Christianity and Cultural History in Northern Ghana: A Portrait of Cardinal Peter Poreku Dery (1918–2008) (Dieux, Hommes et Religions / Gods, Humans and Religions) [New ed.] 9782875741141, 2875741144

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
Foreword
Preface
Introduction. Approaching the Cultural History of Northern Ghana (Alexis B. Tengan)
Biographies as Cultural History
Religious Groups and the Re-shaping of Cultural History (The Missionaries of Africa)
Individual Biography as Cultural History (Peter Cardinal Poreku Dery)
The Documentation and Writing of Cultural history
References
Part I: Cultures in Contact, Religions in Conflict
Dagara Appropriation of Christianity. Missionary and Colonial Movements into Northwest Ghana since 1929 (Alexis B. Tengan)
Introduction
1.1. General Background: Space and Travel Movements
1.2. Dagara Spatial Universe of Settlements and Habitats of Hoe-farming1
2. Missionary and Colonial Spatial Trajectory and Movement into Northwest Ghana
2.1. The historical background and the colonial trajectory
2.2. The Missionary Trajectory
3. Experiencing Missionary Activities as Spatial Encounters
4. Conclusion
References
African Traditional Religious Leadership and the Worldview of Peter Cardinal Poreku Dery (Linus Zan)
1. Introduction
2. Aspects of Leadership
2.1. Spirituality in Religious Leadership
3. Dagara Religion and Leadership
3.1. The House Structure and the Position of the House Elder (Yir-nikpee)
3.2. Traditional Religion and Leadership
3.3. The Tengan-sob (Custodian of the Earth Spirit)
4. Peter Cardinal Poreku Dery: A Model of Leadership
4.2. The Leadership Model of Cardinal Dery
Conclusion
References
A Study of Proverbs among the Dagara of West Africa (Paschal Kyiiripuo Kyoore)
Introduction
Humility and Caution
Behaviour or Decision
Evoking Nature and Other Objects of Symbolism
Evoking a Custom to Express an Opinion
Concern for Social Mores
Allusion to People’s Intelligence
Conclusion
References
“If You Do Good You Do it to Yourself and if You Do Evil You Do it to Yourself”. Retribution in the Oral Narratives of the Dagaaba (Gervase Angsotinge)
Introduction
Background and Context
The Concept of Morality among the Dagaaba
The Story of the Goat and the Hyena
Analysis of the story of the Hyena and the Goat
The Story of the Farmer and the evil Woman
Analysis of the story of the Farmer and the evil Woman
Conclusion
References
Part II: Reconciling Religions, Reconciling People
Paul’s Call for Reconciliation and its Relevance for the Church with Particular Reference to Africa (Richard K. Baawobr)
Introduction
Part I. Reconciliation in Paul’s Letters
1. Reconciliation in Corinthian Correspondence
2. Reconciliation in the Roman Correspondence
3. Individual Reconciliation and Humanity’s Reconciliation
Part II. Reconciliation in Letters attributed to Paul
1. Colossians: Reconciliation through the Cross (Col 1:20-22)
2. Ephesians: Reconciling Jews and Gentiles to God (Eph 2:16)
Part III. Active Reconciliation in the Church-Family of God in Africa: The Option of the Second African Synod
1. The Church-Family of God and the African Synods
2. Areas in the Church-Family of God Needing Reconciliation
3. Promoting Reconciliation, Justice and Peace in Africa
4. The Relevance of Paul’s Message for Africa
Conclusion
Conversion and Transformation of Worldviews. The Case of the Dagara of Nortwest Ghana (Edward Tengan)
Introduction
African Conversion
Possible Explanations for Marginal Conversion
Conversion and Culture
Worldview and conversion
Dagara Conversion and Need for Worldview Transformation
Conclusion
References
Evangelizing the Dagaaba through Bible Translation. Then and Now (Fabian N. Dapila)
Introduction
General Observation of Missionary Approach to Evangelization
A Brief History of Bible Translation among the Dagaaba
Background to Bible Translations
Stages of Bible Translation
Other Limitations
Bible Translation Then and Now
Further Progress: The Bible Society of Ghana
Conclusion
Reference
Part III: Renewing Culture, Renewing Religion
Quality Teaching and Education in Northern Ghana. The Role of the Church (Gregory B. Dongkore)
Introduction
Relevance of Quality Teaching
Educational Review in Ghana
The Situation of Rural Education in Ghana and the role of the Teacher
Peculiar Conditions of Rural Education in Northern Ghana
Lack of Teachers in Rural Schools in Upper West Region
Research Study
Method of Research Study
Population and sampling strategy
Questionnaire and definition of key variables
Results
Descriptive Statistics: Frequencies
Correlations
7. Discussion
Conclusion
References
Role of Christian Education for Sustainable Development in Northern Ghana (Africanus L. Diedong)
Introduction
Problems and Challenges of Education
The Church’s Philosophy of Education
The Role of the Teacher in Education
Quality Education: A Shared Venture Among Main Stakeholders
Conclusion
References
The Use of Religious Education in Fostering Inter- Religious Peace in Ghana (Nora Kofognotera Nonterah)
Introduction
1. Religion and Conflicts in Ghana
2. The Place of Religion and Religious Education in Peace Building Process in Ghana
2.1. Proposed Steps and Models for Improving the Role of Religion and Religious Education in Peace Building in Ghana
2.2. Methodology and Approach to Religious and Peace Education in Ghana
2.3. The religious educator
3. Pastoral Aspect
4. Application to the Ghanaian Context
5. Conclusion
References
The Presence and Works of the Brothers of Immaculate Conception (FIC) in Ghana (Aloysius Porekuu)
Introduction
Foundation History
Mission out of Europe
The FIC Brothers in Ghana
The FIC Brothers and their Educational Achievements in Ghana
Life of the Brothers
Preparation for life in the Congregation
Temporal Commitment
Final/Perpetual Commitment
The Patronage of our Congregation
Conclusion: Future/Vision of the Congregation
References
“Were It Not in the Bush, Will A Man Abandon His Wife This Way?”. Northern Immigrants and the Dilemmas of Social Reproduction in the Forest Transition Zone of Ghana (Isidore Lobnibe)
Introduction
Invisible Northern Migrant Women
Northern Female Migrants in Southern Ghana
Dagara Social Organization
The Dilemma of Migrants’ Wives in the North
Interhousehold and Intrahousehold Relations in Context
Women’s Autonomous Income
Discussion of Women’s Experiences
Conclusion
References
Shifting and Contested Relationships. Migration, Gender, and Family Economy among the Dagaaba in the Twentieth Century (Gariba B. Abdul-Korah)
Introduction
Migration and Gender: A Historical Perspective
Locating the Dagaaba in Northern Ghana
Colonial Migration and Gender Relations
Post-Colonial Migration and Gender Relations
Conclusion
References
“GODS, HUMANS AND RELIGIONS”

Citation preview

20 Gods, Hu man s an d R eligions

Christianity and Cultural History in Northern Ghana A Portrait of Cardinal Peter Poreku Dery (1918-2008)

Alexis B. Tengan (ed.)

On Monday 23 April 1906 the Missionaries of Africa, also known as the White Fathers, arrived from Upper Volta, today known as Burkina Faso, in Navrongo to begin their missionary activities in northern Ghana. The small group consisted of three missionaries and a contingent of twenty Africans as helpers. Socially and culturally, the region was still suffering from the consequences of the recently outlawed practice of slave raiding and the terror regimes initiated by Zambarma generals such as Samouri and Babatu. The inhabitants were still to come to terms with the European use of military force to try to establish colonial rule. Many of the populations and groups residing in what was then called the Northern Territories of Ghana, and also those in semi-urban trading centres such as Tamale, Wa and Bawku, had, over the past century, come to adopt aspects of Islamization within their cultures and had accepted the centralizing chieftaincy structure as their main sociopolitical system. Cardinal Dery was born around this time into a priestly class among the Dagara people, and his life story as a religious leader vividly captures the cultural evolution of the whole region within this period.

Dr Alexis B. Tengan is a social and cultural anthropologist at KU Leuven, Belgium, and has been a religion teacher for many years, both in Ghana (Ghanasco Tamale (1980-1984) and Damongo (1984-1988)) and currently at St John's International School near Brussels. He has carried out research on farming systems throughout northern Ghana, including the relationship between art, medicine and religion. He also documents the histories of cultural figures and collects sacred objects and artefacts, with the aim of opening a museum.

P.I.E. Peter Lang Brussels

A Portrait of Cardinal Peter Poreku Dery (1918-2008)

P.I.E. Peter Lang Bruxelles · Bern · Berlin · Frankfurt am Main · New York · Oxford · Wien

Alexis TENGAN (ed.)

A Portrait of Cardinal Peter Poreku Dery (1918-2008)

“Gods, Humans and Religions” No.20

All manuscripts in this series are subject to a critical review by the book series editors as well as external peer review. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photocopy, microfilm or any other means, without prior written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

© P.I.E. PETER LANG S.A. Éditions scientifiques internationales

Brussels, 2013 1 avenue Maurice, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium [email protected]; www.peterlang.com ISSN 1377-8323 ISBN 978-2-87574-114-1SDSHUEDFN ,6%1H%RRN D/2013/5678/97 Printed in Germany

CIP available from the US Library of Congress, and the British Library, GB.

Bibliographic information published by “Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek”. “Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek” lists this publication in the “Deutsche National bibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data is available on Internet at .

Contents Foreword ................................................................................................ 9 Preface .................................................................................................. 13 INTRODUCTION Approaching the Cultural History of Northern Ghana ................... 17 Alexis B. Tengan PART I: CULTURES IN CONTACT, RELIGIONS IN CONFLICT Dagara Appropriation of Christianity. Missionary and Colonial Movements into Northwest Ghana since 1929 ................... 31 Alexis B. Tengan African Traditional Religious Leadership and the Worldview of Peter Cardinal Poreku Dery ................................ 53 Linus Zan A Study of Proverbs among the Dagara of West Africa .................. 69 Paschal Kyiiripuo Kyoore “If You Do Good You Do it to Yourself and if You Do Evil You Do it to Yourself”. Retribution in the Oral Narratives of the Dagaaba .................................................................................... 89 Gervase Angsotinge PART II: RECONCILING RELIGIONS, RECONCILING PEOPLE Paul’s Call for Reconciliation and its Relevance for the Church with Particular Reference to Africa ...................... 107 Richard K. Baawobr Conversion and Transformation of Worldviews. The Case of the Dagara of Nortwest Ghana.................................... 137 Edward Tengan

7

Evangelizing the Dagaaba through Bible Translation. Then and Now .................................................................................... 149 Fabian N. Dapila PART III: RENEWING CULTURE, RENEWING RELIGION Quality Teaching and Education in Northern Ghana. The Role of the Church ..................................................................... 171 Gregory B. Dongkore Role of Christian Education for Sustainable Development in Northern Ghana ..................................................... 193 Africanus L. Diedong The Use of Religious Education in Fostering Inter-Religious Peace in Ghana ........................................................ 207 Nora Kofognotera Nonterah The Presence and Works of the Brothers of Immaculate Conception (FIC) in Ghana ......................................... 227 Aloysius Porekuu “Were It Not in the Bush, Will A Man Abandon His Wife This Way?” Northern Immigrants and the Dilemmas of Social Reproduction in the Forest Transition Zone of Ghana....... 237 Isidore Lobnibe Shifting and Contested Relationships. Migration, Gender, and Family Economy among the Dagaaba in the Twentieth Century .................................................................. 261 Gariba B. Abdul-Korah

8

Foreword Figure 1: Fr. Remigius F. McCoy, first missionary to northwest Ghana, leading Bishop Gabriel Champagne, first bishop of Tamale Diocese (1957-72), northern Ghana, across a stream

Source: Dery Albums, Tengan digital collection

On Monday, 23 April 1906 the Missionaries of Africa also known as the White Fathers, arrived from Upper Volta, today known as Burkina Faso, in Navrongo to begin their missionary activities in northern Ghana. The small group consisted of Rev. Fathers Jean-Marie Chollet and Brother Eugene Gall from France and Oscar Morin from Canada as missionaries and a contingent of about 20 Africans as helpers. Socially and culturally, the region was still suffering from the consequences of the just outlawed slave raiding and the coming to end of terror regimes by warlords initiated by such Zambarma generals as Samouri and Babatu. The populations were still to come to terms with the European (French, British and German) use of military forces to try to establish their colonial rule. Many of the ethnic populations and groups residing 9

Christianity and Cultural History in Northern Ghana

in what was then called the Northern Territories of Ghana and also those in semi-urban trading centres such as Wa and Bawku had, over the past century, for reasons of security, come to adopt aspects of Islamization for their cultures and the centralising chieftaincy structure as their main socio-political systems. The rest of the populations and ethnic groups, mainly rural farming communities who did not subscribe to Islam and or did not adopt chieftaincy structure were forced to migrate into the arid and less fertile regions of the present day Upper-East and Upper-West Region. A main feature of these populations was constant migration and redistribution of peoples throughout the territory (Rattray, 1932; Fortes, 1945) and the use of linguistic and cultural icons as identity markers rather than territorial localities (Goody, 1967). The words of Cardinal Poreku Dery whose leadership portrait is partly the focus of this colloquium/workshop regarding his own family/clan history capture the general situation at the time. I grew up to learn from my elders that my people originally moved from Dagbong to Mossi country (Moo-tenga). How long they stayed there, I do not know. What I gather is that there was fission in the family after some time and a large portion of it moved away from there. They are said to have moved to Southern Ghana. None of those of us still living remembers ever having been told the reason for the move from Moo-tenga. Was it due to a quarrel or some family disagreement? I do not know. As the group descended southward from Moo-tenga, it came into contact with some Kasena and some Gurunshi. My family must have stayed among and mingled with these people for a short while before moving further South. Further down, they came into contact with the Sisala. Their stay among the Sisala must have been quite long and their interaction with them intensive. For Isaaleng gradually replaced More as a medium of communication for my people. The final phase of their move brought them through Tumu, Gbal, Wiiro, Fielmuo, Nabing and Zoole. They eventually arrived at Konguol where they settled. I do not know what special event took place in Nabing and Zoole. But my family has always felt emotionally attached to these places as the terms nabing-ma and zoole-ma continue to be used as praise-names for the daughters of our patrilineage. These two terms are clearly composites of Sisaala and Dagara words. (Dery, 2001; p. 15)

Given such a historical context, it was normal for these populations to rely on their African Traditional Religion and house-based clan formations as main source features for their social and cultural lives. Hence, leadership for the whole community partly depended on charismatic figures emerging from different descent and clan groups with excellent education in religious and cultural thoughts and practices and partly on custodianship of cultic institutions linked to the family and clan structures and the traditional religion. These included not only to the localised institutions linked to the earth, the rain, the river and the 10

Foreword

sky as cosmic beings but also to such abstract global notions as the Dagara bagr, These institutions supported the training of individuals who will ensure the continuity of traditional religion and its practices. These individuals, considered as custodians of the institutions provided a specific form of leadership based on religious authority. This situation had begun to change, first with the installation of Islam in northern Ghana, and much radically later, with the implementation of the colonial enterprise and the planting of Catholicism in the area. The colloquium/workshop will focus on issues relating to religion and leadership caused by the installation and plantation of these recent movements (Islam, Colonialism and Catholicism) into the area. One of the few figures who fully participated in these changes and helped to shape the concept and practice of religious leadership during this period is Cardinal Peter Poreku Dery (1918-2008). Also, this period is bound to be the most exciting period for the study of the cultural history of Northern Ghana. It has to be considered as the formation period when a society and a cultural area now known as northern Ghana was founded. A convenient way of studying the different socio-cultural elements and actors over the period is to focus on the portrait of one of the main figures. Hence, in order to properly understand the relevance of this period, outline the beginnings of the circumstances that have shaped a new cultural historical era, and to fully document the most significant memories that are shaping our future, a colloquium was organised in late July 2011 at the SS Peter and Paul Pastoral Institute, Wa. The call for papers made more than a year before the actual date of the colloquium invited contributors to reflect on religion and leadership generally and within a specific cultural context or with ethnographic references to events in northern Ghana during the lifetime of Cardinal Dery and his contemporaries (1908 to 2008). As organiser, I was looking for paper contributions that are shedding light on and analysing any social, cultural, political and religious phenomena that have taken place since the beginning of the last century and focusing on this region. I was particularly interested in papers that were taking an integrated and inter-disciplinary approach for study of the events that have re-shaped the lives of the different peoples and population within Northern Ghana. I am very grateful to all those who responded to the call and more particularly to those who finally agreed to write and submit a paper for the colloquium. Sponsorship for such initiatives, especially when not backed by any academic institution or non-governmental organisation with an interest or motive, is never readily available and I did not even make the attempt to search for any. I took the risk to rely on the Ghanaian public willing to attend and to pay a conference fee that will partial11

Christianity and Cultural History in Northern Ghana

ly offset the expenses. I call this a risk because I have been deeply ware of the common practice fostered mainly by external funding agencies, particularly non-governmental organization (NGOs), of giving stipends and honorarium to entice Africans to patronise their seminars and how Africans have ordinarily come to associate academic seminars and colloquia with these payments as part of their income. Even though I was prepared to make a contribution from my family budget, I was never in a position to pay for all the organisational expenses and certainly not for the feeding and lodging of the number of people I was hoping will turn up. I am therefore very thankful to the participants for breaking with tradition and accepting not only to lodge and feed themselves but also to pay the conference fee which helped offset the organisational expenses. I am also very grateful to the director of Ss Peter and Paul Pastoral Institute for, Fr. Edward B. Tengan for the affordable rates making it possible for the colloquium to take place in the institute. Many of the participants were very eager to purchase copies of the various presentations. This indicated to me that the publication of the proceedings of the colloquium in a book format to be a good idea. It is a long and hard road to walk from the moment of conceiving the idea of looking into the life of Cardinal Dery as a cultural biography and getting to the point where the ideas of different authors are put together in a book format. Without the moral and material support of my family, particular my wife and children and Marcelle De Cleene (Mammie Marcelle as she is known by the children), it would have been impossible to complete the journey. We are all connected through Cardinal Dery and he will continue to inspire us to do many things together.

Alexis Bekyane Tengan Zaventem, April 2013

12

Preface “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (In 1: 14). The Incarnation of Jesus Christ, God’s Supreme gift of himself to us, is a shattering revelation of Love given without restraint. For many of us who are happy enough to have even a small realisation of that mystery, there is something of a death and resurrection. Nothing can ever be quite the same again. The wonder of it may wax and wane, we may even want to forget it, push it out of our lives – because the very fact of Incarnation makes our finite minds boggle and the challenge to respond seems too demanding. But if we are caught up with God, we have come to become givers and receivers of love, without sin, but restraint also. Figure 2: Cardinal Dery in 1995 presiding over the installation of Bishop Paul Bemile as the third bishop of Wa Diocese

Source: Cardinal Dery Album; Tengan digital collection

13

Christianity and Cultural History in Northern Ghana

The essence of this colloquium is the need to share; to share with one another what we have learnt, heard, seen and experienced from a man who lived his humanity and his priesthood to the full. The man in question started his career as an assistant fetish priest and passed through the ranks of the Catholic Church from his baptism in December 1932 to be priest in 1951, a Bishop in 1960 and a Prince of the Church, a Cardinal, in 2006. This man is none other than Peter Cardinal Poreku Dery. He died as an octogenarian – golden jubilarian. Like the beloved disciple John, Peter Cardinal Dery soldiered on as a devout Christian and even lived on as a productive Shepherd of Christ even in his ripe old age. This is the man we have gathered here to sketch through photo exhibition and through the different papers that will be presented during these three days. In a session dealing with Leadership in its Historical and Religious perspective, we shall hear the story of a model priest who is alive, despite his death, vibrant, filled with the Holy Spirit and ready to be used by the Spirit at any time and at any place. As a local leader and stimulator he was in a particular way the light of Dagaaba land. In our time it seems natural for us to be unnerved by the tremendous challenges of the era. Yet when we look up to this man we realise that the beginning, living out and ending in the service of Christ, as Cardinal Dery did, is a full time struggle in which the going is hard and yet exciting, demanding and yet fulfilling, impossible and yet achievable with the help of God. Here stands a man who beckons to us and says that Christianity is a life of joy. Since what has been lined up for you in this colloquium is a tall order, I would exhort you to participate actively in these workshops in order to derive the maximum benefit from the speakers, the facilitators and the material that they bring to us for consumption. What I would like to stress is that Cardinal Dery was a priest from the very beginning of his life to the end of it. He was a priest who was duly seen as a man of God, devoted to the service of God and humanity. He was truly a mature priest whose sexuality was fully integrated in his priestly ministry. He was a good listener, a counsellor and healer both in the material and spiritual spheres. He began his healing ministry when he was a seminarian tasked with the work of a dispensary. That explained why he smoked profusely at first and gave up smoking completely after a retreat. Cardinal Dery was a man who became all things to all men at all the time. His neighbourliness was unlimited that is why he had relation with all tribes and clans. Liturgy was the passion of Cardinal Dery. As soon as he became Bishop he sought permission from his mentor Pope John XXIII to inculturate the Liturgy. Once the permission was granted he went 14

Preface

straight into the translation of the Bible and other liturgical texts into Dagaare. The experimentations he made in liturgical music were carried over to Rome for the Vatican II. It is my fervent belief that tracing and reliving the ideas of Cardinal Dery can give the present Local Church of Wa and beyond a road map for the future. His ideas and philosophy have a breadth of a vision which will interest and help priests, religious and lay people, because beneath the earthly life of Cardinal Dery is the serene conviction of prayer, faith and a lived priesthood. Once you and I have lived and tasted the life cycle of such a man as Cardinal Dery, life will no more be the same again, however much we remain selfish and sinful, forgetful and stupid. Cardinal Dery will not be happy that we simply listened to the presentations on his life and philosophy, looked at his photo exhibition or read his biography without any change of life. The famous parting words of Cardinal Dery to all his teeming visitors were: “I will always remember you in my prayers as I storm God for you – go away now and seek the Lord’s will – and do it”.

† Most Rev. Paul bemile, Catholic Bishop of Wa.

