicate
the sparse and uniform forestation characteristic of this zone. Stretching irregularly and almost right across
Africa, between the eight and the sixteenth parallels N. latitude, it merges into the Sahara on the north and
is bounded by the tropical rain forest on the south.”
Tongo Hills
“The climate of the Sudanese Zone exhibits two clearly defined seasons, a dry season lasting about half
the year (October to March) and a wet season lasting the remaining six or seven months (April to
Octobe). A characteristic feature of the dry season is the harmattan, a hot parching wind laden with fine
dust which blows from the Sahara, so strongly at times as to obscure the landscape in a haze which limits
visibility to a few hundred yards.
Tongo Hills
Heavy dew and mists cause the mornings to be chilly and bracing… p.m the sun blazes relentlessly through the faint haze; sunset ushers in a cool and balmy evening; and night brings a relatively marked drop in temperature.”
“Violent nocturnal tornadoes from the east and north-east, accompanied by lightning and thunder,
introduce the rainy season, during which the prevailing wind blows from the direction of the Gulf of
Guinea, to the south and south-east. During this season the temperature remains fairly stable throughout
the day. Though it is never as hot as in the hottest days of the dry season, the humidity makes it at times
excessively oppressive.”
Tallensi festish priest at Tongo Hills
Language
Tallensi people speaks Talni language,which is a branch of the Gur language group of the larger Niger-Congo language phylum. Gurune, Nankani, Booni, Talni, and Nab't together with some others are considered the major dialects of the Frafra people. However, Nab't and Talni could also be considered dialects of Mampruli; Mampruli, Kusaal, and Dagaare are in turn considered to be sister languages to Gurune. There are obvious linguistic similarities among these and the other languages of the Mabia language group (Bodomo 1994; St. John-Parsons 1960).
Tallensi boy
History
Tallensi history just follows that of their parent tribe, frafra. However, the oral traditions of the community at TongoTengzuk claim that their ancestors have always been there, or alternately, sprouted from the ground or descended from heaven (Gabrilopoulos 1995), as do the other indigenous Talensi living around the base of the hill. Those Talensi known as Namoos at Tongo, who are actually migrant Mamprusi, acknowledge the antiquity of the real Talensi living on the hill or at the foot of it, and affirm peaceful coexistence with their neighbours (Fortes 1945, Rattray 1932).
Tallensi Dancers. Photograph by Meyer Fortes, July - September 1934
Tallensi People
Upper East Region, Ghana
For centuries the Tongo hills formed part of a frontier belt between centralized states. The conquest states of Dagbon and Mamprugu lay to the south and those of the Mossi kingdoms to the North. By the time of European contact, the Talensi were sedentary horticulturists with a loose, acephalous political organization. Tongo-Tengzuk was recognized as an established site of sacred power with the arrival of colonial rule at the end of the nineteenth century. It was one of the last areas in Ghana to submit to British rule; only in 1911 did a British military expedition storm the hills and end the resistance. The Tallensi were evicted and access to the area banned. In 1915, the British found out that many people had clandestinely returned to the hills and a second assault was launched in the same year. By the 1920s many people had returned to the area because of its sacred power.
Tallensi Gologo dancers at the Golibdaana House, Tengzug
Economy
“The entire unit of food economy thus draws its main supply of grain, the staple foodstuff, from a
common source. But every household, every primary family, and indeed every individual other than young
children has a degree of economic independence, which is limited only by the obligations to the bigger
unit. An industrious householder usually possesses some poultry and perhaps sheep and goats of his own,
supplies a good deal of the minor crops consumed by his own wives and children, and even some grain to
augment his wives’ rations from the main store. Every woman, again, adds to the food supply of her
primary family by her own efforts. If she is a market trader or potteress, for example, she will have money
of her own, will sometimes purchase extra foodstuffs and may invest in live stock which will eventually
go to her sons. Her husband has no powers of disposal over her property. If he uses any of it, by her
permission, it is a debt which must be repaid."
Tallensi women in Sorghum farm
Main carbohydrate staple(s): In South of the [Gambaga] scarp a form of shifting cultivation is customary, and yams (Dioscorea spp.) are grown on a large scale side by side with millet (Pennisetum typhoides, var.), guinea corn (Sorghum vulgare), and maize (Zea mays). North of it yams will not grow easily and cereal crops form the staple food supply.”
