IDNO

N.102644.MF

Description

“A domestic sacrifice of fowls, guinea-fowls, and beer. The head of the joint family is addressing the shrine, which occupies a recess in his senior wife’s Dug” (room). Three young Tallensi boys sitting on the ground in front of an adobe hut with an array of gourd? pots around them; two of the boys are wearing loin cloths while the other is wearing a woven smock. To the right, there are two children sitting on the ground. [AF 13/6/2008]

Place

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

Cultural Affliation

Tallensi

Named Person

Photographer

Fortes, Meyer

Collector / Expedition

Fortes, Meyer

Date

?February - ?April 1934

Collection Name

Fortes Collection

Source

Drucker-Brown, Susan

Format

Film Negative Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

N.102560.MF - N.102652.MF were kept in the negative album “IV” now numbered C558/.

Publication: Image published in Fortes, M., 1949. The Web of Kinship Among the Tallensi. (London: Oxford University Press), p.129, with the caption: “a. A domestic sacrifice of fowls, guinea-fowls, and beer. The head of the joint family is addressing the shrine, which occupies a recess in his senior wife’s Dug.” [ED 26/2/2008]

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).

Context: “The Tallensi House: Tallensi house are noticeably more carefully constructed, better enclosed, more decorated and tidier than those of the Mamprusi people. They contain more elaborately built structures for resting, for storing grain, and for housing animals. Outside walls are painted; both colour and design identify lineages. Tallensi houses are built of earth, and the granary (buur) which belongs to a household head dominates the centre of the compound. Among the Tallensi namoos the gateway is the focus of a prohibition which separates a father and his grown-up first born son. The two should not meet one another passing through the gateway. The granary is a similar focus of prohibition. A first-born son is never allowed to look into his fathers granary while his father is alive. During his father’s funeral the first born son is ritually taken to see the inside of his father’s granary while his father is alive. During his father’s funeral the first-born son is ritually taken to see the inside of his father’s granary, an act which, by reversing the custom observed throughout their lives in common, also emphasises the identification of father and son. The gate and the granary are thus conceptually linked.” (Drucker-Brown, 2001, ‘House and Hierarchy: Politics and Domestic Space in Northern Ghana,’ The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 7, No. 4., pp. 669-685.). [ED 30/11/2007]

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. [Elisabeth Deane 25/2/2008]