15

INTRODUCTION

Approaching the Cultural History of Northern Ghana Alexis B. TENGAN Independent Scholar and Teacher

Biographies as Cultural History What constitutes the cultural history of a people or of a region if not narratives on the significant lives of individuals embodying social and cultural institutions and practices over a period time? After all, normative history tends to occupy the domain of processing “eventful facts about the past” as narratives that are relevant to remember. Yet much of the eventful facts are nothing but biographical stories about individuals and social groups or communities holding power and authority and how these individuals and groups use power and authority to dominate and re-shape the destinies of populations by creating institutions and ideas that impact in various ways the physical and social environment of the same populations. Apart from the powerful few whose biographies normative history tend to concern itself with, cultural history has to focus on the many other individual and group biographies that are in any way dealing with aspects of cosmology and the symbolic structural creation and practices of the whole population.

Religious Groups and the Re-shaping of Cultural History (The Missionaries of Africa) The installation of the Catholic Church in Northern Ghana was just a little over hundred years old in the year 2010. The Missionaries of Africa, known as the White Fathers, arrived from Upper Volta, today known as Burkina Faso, in Navrongo on Monday, 2nd April 1906. Rev. Fathers Jean-Marie Chollet from France, Oscar Morin from Canada and Brother Eugene Gall from France were the three pioneers. They were accompanied by a contingent of about 20 Africans. They arrived in 17

Christianity and Cultural History in Northern Ghana

Northern Ghana at a time when a big segment of the local population, traditionally engaged in hoe-farming and living in the rural areas, was still contending with the consequences of the just outlawed slaveraiding and still struggling to understand the nature of the impact of incoming social and philosophical movements were having to do with the way they were about to redefine their identities and reshape their lives. First, the Islamic Cultural Revolution provoked by the TransSaharan trade in kola nuts and human beings had taken roots in the few urban centres of Northern Ghana and had began to create centralized social polities within these populations. Long before the arrival of the White Fathers and long before the incorporation of the Northern Territories into the British colonial system of administration, the four principal Northern kingdoms, namely, Mamprusi; Dagomba, Gonja and Wala, had already used rudiments of Islamic ideas to create centralized chieftaincy communities that were culturally and economically outward looking with a global outreach and vision. This gave them economic advantage and with that they tended to marginalize and exclude majority of the rural dwellers from their cultural life in order to feed a global system base on slave raiding and exploitative trade. It is significant to note that the White Fathers arrived in Northern Ghana via the Islamic trade routes, the Trans-Saharan trade route, and after they have had some experience of mission in the Islamic country of Algeria. This experience greatly enhanced their missionary formation and properly equipped them to view clearly the different socio-political currents and the cultural and philosophical movements that were dominating and influencing the lives of the local populations of Northern Ghana, and among whom they had to work. Within a few years after their arrival, the Missionary Sisters of our Lady of Africa (Msola), known as the White Sisters joined them. Together they put into practice their founder’s, Cardinal Lavigerie, repeated refrain, namely, that Africans must be evangelized by Africans. In 1932, Bishop Oscar Morin started the local Congregation of the Sisters of Mary Immaculate (canonically founded in 1946). As early as 1948, Msgr. Alexis Abatey of Navrongo became the first African in the North of Ghana to be ordained into the priesthood and thereby accepting the task of evangelising his own people. Three years later, in 1951, Peter Poreku Dery was ordained as the first Dagara priest in Ghana. In 1960, Fr. Peter Poreku Dery was consecrated by Pope John XXIII in Rome as the first local Bishop of Wa Diocese. In 1977, he became the first Metropolitan Archbishop of the Tamale Ecclesiastical Province and in March 2006 he was elevated cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI. Today all five dioceses of the North of Ghana (Navrongo-Bolgatanga, Tamale, Wa, Damongo and Yendi) are shepherded by Ghanaian Bishops sup18

Alexis B. Tengan

ported by many diocesan priests and religious men and women. Also today, there are many men and women, lay, religious and clergy, from Northern Ghana fully engaged in international mission work within and outside Africa. Hence, as though by fate, the current Superior General of the White Fathers Congregation and a key contributor to current volume, Fr. Richard Baawobr, comes from Northern Ghana. There are other many Ghanaians who were later influenced by other religious congregations such as the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) and the Franciscan Sister (FNM) and the Brother Mary Immaculate (FIC) who had followed the White Fathers into the regions. Figure 2b: Cardinal Dery family photo taken on the day of his priestly ordination at Nandim in 1951

Source: Cardinal Dery Album; Tengan digital collection

Within the hundred-year life of the church in Northern Ghana, the creation of appropriate institutions and the development of relevant pastoral action programs that took into account the specific sociocultural lives of the populations has been the secret for the successful growth of the church. The pastoral action programs also consisted in filling in the gabs within the social and economic needs of the people created due to years of slave raiding and instability and perpetuated through the colonial policy of maintaining Northern Ghana as a labour reserve pool for capitalist exploitation. The policy deliberately denied the Northern populations education and schooling and presented the 19

Christianity and Cultural History in Northern Ghana

different cultural groups to the outside world as either totally under the influence of Islam or very much steeped in tradition and old “customary ways”. As one would have expected, the focus of the formation was the provision of formal education through the Western style schooling. To this end the majority of the elementary and secondary schools now existing throughout Northern Ghana were built, staffed and run by the Catholic Church. Within the very first years of the mission in Northern Ghana, Catechists Schools were established first in Navrongo and later in Kaleo which were instrumental in the formation of adult catechists. A little later, the Catholic Educational Unit was established as the administrative structure for all Catholic schools for young children. Minor Seminaries, Secondary Schools for both boys and girls, Teacher Training Colleges and Nursing Institutions were established at different time and in different places. As the number of church institutions grew, a close partnership was soon established between church and government in all areas of education except the minor and major seminaries which were regarded as private institutions. Through the partnership formula of Government Assisted Schools which made it possible for the church to build and administer schools and yet financially sponsored by the government, the church has continued to influence in a very positive ways, both the academic and religious education of both the clergy and the civil population of Northern Ghana at large. Apart from this, the church, through the dioceses, has established pastoral and social institutions such as the Wa Pastoral Institute and the Tamale Institute of Cross-cultural Studies to provide different levels of lay as well as clerical formation for the church’s ministry.

Individual Biography as Cultural History (Peter Cardinal Poreku Dery) Poreku Dery was born around the year 1918 in the frontier zone between present day Ghana and Burkina Faso into a Dagara noble priestly family that had, for many generations achieved economic, cultural and social successes. He started his career at an early age as an assistant fetish priest in Dagara Traditional Religion and died on March 2008 two years after he had been elevated to the rank of cardinal within the Catholic Hierarchy. As a religious leader Poreku Dery influenced greatly, through his ideas and charismatic leadership, the cultural encounter between Missionary Christianity, especially Catholicism, and African Traditional Religion resulting in an integrated African form of worship and belief with that orthodox Catholicism. At birth Peter Poreku Dery was given the name Poreku Dery because he was thought to be a spirit incarnate and because his father was called Poreku (Dery, 2001: 20). He was given the name Peter at baptism by the 20

Alexis B. Tengan

missionary fathers who had by then recognised his leadership qualities. The Dagara assign the personal name Dery to a male and Derpog to the female gender counterpart for a spirit incarnate who has already experienced a brief moment of human life and death at an early age. This happens when a child of a couple dies before he or she is weaned. He or she is buried with a mark on his body and would be identified as the same individual if the next immediate child born to the same couple and after a few years has the same gender and bears this particular mark. Poreku Dery began to distinguish himself very early in life not just because he was thought to be a spirit incarnate but also because he had began to display special talents and skills especially in fields of oratory, divination and ritual knowledge. These symptoms made his parents to propose him for very early membership and initiation into the Dagara bagr1 secret society and cult. The bagr institution was, and still is for followers of Dagara Traditional Religion, the most prestigious sociocultural institution specialising in the transmission of cultural knowledge through rites of mythical narratives (Goody, 1972, 1981; Tengan, 1999, 2006) and in the practical training of individuals for various professional skills and talents. Soon after his initiation and graduation into bagr rites and mythical narration, Poreku Dery became employed as an assistant ‘fetish’ priest under his grand uncle, Ngmankurinaa. Porker Dery later described his grand uncle as great religious innovator and described his own contributions at this time in these terms: “at a rather early age, I used to accompany my uncle, Ngmankurinaa, to establish his many and varied fetishes for the prominent people in my area. My main duty was to help my uncle slay the animals and hens required for the establishment of Konkpenebie, Konkyekommo, Sokyere, Doosoglaa, Nyogebaliere, and the rest of them (P. Bemile, 1987: viii). In 1929, Peter Poreku Dery was about twelve years old when the Catholic Missionary Fathers of Africa first arrived in Jirapa, some twenty-two miles distant from Dery’s village (Zemopare), and began their work of Christian conversion. He was first introduced to the missionaries by his father who had come into contact with them through his work as an itinerant trader. His father was so enthusiastic about the missionary religion to the extent that he was prepared to annul the traditional marriage between him and four of his wives in order to become a Christian. This act provoked a serious religious and cultural conflict between Poreku Dery’s father and his uncle. Ritual sacrifices at the ancestral shrine as well as various acts of divination failed to reconcile the two brothers but led to a scission within the family and the 1

The bagr cult and society was the single most significant religious institution among the Dagara and some aspects of it were linked to secret knowledge. For more details see Tengan, 2006.

21

Christianity and Cultural History in Northern Ghana

emigration of Dery’s father. Poreku Dery assisted in all these rituals and felt the pain of the conflict and the separation; a feeling that helped to make him a religious reformer. Following the family scission Poreku Dery, now about twelve years old, left his job with his uncle and followed his father to Jirapa in search of the missionaries. The leader of the missionaries, Fr. R.F. McCoy immediately recognised his talents leadership qualities and in January 1932, a few months after Dery’s arrival he was enrolled into the Catechist school. The conversion of the Dagara people to Catholicism was a mass movement. Hence within a short period of their arrival, the missionaries were soon overwhelmed by the large number of people and its continued increase turning up at different centres for catechism and baptism (see R.F. McCoy, 1988). A catechist school was therefore established in 1931 for the formation of local pastoral agents. At the Catechist school Poreku Dery became a fast learner and with his previous knowledge and experience as an assistant fetish priest, he soon became a consultant to the missionaries on matters specifically relating to Dagara religion and culture and more broadly on African ways of thinking. He played a key role in developing a program of formation rich with local (Dagara and Sisaala) cultural heritage and religious ideas. In 1932, Poreku Dery was top of the list of the first baptismal class in northwest Ghana. He was baptised the same year and given the Christian name Peter. In 1935, now already a big boy and in his teens, he was sent to Navrongo in the northeast of Ghana to start his formal education. He combined this with his priestly formation and in 1951 he was the first African to be ordained priest in the area. He later did graduate studies in Canada and Belgium and soon after his return, was ordained bishop in 1960 and given the newly created diocese of Wa. He took over pastoral leadership and administration of the church in northwest Ghana from Fr. R.F. McCoy, the very first missionary leader who converted him and his father. As a bishop Poreku Dery quickly realised that Dagara conversion to Catholicism was a cultural encounter between two different worldviews. Hence, he immediately began to integrate the development of liturgical rites of worship based on local cultural expressions and ideas, the development of a mission for the laity as a necessary complement to the mission of the clergy and the development of a political philosophy that considered religious life and pastoral work as basically ensuring the integral development of human beings and their environment In 1974, he was transferred to Tamale and in 1977 he was elevated to the rank of Archbishop. He retired as administrator of the archdiocese in 1994 but continued to be active in pastoral work and was made cardinal in March 2006; a position he enjoyed until his death in March 2008. In December 22

Alexis B. Tengan

2009, according to an announcement from the Pope’s Nuncio in Ghana, the Pope has made it known that steps are being taken toward his future canonisation as a saint. Dery’s international career as religious leader and innovator began in 1929 when the missionaries of Africa, commonly known as the ‘White Fathers’ under the leadership of Fr. Remigius F. McCoy arrived for the first time in northwest Ghana and began to preach the Christian message. In terms of liturgical rites of worship, Dery was the first to have the foresight after his ordination as Bishop of Wa in 1960 and well before the second Vatican Council that brought serious reforms, to submit a petition to Pope John XXII asking him to permit him to “bring the Vernacular music into the liturgy”. The Pope not only granted the permission but exhorted him not to transliterate the Latin songs but to compose new songs using the people’s thought patterns and cultural symbolism that are expressing the essence of the Christian message and at the same time meaningful to the people. Dery then went ahead to compose, the Dagara Missa (The Dagara Mass) a service in the Dagara language and became the first bishop ever in the Catholic Church to compose non-Latin Mass Service. He was also one the first to introduced the use of such African and traditional instruments as the Xylophone and the drum and to encourage rhythmic movements of the body in resonance with ritual music. Having developed a humanist philosophy about religion, Dery for the period of twenty-two years, took on the national task within Ghana and the universal church to build such strong institutional structures as the National Laity Council (NLC) of Ghana, the Ghana national Youth Council (GHANCYC), the National Council of Catholic Women (NCCW) and the coordinator of the Pan African Laity Council Board responsible for organising the African Lay Apostolate. Throughout his life and in all his activities, Dery was driven by the personal conviction that his actions were guided by Divine Providence and therefore, he could know the will of God just as much by intuition and human interaction as by rational intellectual study and thinking.

The Documentation and Writing of Cultural history The documentation and writing of cultural history in Northern Ghana has to be a multi-disciplinary research project seeking to provide the whole of Ghana and the academic community a heritage institution of ideas in the fullest sense of the term. The focus of research and documentation has to be the creation intellectual awareness for self and guided education into the depths of religious, cultural, economic, social 23

Christianity and Cultural History in Northern Ghana

and philosophical movements and ideas that have over generations, been shaping the socio-cultural lives of people in the region. The main objective would be to identify and document the tangible and intangible archival institutions and materials of the societies of Northern Ghana in order to build a comprehensive and integral heritage movement of cultural and philosophical discourses within the global context of ongoing events and social change. The project should aim at contributing to the development of a cultural history that is based on individual as well as social biographies of significant life situations in Northern Ghana. The life situations must have been experienced as dynamic interchange and tensions between religion, culture, the economy and society as these dimensions of social realities continue to evolve within given historic periods or epochs. In other words, the construction of a cultural history focusing on heritage documentation, given our recent historical realities, has to be based on three axes, namely, the active collection and conservation of local heritage of all kinds including materials now found outside Ghana, the provision of scholarly and scientific examination of the heritage as knowledge content and the fostering of public awareness of the knowledge concerns embedded in the heritage examined. The current volume is very much anchoring on these three axes. In the first place, the historical epoch this volume has chosen to focus on, northern Ghana between 1918 to 2008, stands out as the period when populations and cultures, as we know them today, metamorphosed as identifiable units and ethnographically significant. Indeed the whole of northern Ghana as a socio-political entity became an enfant only at the start of the twentieth century. Indeed, one can say that the birth process which began in 1908 only became complete in 1918 when Germany lost its colonial territories in Africa to the British and the French and the complete map of Ghana and northern Ghana as we know them today were finalised. Cardinal Dery’s birth story, as narrated above, culturally signifies the birth story of the people of northern Ghana and the re-birth of their cultural history. Secondly, the man Cardinal Dery as a pioneer educated elite of the region and as a religious leader, more than any of his contemporaries, experienced fully the dynamic interchange and tension within the diverse socio-cultural spheres of life. The collection of papers presented in this volume tries to lay bare the ongoing development of interchange and tensions within the different social and cultural spheres at this time. Finally, mindful of the fact that all history involves the processing of selected facts and events into scientific narratives worth remembering, the volume chapters consist of selected themes that were of socio-cultural significance for the society of northern Ghana during the period concerned. These themes include the exchange and existing tension between Christianity and African Religions through missionary 24

Alexis B. Tengan

and colonial agencies and the fusion of different worldviews and shifts in mental and cultural paradigms within the ongoing tensions, especially between the written and the oral traditions. It is with this in mind that I decided to present the chapters of the book by dividing them into three parts. The first part, which I have entitled as Cultures in Contact, Religions in Conflict, consists of four chapters that are setting the ground within which this cultural biography took place. Hence, in the first chapter entitled, Spatial Trajectories and Missionary and Colonial Movements into Northwest Ghana since 1929; Alexis B. Tengan describes the cosmographic mind scope and the sociocultural features of one ethnic group in northern, the Dagara people, as they first encounter the planting of missionary Catholicism within the region. In the second chapter that follows, Linus Zan, in a ethnographically focused manner, elaborates on the notion and structure of Dagara traditional leadership and successfully applied these to the life biography of Cardinal Dery as cultural history. In the two chapters that are following the outlines on social and cosmological structures, Paschal Kyoore and Gervase Angsotinge elaborate on themes of orature that were used by traditional society to create a life-sustaining socio-political and a moral economic order allowing the perpetually reproduce itself. The two authors also dealt with themes within the oral world that continually tend to damage and erode the moral and fibres in the socio-cultural system and also corrupt the economic system. The tensions between reproductive capacities and creativity potentials within these systems are very the focus of their analysis within the context of cultural historiography and Dery’s biography. The second part of the book entitled Reconciling Religions; Reconciling People, consists of three chapters and is dealing with how the tension of the interchange between tradition and ongoing religious and socio-cultural changes are being reconciled within society and within the individuals, singly and collectively. Hence, in the opening chapter of this section, Richard Baawobr traces the biblical and Christian traditions of reconciliation within human cultures and societies in the global sphere and throughout past times and across cosmographic and geographic spaces. He then proceeded to carefully illustrate the modes and methods via which such Africans as Cardinal Dery have been influencing cultural paradigm shifts in order to reconcile Africans and their cultures and societies to accommodate the new global situation. Dery’s particular role in this context is brought home most forcefully through the chapter of Edward Tengan following that of Richard Baawobr. In this chapter, Tengan uses the metaphor of the two house community structure embedded in Dery’s code of arms to argue that Christian conversion in Africa must be seen as an ongoing process within which 25

Christianity and Cultural History in Northern Ghana

the best of the religious items from African Religion and worldview are gradually brought into Biblical Christianity; as against the notion that conversion has to be a turn around of Africans and away from their traditional worldview toward an assimilation into a Christianity heavily influenced by European culture. The problem of what Biblical Christianity and its worldview entails becomes the subject of investigation in our next Chapter. With the title; Evangelising the Dagaaba through Bible translation: Then and now Fabian Dapila introduces the practical role Cardinal Dery played in ensuring that there is a proper reconciliation between Biblical Christianity and the Traditional worldview. As Dapila argued, Dery was not only the bridge via which the tensions between missionary Christianity and traditional religion could be mediated, but he was also the cultural portrait and lens through which religious and human values could be viewed. The rest of Dapila’s chapter uses the process of bible translation to illustrate the processes of cultural and linguistic mediations taking place ever since. The third part of the book, which I have titled Renewing Culture, Renewing Religion, consists of six chapters dealing with specific themes and ways cultural and religious interchange and tensions are being currently viewed and in some cases resolved or dealt with as ongoing issues. In some ways the first three of these chapters, namely, the chapters by Gregory Donkore, Africanus Diedong and Nora Kofognotera Nontera tackle one of the most significant themes that has affected culture change and created the most profound tension with the African personality since its introduction in the last century. The school system of mass education represents one of the most ambivalent forces of tension existing within individuals and society. Hence, these chapters collectively take on the issues of competing ideologies regarding the content of school education, the purpose of the schooling as a system and the evolving role different agencies deliver and use/misuse the schooling system for their interest. In the first of these chapters, Donkore touches on the two main ideological orientations that have been at the background in the development of school education in Ghana, namely, the ideological vision of religious bodies on the one hand and that of the secular government on the other. The chapter is however heavily focused on the issue of quality education. The paper is based on field research and the conclusion seems to suggest that investments in quality teaching are the proper way to resolve the different tensions. In the chapter that follows, Diedong singles out the Catholic Church as one main agent of education particularly in northern Ghana. This position allows him to fully highlight the personal ideology of Cardinal Dery as a religious leader within the period. It also allows him to look at how the worldview of Dery could foster a sustaining environment for proper education. The issue of sustainable environment in terms of peace is 26

Alexis B. Tengan

taken on analytically in the chapter of Nora Nontera. Using religious education as a theme of her research, Nontera focuses on the multireligious and cultural nature of the Ghanaian society and the potentials for tensions and conflicts within it. The last three chapters of this third part, and indeed of the whole book, consist of ethnographic descriptions of social and cultural actors who are living through these tensions and the shifting periods of cultural history. These actors include both foreign individuals and social groups as well local ones. Aloysius Porekuu has been a member of the missionary organisation, the Brothers of the Immaculate Conception (FIC), for many years and in his chapter, he presents to us a brief history of the congregation and a refined emic description of the congregation’s life experiences in northern Ghana. The main issue in the chapter is to make apparent the universal nature of Christianity as a human endeavour. Finally, the last two chapters by the veteran social science researchers, Isidore Lobnibeh and Gariba Abdul-Korah, are the perfect ones to conclude this exploration an approach to the cultural history of Northwestern Ghana. Having adopted an etic approach following many years of research both Isidore and Gariba in a very complementary way illustrate in detail the different tensions and evolving changes that have been going on within kin groups and domestic social units. Fission and migration have always been the main ways traditional societies in northern Ghana have tried to deal with these tensions and domestic conflicts. Also, gender roles and identities have always been issues of contestations within the society. Hence, the two chapters first put kinship and the domestic groups within a cultural historical perspective and focus on how actors negotiate and act upon the socio-cultural systems in order to realise their individuality and identity. They then outline the structural changes taking place within contemporary society and the new and evolving pattern of recent migration patterns. As a conclusion for their chapters, which is very much fitting with the general conclusion of the book, they discuss in detail the aspirations and the realities that many people continue to experience today.

References Bemile, P. (ed.). (1987). From Assistant Fetish Priest to Archbishop. New York: Vantage Press. Dery, P. P. (2001). Memoirs of Most Reverend Peter Poreku Dery: Arch Bishop Emeritus of Tamale. Tamale: GILLP Press. Goody, J. (1972). The Myth of the Bagre. Oxford; London: Clarendon Press. McCoy, R. F., Dionne, R., & Dewart, J. C. (1988). Great things happen: a personal memoir of the first Christian missionary among the Dagaabas and Sisaalas of northwest Ghana. Montreal: Society of Missionaries of Africa. 27

Christianity and Cultural History in Northern Ghana

Tengan, A. B. (1999). Dagara Bagr: Ritualising Myth of Social Foundation Africa. Journal of the International Institute, Vol. 69 (4). Tengan, A. B. (2006). Mythical narratives in ritual: Dagara black bagr. Brussels: P.I.E.-Peter Lang.