Main protein-lipid sources: It is rare for the Tallensi to consume meat/lipids: “A well-to-do compound may have a cow or two, even several cows, or a couple of donkeys, but the ordinary man usually comes into possession of these animals only in the form of bride-wealth, which will as likely as not be used immediately to pay a debt or, more rarely, to make a special and urgent sacrifice. In any case, a cow is never slaughtered specifically for food by the average man.” Sheep and goats are owned by all but the poorest; but again, no one would wantonly slaughter an animal for food.
Sexual division of production
The bulk of agricultural labour falls to the lot of men, though women and children help in planting.” This all important agricultural production is organized through the joint family, living in one compound, under the leadership of the compound head. He is responsible for the sorting, selection, preservation and storing of grain, the control of distribution, the organization of labour, etc. He also holds the land from which the unit of food economy gains sustenance.” The men do the heavy work of farming and care for the livestock.
The most exacting task in a woman’s routine is the provision of firewood and water. Little time can be available for more direct participation in production, especially as cooking, the most important task for the woman, must take up a considerable proportion of her time. She usually prepares two meals per day, and must always provide relish and contrive some variation in the meals.”
Trade:
All compounds share in the export trade in fowls; wage-labourers bring money back home. Fifty-four
percent of compounds own some cattle, which are principally used in marriage transactions, but also serve
as a marketable reserve in time of famine, an advantage enjoyed by owners of large herds over others.
Livestock are increasingly used as commodities in ordinary exchange, rather than in marriage transactions alone. Great quantities of cloth are imported and must be paid for. Yams and other foodstuffs are imported.
There are markets in Taleland. In the past the principal one was at Ba’ari; this used to be raided by men
from the Tong Hills. Foreign trade was also carried on with caravans on the North-South route…
Land tenure:
Patrimonial land is inherited within the lineage from fathers to sons in order of seniority by generation or
by age. It is plain that such land cannot provide for the needs of rapidly-growing lineage, and the records
of borrowing, pledging, and sale of land, together with evidence of migration, make this clear.
The keystone of the institutional framework of Tale agriculture is security of land tenure…The landowning unit is a segment of a maximal lineage and its property are an aspect of its corporate relationship to the maximal lineage and clan. Within a settlement the stretch of land parceled out into farm plots corresponds to the clan occupying that locality as it segmented into a hierarchy of lineage units.
All segments of the clan of the same order are equal to one another. They have an equal weight in the
structure of the clan, equal power in its affairs. The have, in consequence equal property right (though not necessarily equal amounts of property), equal opportunity for holding and farming land (though not
necessarily equal achievement), and equal social duties to one another…Just as members of the same clan
must not kill one another or abduct one another’s wives, so they must not trespass on one another`s land. For this would wreck the mutual loyalties of segment to segment and make impossible the maintenance of the reciprocity of rights and duties on which their corporate life depends. There is, in other words, a general
body of jural and moral norms, binding on all members of the clan and cementing its solidarity, and supported by the powerful sanctions of the ancestor cult and the Earth cult. The security of land tenure is
guaranteed by this.
Tallensi elder
Family system
The Tallensi have one of the most consistent patrilineal and patriarchal family systems as yet observed in Africa . At the peak of the cycle of family development the homestead is normally occupied by family group consisting of an old man his adult sons and possibly sons together with the wives of these men and all their unmarried children. This is the ideal every man aims at. Three generation patrilineal polygynous families are common.
Tallensi old man and his grandchildren
By the rule of lineage exogamy daughters marry out Men are born grow up and live their lives in the same place and often homestead. Even if they spend many years working in Southern Ghana they can and normally do return freely to their natal homes when they wish to do so. Women live in their parental home as daughters and move to their husbands homes as wives and though the physical distance of the move may
be less than mile the social distance is felt to be significant. Furthermore the men of lineage united by ties of common patrilineal descent which go back many generations tend to live near one another.
Since by the rules of classificatory kinship they are all brothers fathers and sons to one another the feeling of family solidarity embraces whole cluster of kinship-linked parental families each of which however has its separate house or part of house. Thus the core of every community is group of patrilineally linked men and it is they who hold the reins of authority and power in regard to land and livestock the control of women and children and especially in the all-important religious cult of ancestor worship.
