IDNO

N.101811.MF

Description

A village elder named by Fortes as Trook, sitting on the floor in the dεndɔηo [dendcnjo] (compound), beside a domestic shrine, (the lineage bɔɣar [bcyar]) which consists of an adobe-built cone with an assemblage of objects hanging from the decorated adobe wall above. The sacrificial elements consist of feathers from fowls and guinea fowls and blood. On the floor in front of the shrine is a gourd bowl and a fly-whisk which are used during ritual sacrifice. [Alicia Fentiman 15/4/2008].

Place

W Africa; Ghana; Upper East Region [Gold Coast; Northern Territories]

Cultural Affliation

Tallensi

Named Person

?Bayman Trook

Photographer

?Fortes, Meyer

Collector / Expedition

Fortes, Meyer

Date

January 1934 - April 1937

Collection Name

Fortes Collection

Source

Drucker-Brown, Susan

Format

Glass Negative Halfplate

Primary Documentation

Other Information

N.101811.MF - N.101821.MF were kept in the box now numbered C545/.

The inscription on the metal box numbered C545/ does not fully correspond with the contents. [Jocelyne Dudding 10/4/2007]

Context: Fortes writes that amongst the Tallensi, ancestors are worshipped by name and the names are perpetuated in the lineage genealogies and personal pedigrees in an accepted generation sequence. Moreover, these genealogies are equally essential for the correct constitution of congregations of worshippers, for the exact focusing of their ritual service, and for the organization of social relations of all domains of social structure. An ancestor is a named, dead forebear who has living descendants of a designated genealogical class representing his continued structural relevance. In ancestor worship such an ancestor receives ritual service and tendance directed specially by him by the proper class of his descendants. Being identified by name means that he is invested with attributes distinctive of a kind of person.” (Fortes, 1987, pp.67-68.) [Alicia Fentiman 15/4/2008]

Context: Fortes explains the lay out of a compound and the importance of the dugdanna (senior wife) and her status is recognised. “One sign of this is that most of the ancestor and medicine shrines that are kept indoors rests in the dendanyo and rooms of the senior woman. They include a man’s personal shrines, as well as those of which he is custodian as head of a lineage segment. Sacrifice is offered to these shrines in this dendanyo, the woman and children of the family often taking part. A man’s ancestors keep watch and ward both indoors and out over the things, the place, and the people most precious to him. (Fortes, 1949, p.59). [Alicia Fentiman 15/4/2008]

Context: “When a man sacrifices to an ancestor spirit, any descendant of that ancestor has the right to be present and to share in the sacrament. The only exceptions are the cult of the clan or maximal lineage (bɔɣar). It would be incompatible with the functions of these cults as foci of social integration o the highest level of corporate structure to allow non-members of the lineage concerned to take part in them. But an ahəη may attend domestic sacrifices to any of his matrilateral ancestors and sacrifices to the founding ancestor’s shrine (bɔɣar) of the lineage of his true or classificatory mother’s brother. If a man proposes to make a sacrifice to one of his immediate antecedents (say, his father or grandfather), and if he is going to sacrifice anything larger than a fowl or guinea fowl (say, a goat or a sheep or a cow), he is in duty bound to inform his sisters.” (Fortes, 1949, p.321). [AF 15/4/2008]

Bibliographical Reference: Fortes, Meyer, 1945. Dynamics of Clanship Among the Tallensi (London: Oxford University Press).

Bibliographical Reference: Fortes, Meyer, 1949. The Web of Kinship Among the Tallensi (London: Oxford University Press).

Bibliographical Reference: Fortes, Meyer, 1987. Religion, Morality and the Person: Essays on Tallensi Religion (London: Oxford University Press).

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Jocelyne Dudding 10/4/2007] [Alicia Fentiman, 15/4/2008].