28

PART I CULTURES IN CONTACT, RELIGIONS IN CONFLICT

Dagara Appropriation of Christianity Missionary and Colonial Movements into Northwest Ghana since 1929 Alexis B. TENGAN Independent Scholar and Teacher

Introduction The Dagara people living in the northwest corner of Ghana first came into contact with the catholic missionary society, the Missionaries of Africa popularly known as the White Fathers, in 1929 and since then they have witnessed dramatic changes within their physical, social and cosmic environments. The missionary encounter, unlike the colonial one which started a bit earlier, was positively received by the Dagara and has continued to be a dynamic movement that is responsible for the reshaping of Dagara cosmological and geographical notions of space and its appropriation for cultural, political and social use. Within the general cultural pattern and discourse of the Dagara peoples of Northwestern Ghana, and perhaps for many African cultures, every encounter involves an endless set of bonding relations taking place within spaces in motion which are also acting as agents of the encounter. There has developed a bonding relationship between Dagara society and the catholic which seemed destined to last. The Dagara enthusiastic accommodation of Catholicism within the short period of their encounter since 1929 and the mass conversion of the population leading to the proliferation and institutionalization of church buildings as centers for varying activities in contrast with their resistance to both British and French colonizing efforts and the fact that their neighbours, the Sisaala has not embraced Catholicism has been a source of enigma for many internal and external observers. Many scientific scholars and rational thinking ordinary people find it difficult to accept as meaningfully plausible the contexts of events described by the first missionaries (see R.E. McCoy, 1988; E. Tengan, 2000) in 31

Dagara Appropriation of Christianity

which praying for rain at particular locations and centers accounted much for this conversion phenomenon. Indeed, as it turned out, the centers where particular communities gathered to pray for rain became a symptomatic movement leading to the erection of church buildings and parish institutions on many of these different sites and locations. This movement also led to the redesigning and reshaping of geographical orientations and cosmographic visions of the people in many ways. The impact of colonial rule has been far less remarkable. In this chapter I will argue that the Dagara specific notions of space and the spatial trajectories they constructed within their cosmology and geography dictated to them how to perceive and deal with the movement of the missionary and the colonial agent into their lives and territory. Space and spatial trajectories will be used here as cultural notions and from the Dagara perspective. The objective is to study the different paths the missionaries and the colonial agents took in their movement encounter with the Dagara and relate this to the way the Dagara viewed and received the encounters. Hence; first, I shall discuss how Dagara view their cosmos and how they deal with different spatial categories and entities as they engaged in their principal social and cultural activity of hoe-farming prior to their encounter with colonialism and missionary activity. This will basically show that for the Dagara the space-above figured as Rain and the space-below with Earth as its figure are the globalizing spatial entities in motions and within which all encounters are viewed and contextualized. This view of the universe is captured and located in the physical and social structure of the house buildings as residential locations and the village environment divided up into farming locations. I will then study how the spatial trajectories developed for purposes of migrating hoe-farming purpose entered into the dynamics of into missionary activity of church-building (social, metaphysical and physical) and religious conversion. The main focus of the essay is certainly Dagara encounter with missionary activities. However, the colonial factor will be used here as the settings for this encounter and as contrast mainly because the historicity of the encounter dictates that this factor is a central issue.

1.1. General Background: Space and Travel Movements The process of any travel movement is always a spatial encountering relations with different elements and beings and for each particular cultural group, the encounters tend to assume specific meaning in context that is characterized by their geographical and cosmological categorization of space as natural and human habitats. Within such a context, a common geographical view among most cultures is that the traveller is one leaving a fixed geographical location, the domesticated 32

Alexis B. Tengan

home environment, and making his or her way across other locations to specifically known or unknown destinations; sometimes, with a purpose or objective and other times as pure adventure and discovery. With specific reference to missionary travel and encounter with local populations and their environment, one conceives of the missionary as leaving an evangelized home region and culture, Western Europe and North America, and carrying the Gospel Message to “heathen” and unexplored regions, in this case, Africa. The case of the Missionaries of Africa who first came to Northwestern Ghana is slightly different. In 1868 Cardinal Charles Lavigerie, French national and then the Archbishop of Algiers, Algeria, founded the Missionaries of Africa (formerly known as the White Fathers). The immediate objective of the foundation was to provide Christian education and instruction and health security for the Arab children in Algeria orphaned by the great hunger of 1867. However, immediately after its inception, the founder redefined the objective to include the Christian conversion of the Arabs and Black African peoples south of the Sahara. These three objectives, health, education and Christian conversion will be forever linked in the travel imagination of the “White Fathers” as they made progress across the Sahara and into Northern Ghana. In general one would expect all travellers to, beside the objectives of the set journey, to construct a mental map of their journey destination based on their geographical and cosmographic understanding of the environment, and to trace a spatial trajectory that will direct their movement and reinforce their sense of purpose. Similarly, every society develops its own cosmographic and mental trajectories in order to cope with individual and collective movements within their environment and to enable them act as host to strangers and visitors. The trajectory of the “White Fathers” missionary activity started in Algiers in 1868 where they had already learned to appreciate Arabic culture and Islamic Religion. By the time they arrived in north-west Ghana they had already established missions in the lake regions of central Africa and a mission to the French Sudan, to which northern Ghana was considered part. As I will show later the missionaries who arrived in Northwest Ghana in 1929 were well equipped to understand socially and culturally the local environment.

33

Dagara Appropriation of Christianity

1.2. Dagara Spatial Universe of Settlements and Habitats of Hoe-farming1 As migrating hoe-farmers who have adopted a house-based model of settlement and a shifting migratory pattern of subsistence agriculture, the Dagara have structured their universal spatial view along two axes. Figure 3: Farm locations are also resident locations

Source: Alexis Tengan digital collection

The first, perceived as a vertical structure, consists of human settlements of homesteads and village stead and the second, also perceived as a horizontal structure, consists of farmlands and bush areas. Within this structure, each individual hoe-farmer considers himself or herself to be the focal point of the axes and as the centre of the universe. He or she 1

I have already made a detailed study Dagara hoe-farming culture (Tengan, 2000a) and their house-based model of social structure (Tengan, 2000b). In both studies I gave a detailed analysis on their notions of spaces and spatialisation within their cosmology. In this paper, I will not be repeating what has already been stated in these studies but will only be making a brief summary description of the spatial structure in a matter of fact manner and with the understanding of these ideas have already been justified.

34

Alexis B. Tengan

views the vertical axis as spiralling concentric localities of homesteads and village stead and identifies them as kinship categories and places to visit or dwell in as part of a life cycle. As far as their mythical narratives and observed practices indicate, the concentric localities constituting the global home and village stead for every individual and for all humanity consists of nine spatial settlement areas each with a descriptive name, a kinship status and an institutional position. Moreover, their cardinal positions and directions depend on the current location from within which an individual is seeking to locate his or her bearings. Hence, every individual starts human life within the first of these nine spatial categories or areas; that is, within the father’s village stead (sãã téng) where the paternal house of Ego’s father (sãã yir) is also situated. As Ego grows up, he will, through travel movements and encounters come to discover the other eight spatial areas and categories as house locations, namely, the mother’s village stead (ma téng) where the paternal of Ego’s mother (ma yir) is situated; the two village stead from where Ego’s father and maternal uncle have respectively made their most recent long distance migrations (sãã téng kura and ma téng kura) and where ruin houses of the paternal and the maternal clans can still be located and identified. The other five areas consist of the two-village stead to which Ego’s paternal and maternal family ancestors made their first migration; the two village stead of paternal and maternal mythical origins and finally the village stead of Ego’s settlement as a migrating hoe-farmer. The structural movement along the horizontal axis is also perceived as concentric cyclical overlapping extensions of six spatial categories as habitations that are identified and named according to natural elements. They consist of the Tree habitat location, the Hill habitat location, the Rock habitat location, the Wind (Vulture) habitat location, the Water (Sea) habitat location and the Desert (Hawk) habitat location. The Dagara hoe farmer views each of these locations as residential habitats for different living elements including crops, animals, fish, minerals, birds, etc.; and considers the same as the objective means and the ends of his farming and hunting activities. The six spatial habitations, in his belief, are composed of living beings of natural elements and forces that have a better developed house-based social system and very sophisticated kin-based social and cultural forms of interactions and practices. In other words, all knowledge and wisdom especially on agricultural and social reproduction, but not exclusively these, come from these natural habitations and the elements within them. These are all regarded as personified sacred beings, deities and divinities and as such, they demand the religious attention of human beings. They each have kinship relations with the two globalizing spatial features of Dagara cosmology, namely, the space-above personified in Rain and the space below per35

Dagara Appropriation of Christianity

sonified in Earth. The two, Earth and Rain, are also the most significant divine beings and the cultic institutions devoted to them, namely the Earth Shrine (Téngan tiε) and the Rain Shrine (Sà-dug) remained for a long time the two most significant social and political institutions for the Dagara. As a society whose social organisation was, for a long time lacking any centralising features such as chieftaincy and kingship every village stead community identified the custodian of the earth cult (Tengan sob) and the rain cult (Sà-dug sob) as their head elders and chief priests capable of mobilising the whole community beyond housebased and kin-based social and cultural ceremonies. They, as first settler of the village stead, have already mapped out the geographical borders and boundaries of the village settlement and were the first to constitute the two cults and to begin devotion to them. Figure 4: Houses, like the termite hill, are eruptions from the Earth

Source: Alexis Tengan digital collection

The Dagara cosmographic and geographical vision of space and travel encounter, as outline above, was designed to understand and deal with piecemeal movements of individuals and households during peace time and within the context of hoe-farming as a way of living and creating culture. It was not designed to deal with violent intrusions of aliens bent on imposing strange ways of behaviour and regarding them as subjects to be ruled. Yet, in their historicity, they have been aware, 36

Alexis B. Tengan

since some of them were forced to emigrate from centralised societies, that violent internal strives could cause the forceful dislocation of families or whole settlements. When such violence occurred out of the normal as often happened during the period of slave raids, families have always chosen the option to flee from their original settlements and out of the regions of the violence. Indeed, most of Dagara families will affirm that they fled from their original homes into Northwest Ghana and Southeast Burkina Faso because of slave raiding (E. Tengan, 1990). They describe this event as the flight of the donkeys from their hard labour (bong zoba). The colonial and the missionary encounters were different in terms of the nature of the violence. Figure 5: Colonial encounter and spaces of power; the colonial rest house still stands today but the chief’s palace and power has fallen apart

Source: R.F. McCoy, 1988, pp. 112-113 and Missionary of Africa Archive, Rome

2. Missionary and Colonial Spatial Trajectory and Movement into Northwest Ghana 2.1. The historical background and the colonial trajectory With respect to the history of Ghana, missionary and colonial direct encounters with the population of Northwestern Ghana can be considered as modern events that lasted for a brief period of time before their transformations into their current local forms. As early as the mid fifteenth century European traders had already taken contact with the coastal regions of present day Ghana. This followed the building of castles and forts and the gradual appropriation of the coastal and forest spaces as demarcated geographical locations and areas for exploitation. 37

Dagara Appropriation of Christianity

The terms, the “colony” representing the coastal belt, and “Ashanti” standing for the forest regions in the south, only came into use when the British were able to take control of all the forts and castles from their fellow European rivals and later defeated the Ashanti king in war and exiled him from the country. The lost of Germany in the First World War and the dominant position of Britain in global politics at the end of the war greatly facilitated Britain’s appropriation of northern Ghana as a protectorate. Britain’s only competitor for this region of West Africa was the French. The British were able, using the skills of an educated African from the coastal region, George Ekum Furguson (see K. Arhin, 1984), to map out each tribal area and to create paramount chieftaincies and districts for each of them. They also negotiated treaties with the chiefs and other powerful men they found in the area. In north-west Ghana, at the time, only the Wala people living in the urban centre had a chieftaincy structure. The rest of the populations were rural farmers with segmenting lineage or house-based social structures. The creation of the tribal districts and chieftaincies were the first steps toward the appropriation of the people and the land. The chiefs and the European district administrators became key figures in the proper appropriation and rule of the colonial state. According to Sean Hawkins, the British then went ahead to further appropriate the Dagara in particular in five different ways, namely, by locating them in space, by situating them in time, through the physical expropriation of their labour, by clothing their nudity and by naming them (Hawkins, 2002: 39). This type of appropriation affected Dagara traditional society and culture in many ways. Figure 6: Missionary first church buildings were temporary structures. Jirapa church in 1934

Source: R.F. McCoy, 1988, pp. 112-113 and Missionary of Africa Archives, Rome

38

Alexis B. Tengan

Paradoxically, the establishment of colonial government brought about peace2 in this region allowing people to move and migrate more easily. Also the establishment of cocoa plantations and mining activities in south created new opportunities for movement and allowed the Dagara to extend their world of migration beyond north-west Ghana and to broaden their cosmological understanding of space beyond the homestead and the village stead. Funeral and bagr celebrations were no longer restricted to the house and neighbourhood but began to draw Dagara people from far and wide. According to reports by the first converts to Christianity, the period immediately before the coming of the catholic missionaries in 1930 witnessed a tremendous increase in the constitution of shrines and other religious institutions and their localisation in areas beyond Dagara homeland. As people began to engage in long distance trade and travel, their religious, social and cultural horizons became widened. Also, the division of the whole territory into administrative districts and chiefdoms, with the intention of facilitating indirect rule, led to a new search for social and cultural identity beyond the house community. In this new search for identity, the newly appointed chiefs began to view themselves as having higher social status in comparison to other traditional institutional authorities such as the earth custodian (Tengan-sob) and the farm owner (wi-sob) In some cases, they began to consider themselves as proprietors and leaders of territorial domains. As a result there emerged fierce rivalries among chiefs and between them and other traditional authorities. This was also partly so because of the policy of ranking chiefs in an attempt to create a hierarchical structure. Hence, those who were made paramount chiefs immediately proceeded to create sub-ethnic groups comprising of different inhabitants within their territorial domains in order to try to combine their office of chief with other traditional ones particularly the office of Tengan-sob. This, they felt, would give them legitimacy within the cultural system.

2.1.2. Colonial Settlement and Attempts to Create New Spatial Domains and Institutions Colonial rule in north-west Ghana was generally identified with the localisation of three architectural structures, namely the chief’s palace found in every big village, town and settlement, the district administration found in every district capital and lastly the government rest house also found in every big village, town and settlement. As new centres of 2

This region was, for long time, a fertile ground for slave raiding and the Dagara populations were among the hardest hit by this phenomenon due to the type of job they did and their non-centralized system of government. For more details on this see Goody 1967.

39

Dagara Appropriation of Christianity

power, each of these three locations had its distinctive features and aura. In the first place, the colonial administration expected the chiefs and headmen to enforce all laws passed, to help recruit labour for the mining companies and farm plantations in the south and later recruit others to enlist in the army. Also, they were expected to build local roads through forced labour, collect taxes of all kinds varying from poll tax to taxes on animals and take census of their populations. Given the fact that the chiefs had no traditional authority and most of their conditions had no place within the culture of hoe-farming the chiefs resorted to new ways of doing things. In most cases, each chief, through the appropriate use of the powers invested in him by the colonial system, started his rule by building for himself a very large mud-castle house. He will then proceed, through polygamous marriage, to extend his family size and residential location beyond proportions within Dagara expectations and possibilities. In the eyes of the chief, however, this could be explained partly as an extension of the house-based social and cultural system. He also saw the use of mobilise unpaid labour for the building of his mudpalace as an action that the colonial system would endorse. Indeed, he was required to use the same labour to build the administrative settlement and the rest house. As a matter of military strategy and economic convenience, colonial administration often chose to appropriate for their own residential locations higher or hilly locations overlooking the village or township residence of the local population. They also often opted to build for themselves single unit round huts as their homes. The rest house was also often single unit round huts settlement situated a distance away from the settlements on a hilly or bushy area. In almost all cases and by way of appropriation, they often ignored the cultural and ritual processes associated with acquiring residential sites and building houses (see Tengan, 2006). A single hut or a group of huts standing alone on a hilly location must be a haunted location that can only harbour anti-social beings and elements. This negative image of the colonial rest houses was reinforced when the administration decided to use force labour to build main roads linking them; and when the lifestyle of those who visited these rest houses or came to live in them consisted mainly in eating meat and eggs and drinking beer Dagara encountering relations with the colonial rule identified with the three architectural buildings were at first ambivalent and at later negative. In one sense, they needed the images built around the chief’s house and the rest house in order to demonstrate that they were well adjusted into the colonial state and deserve its respect and recognition accorded to the centralised and chieftaincy societies in the country. In other words, they were quick to realise that their external image depended very much on the image the outsider held of their chief’s house 40

Alexis B. Tengan

and the rest house. Yet, these institutions stood as fixed locations with temporal power and that also represented certain practices that cannot be reconciled with their cultural ideals. As long as the colonial system flourished, these institutions seemed to also flourish using legitimate power. However, this did not last long. Direct colonisation, particularly in northern Ghana, lasted for only about fifty years. The forces that brought independence to Ghana saw many of the chiefs in this region sitting in the opposition to the ruling government. The first independent government saw many of these chiefs as supporters of neo-colonialism and sort to reduce the amount of power vested in them during the colonial period and to withdraw their legitimacy to mobilise forced labour and to collect gifts or taxes. This was to greatly reduce their income making it impossible to maintain the big mud-castles and large families. The lack of proper care and maintenance of both the people and the buildings has led to these sites adopting a negative image in both social and cultural terms.

2.2. The Missionary Trajectory 2.2.1. Cultural Historical Background and Position of the Dagara In 2006 the Catholic Church in Northern Ghana celebrated its hundred-year anniversary. The Missionaries of Africa, known as the White Fathers, arrived from Upper Volta, today known as Burkina Faso, in Navrongo (a small town in north-east Ghana) on Monday, 23 April 1906. The first missionary fathers included two Canadians, Fathers Oscar Morin and Léonide Barsalou, and two French men Father JeanMarie Chollet and Brother Eugene Gall. For their journey, they were accompanied by a contingent of about 20 Africans. They arrived in Northern Ghana at a time when a big segment of the local population, traditionally engaged in hoe-farming and living in the rural areas, was still contending with the consequences of the just outlawed raiding and still struggling to understand the nature of the impact incoming social and philosophical movements were having to do with the way they were about to redefine their identities and reshape their lives. First, the Islamic Cultural Revolution provoked by the Trans-Saharan trade in kola nuts and human beings had taken roots in the few urban centres of Northern Ghana and had began to create centralized social polities within the urban populations that were culturally and economically outward looking with a global outreach and vision. This gave them economic advantage and with that they tended to marginalize and exclude majority of the rural dwellers from their cultural life in order to feed a global system base on slave raiding and exploitative trade. As stated earlier, it is significant to note that the White Fathers arrived in Northern Ghana 41

Dagara Appropriation of Christianity

via the Islamic trade routes, the Trans-Saharan trade route, and after they have had some experience of mission in the Islamic country of Algeria. On their arrival, the White Fathers had earlier asked the British colonial governor for permission to establish their first mission in Wa, an Islamic enclave in the middle of Dagara country. The colonial government refused this permission because they had already promised to reserve the area of Northwest Ghana for the Anglican missionaries. The White Fathers accepted to go to the Navrongo in the east but continued to protest by taking their complaint as far as Rome and other European capitals. Twenty years after their arrival in northern Ghana, the governor gave in to their complaints and demands and in March 1929, the first missionaries assigned to the northwest, two Canadians, Fr. Remigius F. McCoy and Fr. Arthur Paquet and one Dutch, Brother Basilide Koot (a construction specialist) arrived at Jirapa, the heart of Dagara country. They were accompanied by a small group of Africans employed as helpers.

2.2.2. Dagara Reception of the Missionary Encounter The Dagara reception of the White Fathers and subsequently their message of Christianity, from all indications, appeared to have been enthusiastic and popular. To some extend it was first a movement against the strange rule of the colonial administration represented by the chiefs and their headmen, and secondly, an occasion for the custodians of some traditional institutions to reassert their influence. The earth priests and custodians of such other ritual institutions as the Rain shrine, because of the system of indirect rule, were beginning to lose much of their powers and influences. Indeed, the house location of earth priest and the earth cult were no longer the only major centres of attention in every village stead. Real power was beginning to shift to the colonial locations, namely, the chief’s house and the district administrative centre. The social, political and cultural tensions due to these changes of locations were apparent enough and when the Catholic missionaries arrived they immediately took cognisance of the shaky political and cultural grounds on which both Dagara society and the new colonial institutions were trying to structure themselves. However, they also recognised the important position the institution of chieftaincy was beginning to play in the colonial state. At the same time, they understood the ambivalence and resentment the people had towards the chiefs and the colonial administration. It is therefore significant to note that the arrival ceremony took on both political and cultural tones. This is how the leader of the first

42

Alexis B. Tengan

missionaries to the area, Fr. McCoy described their first day of their arrival. The old Jirapa naa (chief), Ganaa, had been alerted by the DC and was at the foot of the hill near the rest house with his headmen and elders when Colonel Whittal and Captain Armstrong arrived followed by Monsignor Morin and his missionaries. It was a memorable reception, made all the more unforgettable by the simultaneous arrival of a swarm of locusts. Gunshots rang out; whether to welcome us or to try to scare off the locusts, I could not be sure (McCoy, 1988: 44).