House at Tongo with shrine at the front
At the same time women have remarkable degree of autonomy. Throughout life they keep in close touch with their own parental kinsfolk Indeed as among other African patrilineal peoples the brother plays an important part in life as the indulgent protective non-authoritarian counterpoise to the father and paternal kin wife with children is entitled to have her own apartment which is the private domain of herself and her children.
The room both in reality and in the imagery and conceptualisation of family structure is the heart of the family. Sexual relations between husband and wife are prohibited from the time of birth until it can run about and feed itself. Thus children are normally spaced at three-yearly intervals approximately and immediately successive matri-siblings are believed and expected to have strong feelings of rivalry which they often display in early childhood
Tallensi Children of Tongo Hills, Upper East Region, Ghana
From point of view then his life space falls into series of zones corresponding to successive stages of development. The innermost zone is centred on his mother and her room next comes the zone of the father-centred homestead associated with the ideas of half-siblingship and of paternal authority and then operative increasingly after the age of about five the cluster of related families contrapuntal pattern of social organisation in which patrilateral and matrilateral relationships are balanced against each other is fundamental in all spheres of Tallensi social structure and personal attitudes.
Attachment to the family and respect for the father remain so strong that educated young men working as clerks teachers etc. continue to live in their parental homes and to contribute to the family income just as their fathers did before them.
Men and women take equal delight and show equal affection and indulgence in looking after their young
children. Corporal punishment is very rare. Obedience to parents is built into the domestic routine and the value system rather than enforced by coercion Individuals even quite young children have large measure of independence within the framework of duty to the family.
Notable aspect of Tallensi culture is the way which their family system is mirrored and sanctioned in their ancestral cult. The shrines dedicated to the departed ancestors are placed all over the homestead and when not receiving sacrifice or worship are quite informally used as tables or seats. This shows vividly how the ancestors continue to form part of the family almost as if they were still among them They have in fact been reincorporated in the family in their spiritual identity.
Essentially all ancestors worshipped are translated parents Both paternal and maternal ancestors are thus worshipped. All ancestor figures are invested with mystically punitive as well as but rather more than beneficent qualities but significantly enough maternal ancestors and ancestresses who are extensions of the loving and self-sacrificing mother to whom unqualified affection and trust are due are believed to be more vindictive than paternal ones who represent the respected and legally supreme father.
From the point of view of their descendants the ancestors are perpetually demanding recognition service and propitiation by means of libations and blood-sacrifices claiming the credit for good fortune and more usually asserting their rights by inflicting misfortune sickness and above all death. Being unpredictable their
intervention only gets known after the event when diviner is consulted to discover the ancestral agent of an illness or death. Ancestors can be seen as the projection in symbol and concept of the coercive authority and superior power that lie behind the affection and devotion of parents especially fathers for their children In another ancestor worship may be seen as mechanism for dealing with the ambivalence in the relations of parents and children which Tallensi custom openly recognises. For example man and his first born son and prospective heir are deemed to be rivals and are therefore obliged to avoid certain forms of intimate contact and similar rule applies in an attenuated form to woman and her oldest daughter. Furthermore man does not achieve the status of full jural independence until his father dies no matter what his age may be.
In some ways ancestors are much like small children or very old people noticed only when they make nuisance of themselves by their demands or by getting ill. Then they must be placated and one can relax until the next outburst.
Tallensi Fetish priest at Tenzug
Marriage and Divorce
In Tallensi traditional marriage, "the bridegroom’s guardian must send the placation gift (lu sendaan) to the bride’s guardian, and must pay a proportion of the bride-price acceptable to the latter. A wife is usually espoused (sol) by paying the bride-price of four head of cattle or their equivalent in installments over a number of years. If he does not fufill these jural requirements, a man has no rights to and over his wife.”
Tallensi society frown s on a woman committing adultery. A woman who commits adultery exposes her husband and children to mystical dangers…she is haled to the homestead of the head of her husband’s medial lineage and subjected to the ordeal of entering the gateway. If she confesses she may enter safely. If not, the lineage ancestors will cause her to get ill if she enters the gateway. This is a powerful sanction of marital fidelity among women and is one reason why adultery is not very common.”
