IDNO

N.101812.MF

Description

The compound of an elder man identified as Trook with two children. They are seated in the courtyard in front of an adobe and thatched hut. In the foreground is the divining shrine known as a bakologo. This is a “female” shrine associated with the matrilineal lineage of the owner. The shrine gives the spirits a home in the elder’s own house where he can offer sacrifices to appease them and thus maintain harmony. Nearly all men over the age of forty have a bakologo (Fortes 1949: 325). [AF 7/5/2008]

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 explains the significance of the bakologo shrine. “A bakologo shrine, is by definition, a ‘female (bumpek) shrine. That is to say, the ancestors associated with it come, by definition, from a matrilateral lineage of the diviner; and the dominant figure among them is usually a woman, ‘a mother’. It is a point of striking significance in the social psychology of the Tallensi that the spirits through whom a diviner makes contact with the ancestors (Fortes 1949: 325).

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]