According to McCoy, the district commissioner made it clear right at this time that it was “God’s idea to send these men to live and work in their midst, (…) to help them to improve their health with medical care and to improve their knowledge”; and emphasised the point “that the missionaries were not government officials or civil servants but volunteers whose only reason for coming to Jirapa was to help the people”. In order to introduce themselves, the missionaries spoke directly to the people in Moré, a language akin to Dagara in difference to the commissioner who spoke through an interpreter. The speech dwelt mainly on graceful acceptance of the gifts and on formalities including a statement on the purpose of their visit a formal request to settle among the people. The material possessions they had and number of people following them as “family” members indicated that they were arriving as settlers and not as travellers on their way to seek a fortune. The chief and the elders understood this, and as their actions indicate, they proceeded to settle them in locations and places, that, according to Dagara cosmographic and geographic vision, were considered suitable. There is no doubt that the chief would have, in agreement with all the custodians of the different cultic institutions, performed some divinatory rites in order to know which locations best suited this type of settlement. As far as the settlement event itself is concerned, this is how the leader of the group described the situation On Sunday 1 December, the mission site was chosen with the approval of the chief, his elders, and the two tendaana Taabe and Moyanga. The site was one of several offered. (…). We chose the actual site for several reasons. Though they were all in the immediate area of Jirapa, this was the most central. It was about a quarter of a mile from the chief’s four-storey mud compound, (…). It was a large open space, superior to the other sites offered in that it lent itself better to eventual expansion. And last but not the least, it was clearly the choice favoured by our host, the chief. To the chief and the people, the choice of the missionaries indicated their understanding of the culture of hoe-farming and their intention to settle as local people. Every Dagara hoe-farmer would have chosen the 43

Dagara Appropriation of Christianity

same site for exactly the same reasons. It is also very likely that the divination ritual that would have been conducted by the chief and elders before deciding on which site to offer the missionaries would have confirmed the chief’s desire to settle the missionaries on this particular site and hence his preference. Figure 7: Jirapa Church 1987. Missionary church buildings have become central locations replacing the chief’s palace

Source: R.F. McCoy 1988 and Missionary of Africa Archive, Rome

It is not that the site was without its own local cultural significance and problems. The point is that, it fitted cosmological expectations. The land, according to the same missionary report and in their eyes, was neglected land and of no use to anyone. This is because the soil was poor and full of brambles, stones and soft thorns. Also, according to the local belief, it was a land haunted by evil spirits. These properties, paradoxically, contrary to the missionary understanding that it was unwanted, would tend to make the site very suitable for the location of a ritual institution of social importance. Such a place would have been regarded as a collective property and a public environment. Hence, it makes sense that the chief and all the elders and all the people took active part in turning this place into a settlement. No one single person or individual can deal solely with the spirits of nature, evil or not. The report of Fr. McCoy also confirms this: When I arrived on the scene the next morning (Monday), I found the chief himself tracing out the area the huts would occupy. The ground had already been cleared and levelled, and some men were busy digging the earth to make the mud walls while women brought water. There was much wellorganised activity, with the result that in ten days’ time the five round huts forming our provisional compound were completely roofed, plastered, and ready for occupancy. On Friday, 13 December 1929, only fourteen days after our arrival, the chief and his people moved our belongings from the rest house to the new compound. In one hour, the move was completed. Two 44

Alexis B. Tengan

charcoal filters were set up for water and we were ‘in business’ (R.F. McCoy, 1988:49).

3. Experiencing Missionary Activities as Spatial Encounters Unlike the colonial administration the Catholic fathers began their work through the study of Dagara culture and language and soon came to understand the house-based kinship model, the trajectories of movements of the people as migrating hoe-farmers and the importance that was attached to spatial locations as cultic institutions and as ritual centres. From their method of operation, they seemed to be aware of the fact that for the Dagara, ritual participation was more valued over an above belief in gods or one supreme God. The Dagara were always concerned with rites to the different personified spatial categories constituting the vertical and horizontal axes of the cosmos (see above) and established cults and fetishes in every location in order to effectively deal with the different spirits and deities located in them. The missionaries, therefore, saw their task of conversion, not so much as bringing religion to the people, but as introducing to them the “Christian God as the one and only true God”. As one would expect, the missionaries’ correct encounter with the spirits and deities of the spatial location would demonstrate to the local population how much value should be attached to their message of evangelisation. To this end, it is significant to note that the Catholic White Fathers began their work by inviting people to prayer and devotion under tress and in any location whenever there was the opportunity instead of going to the houses of the people with the bible in their hands or waiting in the mission houses for people to come to them. As it turned out, devotional prayer (puoro) soon became a very fashionable mode of religious practice and the missionaries, together with those who went along with them became known as those who pray (puorbε) and Christianity itself was translated as puoro (prayer) (Edward B. Tengan, 2000). In order to be a Christian or member of the “praying group” (puorbε), the missionaries demanded three things from the people: “First you must promise to stop making sacrifices to spirits. Second, you must allow your people freedom to come to pray at the mission whenever they want to do so. And third, you must not force your daughters to marry anyone against their will” (McCoy, 1984: 112). The response from the elders through a spokesman and after some deliberation is very illuminating. The second thing God asks we all agree to that, he announced. We will not stand in the way of anyone from our village who wishes to pray with the Christians. And we can even agree to the third thing if God really insists on it, though we think He would not insist quite so much if He knew our 45

Dagara Appropriation of Christianity

daughters as we do. But as for the first thing He asks... He looked down and shook his head slowly. What will happen if we desert the spirits? We are afraid.

The question here is what is the nature of the danger coming from these spirits and can it be taken away by prayer to the one true God instead of sacrifices to the spirits? The spirits, as far as the Dagara cosmology is concerned, are after all, the spatial categories concentrically arranged in vertical and horizontal axes and within which the Dagara individually and collectively are entangled through a network of kinship relations. In other word, the elders understood the request to stop making sacrifices to spirits as a ban on their relationship with their ancestors and the living beings or spirits of nature (kͻntͻm) who, as the bagr mythical narrations indicate, are the main sources of knowledge on hoe-farming and all other forms of production and reproduction. However, the ancestors and all the other spirits or kͻntͻmε are all part of this entanglement of kinship relations and each ultimately belong to either of the two spatial categories making up the cosmos, namely, the space of Rain and the space of Earth. Goody (1972) has partly described Dagara religion as a quasireligious system consisting of institutional practices centring upon the communication between men and gods; but having neither a coherent system of beliefs nor a defined unchanging body of knowledge to unlock (Goody, 1972: 14-16). I would dare say that the gods Goody identified were the same spatial spirits that the missionaries are encountering here. Sean Hawkins (1996) on the other hand, has accused the missionaries of projecting the notion of the Christian God unto Dagara historicity much in the same as the colonial administrators tried to justify the institutionalisation of chieftaincy in this area as part a natural evolutionary process. In his view, the missionaries partly invented and popularised the use of the term Naamwin as chief-deity within Dagara cosmology in order to see in him the Christian God that was waiting to reveal himself to the Dagara. The issues surrounding the Dagara notion of God and the process of their Christian conversions are much too complex and cannot be fully treated here. It seems to me however, that, considering the fact that the Dagara belonged to a wider cultural area of the Mole-Dagbani group of people where the terms chiefly (naa) and god (mwin) are very well developed and often associated with each other to refer to God, the concept of God was not totally an invention. In deed, the term Naamwin is very well developed in the bagr myths and rituals as something that is occupying the mental and imaginary space of reasoning. What was certainly an invention was the notion that God (Naamwin), as far as the missionaries were concerned, existed not as a Spatial Being with an identifiable location and personality but as an 46

Alexis B. Tengan

abstract being that is present everywhere and at all times and cannot be made a fetish of. It is certainly beyond the scope of this essay to delve into all the details concerning shift in Dagara belief system in terms of Christian conversion. What is most relevant here and which I want to do is to outline the spatial shifts of religious and other socio-cultural practices away from the house-based and kinship-based spatial configuration of family and kin devotion of myriad of spirits, deities, and fetishes to a centralised church focus with a global outlook and vision. The important argument I want to make here is that the Dagara viewed the missionary encounter within their social, cosmic and environmental spaces as something providential and a movement of cultural continuity that is in tune with their way of life as hoe-farmers. In an earlier work, I explained that “the life of a hoe-farmer consists partly in cultivating farmlands and rearing animals within settled environments laid out as houses, homesteads and village settlements; and also partly in relating with persons and institutions within extending habitat”. There seems to be no doubt in my mind that the Dagara viewed, even at the very early stages of their encounter with the missionaries and their settlement activity, as a sort divine providential gift that will help them enhance and enrich their hoe-farming way of life which has been under threat from centralised Islamic kingdoms and now, in their eyes, supported by the colonial administration. The message of ritual practice and the settlement process of establishing ritual and cultural institutions in different locations made more sense than the recruitment of force labour to build roads or to work on the chiefs’ farms or to send them to the cocoa plantations and gold mines in the south. For the first time in their history, the Dagara saw themselves reorganising their whole country through the creation of parishes as centres and the building of churches, clinics and schools as new institutional centres. The creation of each parish centre always started with the selection of a particular tree easily accessible to a number of villages as a ritual centre and also as a place for catechism. The choice is always an agreement between the local community, the earth priest of the area and the missionary Fathers. The tree often establishes a close relationship between the new missionary phenomenon and the old rites to the earth as a traditional deity. The second stage of missionary settlement consisted in the building of chapels or small churches in the parish centres and the institution of the Sunday worship in these locations which required the participation of all Christians and all desiring to be one3. The cultur3

Originally, the Dagara operated a Six-day week with each day assigned to a village area within walking distance of five other villages as its market day (see Tengan,

47

Dagara Appropriation of Christianity

al translation which took place among the people was the recognition of Sunday not only as a day of common worship but also as an additional day of rest from farm labour and a day devoted to economic activity. As a result, large markets were soon established at a close distance to the church buildings and within time, small townships began to develop within these areas. In terms of temporal movement, the structure of the seven-day week and the names, Monday to Sunday, that identified each day of the week including the structure of twelve months within the year came to stand for activities specifically relating to missionary and colonial encounters and the institutions that they established. It was always expected that the chapels and small churches often roofed with grass were temporary buildings. As such, the third stage often consisted in building very large church structures with very advanced architectural designs and using foreign materials (cement, iron and steel, zinc, etc.). These were often soon followed by the building of permanent residences for the priests, the building of a clinic or hospital and then, much later the establishment of a mission school4. The erection of these buildings, especially the church and parish buildings, often involved the participation of the whole community, men women and children. Even though a good amount of the money needed to erect the buildings came from outside the region, the enthusiasm and the energy with which the people made their own contributions including financial, labour and other forms of participation, convinced them that they built them through their own effort. This conviction did not only lead them to the total appropriation of these structures and their significant meanings, but above all to the conscious effort of redefining and integrating them as part of their indigenous socio-cultural and religious entities. As such, they did not perceive missionary activity as a limited well-defined event within a specified time and space frame. On the contrary, they came to appropriate mission structures and thought pattern as part of their new cultural identity that will enable them deal with changes taking place within real time.

4

2000: 116-118). They also had one day which they set aside during the farming season as a day of rest from farm labour. They called this the market day of not farming (takodaa). It seems that it was never commonly applied at the same time for everybody but individual communities set dates that they found convenient. Mission schools were late to develop not because the missionaries wanted to but because the colonial government, at the beginning would not allow them. The northern territories, especially the Northwest, according to colonial policy, was reserved as a labour pool for recruiting cheap labour for the cocoa plantations and mines in the south. Permission was only first given to build school in 1940.

48

Alexis B. Tengan

Figure 8: Transformations in missionary church buildings and encounter relations: The rural church in Nandom and the city cathedral in Tamale

Source: Peter Cardinal Dery Album, Tamale and Alexis Tengan digital collection

The historical sketch provided by the missionaries, for example, on the establishment of Nandom parish since 1933 and its continuous growth into a deanery with many sub-parishes captures the dynamics of the bonding relationships between missionary activity and the Dagara. In this case, it is clear that the institutions of the Catholic Church, both as physical structures and as cultural symbolic objects have become the central focus and cardinal point around which Dagara current social, cultural and economic as well political reproductions take place. In contrast with the colonial buildings and institutions, such as the rest houses and the chieftaincy palaces, which have continued to remain at the margins of society and in some instances have virtually collapsed or disappeared, the bonding relations between the missionaries and the Dagara people through the building of churches and parishes have continued to extend in all ways and in all directions. The following entry by the leader of the missionary team who started the church building in Nandom, Fr. Larochelle sums up the manner Dagara reproduced the missionary encounter: The people kept interest in the priest and kept coming to help in the work, bringing cowries to pay the masons and also to purchase cement and sheets. In 1935, the increase of people in Nandom market caused inflation. I called the workers and announced to them that the salaries would be increased to 300 cowries a day. The next day, the workers came as a group and said: “About what you told us yesterday, we cannot accept an increase. This church is the house of OUR father, and we want to build ourselves the house of OUR father. We refuse the increase”. (V. Gregoire, 1979:38)

49

Dagara Appropriation of Christianity

The result was that within a few years, “the stone church, which was begun in August 1935, the largest church at the time for Africa, was roofed in April 1936 and officially blessed by the Apostolic delegate, Archbishop Riberi, on the 6th January 1937.” In terms of church as people; in 1934, Nandom had 165 baptised Christians. By 1940, it had 8,000 and in 1951 they were 19,000. The processes described for Nandom repeated themselves in 1952 in two other locations, namely, Ko and Daffiama. In 1960 three new parishes were added. 1966 and 1971 saw single additions for each of the years. In 1980, 4 parishes were created, another 4 in 1990 and five more in 1999. The Christian population has also been increasing and the services provided by the catholic institutions including the ritual services have become commonly accepted phenomena within Dagara society.

4. Conclusion As migrating hoe-farmers, the Dagara view space and movement within space in function of their cultural context of hoe-farming practices. Their categorisation of space and spatial elements help them understand their own movements and actions and that of others. One could say that the colonial movement into Dagaraland brought about peace and opened up the northwest for free movement of people including the Dagara. The manner of its implantation did not lead fully to its appropriation as a cultural practice. Colonial institutions were tolerated but not enthusiastically accepted. On the other hand, before the missionary encounter, the Dagara had already began to develop ways of expanding ritual and religious networks of institutions both physically and mentally first through the elaborate architectural and social structure of their own houses and homestead and village stead as residential spaces and secondly through the equally very elaborate farming rituals including the recitation of the myth of cultural origins, the bagr which allowed them to circulate between their various natural localities and habitats. This process started sometime before their encounter with the Catholic missionaries, in their view, is being completed through the spatial configuration of parish locations and built institutions. The parishes are not only now religious centres but also centres for all social, cultural and economic activities. Thus, for many of the big villages which are now parish centres, the six day market week has been abandoned in favour a fixed day that is coinciding with Sunday. Thus, every Sunday, procession of people from the different surrounding villages of the major parishes such as Jirapa, Nandom, and Ko, will march to these centres carrying their market wares as well as wearing their Sunday dresses. They will first attend the Catholic mass service and spend the rest of the day marketing and socialising within the parish grounds. 50

Alexis B. Tengan

References Bekye, P. K. (1991). Divine Revelation and Traditional Religion with Particular Reference to the Dagaaba of West Africa. Rome: Leberit Press. Dapila, F. N. (2001). Catholicism and the Enculturation Process among the Dagaaba of Ghana: the road to progress. Journal of Dagaare Studies, Vol. 1(1). Der, B. G. (1983). Missionary Enterprise in Northern Ghana 1906-1975: A study in impact. University of Ghana, Accra, Legon. Goody, J. (1972). The Myth of the Bagre. Oxford; London: Clarendon Press. Goody, J., & International African Institute. (1967). The social Organisation of the LoWiili (2nd ed.). London: Published for the International African Institute by the Oxford U.P. Gregoire, V. (1979). That They May Have Life: An Account of the Activities of Church in North-west Ghana 1929-79. Wa: Wa Catholic Press. Hagberg, S., & Tengan, A. B. (2000). Bonds and Boundaries in Northern Ghana and Southern Burkina Faso (Vol. 30). Uppsala: University of Uppsala Press. Hawkins, S. (2002). Writing and colonialism in northern Ghana: the encounter between the LoDagaa and “the World on Paper”. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. Kuukure, E. (1985). The destiny of man: Dagaare beliefs in dialogue with Christian eschatology. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Lentz, C. (1994). A Dagara Rebellion against Dagomba Rule?: Contested Stories of Origin in North-Western Ghana. Journal of African History, No. 35. Lentz, C. (2003). This is Ghanaian territory!: Land conflicts on a West African border. American Ethnologist, Vol. 30(2). McCoy, R. F., Dionne, R., & Dewart, J. C. (1988). Great things happen: A Personal Memoir. Montreal: Society of Missionaries of Africa. Saaka, Y. (2001). Regionalism and Public Policy in Northern Ghana. New York: Peter Lang. Tengan, A. B. (1999). Dagara Bagr: Ritualising Myth of Social Foundation Africa. Journal of the International Institute, Vol. 69. Tengan, A. B. (2000a). Hoe-farming and social relations among the Dagara of North western Ghana and South western Burkina Faso. Frankfurt am Main; New York: Peter Lang. Tengan, A. B. (2000b). Space, Bonds and Social Order: Dagara House-based Social System. In S. Hagberg & A. B. Tengan (eds.), Bonds and Boundaries in Northern Ghana and Southern Burkina Faso (Vol. 30). Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Tengan, A. B. (2002). Social Categories and Seniority in a House-based Society. In M. S & K. Stroeken (eds.), Ageing in Africa: Sociolinguistic and Anthropological Approaches. London: Ashgate.

51

Dagara Appropriation of Christianity

Tengan, A. B. (2006). Mythical narratives in ritual: Dagara black bagr. Brussels: P.I.E. Peter Lang. Tengan, E. (1990). The Sisala Universe: Its Composition and Structure. Journal of Religion in Africa, 20(1). Tengan, E. (1994). The Social Structure of the Dagara: The House and the Matriclan as Axes of Dagara Social Organization. Tamale: St. Victor’s Major Seminary. van der Geest, K. (2002). “We’re Managing!”? Vulnerability and Responses to Climate Variability and Change among Rural Households in Northwest Ghana. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam.

52

African Traditional Religious Leadership and the Worldview of Peter Cardinal Poreku Dery Linus ZAN Doctoral Student, University of Development Studies, Wa

1. Introduction George Liddell in a poetic verse pleaded thus: “give me a man of God – one man, whose faith is master of his mind, and I will right all wrongs, and bless the name of all mankind”1. His plead is one that represents a cry of many within our changing world for leaders who would liberate them from the teething problems that confront them today. It is not so much that society lacks people in authority; or that society is lacking people to fill ranks and positions. It is not also that society is lacking people with authoritative knowledge; or people with power to command and get things done in their own way. All these qualities abound in all societies including the Ghanaian one. However, what are lacking in most societies are leaders who know the social, economic, moral, and traditional background of their people so that they can address the problems confronting them appropriately. All societies need leaders who think first of the common good for all before thinking of their own interest; and leaders who are visionaries and can lead people toward a destination where the quality of live can be improved. In other words, the world needs leaders with moral character and cultural knowledge. It is with this in mind that I want to use this occasion to present a leadership model, exemplified by the life of Dery, which will respond strongly to our changing world of today. Though this model of leadership can be said to have been used by Peter Cardinal Poreku Dery; it is not my intention to recount Cardinal Dery’s achievements through the 1

George Liddell in Olin D. Boles, Second Mile Leadership Principles, Crossbooks, Bloomington, USA, 2011.

53

African Traditional Religious Leadership

use of the model. In this chapter, I want to concentrate on his leadership quality and style and how this has tended to bring about significant results. Also, I will like to assert that the uniqueness of this model stems partly from Dery’s religious faith that was grounded firmly in his African Traditional Culture. This Traditional Culture, as Dery saw it, had elements that will uplift the human person as a universal being. Hence, before dealing with the outlines of African Traditional Culture, I shall first look at the broad understanding of leadership within a global cultural context. After that I shall consider what spiritual/religious leadership means. This should lead me to discuss the outlines of what African traditional religious leadership; and finally lead to the leadership style and character of Cardinal Dery.

2. Aspects of Leadership Leadership has often been defined differently by several scholars. In all circumstances, leadership derives from the verb, to lead. It is therefore an action of guiding or giving an example to others. It implies taking a direction and leading others. Some scholars also define leadership as giving goal orientation to a group so as to keep its members focused. D’Souza (2005), one of such people, understands leadership as providing a goal orientation to a group of people to enable them achieve their common aim. The leader, he observes, sees the bigger picture, and understands the purpose of the life and work of the group or organization as a whole. Leadership, in this case, implies that the leader has foresight and sense of direction. D’Souza points out that in every situation within a given structure, we need to direct individual efforts towards an overall purpose. Someone needs to provide this goal orientation, and that is the leader. Quoting Robert Greenleaf, D’Souza (2005: 13), states: A mark of leaders, an attribute that puts them in a position to show the way for others, is that they are better than most at pointing to the direction. As long as one is leading, one always has a goal (…) but the leader always knows what it is and can articulate it for any who are unsure. By clearly stating and restating the goal, the leader gives certainty and purpose to others who may have difficulty in achieving it for themselves.

A leader then is one who knows where he is going, he stays walking on the path he has taken and is able to show the right path to others who are looking for it. The second group of scholars see leadership as service to others. This is especially the case with the Christian perspective of leadership. Hence, when Christians use the term leadership, they quickly follow it 54

Linus Zan

up with the biblical quotation: ‘He who would be the greatest among you shall be the servant of all.’ The implication is that; leadership should include: the sense of rendering the maximum service to others; the sense of being largely unselfish before others, and the sense of unswerving and unceasing absorption in the greatest work aimed at doing something for others. Thirdly, Leadership is often defined as the ability of one person to influence others. Adair (2009), for example, defines leadership as an art of influencing a body of people to follow a certain course of action. It is the art of controlling them, directing them and getting the best out of them. Adair adds that leadership provides those functions necessary for a group to achieve its task and be held together as a working team. In other words, leadership is about giving direction, building teams and inspiring others by example and word2. It is in this same vein that Lord Montgomery defines leadership: “Leadership is the capacity and will to rally men and women to a common purpose, and the character which inspires confidence.” This definition stresses that leadership is not only mobilising people but also keeping them together and guiding them to work towards the attainment of their common goal. The leader does this by living an exemplary life that inspires confidence from his followers. Character is therefore an essential quality that determines the success or otherwise of a leader. Also, Truman defines a leader as a person who has the ability to get others to do what they do not want to do, and like it. As Sanders puts it, the leader should be a man who knows the road to achieving the common goal for the group (Sanders, 1978). From the diverse definitions given, there is one idea common to all; namely that leadership has to do with group interaction within which one individual exercises some positive influence in view of giving a sense of direction to the group towards achieving common goals. In this regard, leadership is not only a function, it is also a quality which enables one to influence others to do what he or she would otherwise not have done (Ziem, 2011). Indeed, Ziem and Adair (2009a) have observed that successful leaders, globally, tend to possess such human qualities as integrity, enthusiasm, toughness, fairness, warmth, humility and confidence. They also tend to be people who have vision, communication skills, and self-knowledge. Ziem’s observation that: “leadership does not imply the mere leading of people; rather, leadership involves the mobilization of people aimed at achieving a set goal, and it is only one with a vision and who shares that vision with others who can bring this about. Furthermore, the leader must be able to win the trust and confidence of the people he leads. The leader must therefore be credible 2

For a similar view on leadership, see Adei 2004.