Tallensi woman
There is hardly a divorce case in Tallensi society, however, a marriage sometimes break up when a woman commits adultery. “A marriage breaks up either through the action of one of the spouses, generally the woman, or through that of the wife’s guardian. The Tallensi have no formal procedure for divorce. If a man
wishes to get rid of a wife (which happens very seldom) he generally does so by with-holding the bride-price, so that her guardian eventually recalls her, or he makes her life so uncomfortable that she deserts him. If a woman decides to leave a husband, she simply absconds. She may do so because she dislikes him, or because he does not feed her well enough, or neglects her sexually or otherwise, or, natives say, out of mere caprice. All women, according to the men, are fickle and gullible; a plausible suitor can seduce any woman. So if a young wife goes to visit her parents and stays longer than two or three days, her husband, be he an ardent young man or a sober greybeard, hurries off to fetch her, usually in considerable dudgeon, for fear that she may be abducted by another man.”
Tallensi woman and his husband at their compound, Tongo Hills
Political system: (chiefs, clans etc, wealth or status classes)
The politico-ritual integration of a Tale clan is focused in the politico-ritual office or offices vested in it or
in its component maximal lineages. These offices are either chiefship (na’am) (or its equivalent, the senior
office connected with an External Boyar) or tendaanaship. Chiefship is primarily associated with the
Namoos, though not exclusively so, tendaanaship with the clans and maximal lineages claiming to be the
autochthonous inhabitants of the country, though, again, not exclusively so.
Portrait Traditional priest in the cave of the sacrifices of tengzug, north of Ghana by anthony pappone photographer
Both chiefship and tendaanaship are, to the natives, unitary institutions made up of offices distributed among a number of clans and lineages. The range of these institutions is not even limited to Taleland. All chiefs are ‘brothers’ since they derive their office from a common source, the Paramount Chief of Mampurugu; all tendaanas, similarly, are ‘brothers’ since their office has the same function and ritual value everywhere in relation to the Earth. The chain of ritual collaboration is one expression of this notion. Among the Tale chiefs the Chief of Tongo ranks highest. He has no political, administrative, or judicial authority over any other
chiefs, or any other clan than his own, but his office incarnates the quintessence of na’am. He represents
all the chiefs of the country in the ritual attributes of chiefship.Tendaanas, in keeping with the elaborate
segmentation of the clans in which this office is vested, are more equal in status. But in every cluster of
closely interdependent contiguous clans there is one tendaana who ranks higher than his confreres. The
Gbizug tendaana ranks above the tendaana of Zubiun, Gbeog, and Wakii, and the Doo tendaana above the
other Tenzugu tendaanas.
Chiefs and tendaanas had no political power, as we understand it, before the coming of the white man.
They had no administrative, or executive, and only rudimentary judicial powers. They were the leaders
and not the rulers, the fathers and not the princes of their clans.
Food taboos:
There are many restrictions and taboos commonly associated with menstruation in traditional Ghanaian
thought and practice. There is a widely recognized traditional taboo on a menstruating woman’s cooking
food for any man including her husband. It may be thought necessary to protect even crops from her evil
influence…She may not be allowed to enter any stream to get water.
Firstborn Son and Father
“When a boy is 6 years of age, he may not eat from the same dish as his father. This is a taboo. Other taboos relate to the use of the father's weapons, the father's clothes, or the father's tools. Furthermore, when a son arrives at adolescence, around the age of 12 or 13, he cannot enter the house compound at the same time as his father. If, for some reason, the son violates this taboo, then there must be purification rites.
o Firstborn Daughter and Mother
“The firstborn daughter cannot look into her mother's storage containers, vases, pots, or tubs; this is a taboo.”
Death and afterlife beliefs
When a person dies, it is the firstborn son or daughter who leads in the ritual ceremonies. Only
at this moment can the son actually put on his father's cap and his father's cloth and walk in the
father's shoes.”
Everything in the Tallensi society works together to maintain this balance between the secular lineage and
the ancestral dead. “From the point of view of their descendants, the ancestors are perpetually demanding recognition, service and propitiation by means of libations and blood sacrifices, claiming the credit for a persons good fortune, sickness and above all death. Being unpredictable, their intervention only gets known after the event, when a diviner is consulted to discover the ancestral agent of an illness or a death.”
