IDNO

N.102162.MF

Description

“Building ?Paandɔbis compd. at Dikpiez, Nov 15. Two heaps of tan, wet & ready for building & background of people.” [Fortes' annotation]

Distant view of a group of Tallensi building ?Paandɔbis compound. Two heaps of tan (puddled adobe) are wet and ready for building are visible in the foreground. In the background is a group of people who will help with house building. [AF 23/4/2008]

Place

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

Cultural Affliation

Tallensi

Named Person

?Paandɔbis

Photographer

?Fortes, Meyer

Collector / Expedition

Fortes, Meyer

Date

15 November 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: Fortes describes the architecture of a Tallensi homestead, “The homesteads are solidly constructed of pile (puddled mud, tan), and they are built to last. Erecting the circular walls tier by tier, plastering them, roofing the rooms, stamping the floors, adding the small contrivances and the decorations that increase the comfort and attraction of a homestead, are all the tasks requiring considerable skill, care and cooperation...The conventional division of labour involves both sexes equally in the building of a homestead. Building and thatching is men’s work; plastering, drawing the crude lines and geometrical designs that decorate the walls, and stamping the floors into smooth, hard surfaces are all women’s work. According to its size and the number of workers available, from the commencement to the final touches, it takes from three weeks to two months of intermittent but often strenuous labour build a homestead. This falls chiefly on all its future occupants. All the members of the family, including the children, lend a hand. But co-members of the owner’s clan, especially of his own local segment and their wives, as well as kinsmen, affines, and friends, lend their services too, and this involves considerable expenditure of foodstuffs to reward them. (Fortes, 1949, p. 48) [Alicia Fentiman, 23/4/2008].

Context: The importance of building a new house is described as, “an outstanding event in the life of a its owner and a matter or public attention. It always marks a significant change in a man’s status-his economic and jural emancipation from minority, or his attainment of eldership high up in the lineage hierarchy. Hence it requires moral sanction and ritual precautions. As we have seen, it also mobilises all the basic social ties a man has. The house itself, embodying the labour and care of himself, his family, and many of his relatives by blood and marriage, sands as a monument to the efficacy of these social ties”. (Fortes, 1949, p. 48). [Alicia Fentiman, 23/4/2008]

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].