55

African Traditional Religious Leadership

and trustworthy” (Ziem, 2011: 19) gives a very good summary to conclude our exploration aspects of leadership.

2.1. Spirituality in Religious Leadership Within the religious dimension, an additional aspect of leadership is spirituality. Spiritually, as understood here, is the blending of natural and charismatic qualities endowed within a person. It is the recognition that natural qualities are not solely auto-generic in humans but also God-given gifts; and that these qualities tend to be most effective when they are employed as service to God and for His glory. Spiritual leadership entails all the aspects of leadership enumerated above and much more in that the personality of the individual becomes a prime factor. Spirituality is the magnetism within the personality which will draw the hearts of men towards the individual as a leader (Sanders, 1978: 20) The spiritual leader, however, influences others not by the power of his personality alone but also by his belief in the Divine Spirit as a guiding principle. Referring to Christian and by consequence, spiritual leadership, Sanders says that because he permits the Holy Spirit’s undisputed control of his life, the spirit’s power can flow through him to others unhindered (Sanders, 1978). In this light, spiritual leadership is often seen as superior to all other forms of leadership. The spiritual leader is able to influence others only because there is a spirit working in and through him. The character of spiritual leadership is shaped through the leader’s relationship to his God and subsequently to his followers. It is a leadership that is based on communal values expressed through religion. Leadership with character produces value-laden fruits. Leaders who find their identity in their relationship with God, nurture organizations that care for people as persons loved by God. Leaders who find their security in their walk with their God – source of their power – will nourish communities where diversity is comfortably embraced and where wounded relationships are reconciled and healed. Leaders who place their hope in God will be people who respect commitment, who keep promises, who encourage trust (Wright, 1998). Spiritual leadership is God and people oriented process with a definite task within which the leader sees his task as glorifying the name of God through the services he renders to his people. The main aim of the leader is to help others develop themselves as humans in order to be closer to their God. In this respect spiritual leadership is similar to natural leadership. Let me conclude this section by pointing out that the process of designating a spiritual leader neither involves political campaign for votes 56

Linus Zan

nor negotiations based on power relations. In spiritual leadership it is the prerogative of the Devine Power, through the Spirit, to bestow leadership gifts on the candidate thereby making him eligible and capable of handling the position. This is what A. W. Tozer means when he said that, “A true and safe leader is likely to be one who has no desire to lead, but is force into a position of leadership by the inward pressure of the Holy Spirit and the pressure of the external situation. Such were the cases for Moses and David and the Old Testament prophets” (Sanders, 1978). Spiritual leadership is therefore a divine call to the service of God and mankind.

3. Dagara Religion and Leadership 3.1. The House Structure and the Position of the House Elder (Yir-nikpee) The basis of the socio-religious organization and leadership structure of the Dagara is kinship and house-based structure (see A.B. Tengan, 2000a, 2000b). As an agricultural people, the lineage emerges as a localized, land-owning group. Dispersed descent groups are linked by clanship. Authority then is delegated to the senior living member of the patrilineage, seniority being defined by age within generation categories. Hence, within the extended family system, it is the oldest man of the senior generation who becomes the House Senior Elder (Yir-nikpee, plural, Yir-nimbere). He has charge of maintaining the rules and customs established by the founding ancestors. The authority of the Senior Elder (Yir-nikpee) is basically spiritual and religious and he is assisted by all the elders of the senior generation. Decisions are reached through discussions and informal consensus. The senior elder and his fellow elders keep the house community together as one family. However, it should be noted that nothing is done without first consulting the diviner (Bagr-bogre) to know the opinion of the ancestors concerning the issue at stake (Kuukure, 1985: 37, Bekye, 1991: 117). Kuukure (1985: 37) observes that among the Dagara the authority of the house senior elder is not rigid. He is more a wise councillor than a kind of chief in the exercise of his authority. He is considered as a living representative of the founding ancestors of the house community. He does not compel compliance, he persuades and menaces with spiritual sanctions, for, it is believed that persuasion is better than brute force (belbel sa kpirkpir). In case of insubordination of a member of the clan, the ancestors punish the victim since the Yir-nikpee represents them. Misfortunes and disasters that befall individuals, clans, or communities are very often interpreted as the consequences of, or perhaps, as punishment sent by the ancestors or other supernatural powers for bad 57

African Traditional Religious Leadership

conduct, disregard of ancestral norms or failure to fulfil certain moral obligations to kinsfolk or community. The Senior House Elder (Yir-nikpee) in addition to being the oldest living member of the clan should also be a fully developed moral person who has an important role in the form of social and communal responsibilities. Elders (Yir-nimbere) are the repositories of wisdom, knowledge, cultural beliefs, traditions, and wealth of experience. As such, they exhibit robust moral sensibility in their moral judgments (Ikuenobe, 2006). They are also custodians of ancestral land, and by extension, keepers of social cohesion within the community (Miller, 1998). A house elder (yir-nikpee) should have many qualities. He is one who has the ability to listen to the problems of his people; he has the ability to keep secrets; the ability to make decisions on behalf of the people in a manner reflecting consensus and serving the well being of all. It is he who keeps the oral tradition of the clan-the taboos, the totems and the litany of the ancestors and transfers each of these to the appropriate members of the clan at the appropriate time. He ensures that the values and tenets of the clan are adhered to. He knows the major deities of the clan and the demarcations of the ancestral land. Such a person must be stable and be available at all times to settle family issues. The Yirnikpee does not discriminate against anybody. That is why the Dagara metaphorically say: “the elder is a refuse dump onto which all people dump their problems” (Nikpee mi ini tampuor a nibe kyire sage yagn). In the same way as the refuse dump accepts all the rubbish from the community, so should the elder accept all people who approaches him with any problem. Indeed, when any member of the family gets into trouble of any kind, it is to the Yir-nikpee that he approaches for assistance. He approaches him with the hope that he would listen to him and help him find a solution to his problem. The Senior House Elder (Yir-nikpee) is expected to behave with the decorum that befits his status. In other words, an elder should behave wisely so as to give an example to the young ones and to command respect. The Senior Elder, in particular, should be respected and be obeyed by all. The obedience and respect is not directed to the power and the ability of the elder to do anything but to the authority vested in him. Hence the dictum: one may jump over the walking stick of the elder with disrespect but one ignores his words of advice at one’s own peril; (nikpee daa nu be mi gang, e bebe gangne nikpee nuore). There is a common believe that as one advances in age, the more the elder acquires experience, leadership skills, and spiritual gifts, and also the capacity to see beyond the immediate and the present. This capacity is intrinsically linked to age and not to acquired knowledge or intelligence. So the Dagara articulate this in the saying: what the young may fail to 58

Linus Zan

see while standing, the elder sees it while sitting (bon ne a bibile na mi ar e be nyea, a nikpee mi zi na e nyeo). Additionally, the elder acquires sensitivity and with sensitivity in understanding his religious environment and his people’s needs, he can make skilful and decisive decisions that should not be arbitrarily challenged. Wisdom gives him that insight into what is truly important in life, an awareness of the meaning and purpose of life, of what really matters. Wisdom gives him the understanding of where the real well-being and happiness of the people really lie. In the distant past when fission within the clan did not occur often and large groups of clan members used to live together in big compound houses, it was the duty of the Senior Elder to see to it that everybody in the house had something to eat even during the hunger periods; that the young men marry according to custom, and that there was peace, love, and harmony in the house. Hence, it was common practice that during the hunger season, in order to ensure the survival of all within the compound, the senior elder will carry out secret inspection of all the granaries for the different sections of the house. If he discovers that one section had nothing or very little food reserve to last the rest of the season, he would redistribute the reserves to ensure all sections had enough to survive. He may choose, if he wants, to inform the rest of the house community about his action.

3.2. Traditional Religion and Leadership The religious functions of the senior elder include leading the community at the annual ancestral and other family sacrifices of the house. He is assisted in this role by the family priest (Suo-sob) who is designated to play the Levitical role of slaughtering the sacrificial animals. Most sacrifices have similar concerns, namely, the need for peace, good health, prosperity, and harmony within society and with nature. In other words, as far as religious practice is concerned, there is a human desire for an environment, where life can be honestly celebrated in its fullness even while awaiting its final consummation (Kudadjie et al., 2000). The African traditional leader, in his search for the realization of such a noble aim and desire, has often identified sacrifice and reconciliation as cardinal points within his leadership duties. For him to enjoy this full life and total well being, each Dagara knows he must keep close contact with the Supreme Being, the ancestors and other deities who are the true progenitors of life and the holders of individual destinies. The centrality of sacrifice and priesthood in African Traditional Religion is acknowledged by Dominique Zahan who observed that “African spiritual life is so impregnated with the idea of immolation that it is practically impossible to find a people on that continent whose religious 59

African Traditional Religious Leadership

practices do not include the slaughter of the most diverse victims” (Zahan, 1970: 33). Zahan observed that sacrifice is the keystone of the African Traditional Religion. It constitutes the supreme prayer, and cannot be ignored without seriously compromising the relationship between man and the Invisible World. This makes the leadership role of the priest and the elder very significant. Hence, in every Dagara traditional family, there is a priest (Suo-sob) who is working very closely with the senior elder. Indeed the source of power and authority of the elder (nikpee) is always linked to and derived from the ancestral cult. The elder is in constant consultation with the ancestral cult for all issues. According to the earth custodian and priest (tengan-sob) of Nandom area; The Ancestors are our essence, our total well-being. They bind us together as one collective and sustain the solidarity of the Dagara-even across boundaries to Burkina and Ivory Coast-giving us one identity. They provide us with an inextricable link between the living, the dead and the yet unborn. In the world of the ancestors, life and death are like day and night – one the same day. It is our spirituality, our culture, our science, our arts, our way of life and our view of the world. This phenomenon is expressed in the (extended) family system, the clan system, the lineages, our totems, our beliefs, our values and our personality, even across borders. (Millar, 2007)

This is to say that the religious leader does not take any major decision or explain any unusual happening without consulting his ancestors through the soothsayer or diviner since “he (the soothsayer) possesses the skill of penetrating the universe of the invisible” (Zahan, 1979: 81). Referring specifically to the Dagara, Kuukure (1986) noted that authority in the family or household is always delegated to the senior living member of the patrilineage where seniority in that context is defined by age within a class generation. Similarly, Naameh (1986) states that, at all levels within the family, age serves as the most practical guide to social stratification. According to him, the oldest man of the most senior generation of elders will be considered as the most informed man in the family about the traditions of the ancestors and would take on the senior elder position and religious authority will also be conferred upon him. This structure of age and seniority is reflected both at the family and the lineage levels. At each level the senior living member commands particular respect and all members of the lineage and family recognize and submit to his authority. He, together with the other elders and heads of families, meet when the need arises to resolve family problems including questions of marriage and land disputes (Bekye, 1991: 117). 60

Linus Zan

The family unit (logr), as the basic institution of Dagara house community, also forms the first level of social relations. It consists of kin relations of father, mother, brothers and sisters living together and sharing common food and other resources for their livelihood. It varies somewhat from what is often referred to as the nuclear family or family of procreation (Assimeng, 2007). Within the Dagara social structure, the father, as the head of the family unit, does not take serious decisions without duly consulting the elders of the household level and the clan level.

3.3. The Tengan-sob (Custodian of the Earth Spirit) Above the level of descent groups (the clan and household levels), there is the Tengan-sob, that is, the priest of the Earth Divinity and Custodian of the Earth Shrine who plays an important leadership role in the Dagara traditional religious society. Like other African peoples, the Dagara revere the earth as an important deity. For them, the earth plays a role in nature and has a special connection with the entire life of human beings. The whole life of human beings from beginning to end is linked to the earth. A person comes into contact with the earth from the day of his birth. This relationship is symbolically sealed with the burial of the person’s umbilical cord (nyuo) in the earth. At the end of his life he is buried in the earth (Adjakpey, 1982: 36). Among the Dagara the earth is not only a material reality but a divine entity that plays a role in their lives. The earth is considered sacred and having mystical powers. The earth deity then, is of great importance to most tribes of Africa. Among the Dagara the cult of the earth is referred to as tengan and the custodian of this cult is referred to as tengan-sob. The tengan-sob plays a very significant leadership role in the Dagara traditional religious community. The earth priest or custodian (tengan-sob) is, in most instances, the family head of the lineage that traditionally and ritually domesticated the wild bush into arable land for farming. Upon his death he is normally succeeded by the oldest surviving male of the lineage unless he is disqualified from holding the office for one reason to another. To this end, Bekye (1991: 119) observes, “The power of the Tengan-sob is transferred only to his family, there are no elections. But sometimes such a one, or even the family, is manoeuvred out either silently or by intrigue, especially if he has been neglecting his duties.” Each local community or village (teng) has an earth priest charged with the responsibility of maintaining good relations with the earth and thereby assuring the welfare of his people. He propitiates the earth deity with sacrifices at planting and harvesting seasons, and must ritually consecrate any bush area into arable for agricultural use. The spilling of blood upon 61

African Traditional Religious Leadership

the earth is believed to be especially abhorrent to the earth deity. Hence any killing, even in war or homicide, defiles the earth and must be expiated by appropriate sacrifices. To prevent such contamination and its consequences, the tengan-sob has the ritual authority and moral responsibility to stop feuding and warfare, and to mediate in disputes which threatened to provoke violence. Indeed, the functions of the tengan-sob are numerous and varied, as he exercises both administrative and religious authority in the community. Let me explain briefly some of the roles the earth priest and custodian is playing in Dagara society

3.3.1. As Priest and Mediator The office of the earth priest and custodian is replicated on all levels of social structure since the social and generative functions ascribed to the land or earth are also replicated at all levels of society.. The earth priest is the embodiment of the mystical qualities of the land, and appears as the personification of the earth in their midst of the people. He has the power to, through ritual and symbolic gestures, to bring blessings or wrath of the earth on the people. As a result, he stands out as a mediator between the community and their Earth deity. On occasion, he epitomizes the fertility of the land which he transmits to the community and on a different occasion, he is the priest offering supplicatory and reparatory rituals on behalf of the people. Through this dual role and personality, the earth priest brings peace, harmony, prosperity, and welfare to his community (E. Tengan, 1991). By and large, he is the source of unity within the settlement and deals swiftly with that which can potentially break this unity.

3.3.2. As Enforcer of the Moral Laws of the Earth Deity: Politically, the earth priest maintains peace and unity in the community through religious sanctions. The heaviest of these relate to the prohibition upon shedding blood within the village stead. The sanctions for such an offence include large sacrificial offerings of goods and money, and in the extreme, banishment of the culprit from the village stead. The earth priest issues the sanctions in the name of the earth deity. The physical acts could include, wounding another person, especially on the head, self-destruction of any kind including suicide. In most cases, the sanctions target to punish the whole kin group of the perpetrator; hence the goods and money to be levied in the case of suicide are directed to the kin. Other major taboos of the earth deity include the sale of one’s kin into slavery (nibε ku‫כ‬ru), sexual intercourse in the bush or outside a constructed home and abortion. The latter is considers as murder, and apart from the ritual sanctions that this sin attracts, the Dagara also believe that women who commit abortion suffer barrenness thereafter (Kuukure, 1984: 91) 62

Linus Zan

3.3.3. As Host to New Arrivals and Immigrants All new arrivals to the settlement owe allegiance to the earth deity that has allowed them to enter the territory in peace. On arrival the newcomers introduce themselves to the earth priest who would officially welcome them and introduce them to deity. He does this by assigning to them a plot of land for settlement and farming. A sacrifice is offered on the land to give them the right to settle on and cultivate it. Once a piece of land has been apportioned to and appropriated by a family on arrival, its use becomes forever their inalienable right as long as they are settled in the area.

3.3.4. Blessing New Constructions and Houses According to Dagara tradition one should not built a new house (yirpaala) in the village without the blessings of the earth priest (see A. Tengan, 2006). Even before the building can start, the earth priest is informed and invited by the head of the family to come and lay the foundation. This is done through a simple rite; the earth priest takes a hoe, uses it to fetch the mud that is prepared for the construction of the new building and put it in the foundation. He does this three times after which he lays the first foundation stone, with the following prayer: You Earth Spirit, it is because you Foo Tengan, foo nu be ke ti live that we live, if not for you, our mi be, foo be nua, a ti teng village will not stand. Turn and look kong are. Lieb kaa a yel nga favourably at what we are doing. ti na ere a ni mimir vla. Me Build this house so that those who a yir nga ke nibe kpier ni will live in it may enjoy good health, yangmhaaru; ke dogfu, peace and harmony. Grant that child kukur, kuol, daa-yero, bearing; fruitful farming, animal tammigr, a be a kpierbe zie. rearing, market-trading, and hunting Nir wa kaa a yir nga ni tier may be with those who live in it. If faa a, a O tier faa o leb do any one looks at this house with bad u, a leb yofol duru, a mi intentions may his bad thoughts be kyen zaa e leb wa baari a O upon his own head. Let it be like the gbee kyara; o leb loggbogh urine of a circumcised penis which pime, O mi vo e leb su; o leb goes very far away but ends between zanzang duru, O yel k’O the legs; may it be like the arrows in duri waari Naamwin e leb a half-filled quiver which they mweli duri waari O tuora. remove and have to put them back Foo Tengan, foo wa siri be immediately; may he be like the bat a foo ve a yel nga tin a ire a who says he wants to urinate on God o nye ib but ended up urinating over himself. You Earth Spirit, if you are really there let what we are doing succeed. 63

African Traditional Religious Leadership

To conclude the prayer and the ritual the earth priest will take a pebble which he has removed from a collection of pebbles and stones of his earth shrine and adds it to the foundation of the new house; thus linking the house to all other houses built in the village stead.

Keeping Bonds and Boundaries with Neighbouring Settlements through Lost Items and Stray Animals Any strayed animal that finds its way into the village stead is brought to the Tengan-sob for safe keeping. In the meantime information is sent to all the neighbouring villages about the stray animal or animals and asking people whose animals might have strayed to come and have a look and possibly claim them. In the event that no one comes forth to claim such animals after a year, then they become the property of the earth deity. Such animals are often used to foster bonding relation with the earth deities of the neighbouring villages through ritual sacrifices.

4. Peter Cardinal Poreku Dery: A Model of Leadership Our analysis made on different aspects of leadership, namely, natural leadership, spiritual leader is and Dagara traditional religious leadership is are blended together to form, what I will call, the “Peter Dery Model” of leadership. This model is better understood through the exposition of his life narrative as a cultural biography. The narrative also helps us understand who Dery is.

4.1.1. Birth Narrative and Traditional Training Native of Zimuopare, a village in the Lawra District of the Upper West Region of Ghana in the West African sub-region, Cardinal Dery was born around 1918 and received his childhood education within Dagara Traditional Religious context. At an early age he used to accompany his uncle Ngmankurinaa, to establish various fetishes for the prominent people in the area. As a young boy he performed all the duties expected of him and of boys of his age. These included maintaining the family kraal and cattle by acting as the head cowboy. Beyond this and through the nature of his birth as a spirit incarnate, and hence the name ‘Dery’ (see A. Tengan, 2012; 183), he was given thorough education in ancestral knowledge and other aspects of Dagara religion. According to Dery himself: A significant element in the socialization process was our religious education. Very early in our lives, we were made to understand that there was another more significant world; the land of our ancestors to which we are all ordained. We were also taught that there exists a Being far beyond our per-

64

Linus Zan

ception and comprehension who is Creator and the one who sustains us all” (Dery, 2001: 25).

Having acquired sufficient knowledge on ancestor hood, Poreku Dery was appointed into a leadership position as an assistant priest to the family ancestral cult. One of his roles was as keeper of the “sacrificial knife” (bagrmaal suo) of the family. In this position, he was expected to be present at each sacrificial occasion and to present the knife at the appropriate time for the killing of the animal. Dery held this position and took part in the fateful divination ritual in 1931 when the ancestors validated Dery’s father’s, senior Poreku, right to become a Christian (Dery, 2001: 9-11).

4.1.2. Missionary Contact and Catholic Education The senior Poreku had natural as well as spiritual leadership qualities in his own right and when Peter Poreku decided to abandon his former post to follow him to the new mission house in Jirapa, the two soon became the pioneer leaders leading the mass conversion movement of the Dagara into Catholicism. Peter Poreku Dery first secured a job to serve at the table of the missionary and immediately began to teach himself the missionary language, ways and manners. Soon after his baptism on 24th December 1932, Peter Dery got himself enrolled as a student of Catechists’ School in Jirapa that has just been opened by the missionaries and began his formal education when he was just about starting his teenage. He later transferred to the Immaculate Conception Junior Seminary in Navrongo where he obtained his ‘O’ Level Certificate; and in 1941, he obtained his ‘A’ Levels and Teacher Training College Certificate B, from the St. John Bosco Teacher Training College in Navrongo. After his Catholic priestly formation in Amissano minor seminary and in St Victor’s major seminary from 1941 to 1951, Peter Poreku Dery was ordained the first Dagara priest in Ghana in 1951 at Nandom. He later did further studies in Canada and in Belgium. On 8 May, 1960, Fr. Dery was ordained the first Dagara Bishop by Pope John XXIII in Rome and was installed Bishop of the newly created Diocese of Wa in June the same year. As bishop, he acted as leader of all Catholics in his diocese including the very first missionaries who converted him and his father into Catholicism. He was later transferred to and installed Bishop of the Diocese of Tamale in 1974; and was promoted Archbishop of the Tamale Ecclesiastical Province in 1977. Archbishop Dery retired from active service in 1994; but “in the heart of the Centenary Celebrations of the Evangelization of Northern Ghana, the Consistory of March, 24, 2006 in Rome elevated the Archbishop – Emeritus to a Cardinal Deacon, the eminent position of Prince of the 65

African Traditional Religious Leadership

Church” (Suom-Dery, 2008: 86). He died on the 6th March 2008 and a petition for his beatification process has been submitted to Rome in March 2013.