The Sacred Crocodile
Among the Tallensi tribe there is a belief in the sacred crocodile. As Meyer Fortes highlighted in his ethnographic work "The concept of the person", special crocodiles in special pools are considered persons among the Tallensi. No local man, indeed no Tallensi would dare kill or injure a sacred crocodile. Every Tallensi knows that these crocodiles are the incarnation of important clan ancestors. To kill one of these is like killing a person. It is murder of the most heinous kind and it would bring disaster on the whole clan.
However, not all crocodiles are considered persons (ni-saal) for instance, in the rivers that are fished in the dry season - is not a person, not sacred. It can be killed and eaten.
The cultural landscape of Tongo-Tenzuk
BENJAMIN WARINSIE KANKPEYENG
Head of Regional Office, Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, Bolgatanga
TRADITIONAL CONSERVATION PRACTICES
The Tongo Hills, embracing the unique cultural landscape of Tongo-Tengzuk, are located only ten miles from Bolgatanga. The area is of outstanding natural beauty and cultural richness. The hills, with their amazing rock formations, caves and natural rock shelters, are the sacred epicentre of the Talensi, an ethnic group in northern Ghana. Over countless generations, through work and play, in their buildings and rituals, the Talensi at Tongo-Tengzuk have managed to master their unique environment.
Tengzuk shrine in the village of Tongo
Interdependence between Nature and Culture.
The environmental mastery at Tongo-Tengzuk has come about through effective use of land for buildings, agriculture (which engages about ninetyeight percent of the population) and shrines. The local architecture blends seamlessly into the natural environment, while also creating human order within nature. The design and placement of structures has served the social needs of the community for many centuries and is carefully preserved through tradition. The houses mirror the social and ideological relations among the Talensi. The footpaths, the shaded spaces, the shrines and groves, cattle kraals and granaries, reflect the cosmological system and sociopolitical structures. The numerous compounds, clustered among the rocks of the hills, produce a landscape of extraordinary beauty and tranquillity, typical of a superb example of the interdependence of nature and culture, of humans and their environment. Retention of water for agricultural purposes is achieved through careful rock terracing. Some rocky areas are used for processing foods: threshing, pounding or grinding grains and shea butter. Some of the caves, rock boulders, rocky pavements, land and groves are sacred or serve as shrines for the community.
Historical Background
The oral traditions of the community at TongoTengzuk claim that their ancestors have always been there, or alternately, sprouted from the ground or descended from heaven (Gabrilopoulos 1995), as do the other indigenous Talensi living around the base of the hill. Those Talensi known as Namoos at Tongo, who are actually migrant Mamprusi, acknowledge the antiquity of the real Talensi living on the hill or at the foot of it, and affirm peaceful coexistence with their neighbours (Fortes 1945, Rattray 1932).
For centuries the Tongo hills formed part of a frontier belt between centralized states. The conquest states of Dagbon and Mamprugu lay to the south and those of the Mossi kingdoms to the North. By the time of European contact, the Talensi were sedentary horticulturists with a loose, acephalous political organization. Tongo-Tengzuk was recognized as an established site of sacred power with the arrival of colonial rule at the end of the nineteenth century. It was one of the last areas in Ghana to submit to British rule; only in 1911 did a British military expedition storm the hills and end the resistance. The Tallensi were evicted and access to the area banned. In 1915, the British found out that many people had clandestinely returned to the hills and a second assault was launched in the same year. By the 1920s many people had returned to the area because of its sacred power.
Stone shrine at Tenzug
Conservation Practices
The conservation of the Tongo-Tengzuk cultural landscape site is tied up with the Talensi worldview. The site contain numerous sacred shrines including earth shrines (tengban) and ancestral shrines (ba’ar). The Talensi believe in a supreme being and worship this being through lesser gods represented by a host of natural features in the form of rocks or boulders, cliffs, caves and constructed ancestral shrines. Paramount among the earth shrines is Tonna’ab, nestled in the cliffs to the west of the settlement at the section called Kpatari, which has provided the area with enormous sacred power for both the Talensi and other ethnic groups in Ghana. Tonna’ab has dominated the religious topography of the area as well as attracting pilgrims from surrounding populations (Guruni, Kusasi, Builsa, Dagomba and Mossi). It has also been viewed historically by the Akan in southern Ghana as a site of potential ritual power. Rattray (1932) observed the presence
of wealthy Asante businessmen and women in the area. Tonna’ab is a benevolent, protective, and curative shrine that abhors evil. It has been the unifying factor for the Talensi and continues to flourish today.
