IDNO

N.102159.MF

Description

“The Gorogo men who brought a bɔɣar & viel Yin for Tadɔl’s wife, July 1934.
Left is carrying the bɔɣar, right the chickens given by Tadɔl for them to sacrifice at home.
Note form of bɔɣar. All ‘Talensi’ [sic Tallensi]bɔɣars said to be like this. They don’t have ?Saibηieh.” [Fortes' annotation]

Full-length portrait of two Tallensi men from Gorogo with sacrificial items for Tadɔl’s wife. The Tallensi man to the left is wearing shorts and is annotated as carrying a bɔɣar (ancestor shrine), which appears to be a rectangular object that is hung from a twine rope around his shoulder. The man to the right is wearing a cloth draped over him in togo style and is carrying two chickens “given by Tadɔl for them to sacrifice at home”. The background consists of an open landscape and trees.

Place

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

Cultural Affliation

Tallensi

Named Person

Tadcl

Photographer

?Fortes, Meyer

Collector / Expedition

Fortes, Meyer

Date

July 1934

Collection Name

Fortes Collection

Source

Drucker-Brown, Susan

Format

Glass Negative Halfplate

Primary Documentation

Other Information

N.102159.MF - N.102166.MF were kept in the box now numbered C549/.

Context: “Kpata’arna’ab yidem are the senior custodians also of the supreme Earth shrine of Tεnzugu, ηoo; but in the cult of ηoo they have a completely different set of ritual collaborators from those associated with them in the cult of the External Bɔɣar. They have a different field of ritual relations counterpoised to that of which the External Bɔɣar is the focus. The units associated with Kpata’arna’ab yidεm in the cult of ηoo are Degal (linked by clanship ties to them, but having its own External Bɔɣar), Golibdaan yidεm of Bunkiuk (who have no clanship ties with Kpata’arna’ab yidεm, and are the senior custodians of a different External Bɔɣar from theirs), and Tamboog (who also have no clanship ties with Kpata’ar, and have an independent External Bɔɣar). These four units must be represented at all rites performed at ηoo during the Great Festivals. Each one has also a private Earth shrine, with which the other three groups have no connexion, but their common allegiance to ηoo binds them to one another in mutual ritual dependence. This should mean also, and by all accounts did formally mean, a bond of mutual amity and cohesion; for there is nothing according to Tale belief, which the Earth abhors so greatly as strife between those who worship it together at the same shrine.
To-day the cult of ηoo furnishes an outstanding instance of the relativity of such ritual sanctions to the structural relations of the corporate units amongst which they are effective. During the Great Festivals, the four maximal lineages meet as of old to perform the prescribed rites at ηoo. For this limited period and this objective they are obliged to set aside their antagonisms and collaborate amicably. At other times, however, they are divided by their struggle for power that has been going on between the Golibdaana and the Kpata’arna’ab. Both Degal (in spite of their clanship ties with Kpata’ar and the majority of the Tamboog people have been seduced by the wealth and power of the Golibdaana).
The pull of loyalty to Kpata’ar sustained by the common cult of ηoo has not, however, remained altogether ineffective. In order to make their religious relations with Kpata’ar consistent with their newly arisen political hostility to them, the supporters of the Golibdaana have tried to oust Kpata’arna’ab yidεm from their traditional status in relation to ηoo. They would thus, if they succeeded, have put Kpata’ar in the position of a faction opposed to the rightful principles in the cult of ηoo. On the other hand, there are dissidents in the Golibdaana’s camp who rationalise their opposition to him and a find a rallying motive for it in the traditional loyalty which they owe to Kpata’ar in virtue of their reciprocal ties of ritual collaboration.
For Kpata’arna’ab yidεm, Degal, Bunkiuk, Golibdaan yidεm, and Tamboog, their common allegiance to ηoo counteracts their divergent loyalties to their respective Bɔɣar congregations. ηoo, however, does more than merely bind these four units to one another. It is the focus of integration of the four Bɔɣar communities they represent; and it is the point of confluence of the distinctive fields of clanship and of local ties of these four units. The ritual of the Golib festival when closely analysed shows that ηoo is the palladium of all the Talis, the centre about which the equilibrium of all their corporate relations with one another swings.
Thus, to be specific, Tamboog is regarded as representing Wakii, and therefore, in virtue of the latter’s ties with Gbizug, Zubiun, and Ba’ari, these clans as well. Tamboog also represents Waγar and the other members of its Bɔɣar congregation, which includes segments of Zandoya, Yinduuri, Sii and Gorogo. And intersecting these groupings run the numerous ties of clanship, joking partnership, clan-ship-by-courtesy, privileged coercion, and local contiguity, that link up particular members of different groups” (Fortes, 1945 pp.112-114). [Alicia Fentiman, 29/4/2008]

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. [Alicia Fentiman, 23/4/2008]