4.2. The Leadership Model of Cardinal Dery The life of Cardinal Dery, as present, consists of several roles including the life of shepherd boy, an Assistant Traditional Priest; a Trained Teacher, a Catholic Priest; a Bishop, an Archbishop, a retired Archbishop, and above all, a Cardinal Deacon. His leadership model is therefore a blend of the three categories we discussed earlier, namely, a blend of natural leadership, spiritual leadership and African traditional religious leadership. In this blended model, specific characteristics stand out and need mentioning. These include leadership vision, selfknowledge, planning and constant self-training as well as the training of others and the promotion of the human qualities of those you are leading. Hence, as soon as he was made Bishop of Wa, Dery made the following telling statements: It is said a good leader is a visionary who is capable of bringing others to share his dream in order to map out the ways of making the dream a reality. Hence, even if I believed in team work, as leader of the team, I had to have a clear idea as to where I wanted to lead my people to. My general vision of my task as a bishop is on my code of arms. I am Apostolus Jesu Christi [Apostle of Jesus Christ]. As an apostle, I am called to evangelize, to bring people from the old to the new family of God. I am called to participate in the work of salvation (Dery 2001, 94-95).

He went on to describe this vision as follows: This apostolate is a variegated one. For it comprises in dealing with both men and women, the young as well as the old. I am to lead people who come from different ethnic backgrounds and profess different religious beliefs. I am called to bring all these people to Christ much in the same way as I myself have been brought to Christ from my traditional religion (Dery 2001, 95).

He defined self-knowledge as a cardinal quality of his leadership model; Personally, I have always believed that a leader in the Church must be someone who takes his inspiration from the life of Jesus Christ himself, the leader par excellence. Reflecting on my position as the leader of the diocese, I came to the realization that I must model my leadership on the life of Christ himself. This means that, as a leader I must be a humble man. I cannot forget my roots and humble background. After all, I cannot claim to be intellectual (…) I considered myself to be at the same level as the people I was trying to help (Dery: 96).

66

Linus Zan

This idea of being at the same level with the people meant that he had to plan with them. The purpose of planning was to empower the people through leadership training. As a leader one has to realize that he knows very little. A leader can only succeed if he makes sure that his followers are well informed to be able to contribute and participate effectively in the search for ways of achieving the common goal. This is a legacy Cardinal Dery has left behind. He was committed to the training of the laity, the religious, the priests and the youth, not only in his diocese but all over the country and beyond. Besides his concern for training leaders, Cardinal Dery also saw his tasks as including the need to help every individual realize the Godgiven natural vocation or career. As Dery puts it, “as soon as I notice that a person has a tendency to a particular calling in life, I use all the human, material and spiritual resources available to me to help the person realize himself or herself in line with his/her vocation” (Dery: 97). The overall objective was for human development. For Dery, if we engage in development, it must be done in such a way that it helps human persons to fulfil themselves. Material development is only to create the environment for people to develop themselves integrally; otherwise it is misplaced. A leader who is engaged in an integral development of people must demonstrate awareness of the task of leadership, he must develop a leadership team and must empower individuals to enable them contribute effectively to their own growth, the growth of the team and the attainment of the common task.

Conclusion The biography of Cardinal Dery must include deal with his legacy of leadership. This legacy will help us understand the blend of natural leadership, spiritual leadership and religious leadership. Within this blend the following cardinal points are important to consider: vision, self-knowledge, planning, team work, identification with the divine and personal character.

References Adair, J. E. (2005). How to grow Leaders: The seven Key Principles of Effective Leadership Development. London; Sterling, VA: Kegan Page. Alalade, A.; Ganusah, R. Y., & Kudajie, J. N. (2002). Religion Morality and West African Society. Accra: Wesley Printing Press. Awolalu, J. O. (1979). Yoruba Beliefs and Sacrificial Rites. London: Longman. Bekye, P. K. (1991). Divine Revelation and Traditional Religion with Particular Reference to the Dagaaba of West Africa. Rome: Leberit Press.

67

African Traditional Religious Leadership

Bemile, P. (ed.). (1987). From Assistant Fetish Priest to Archbishop. New York: Vantage Press. Dery, P. P. (2001). Memoirs of Most Reverend Peter Poreku Dery: Arch Bishop Emeritus of Tamale. Tamale: GILLP Press. D’Souza, A. (2002). Leadership. Nairobi: Kolbe press. Gyekye, K. (2002). African Cultural Values: an Introduction. Accra: Sankofa Publishing Company. Kuukure, E. (1985). The Destiny of Man: Dagaare beliefs in dialogue with Christian eschatology. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Millar, D. (2007). Ancestral Guidance in Africa. Endogenous Development Magazine, No. 1. Mwinlaaro, Z. L. (2005). The Place of Sacrifice in the Moral Life of the African Traditional Believer: A Case Study of the Dagara of Northern Ghana. University of Cape Coast, Cape Cost. Naameh, P. (1986). The Christianization of the Dagara within the Horizon of the West European Experience Unvesitat Munster, Munster. Sanders, J. O. (1980). Spiritual leadership. Chicago: Moody Press. Suom-Dery, E. (2000). Family as Subject of Moral Education in the African Context: Incarnating Christian Ethics among the Dagara of North-western Ghana. Hamburg: Kovac. Tengan, A. B. (2000). Hoe-farming and Social Relations among the Dagara of Northwestern Ghana and Southwestern Burkina Faso. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Tengan, A. B. (2000b). Space, Bonds and Social Order: Dagara House-based Social System. In S. Hagberg & A. B. Tengan (eds.), Bonds and Boundaries in Northern Ghana and Southern Burkina Faso (Vol. 30). Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis Tengan, A. B. (2012). The Art of Mythical Composition and Narration: Dagara White Bagr. Brussels: P.I.E. Peter Lang. Tengan, E. (1991). The land as Being and Cosmos: The Institution of the Earth Cult among the Sisala of Northwestern Ghana. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Wright, C. W. (2004). Relational Leadership. Glasgow: Bellard Bain. Zahan, D. (1979). The Religion, Spirituality, and Thought of Traditional Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ziem, M. K. (2011). Leadership as a Prerogative of the Elder: the Case of the Sisala in Upper West Region. Accra: Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration.

68

A Study of Proverbs among the Dagara of West Africa Paschal Kyiiripuo KYOORE Professor of French & Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies

Introduction This study is the result of a bigger research project that I carried out on verbal art among the Dagara people. The Dagara inhabit three modern West African states: Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Côte d’Ivoire (see Benedict Der, 1988). My research was carried out in the Nandom area of the Upper West Region of Ghana. The Dagara and the Dagaaba a little to their south in Ghana are the same ethnic group, though they speak three different dialects of the same language (Nakumah, 1998). With the help of research assistants, over several years I collected Dagara proverbs in context1. Collecting proverbs in context is a difficult feat because it requires availing yourself of social gathering opportunities where people are likely to use proverbs in their interaction. Naturally, the researcher might not be in a position to take notes at the time a proverb is uttered, in which case it might be difficult to recollect later on all the details of the context in which the proverb was used. My research methodology benefits from a study that Kwesi Yankah (1986) did on Akan proverbs. The following information was recorded in the collection of all the proverbs: situation, context of proverb utterance, gender, name and age of the speaker, the audience, the proverb in Dagara, a translation of the proverb in English, and finally the meaning of the proverb. When we were not sure of the age of the speaker, we made an approximation. All this information was very pertinent because they provided clues to the meaning of the proverb especially since Dagara proverbs can vary in meaning depending on the context. 1

I acknowledge the assistance of the following in the collection of the proverbs: Alfred Kyoore, Rev. Sr. Beatrice Kyoore, Jude Kyoore.

69

A Study of Proverbs among the Dagara of West Africa

The importance of proverb usage in African culture has already been demonstrated in many studies over the decades. This study takes a close look at Dagara proverbs as one form of verbal art. We understand verbal art to mean forms of communication that are verbalized, and proverbs belong to this category of communication. In an introduction to a book on Akan proverbs by Asare Opoku, John Mbiti underscores the importance of proverbs in African culture by suggesting that proverbs “constitute a sub-language of their own” (in Opoku, 1997: ix). Mbiti’s assertion is poignant to the extent that it is not everyone in society who is adept at using proverbs. One has to learn that sub-language. Indeed, the use of proverbs in conversation or in other contexts distinguishes the proverb user from other interlocutors who are not necessarily versatile at this verbal art. The sub-language can only be decoded by someone who is familiar with the culture and with the unwritten rules that determine proverb usage in the culture. The Oxford English dictionary defines a proverb as “a short pithy saying in general use, held to embody a general truth”. This definition suggests that society accepts the information embedded in a proverb as truth. It seems to me that it entails therefore an acceptance of the values portrayed in that saying that society considers as a proverb. Also, I would argue that the definition invites us to ask the question as to who determines what is “truth”? In the Dagara language, a proverb is called a “zukpar”, but the same word means a riddle. As I have explained in a study on Dagara riddles (Kyoore, 2010), a proverb is distinguished from a riddle by adding some explanatory phrase such as “zukpar lorba”, or “ti saakumine teri zukpar kang” – “our ancestors have a saying that”. One could also identify a proverb by prefacing it with “Ni bere mi yelke” –“the elders have a saying that”. Riddle performances are normally done as a prelude to a folktale tale telling session, and are more popular with children because of their entertainment value. Proverbs (“zupkar” in the singular “zupkai” in the plural) on the other hand, are employed daily by Dagara people who are well versed in proverbs in all kinds of contexts to teach a moral to the audience. The most illuminating definition of “zupkar” written in any study in a European language is one by Sebastian Bemile (2010) who attempts to trace the etymology of the word “zupkar”. According Bemile, “zupkar” (plural “zupkai”) is a compound word that is probably formed from “zuur” (a tail), and “kpar” which means a butt or a handle of an object (Bemile 19). Bemile also acknowledges that some Dagara people give a different origin of the etymology of the word “zupkar”. According to this version, “zupkar” is a combination of the words “zùmε” (an intuition), and “kpar”, to bundle. The term “zupkar”, according to this source would then mean “the quintessence or product of intuition, i.e. any impression or any expression that may result from the piece of knowledge gained through appre70

Paschal Kyoore

hending something ‘pre-cognitively’ or through obtaining immediate awareness or the understanding of it” (Bemile, 2010). Deriving an interpretation from this second source of the etymology of the word, Bemile suggests that this also means that “zupkar” describes a phenomenon that seems to amalgamate verbal and non-verbal arts. This conclusion that Bemile draws seems to me plausible. As Ruth Finnegan demonstrates in her study, in African society, proverbs are not always distinguished by a special term from other categories of verbal art. This, according to her, is fairly common in Bantu languages as well as among certain West African languages. According to her, the Limba mboro refers to stories and riddles as well as sayings that could be the English equivalent of a proverb. The Fulani tindol can mean a popular moral story, a proverb, or a maxim (Finnegan, 1970: 391). Some African societies have both a general term for all forms of verbal expression as well as a specific term for the proverb. Proverbs are sometimes connected with riddles or praise songs (Finnegan, 1970: 391). What Finnegan says is true of Dagara proverbs. She postulates further that “proverbs, in short, are closely interwoven with other aspects of linguistic and literary behaviour” (Finnegan, 1970: 392). Finnegan did her study on African folklore far back in the 1970s, yet her thesis is still very relevant for my choice of methodology for this study: analyzing proverbs in context as a form of verbal art. Finnegan argues that proverbs should not be regarded as isolated sayings and collected on their own, but rather that they should be regarded “as just one aspect of artistic expression within a whole social and literary context (Finnegan, 1970: 393). Among the Dagara people, proverb usage is pervasive in all verbal art. Chinua Achebe tells us in his much-acclaimed novel, Things Fall Apart, that among the Igbo people, proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten. What he says about the importance of proverbs among the Igbo people is also true of the Dagara people. In a study on proverbs and the ethnography of speaking folklore, Ojo Arewa (1964: 70) emphasized the importance of proverbs as a means of communication, and commenting on the importance of proverbs in Ghanaian society, J.H. Nketia states that: The value of the proverb to us in modern Ghana does not lie only in what it reveals of the thoughts of the past. For the poet today or indeed for the speaker who is some sort of an artist in the use of words, the proverb is a model of compressed or forceful language. In addition to drawing on it for its words of wisdom, therefore, he takes interest in its verbal techniques – its selection of words, its use of comparisons as a method of statement, and so on (quoted in Finnegan, 1970: 390).

71

A Study of Proverbs among the Dagara of West Africa

In Dagara society, the person who is very proficient at the use of words is distinguished from others by his or her skilful manipulation of metaphors and other symbols embedded in proverbs. Finnegan defines a proverb in general terms as “a saying in more or less fixed form marked by ‘shortness, sense, and salt’ and distinguished by the popular acceptance of the truth tersely expressed in it” (Finnegan, 1970: 39). She further postulates that a proverb is characterized by the brevity of the phrase. Also, according to her proverbs “are also marked by some kind of poetic quality in style or sense, and are in this way set apart in form from more straightforward maxims”. They can be an allusion, or a picturesque form of speech marked by rhythm. They can be conveyed in several ways through a simile or a metaphor (Finnegan, 1970: 393). Dagara proverbs are very poetic by nature. However, in the language, there is no distinction between a proverb and a maxim. Another characteristic of African proverbs, according to Finnegan, is their flexibility. The same proverb can be used as an advice, an instruction, or a warning (Finnegan, 1970: 420). In a study on Yoruba proverb use in a “natural” context, Ojo Arewa and Alan Dundes remark that if proverbs are performed at the request of the collector, the content is not “natural” but “artificial”. They also argue that based on the experience in their study of Yoruba proverbs, “the main considerations regarding genre as a whole [are] the age and status of the addressers relative to the age and status of the addressees” (Arewa and Dundes, 1970: 435). Furthermore, they observe that “the messages transmitted in the proverbs have a cultural standardization in both form and content” (Arewa and Dundes, 1970: 435). In their opinion, creativity in the use of proverbs lies in the successful adaptation of the use of proverbs to new situations. This is because proverbs are a fixed-phrase genre. This contention is very informative in our study of Dagara proverbs. Dagara people learn proverbs mainly through social interaction with older people. As the Dagara maxim/proverb states: “Kunε kunε ni sεrbu”. A simple translation in English would be “practice makes perfect”. However, in Dagara it is not expressed in such straightforward simple language. The message in the proverb is transmitted through alliteration and allusion. What the proverb means is that even if one does not dance well, with practice one will eventually become a good dancer. This saying also reinforces the norm that wisdom comes with old age. My research findings confirmed that older people were more likely to use proverbs and that it came more naturally to them. Dagara proverbs express how Dagara people perceive the world and their relationship with other human beings as well as other living creatures and the flora and fauna that surround them. Deciphering the 72

Paschal Kyoore

meaning of a proverb is part of the challenge that a proverb user throws to his or her interlocutors. Noah Dzobo and Simon Amegashie-Viglo’s (2004) definition of a proverb is enlightening for the study of form, content, and function of proverbs. They suggest that in the process of communication, various devices are used to transmit ideas, feelings, and attitudes to people, and that proverbs are some of the devices employed. For them, “a proverb is an indirect way of communicating what people want to say to others; Proverbs are generally short and pithy sayings used to express symbolically certain ideas, ideals, values, and beliefs” (Dzobo and Amegashie-Viglo, 2004: 6). Though what Dzobo and Amegashie-Viglo say about proverbs being an indirect way of communicating one’s message to another is pertinent, I would argue that it is also true that the message in a proverb is only indirect in as far as the interlocutor is not adept enough to decipher the meaning behind the utterance. Indeed, for Dagara people for whom proverb usage is a natural phenomenon, speaking in symbols, as is the case in proverb usage, is the norm rather than the exception. Proverb usage in itself creates opportunities for people to learn, to be constantly educated on all aspects of life. The importance of being given an opportunity to learn is illustrated by the following proverb that was collected in context. A teacher who had bought a new motorcycle wanted to attend a funeral. One of her colleagues suggested that it would be safer if a more experienced rider gave her a lift to the funeral. The female teacher reacted to this suggestion with the following proverb: “Nye bεr kͻng u me so bie kuͻ” [Allow the leper to bathe her baby herself]. The general stereotype about lepers is that they are too physically handicapped to be able to do anything by themselves if it involves using the hands. The teacher who used the proverb is suggesting that contrary to this stereotype about lepers, a leper needs to be given the chance to learn how to bathe a baby by herself in spite of her physical handicap. Through allusion, she is suggesting to her interlocutors that she would never learn to be a good motorcycle rider if she is denied the opportunity to learn how to ride her new motorcycle. She uses the second person plural imperative form of the verb “to let/allow”, nye bεr [(you) allow] to address her interlocutors directly, thus personalizing her message to make it more effective. Sometimes, proverbs are used to tease someone in a manner that if taken out of context would sound like rejoicing at the person’s misfortune. For example, a nurse teased her friends who were fellow members of a Catholic association because they had not been able to travel for a national congress of the association. The congress was taking place in a distant city and only those who could afford the finances involved were going to travel. They live in a small town where means of transportation 73

A Study of Proverbs among the Dagara of West Africa

to other parts of the country is always very uncertain. On the day of the trip, there was no available means to travel. The nurse who was not going to travel teased the others about their great disappointment with the following proverb: “Yentaa nyeem nu ka” [the tooth of a co-wife has broken]. Unlike the first proverb, this one does not address the interlocutors directly. It is phrased in an indirect speech. In Dagara culture, cowives in a polygamous family are called “yentaa”. Though in the region the practice of polygamy is less common now than before the advent of Christianity, it is important to understand that the definition of “yentaa” (co-wife) goes beyond a reference to wives that share the same husband. It also refers to women who are married to brothers who may continue to live together in the large family house. The consequence of this social arrangement is that there might be several “yentaar” (co-wives) living in the same household. It is a common perception among Dagara people that because large families live together, there is bound to be rivalry and thus conflict among co-wives of the same household. The conflicting relationship between co-wives is a target of rebuke but also of teasing. In the proverb, allusion is used to describe the co-wife’s attitude. However, this is the literal meaning of the proverb. In the context in which the nurse uses the proverb, there is no real conflictual relationship that is being evoked. The members of the association who were not planning to travel because they could not afford the cost involved were not really rejoicing at the misfortune of the others. The nurse is therefore making an allusion to an imaginary reaction of a jealous individual. It is important to understand therefore that the proverb is meant as a teasing to provoke laughter and also to invite the interlocutor to respond with an equally interesting proverb. At another level, the proverb is a reminder that people should act with a sense of the interest of the community at heart. Individual members of the Catholic organization might be lucky enough to be able to afford the financial cost involved in travelling for the congress. However, if some members of the group cannot afford the cost of the trip, the fortunate ones should not revel at their opportunity to travel.

Humility and Caution The admonition to people to be cautious or humble is often very well expressed through proverbs. Here is an example of an expression of humility expressed through a proverb at a funeral ground. Young people are expected to show reverence to elders at all times. At a funeral, a young praise singer (lankone) was encouraged by mourners to perform. The deceased was a young person of the same age group as the young praise singer. The funeral of a young person takes an emotional toll on mourners and so the young praise singer, too overcome with grief at the 74

Paschal Kyoore

death of a fellow youngster, did not feel comfortable performing at the funeral. Moreover, he did not feel he should perform when there were present older praise singers with more experience than him. He felt that by declining to chant, he would be demonstrating his respect for elders. He used a proverb to express this feeling to the mourners present: “Baa bε ͻbr u batͻ kͻbrbε” (a dog does not eat its fellow dog’s bones). He describes the behaviour of dogs by using a verb in the third person singular form. What he states is considered an accepted fact in Dagara society and not just his opinion about the behaviour of these creatures. It is not considered normal for a dog to eat the bones of a fellow dog. To put it in simple human terms, dogs respect the biblical adage: “do onto others as you would like them to do onto you”. The young praise singer recognizes that the funeral of a fellow youngster is not the right occasion for him to display his talents, and especially when there are more experienced praise singers present. The proverb is his way of expressing appreciation to the mourners who have recognized his talent and want to encourage him to perform. At the same time, it is also his way of expressing his humility toward people who are older and presumably wiser than him. Expressing humility is a way of demonstrating one’s wisdom. Here is a proverb that helps to explain this. A nurse working at a hospital was late for work and explained to the patients who had been waiting for him why he was late. He himself was ill and had gone to seek treatment for his ailment from a fellow nurse. Here is the proverb he used to communicate his explanation to the patients: “Nͻ wogo sob bε mͻgrε u tuͻra ε” (the long-mouthed person cannot suck his or her own mouth). In other words, no matter how long your mouth is, only someone else can suck your mouth for you. There is no direct link between the symbols used in the proverb (the long mouth and the act of sucking) and the profession of the speaker: a nurse whose responsibility it is to cure people of their bodily ailments. It requires some thinking on the part of the interlocutors to make the connection between the symbols in the proverb and the meaning that the proverb portrays. The long-mouthed person needs help, and so does the sick nurse. He needs the help of a fellow health practitioner to cure him of his ailment. In a broader sense, the proverb admonishes people to be humble enough to acknowledge that no matter how knowledgeable they may be, they are not endowed with all the knowledge in the world. The need for humility is also reinforced in the concept that we need to seek knowledge from others. This manner of thinking is reflected in the following proverb of which I will explain the context of utterance. In a local radio programme on female circumcision (genital mutilation), a female host of the programme wanted to encourage listeners to call in 75