At Kpatari there are two sacred groves, Bonab and Nnoo, that also greatly influence the culture of the entire Talensi community. Bonab performs the same ritual functions as Tonna’ab. The Nnoo shrine serves as the home of the Golib god. The Golib god has a lot of influence on the agricultural life of the community, ensuring the maintenance of several cultural practices in the area. The Gologo festival, which takes place at the end of the dry season or the beginning of the rainy season, is celebrated to reinforce the community belief in the Nnoo shrine or Golib god.
The historical establishment of, and adherence to, many taboos and norms in respect to the needs of the Golib god has helped to evolve and maintain a number of traditional conservation practices which over the years have preserved this unique cultural landscape. These taboos, norms and penalties have been instituted to strengthen the relationship between the Talensi and this god or shrine. The social conventions of the Talensi, which have a strong ideological background related to ancestor worship, also serve to conserve the cultural landscape.
Tongo Hills, shrine
Architecture
A cursory examination of architectural variation at Tongo-Tengzuk reveals two architectural types: at Kpatari and Bonchiig, there are only flat mud roofs, while all other settlement have roofs of thatch or modern materials (aluminium or galvanized sheets). The difference is explained by the fact that the Golib god abhors fire and therefore thatch, as it can cause a gusting fire. The displeasure of the god can bring about catastrophes within the community, such as drought, poor crop harvest and sicknesses. Consequently, there is a proscription against the use of thatch in construction by the Kpatari and Bonchiig communities, where the three important shrines of Tonna’ab. Bonab and Nnoo are located.
Historically, all worshippers of the Golib god from the external Bogyar clan (the real Talensi and not the Namoo or migrants) celebrated the spring festival of Gologo and autumn festival of Boaram and upheld this proscription, but today the situation has changed. Only the Kpatari and Bonchiig communities continue to adhere to the regulation and hence their houses consist of mud structures, except for a few rooms built with cement by wealthy individuals, though even these retain a flat roof.
The establishment and maintenance of the building tradition at Tongo-Tengzuk has been due to the passing of the essential elements of building construction or conservation from members of the older knowledgeable generation to their successors. The transmission of the knowledge is conducted verbally or by demonstration. Oral traditions can be formulaic in nature (Gabrilopoulos 1995) and their transmission includes mnemonic devices.Building is a semi-permanent occupation, conducted and supervised by experienced individuals in the community. These individuals, who are also farmers, will help families who wish to build new compounds, as well as those who are expanding or maintaining existing ones. One does not train formally to be a builder. Individuals and youngsters acquire knowledge of building techniques by seeking out experienced builders or relatives who will engage them in informal apprenticeships. As they help, they learn the rules of traditional design, construction and traditional norms relating to the built form.Several factors limit the location and the form of the building. These include the availability of building materials, natural features and obstructions,
minimal requirements for shelter and comfort, and, above all, social and ideological needs. The building process among the Talensi is negotiated and practised according to convention. In addition, the compound
is constructed in a manner ‘facilitating domestic life segregating activities, animals and people, reinforcing
relationships and affirming beliefs, the structure of the compound, in concert with its occupants use’
(Gabrilopoulos 1995), and it has its own social logic.
The social conventions of the area provide another source or impetus for the conservatism displayed with respect to the conservation of the built environment. ‘Social conservatism reduces anxiety about the range of actions that a particular actor may take. Modifications to the built environment have a logic of their own, that must be negotiated within the community’ (ibid.). Rich individuals who could afford to purchase modern materials are pressured by the community to conform to the village planning norms and to use more traditional ones instead.
Building work is conducted from January to April. Women and men both contribute to the construction and maintenance of buildings. Women carry the mud and men do the actual building. Maintenance is necessary during each dry season. Wind, rain, fire, and human and animal impacts contribute to the deterioration of the mud structures. Mud is best conceptualized as a semi-permanent material. Replastering is usually done annually. Courtyards are repaired in general every two years. Mud roofs are repaired somewhat more frequently because of the direct rainwater impact. High traffic areas, steps, and walls that suffer impacts from livestock are repaired frequently. Thatch roofs outside Kpatari are replaced every three years. Compounds are also remodelled to accommodate changes in social relations in the house: men acquire new wives and sons come of age, marry and beget children. Entire new courtyards may accrete onto the compound. Additional ancestor shrines are added after the death of more elders or landlords. Compounds consist of round and square rooms, except for the Dakore’s house which contains important oracles for the community and consists of only round rooms because the oracles abhor any other form.
Farmland and Shrines
The rock boulders forming the stone terraces prevent fires, set to burn stalks in preparation for the next season, from getting out of control because of the Golib god. Stone terracing effectively retains and checks water erosion for farming purposes. The terracing helps to preserve the fertility of the soil. The proscription against gusting fires has helped to preserve the natural vegetation around the shrines.
Tradition also prohibits the cutting of the trees, shrubs and grasses around the three shrines. There are prescribed walkways to each shrine.
Natural Landscape
The community has resisted attempts to destroy the physical or natural landscape of the area. For example,
their Tallensi neighbours at Wakyii, a village at the base of the hill, gave a concession covering parts of
the hill under their control to a quarrying company, allowing degradation of the area. In contrast, the Tengzuk community violently resisted attempts by the same company to extend their operations beyond the foot of the hill. Complaints were made to the district and regional authorities, and to the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (the national institution responsible for the preservation of the material cultural heritage) by the leaders of the Tengzuk community. Steps have now been taken by these governmental agencies to stop the quarrying operations.
Legal Protection
Traditionally, the earth-priests of the seven sections of Tengzuk, namely, Sameed, Sakpiega, Tamboog,
Gundari, Nanchieyir, Kpatari and Bonchiig, as well as the custodian of Tonna’ab, enforce the laws on
the use of the natural and cultural environment. The Goldana, the most senior earth priest, acts as the chief.
The Tongo-rana, paramount chief of the Talensi, has only administrative responsibility with respect to
traditional political matters. The Bolgatanga District Assembly has been enthusiastic about, and interested
in, the preservation of the site, since it has potential for tourism development. The assembly has a plan to
construct a road from the base of the hill through to the end of the settlement. It has also demonstrated its
interest by providing funds for the limited ethnographic documentation and mapping of the settlement by the
Upper East Regional Museum, Bolgatanga. The Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, empowered by law NLCD 387 of 1969 for the preservation of the material culture of Ghana, has identified and nominated the settlement to UNESCO for consideration as a world heritage cultural landscape site.
Conclusions
Tongo-Tengzuk is a masterpiece of a cultural landscape, one that the Talensi community have attempted over the years to preserve for posterity, despite increasing threats from modernity and little outside intervention or support. Limited research has provided some knowledge about the community’s ethnography and history (Allman 1999; Fortes 1945; Gabrilopoulos 1995; Kankpeyeng 2000; Rattray 1932).
The community has conserved the site for several decades by relying on traditional methods, inspired and strengthened by their worldview. The TongoTengzuk community’s relationship with staff at the Upper East Regional Museum has demonstrated its enthusiasm and support for any assistance to preserve the site for posterity. Preserving the site for posterity will require detailed research work on the ethnography, archaeology, traditional architecture, soil management and environmental techniques This research will provide us with an understanding of the chronology of the site, the kinds of materials needed to conserve it, and those philosophical and psychological elements within the community that stimulated its preservation. The application of modern conservation techniques will greatly enhance the preservation of the site. Equally important is support for the community and education to help its members maintain their traditional culture in the face of the many present-day challenges that confront them.
Bibliography
Allman, Jean (n.d.), ‘A Brief on Tongo-Tengzuk’.
Unpublished paper submitted to Ghana Museums
and Monuments Board.
Fortes, Meyer (945), The dynamics of clanship among
the Talensi (Oxford University Press).
Gabrilopoulos, Nick (995), ‘Ethnoarchaeology of the
Tallensi Compound (Upper East Region, Ghana)’.
A Master of Arts thesis submitted to the Faculty of
Graduate Studies, University of Calgary, Canada.
Kankpeyeng, Benjamin Warinsie (2000), ‘A Brief on
Tongo-Tengzuk’. Unpublished paper submitted to
the Bolgatanga District Assembly.
Rattray, R. S. (932), The tribes of the Ashanti
Hinterland, Vol. II (Oxford University Press).
Upper East Regional Museum (n.d.), ‘The Cultural
Landscape of the Tongo Hills’ (exhibition brochure)
Sourcehttp://www.iccrom.org/pdf/iccrom_ics02_traditionalpractices_en.pdf
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