A Study of Proverbs among the Dagara of West Africa

with their contributions to the discussion on the subject matter. To acknowledge that nobody has a monopoly over knowledge and that the programme would only be successful if listeners participated in the discussion, she used the following proverb: “Ni been bε ͻbr waabε” (one does not consume the meat of a snake alone). The idea is that since some snakes are poisonous, it is not safe to eat the meat alone. If you fall ill, nobody will know the source of your ailment, whereas if others share the meat with you, they will suffer the same fate and the source of the illness can easily be identified. A proverb can have multiple meanings, and that is the case with this proverb. It also means that it is dangerous to eat all the meat of a snake because there is a belief that once the meat gets into a person’s stomach, the body parts can come together to form a snake again. Thus, the individual who was greedy enough to refuse to share the meat of the snake with others would die as a result of this greed, for the snake that comes to live in his stomach would kill him. The idea expressed in this proverb is also conveyed in another proverb: “Ni been bε ire baa lannε” (one does not castrate a dog alone). What the proverb suggests is that it is too dangerous to try to castrate a dog without any help. It is more prudent to ask for the help of someone in order to reduce the risk of being bitten by the dog. The proverb has a two-fold significance. First of all, one cannot claim to possess all the wisdom that God has endowed on his creatures. Secondly, the proverb expresses an important social norm, that selfishness is considered an anti-social character trait. Sometimes, people fail to reciprocate generosity that they enjoy from others, and the Dagara people have many proverbs that are poignant commentaries on this behaviour. Here is an example. A bicycle repairer who works in the vicinity of a hospital made a comment about his fellow repairer who refused to lend his bicycle pump to people. The notso-generous bicycle repairer had been borrowing his bicycle pump to use without ever being asked to pay. The proverb was a subtle jibe at the selfish behaviour of the mean repairer: “Kpera ͻbr gang gurεε?” (Kpera – a fatal hip disease – is more painful than backbone disease?) What the bicycle repairer is saying to his stingy colleague is that lending his bicycle pump to other people cannot be a more difficult thing to do than when he lent him his own pump to use. In other words, why is it difficult for him to be generous towards others when he himself had benefited so often from his colleague’s generosity? In this proverb, illness and the pain that it brings forth on the victim are used as metaphors to pose a rhetorical question, and the message is made more poignant by the use of the symbol of two debilitating diseases that the interlocutors know. It is also not a coincidence that two diseases are used as metaphors in a proverb in a conversation that takes place between two people who work in the vicinity of a hospital. 76

Paschal Kyoore

Behaviour or Decision Many proverbs are meant to caution people on their behaviour or decisions they take. The brothers of a young man living and working abroad in a Western country were courting a lady for him in his absence. It is not unusual to court someone for a friend or a relative. Since marriage is not an individual affair but a family affair, everyone is concerned about people making the right choice of spouse. The proverb I will analyze next was used in the context described above: the wooing of a lady for an absent relative. The brother of the young man living abroad and the lady being courted had never met and did not know each other. Here is the scenario that prompted the use of the proverb. A relative of the extended family makes a visit. The younger brother of the young man living abroad announces to him that the lady he has been courting has responded favourably to a marriage proposal. The visiting relative wonders about the appropriateness of this quick positive response on the part of the lady. A positive response from a lady being courted is much desired by the family. However, for the visiting relative, her quick positive response casts some doubt on her character. The visiting relative wonders if indeed this lady would make an appropriate wife for their brother. This is the proverb he used to express his sentiments “A zer kar ana a num naa?” (Since the soup is boiling so much, is it even palatable?) The proverb used in this context is so appropriate for several reasons. First of all, the choice of allusion fits well with the concept of gender roles involved in this dialogue. In Dagara society, cooking is mainly the privy of women, a norm that is not peculiar to the Dagara people. Therefore, the use of the symbol of boiling soup in the context of a conversation about courtship and marriage is most appropriate in conveying the message enshrined in the proverb. The proverb is uttered in the form of a question, and that is characteristic of many Dagara proverbs. The question is a rhetorical one and is therefore more of a comment than a statement that seeks a response from the interlocutor. Yet there is also another dimension to what I interpret as a rhetorical question. In a way, the addresser, though expressing his opinion about what he perceives to be the character of the lady being courted, is hoping for some reaction from his interlocutor. He expects him to either agree with his assessment of the lady’s character or to give him some convincing explanation as to why they should trust that she will make a good wife. What the proverb helps the interlocutors do is to discuss an individual’s character for the well being of the extended family. Since everyone is looking out for the good of the relative living abroad, the appropriate proverb puts things into perspective and encourages a salient discussion of the courting process. 77

A Study of Proverbs among the Dagara of West Africa

Some proverbs are meant simply to describe a situation, or a person’s behaviour without any intent to be critical or to ridicule. What such proverbs do is portray the scenario in a manner that captures the interest of the interlocutors by the use of similes or metaphors. For example, the way an individual is trying to handle a situation can be compared to the behaviour of a particular animal whose behaviour is familiar to the interlocutors. A Catholic Reverend Brother had a thanksgiving mass in his village after his final vow profession. A fellow Brother who made a speech at the thanksgiving mass wanted to express how much people had been making unsuccessful frantic efforts to meet the Brother in order to congratulate him. The Brother had been so busy with assignments given by his superiors that involved a lot of travelling. In the proverb, the Brother described his colleague as a running cow which does not defecate and therefore does not have cow dung. Here is the proverb: “Nazͻra b tr binne” (a running cow does not have cow dung). Much like the running cow that cannot settle down to defecate properly, the Rev. Brother does not have the time to settle down for people to interact with him. In normal circumstances, a cow eats well and defecates many times in a day. The result is a pile of cow dung which is a good source of manure for the farms, thus making the cow’s defecation beneficial to people. Likewise, it would be beneficial to people if the Rev. Brother could settle down at one place so that people can offer him their congratulations.

Evoking Nature and Other Objects of Symbolism Nature is evoked in so many different ways through the use of allusion, alliteration, similes, metaphor, and other symbols. A woman begged for money to buy food to eat. This was in a pito (indigenous beer) bar where there were several customers. Instead of giving her the money to buy food, a customer offered to buy her a drink. Disappointed that she was being offered a drink which was not an appropriate thing for someone with an empty stomach, she uttered a proverb that was tantamount to a plea for an understanding of her priorities. In her condition, food was more important than drinks. Indeed, taking a drink in an empty stomach would do her more harm than good. Here is her proverb: “Mmr zu na kuͻ me zͻr” (water flows on mud). The natural phenomenon is that water flows on mud because it facilitates the flow of liquid. Through her proverb, the woman is pleading with the apparently generous pito customer to set his priorities straight and recognize that for a hungry person, food is more important than drinks. She is also inviting her interlocutors to respect the logic that food should come before drinks, much like the logic of nature: water flows where the order of nature facilitates it. Mmr (mud) is a metaphor for the stomach 78

Paschal Kyoore

much as kuͻ me zͻr (water flows) is a metaphor for food going down into the stomach. Nature as a symbol is also used in other ways. Given the fact that traditionally, the Dagara are mainly an agrarian people, it is natural that the flora and fauna should be an important source of imagery in their proverbs. Here is an example of a proverb that was used in a conversation between a group of young men and an elderly man. The young men are teasing the elderly man that he is one of the few of his age group still alive. The elderly man reacts happily to their teasing with the following proverb: “Hian na kue nyaane” (it is in Hian that tortoises roam around openly to display their pride). In a village called Hian, people do not eat tortoise meat. Hence, tortoises roam around freely in the village since there is no menace. The elderly man is expressing his joy at being able to take a walk outside and to have the chance to chat with people. After all, when he is stuck at home with the numerous grandchildren, all they do is bother him the whole day with their childish demands. The tortoises and the village Hian are the symbols that respectively represent the elderly man and the freedom to go outside to interact with people. Nature can also be evoked as a symbol of human behaviour or a predicament. A young girl is advising her sister not to use the family phone in the absence of the parents who have forbidden them to use the phone. She believes that if the sister does not arrest her behaviour, she will sooner or later be caught by the parents and have to pay the consequences of her disobedience. In her proverb, she uses shea fruits as a metaphor to express the risk involved in breaking their parents’ rules: “Zuri b e taam” (heads are not shea fruits). She is advising her sibling that unlike other children who used the phone but were lucky enough not to be caught, there is no guarantee that she will also be that lucky. Shea fruits are used as a metaphor to convey the idea of luck. By nature, shea fruits all look the same. The correlation between the shea fruits and the heads is as follows. Unlike shea fruits, heads are so different that we can distinguish one from the others. So, whereas one head might be lucky, that might not be the case with other heads. One distinguishing feature of Dagara proverbs is the use of the names of objects that are comprehensible only to someone who is very familiar with the ecology of Dagaraland and the function of those objects. What Mbiti has said about the use of objects in African proverbs is helpful here in understanding the choice of objects in Dagara proverbs. He asserts that: It is not so much the objects which are mentioned in the proverbs that are important; instead those objects are used as stepping stones, a means to an end, to get to the point the proverb is trying to make (in Opoku, 1997: xx). 79

A Study of Proverbs among the Dagara of West Africa

An addressee, who cannot decipher what those objects represent, will not be able to make a reasonable interpretation of the proverb in the context. The most common objects of symbolism are farming implements, food items, animals, and craft. For example, salt is used for seasoning and is one of the food items that are sold by women in markets. Cola nuts are generally sold by men and fathers often send children to buy them from the market. In a conversation between an elder and some people, these food items are employed as symbols to convey a message. In the proverb that is the object of the next analysis, salt is used as a symbol in a conversation in which the interlocutors are discussing the purchase of cola nuts. A parent sent his son to buy him cola nuts from the market. The price of the cola nuts had increased and the cola nut merchant expressed the wish that the man himself should have been there to bargain the new price of the cola nuts. In this situation, the merchant wants honesty in his dealing with customers, especially in a community in which everyone knows everyone else. The merchant does not want the customer to think that he has been cheated into buying his cola nuts at an unreasonable price, especially since the son is the one doing the buying on behalf of the father. The cola nut merchant was also concerned that the goods might not reach the buyer intact. This is the proverb that the merchant spoke to the buyer’s son: “Nyaar tuͻla b wone zer” (salt that is sent through a second party loses its right taste). There is no direct correlation between salt – the symbol – and cola nuts – the object of reference in the speech. However, the symbolism resides in what is suggested can happen to salt that is sent through a second party. Just as the salt might lose its taste, so might the cola nuts that are sent through a second party not get to the destination intact. We can see how here the proverb not only expresses the merchant’s desire but also helps to reinforce the respect for certain social norms. The cola nut merchant wants to maintain his integrity in the eyes of the buyer, the son who does the purchasing on behalf of the father, and the people present at the market who have witnessed the buying and selling that has taken place.

Evoking a Custom to Express an Opinion Sometimes, a custom is evoked in a proverb to express an opinion about something. Proverbs are particularly powerful in expressing a critique of customs that are considered oppressive and unjust toward a sector of the society. A woman who is widowed bumps into the nephew of his late husband. The young man teases the woman that he is going to her house to escort her to his home. In Dagara tradition, a nephew has inheritance rights to his maternal uncle’s property. The word for maternal uncle is “madb” which literally means “male mother”. To be on the 80

Paschal Kyoore

safe side, most men would make their will regarding property that should go to their nephews after their death. This is to prevent the potential conflict that can arise between a man’s nephews and his own children who also have a right to inherit his property. Though the practice of inheriting one’s maternal uncle’s property is still in place, the rights of spouses and children are in principle protected by certain national laws that are enshrined in the constitution of the country. After this background that elucidates the significance of the proverb, let us now look at the proverb itself. It was uttered by the widow in response to the late husband’s nephew’s teasing statement: “Fuu wa tagr niri a, fu me tagr ne a wͻm” (when you are uprooting a creeping plant, the roots come off with it). Obviously, because the concept of “inheriting” a widow does not go down well with most people these days, what the woman is telling the young man is that if he “inherits” her, he would equally have to “inherit” her children. In other words, the young nephew should be prepared to take care of her as well as her children. If he wants to inherit the “property” of the late uncle, he cannot pick and choose what he wants to inherit. The woman’s proverb puts a lot of things into perspective. In a subtle manner, she is being critical of a custom. Yet what she seeks to communicate to her interlocutor is more effective because of the humour that she employs to react to the young man’s teasing. Indeed, the young man himself is critical of a practice which is considered out of place in modern times. A nephew is expected to help the maternal uncle in his farm work throughout his life. To reciprocate the nephew’s manifestation of genuine interest in his wellbeing, the uncle can help the nephew with his wife’s dowry and can also give him some of his property. Very often, such property can be in the form of cattle, goats, or sheep. A nephew who did not help an uncle in any significant way has no legitimacy to inherit any of his property. Also, the idea that a nephew would have the right to “inherit” the late uncle’s wife is very repulsive to people because of the implied impression that a woman is a property that can be inherited by a man.

Concern for Social Mores If elders are considered the custodians of wisdom, they often use proverbs to advise the young especially against deviant and immoral behaviours. Dagara community, like other communities in the country, is very much concerned about the negative impact of so-called modern life style on the psyche of the youth. For example, when the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) condition began to spread in the area through some young people who had contracted the disease after living in big cities in Ghana and neighbouring countries; the educational 81

A Study of Proverbs among the Dagara of West Africa

programs that were being undertaken by various organizations to sensitize people in the community on the danger of the epidemic were not having the impact that people expected. People were gravely worried about the apparent loss of morals that prevailed in the community. The following proverb was very appropriately employed in the context that I have just described. It happened in an open village market, a setting that provides a lot of social interaction. Some elderly women were advising some young women to take good care of their husbands and show them their love. That would forestall the risk of losing their husbands to other women. The admonishment was expressed through the following proverb: “Sobom b mhag ne nun  pir br’a, a bsore na gûû na mhag ne nun” (if the owner of something does not pick it up with the hands but rather kicks it away, someone who desires it will bend down and pick it up with his hands). What the speaker is saying is that there is a disturbing trend of young women deserting their husbands and opening up the possibility of interested women snatching their husbands. The advice was offered to young women, but it could equally have been addressed to young men. Here is another proverb uttered in a different context but addressing the same issue of immoral and unhealthy behaviour. It is also about HIV/AIDS education. A local FM radio station broadcasts in the two languages spoken in the area: Dagara and Sisaala. In this instance, a public health nurse who is the guest of a radio programme on health issues is trying to educate her listeners on proper behaviour that can stem the spread of diseases such as diarrhoea, hypertension, malaria and AIDS/HIV. Her message is that prevention is better than cure and this is enshrined in the following proverb that she uses to communicate to her listeners: “Ta tͻma se bare n nuu” (“don’t touch me” is better than “leave my hands”). What the proverb alludes to is a situation in which it is better to not allow someone to touch you than to wait till the person is holding you before you try to get him or her off your hands. By that time, the harm will already have been done. The nurse found it necessary to advice her listeners that prevention is better than cure because most people in the community have a stubborn attitude of not listening to the advice of health care workers, and consequently, they contract preventable diseases. The public health nurse is trying to inculcate a sense of personal and social responsibility in the minds of her listeners. During the same program, the public health nurse uttered another proverb still in the line of an admonishment to her listeners to adopt appropriate behaviour to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. This is how she advised people who refuse to listen to health counsellors: “Borgma gure pîî, u tobr nu er u” (Borgmaa beware an arrow is coming your way but your ear is letting you down). The hypothetical person called 82

Paschal Kyoore

Borgmaa is in danger because someone has shot an arrow at her. If she listens to the cry for caution, she will take the necessary precautionary action of getting out of the trajectory of the arrow. Like the hypothetical person in the proverb, everyone in the community is vulnerable to catching communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS. The suffix “ma” in Borgma means “mother”, and is commonly used to refer to a woman’s sub-clan especially in female praise songs. It is thus understood in the culture to be a generic suffix that allows a speaker to talk about people in general or a category of people in general by using the concept of mother since mothers brought us all into the world. So, even though the listeners of the radio programme are not limited to females, it is well understood that the radio hostess is addressing everyone. The poisonous arrow flying in Borgma’s direction represents the communicable diseases that are propagated like dangerous objects flying in the air. Because of people’s irresponsible behaviour, diseases are like flying poisonous arrows. The flying poisonous arrow is a good metaphor for communicable diseases because of the threat of death that both things pose to people.

Allusion to People’s Intelligence The spider is the most popular character in Dagara folktales. There is no wonder therefore that it features so prominently in other types of Dagara folklore such as proverbs. In folktales, the spider is the wittiest character and very often other characters are the victims of his greed and manipulations. Because spider is the symbol of wit, even when he is not directly evoked in a Dagara proverb that talks about intelligence, his witty behaviour comes to mind when an individual is outsmarted by another. Let us take for example the following proverb that was used in a context in which an individual felt cheated by another whom in normal circumstances is considered less educated, less savvy, and less intelligent than him. A young man is having a conversation with other clients in a small shop. He laments that he has been fooled by someone who sold him a second-hand motorcycle. He believes he paid too much for the secondhand motorcycle because the money he has spent on repairs so far could have bought him a brand new motorcycle. Here is the proverb he used to express his woes and his disappointment at his own lack of intelligence: “Dambol kun luͻra” (a fool has been able to kill a tiger). Usually, killing a tiger is not a small feat. One has got to be an experienced and an intelligent hunter in order to be able to make such an accomplishment. The victim of the shady motorcycle sale is considered in the community to be an intelligent educated teacher. One would therefore expect that he would be smart enough to determine whether or not he is 83

A Study of Proverbs among the Dagara of West Africa

paying too much for a second-hand motorcycle, and especially when the seller is supposedly less informed and less educated than him. The proverb suggests certain social presuppositions. First of all, it is assumed (rightly or wrongly) that a teacher should be more enlightened and more intelligent than other people who have little or no formal Western education. Secondly, it is assumed that a teacher is necessarily intelligent by virtue of the formal education that he or she has received. These assumptions seem to have been proven wrong by the savvy person who sold the second-hand motorcycle to the teacher. There is more than one way we can interpret the proverb. One other social factor that the proverb hints at is the perception that the proverb uttered (the teacher) has of himself. He must be very conscious of his social status to believe that a teacher is naturally more intelligent than other people. Also, there is a lack of humility on his part in placing himself higher than others on the intelligence scale. Yet on the other hand, his public confession of the scam of which he is a victim is an admission that formal education does not necessarily make one wittier than other people. Moreover, being intelligent does not necessarily mean that one is witty enough to cushion off other people’s witty behaviour.

Conclusion The methodology we employed in this research project was collecting proverbs in context. The question to ask is how useful it was to collect the following information as we identified in the introduction to the study: situation of utterance of the proverb, context, the gender, name, and age of the speaker, as well as the audience. The context of the proverbs was important in our ability to interpret them. All the proverbs used in this study could have been uttered by a male or a female. Knowing the gender of the interlocutor was very helpful, and it was also abundantly clear that the intended audience of the utterance was crucial in the choice of proverb itself. Also, the age of the speaker was significant in the choice of a proverb. The importance of proverbs is demonstrated by the intricate way in which they are used in the most important religious practice of the Dagara people, the bagr ritual. Alexis Tengan describes the Dagara proverb as “a symbolic statement of factual meaning” which is not limited to only one given context but to various similar contexts (Tengan, 2006: 66). It is precisely because a Dagara proverb can be applied in many contexts that it is important for the proverb user to learn the art of communicating in the right contexts. When a proverb is used in stories, as Tengan puts it: “the truth of a proverb is fully explained only within the context of the story” (Tengan, 2006: 73). Like84

Paschal Kyoore

wise, as this study has demonstrated, we can only decipher the meaning of a proverb well, if we know the context in which it is uttered. The Dagara person who is well educated in the culture has learned the art of communication, and a good communicator knows how to use proverbs effectively. In a study on indigenous education among the Akan people of Ghana, Kofi Agyekum affirms that: By far, the most acknowledged element of the communicative competence of an Akan speaker is his ability to use óbó (proverbs) in his/her speech. This is not peculiar to Akans. It is an entire African affair (Agyekum, 2005: 125).

In a separate study on a popular Akan musician, Agyekum demonstrates how African artists can use a stock of devices such as metaphor, simile, and irony in their creative imagination. He argues convincingly that even though oral literature involves creativity and imagination, no artist creates in the vacuum, for “the works of an oral artist have direct links with ethnographic contexts” and that artists know the importance of conforming to acceptable norms and patterns of behaviour and taboos of the community (Agyekum, 2005: 2). Dagara proverbs are a collective product of the community, but the individual who uses them is expected to respect the social norms that dictate the appropriate use of the proverbs. These norms that control forms of communication among the Dagara people are particularly important for the creative artists such as male praise singers (lankone) performing at funerals, or female praise singers performing at weddings (nu kyir) or while grinding millet or plastering the house (dann). I have also demonstrated that figures of speech abound in Dagara proverbs. The proverbs were not recorded on audio or videotape because it was not practical to carry recording devices for these occasions, and that compromised one interesting element in the research. Because of the tonal nature of the Dagara language, meaning of utterances can vary depending on the intonation. If what Nketia says about the definition of a proverb and the fact that speakers draw on proverbs for their verbal technique is accurate, we can conclude that each of our speakers in our study was demonstrating how well they understand the importance of proper use of proverbs. Since the proverb is not the invention of the individual speaker, the originality lies in the choice of appropriate context and audience for the particular proverb in order to communicate effectively with the interlocutor(s). Indeed, as Arewa suggests in his study of the ethnography of speaking folklore, one of the important things about proverbs is that they are a means of communication. As a means of communication, proverbs serve an important and dynamic social function for the Dagara people. I 85

A Study of Proverbs among the Dagara of West Africa

would conclude by postulating that this poses a big challenge to the younger generation of Dagara people who have been schooled through the Western education system. The experience of Western type education among the Dagara population in Ghana and Burkina Faso (and especially in the former) has created a class of people most of whom are estranged from a good knowledge of the folklore of their own people. The learning of proverbs takes place when people are immersed in the contexts in which Dagara people use proverbs; and the ones who are versed in the use of proverbs are the illiterate Dagara people who have not had any Western education but who are very educated in the traditions of their people. Western-educated Dagara would have to be schooled in their own folklore for this trend to ever change, and for that reason I would propose incorporating proverbs and other types of folklore in primary and secondary school education at the local level. Dagara people ought to take wisdom from what the Malian sociologist Amadou Hampaté Bâ once said: “En Afrique, quand un vieillard meurt, c’est une bibliothèque qui a brûlé” – in African, when an elderly person dies, it is a library that has burned down (Hampaté Bâ, 1960). To make sure that the library does not burn with all its books, one needs to transport the books into other libraries that will remain accessible to readers. For that to happen, the Dagara community needs as a matter of urgency to find ways for the elders to transmit their wisdom to the younger generation before their libraries burn down. Modern technology enhances the possibilities of doing this. Nonetheless, the transmission of knowledge from the elders to the young Western-educated Dagara population should not be done in an “artificial” manner; otherwise it might only remain as knowledge in books and not in the psyche of the Dagara people.

References Agyekum, K. (2004). Indigenous Education in Africa: Evidence from the Akan. The Journal of Culture and its Transmission in the African World, Vol. 2. Agyekum, K. (2005). An Akan Oral Artist: The Use of Proverbs in the Lyrics of Kwabena Konadu. Institute of African Studies, Research Review, 21 (1). Arewa, O. (1970). Proverb Usage in Natural Context. The Journal of American Folklore, 83. Arewa, O., & Dundes, A. (1994). Proverbs and the ethnography of speaking folklore. American Anthropologist, 2 (66). Bemile, S. K. (2010). Dàgàrà Proverbs. Berlin: Reimer. Der, B. G. (1989). The Origins of the Dagara-Dagaaba. Papers in Dagara Studies/Cahier d’Etudes Dagara, 1 (1). Dzobo, K., & Amegashie-Viglo, S. (2004). The Triple Heritage of Contemporary Africa. Accra: Studio 7 Kat. 86

Paschal Kyoore

Finnegan, R. H., & Thomas Leiper Kane Collection. (1970). Oral literature in Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kyoore, P. (2010). A Study of Riddles among the Dagara of Ghana and Burkina Faso. Journal of Dagaare Studies, 7-10. Nakuma, C. (1998). Phonie et Graphie tonale du Dàgààré Langue Voltaïque du Ghana. Paris: L’Harmattan. Opoku, K. A. (1997). Hearing and Keeping: Akan Proverbs. Accra: Asempa Publishers. Tengan, A. B. (2006). Mythical Narratives in Ritual: Dagara black bagr. Brussels: P.I.E. Peter Lang. Yankah, K. (1989). The proverb in the context of Akan rhetoric: a theory of proverb praxis. Bern: Peter Lang.

87

“If You Do Good You Do it to Yourself and if You Do Evil You Do it to Yourself” Retribution in the Oral Narratives of the Dagaaba Gervase ANGSOTINGE Senior Lecturer University of Ghana and Ss Peter and Paul Pastoral Institute

Introduction The question of retribution is one of those questions which have baffled religious thinkers in many societies throughout the centuries. Are good deeds rewarded and evil deeds punished? Many traditional religions seem to teach this. But is this always the experience of people in daily life? We can say that in some instances the contrary seems to be true. So how do people explain this apparent contradiction? I believe the explanation lies in the “other world” phenomenon. Among the Dagaaba this “other world” phenomenon is to be found in their oral narratives. The Dagaaba inhabit the north-western part of Ghana. They are predominantly a farming community. The Dagaaba are noted for their religiosity and their high moral standards. They believe that good is rewarded and evil punished. With the coming of Christianity many of them converted to “the new religion”. Some of the doctrines of Christianity confirmed their own religious and moral values. This was especially the case with the doctrine of retribution. Christianity teaches that good is rewarded and evil punished. Yet from their experience these converts often felt that the Christian doctrine of retribution was not always found to be applicable to events in this world. They found solace in the “other world” phenomenon in their oral narratives. Oral narratives for the Dagaaba are a very important source that exercises a strong influence in shaping the morality of the people. Before the coming of Christianity we notice that the moral instruction among the Dagaaba was transmitted 89

Retribution in the Oral Narratives of the Dagaaba

from generation to generation by means of the oral narratives, especially, storytelling. This paper examines two narratives: one dealing with animal characters and the other with human characters. An analysis of the two narratives shows how the Dagaaba view retribution. Retribution is to be viewed against the question of morality. Rewards and punishment are not isolated issues. They are to be seen as teaching the need for morality. Hence, the saying “if you do good deed you do it to yourself and if you do evil you do it to yourself”. The conversion of many Dagaaba to Christianity certainly affected their moral and religious world-view. But there seems to be a convergence between the Christian doctrine and teaching of morality with that of the Dagaaba. Morality, as the Dagaaba conceived it in their religious and moral dimensions, deals primarily with relationships: relationship between man and his fellow men; between man and the ngmenme (spirits and their supernatural agencies); between man and Nature (animals, plants, earth, etc.). Dagara religious leaders, like Cardinal Dery, have incorporated their traditional expertise of verbal art into their preaching of the Christian religion.

Background and Context We can say that morality refers to a set of social rules and norms that guide and regulate the behaviour of people in society. The basic principle for morality in many societies seems to be that good is rewarded and evil punished. Nevertheless, from life experience it is noticed that this principle does not always hold. There are occasions where a person who does some good deed is not rewarded while the person who does evil seems to be rewarded. How do we account for such a situation? Such a question has led some thinkers to look for an answer in the “other world” phenomenon. In the “other world” phenomenon what has been found to be wrong in this world will be rectified. In other words, in the “other world” good will be rewarded and evil punished. Before the coming of Christianity to Dagaaba land their moral code was very high and strictly observed. Their sense of hospitality and generosity was also very high. Peter Dery rightly observes that “they are a people of natural goodness with deep respect for their elders and parents, and a profound sense of worship” (Dery, 1979: 6). Among the Dagaaba moral instruction was transmitted from one generation to the next by means of their oral narratives, especially through storytelling. With the arrival of the missionaries and their preaching of the “new way” of worshipping God and with the conversion of many Dagaaba to Christianity the Dagaaba’s view of morality widened. They found the Christian doctrine that teaches that good people would be rewarded with pleasure and happiness in heaven (tenguela) and bad people punished in the fires of hell (tengfaa) very appealing. It reinforced their adherence to 90

Gervase Angsotinge

moral values on this earth. Even if the good person does not seem to prosper on earth they were assured that in the “other world” things would be rectified. With the conversion of the Dagaaba to Christianity there have been some significant changes in their view of religion and morality. Some of these converts can be said to have their feet in both worlds. They have not completely abandoned the belief that the ancestors and the cosmic spirits are superior and have more authority than man. In liminal situations they have recourse to the ancestors for protection and deliverance. But there are other elements in Christianity which have come to strengthen their moral beliefs and practices. The Christian teaching on life after death and the moral judgment that awaits people after death finds resonance in the Dagaaba teaching on morality. Oral narratives constitute an important vehicle through which moral values are taught to the younger generations. Oral narratives often deal with the “other world” phenomenon. The fears, concerns and hopes of the audience are reflected in the stories told. Many Dagara scholars in folklore, Sebastian Bemile, (1983), Gervase Angsotinge (1986), Dannabang Kuwabong (1992) and Paschal Kyoore (2009) all attest to the fact that Dagaaba oral folktales are performed both for the purpose of entertainment and to impart practical and moral instruction about correct behaviour in society. I found this to be true of the body of folklore that I collected in 1984 among the Dagaaba for my doctoral dissertation. The concept of retribution features prominently in the folktales. Most of the narratives dealt with the motif of good deeds being rewarded and doers of evil punished. The good characters in the narratives are usually rewarded while the wicked and evil characters are punished or banished from society. In this paper I intend to limit my examination of Dagaaba morality to their folktales. It should, however, be pointed out that the other forms of oral narratives, like myths, legends, proverbs, riddles, aphorisms, are equally powerful tools for the propagation of moral teaching among the Dagaaba. In this paper I propose to relate two folktales from among others that were collected by me during my research in the Nandom Traditional area in October 2002. I tape-recorded these stories in the Dagaare language in the performance context. I was a participant-observer in the storytelling events. I later on transcribed and translated the stories into English.

91

Retribution in the Oral Narratives of the Dagaaba

The Concept of Morality among the Dagaaba In order to understand the concept of retribution as found in Dagaaba oral narratives, we should first of all inquire into the Dagaaba’s concept of morality. According to Philip Naameh the Dagaaba are a very religious people and “every aspect of life has a religious dimension” and by extension a moral dimension (Naameh, 1986: 107). When the Dagaaba speak of morality, it is not to be considered in theoretical or individualistic terms. Eugene Suom-Dery attests that the question of “good and evil is not primarily a matter of speculation or definition but of experience” (Suom-Dery, 2000: 125). Morality, as the Dagaaba see it, deals primarily with relationships: relationship between man and his fellow men; between man and the spirits and their supernatural agencies (ngmenme); between man and Nature (animals, plants, earth, etc.). According to Naameh the Dagaaba have “a comprehensive view of the world according to which all that exists stand in a relationship of a unified order” (Naameh, 1986: 105). Morality among the Dagaaba is not concerned primarily with the intrinsic rightness or wrongness of an action but with whether a particular action fosters or harms relationships. In other words, an action is not to be judged in isolation but in the context of the relationship that it promotes or weakens. As Suom-Dery puts it, their concept of good and evil is bound up with their concept of “wholeness or interrelationships with the universe and with one another” (Suom-Dery, 200: 12). An action is judged to be good if it promotes harmony in the relationship between man and his fellowmen and even nature. But an action is considered evil if it destroys the relationships among men. Edward Tengan makes a very crucial distinction in Dagara terminology between ‘ni-saale’ which he designates as a generic term that distinguishes the human being from other creatures and ‘nir’ which he designates as a human person. Tengan further asserts that “whereas the term ni-saale picks out the human being and distinguishes him from other beings, the term nir goes beyond and relates to the value of the human being as a person” (Tengan, 2007: 14). He concludes his analysis on the terminology of ni-saale and nir as follows: Hence, the terms ni-tᴐr, ni-menga, ni-v’la, ni-bir qualitatively designate the person as a real person, a true person, a good person and a person of substance respectively. On the other hand the terms ni-faa and ni-fola refer to a bad person and an empty person respectively (Tengan, 2007: 15).

These concepts of ni-v’la (good person) and ni-faa (bad person) among the Dagaaba are to be understood in terms of relationships. Thus, a ni-v’la is a person who is able to maintain correct relationships with 92

Gervase Angsotinge

other people and with his environment. A ni-v’la is a generous and hospitable person; a person who is dependable and reliable. On the other hand a person who is uncharitable and unreliable; one who does not keep his or her promises will be referred to as a nen-faa, ‘an evil person.’ The stress is laid not so much on the goodness or badness of the individual action but on whether the person is able to maintain proper relationships with others through his actions. Hence, a man who carries out his duties to his ancestors, offers them the appropriate sacrifices at the appointed times, will be judged to be a good person (nin-v’la). Similarly, keeping up the right relationship with the world of Nature makes one a nin-v’la. But if a person does not offer the appropriate sacrifices, fails to maintain good relationship with other people or the world of Nature, such a person is judged to be a bad person (nin-faa). We can therefore say that a person is judged to be a good person (ninv’la) or a bad person (nin-faa) depending on his ability or failure to maintain good relationships in the public or social domain. Relationships are viewed from the vertical and horizontal axes. Suom-Dery attests to this when he says that “an action is good if it promotes and maintains good relationships in the vertical and horizontal levels and evil if it breaks or adversely affects all or any of the relationships on all the levels” (Suom-Dery, 2000: 127). The Dagaaba do not intend their oral narratives to be overtly didactic. The narratives represent both the fanciful world and the world of reality which constantly and continually interact with each other. Hence, religious, moral and ethical issues of everyday life can be cast into the world of narrative. In a similar vein, events that take place in the world of fantasy can be interpreted in the light of events of this world. As such, people may take cue from the happenings in the world of narrative to solve quotidian problems especially if the narratives are ancient and have the force of tradition behind them. But it must be pointed out that people at the same time recognise that ethical and social problems are often much more complex than the issues raised in the narratives. I had collected a body of folklore among the Dagaaba of the Nandom Traditional area in August 1984 which I used for the writing of my doctoral dissertation at the University of California, Los Angeles. In October 2002 I went back to the same area to document more oral narratives. Some of the earlier narratives featured again in this collection. There are several narratives that deal with the motif of retribution. I have selected two of such narratives for my analysis on the Dagaaba conception of morality and retribution. My choice of the two stories is determined by the fact that even though they both deal with the question of retribution the first one has animal characters whilst the

93

Retribution in the Oral Narratives of the Dagaaba

second one has human characters. I hope this choice would provide a basis for an interesting comparative analysis of the two stories. The proximate cause for the telling of a narrative which deals with moral issues is often triggered off by an event or experience of daily life. This was the case with the story I am about to relate. I was interviewing an elderly woman in my village about some aspects of Dagaaba folklore when the news was broken to us that a young boy had just died in the village. Upon inquiries we learnt that the young boy had died as a result of a wicked plot hatched by his own mother. Her intended victim was the son of the youngest wife of her husband. When the elderly woman heard the story she shook her head and said ‘Na mali neε mang mali o menga.’ (This means if you do evil, you do it to yourself). She then proceeded to tell the following story to confirm her statement1.

The Story of the Goat and the Hyena2 Performer: Yε guro, guro, yaa, Listen, listen, all of you, listen. Audience: Ti gu na, Yes, we are listening. Performer: One day Goat was wandering about. As she was walking on the way she met Hyena. As soon as Hyena saw Goat he was thinking of a way to kill and eat it. So, he greeted Goat in this manner: Boᴐrᴐ nεn wa nyε kanga fo be song? ‘Looking for prey and have found one how is the day with you?’ Goat, sensing the implication of the greeting responded: ‘Na mali neε mang mali o menga. Fo me be song?’ ‘If you do evil, you do it to yourself, how are you too?’ Hyena immediately feigned anger and said, ‘Why have you insulted me?’ Goat answered, ‘I have not insulted you. I merely answered your greeting.’ ‘I am going to teach you a lesson,’ shouted Hyena. He then began to chase Goat. They both started to run. Goat was running as fast she could. But Hyena was close on her heels. As you know, Goat cannot run very fast. Hyena was almost upon her. All of a sudden Goat dashed into a shrouded grove by the side of a hill. Hyena followed in hot pursuit. Hyena was licking his lips. He was sure that Goat would be trapped in the grove. No sooner had they entered the grove than they heard the roar of Lion. Lion growled angrily and asked, ‘What business do you two miserable creatures have to do here to rudely awake me and my wife from our sleep?’ Neither of 1 2

Paschal B.K. Kyoore (2009) has collected a story with a similar motif which he entitles “Good Deeds Rewarded, Bad deeds Punished.” This story was performed by Mrs Helena Tengzutuo, a farmer aged about 50 in her compound in the village of Zemuoper in the Nandom Traditional area. The audience consisted of six men (including the author), five women and several children. The time was 8.00 p.m. and the date was October 25, 2002.

94

Gervase Angsotinge

them said a word. They were both shaking with fear. Hyena had almost forgotten that he was chasing Goat [laughter from the audience]. From the corner of the den Lioness began to growl loudly, ‘My stomach, Oh, my stomach. I have a terrible stomach ache. I need some medicine to cure my stomach ache.’ Lion looked anxiously at the two intruders and asked, ‘Does any of you know where I can get some medicine to cure my wife of her stomach pains?’ Hyena looked at Goat and Goat looked at Hyena. Lion in a menacing voice roared again, ‘Have you no answer? If you can’t find the medicine for me you are in danger of losing your lives.’ As soon as Hyena heard this he immediately pointed his finger at Goat and said, ‘The ancestors of Goat are known to be famous medicine men. I am sure she can find the medicine to cure your wife.’ Lion now looked at Goat. Goat had her head bowed to the ground. Meanwhile, Lioness continued to howl in mock pain. Finally, Goat raised her head and said, ‘It is indeed true that my ancestors are famous medicine men. But in order to prepare this medicine I will need the brains of a certain animal.’ ‘What is the name of that animal?’ roared Lion. ‘I can’t mention the name of that animal?’ replied Goat. ‘Then both of you will have to pay for this with your lives,’ roared Lion. ‘My friend, Goat,’ pleaded Hyena, ‘why are you behaving in this manner? Don’t you want to help our friend Lion? Be bold and tell him the name of that particular animal whose brains you need. I am sure Lion will hunt for it.’ Goat still looked undecided and said, ‘It will not be good for me to mention that animal’s name.’ ‘Oh, please,’ pleaded Hyena almost in tears. Goat then cleared her throat and said, ‘I need the brains of Hyena to prepare the medicine.’ [Laughter from audience]. At the mention of the name ‘Hyena’, Hyena tried to jump out but it was too late for him. Lion had already pounced on him. He pulled out one limb and gave it to Goat. Goat took out some honey and dipped Hyena’s limb into the honey. She gave it to Lion who in turn gave it to his wife. Lioness immediately swallowed it with appetite and smacked her lips and said, ‘Oh, I am feeling better already. But I need some more of this medicine’; [laughter from audience]. Lion pulled another limb and gave it to Goat. Goat dipped it into the honey and gave it to Lioness. Lioness swallowed that one and said, ‘I have never tasted medicine this good. Please, give me just a little bit and I am sure it will cure me completely.’ And so in this manner Lion and his wife ate all of Hyena. Goat then came out of the grove and went home. So listeners, you see if you want to do evil to another person you do it to yourself. That is the end of my story.

95

Retribution in the Oral Narratives of the Dagaaba

Analysis of the story of the Hyena and the Goat Claude Lévi-Strauss introduced binary opposition to the structural analysis of myth (Lévi-Strauss, 1978). Many scholars after him made use of this proposition in their analyses of the structure of myths of various groups. Edmund Leach, for example, examined the binary opposition in the myth of creation in the Book of Genesis (Leach, 1967). He came to the conclusion that whenever there is a binary opposition there is usually the need for a “mediator” to “reconcile” the opposing poles. If we adopt the structuralist method of analysing myth as proposed by Lévi-Strauss, we can detect the system of binary opposition in several narratives of the Dagaaba. The Dagaaba recognise several areas of opposition in their narratives. In this particular narrative binary opposition can be found between yir, ‘home’ and wiε, ‘bush’; between domestic animals and wild animals; between strong animals and weak animals. Another binary opposition is found in the characters of the goat and the hyena. The goat is domesticated as against the hyena which is wild. Furthermore, the goat lives in the home (yir) while the hyena lives in the bush (wiε). According to Tengan, the Sisaala make an opposition between domestic space and the bush. The village space is the “home of cultured humans and domesticated animals” whereas the bush is conceived as the “wild realm of undomesticated beings and forces, the home of wild and dangerous animals” (Tengan, 1991: 57). The Sisaala live as close neighbours to the Dagaaba and what Tengan says about the concept of binary opposition found among the Sisaala is equally applicable to the Dagaaba. There are other points of opposition in the narrative. While the goat is an herbivore the hyena is carnivorous. The goat is small and weak while the hyena is big and strong. These two animals are further contrasted by the characteristics ascribed to them in the narrative tradition of the Dagaaba. The hyena is usually depicted as being greedy, sluggish and foolish. On the other hand, the goat is normally portrayed as being clever, reliable, and full of insight and intellectual subtlety. Dagaaba oral narratives portray the animal world as parallel to the human world. It is therefore expected that what obtains in the human world should be found in the animal world. We had mentioned earlier that morality among the Dagaaba is to be viewed primarily in terms of relationships. We shall now examine whether this concept of maintaining relationship is to be found in our narrative which deals with the animal world. In our narrative the Hyena starts off as the more powerful party. He displays his greed and aggressiveness in the way he greets the Goat: 96

Gervase Angsotinge

‘Looking for prey and have found one, how is the day with you?’ By this aggressive stance it can be inferred that the Hyena fails to maintain the normal civility that is expected in the everyday greeting. Greetings play an important role in the social interaction of the Dagaaba. Greetings open the door for social interaction as they invoke peace and blessings on the people exchanging the greeting. In our story the Hyena not only fails to maintain the peace but his ‘greeting’ is a threat to the life of the Goat. The Goat’s response (‘if you do evil, the evil will fall back on you’) is meant to remind the Hyena of the need to maintain the correct relationships with others. The pursuit of the Goat by the Hyena is significant for several reasons. First, it heightens the dramatic suspense. Will the Hyena be able to capture the Goat? Will the Goat be able to escape? Second, it draws the sympathy of the audience towards the Goat who is the underdog in this contest. Next, we have to examine the encounter that takes place in the lion’s den. This scene adds to the dramatic suspense. It is no longer a struggle between the Hyena and the Goat but between them and the lion. But in another sense the lion can be regarded as the mediator between the Hyena and the Goat. Indeed, in narrative tradition, the lion is known as the king of the beasts. It is, therefore, fitting that he should play the role of the mediator. One can even go further and see the lion as an agent of the supernatural force. In this sense, he takes a neutral position. His question is addressed to both the Hyena and the Goat. Yet, we must be careful not to wholly equate the action of the supernatural agents with what is morally right. The lioness’ pretence at being sick is just as morally corrupt as the Hyena’s desire to eat the Goat. This shows that in some communities different criteria are used to determine morality. In some African societies morality is limited to members of the same community. It would be immoral to cheat or take undue advantage of a kinsman but strangers are fair game. Perhaps, this explains the misuse and abuse of public property among several societies in Africa. The reaction of the Hyena and the Goat in the face of danger is of some interest. We have mentioned that the Hyena is the bigger and stronger animal. But it is he who is very much frightened. He is not only anxious to save his own skin but he is willing to push the Goat further down into the pit. He is quick to deny any knowledge about medicine, thus confirming his characteristic stupidity. The Goat, on the other hand, remains calm and serene. His astute handling of the situation heightens the dramatic irony. In the end, the Hyena, almost in tears, begs the Goat to name the animal whose brains are needed for the preparation of the medicine. Such dramatic irony is very pleasing to the 97

Retribution in the Oral Narratives of the Dagaaba

audience and it is no wonder they roared with laughter at this point in the narrative. The Goat’s astute handling of the situation confirms her characteristic wisdom. While the desire of the Hyena to devour the Goat can be interpreted unambiguously as morally wrong the same thing cannot be said of the action of the Goat even though it leads to the death of the Hyena. The action of the Goat can be viewed from two angles: the angle of selfdefence and the angle of moral retribution. Through his cunning and quickness of mind, the Goat finds compensation for his lack of physical strength. The end of the tale confirms the maxim that if you do evil, you do it unto yourself. The Hyena had intended to do evil to the Goat but in the end the evil fell back on him.

The Story of the Farmer and the evil Woman3 Performer: Yε guro, guro, yaa. Listen, listen, all of you listen. Audience: Ti gu na. Yes, we are listening. Performer: Long, long ago there lived a farmer. He used to get up early in the morning at the first cock crow and go to work on his farm. There was also a certain woman who lived in the same village. She also had a farm. The woman would pass by the man’s farm to go to her farm. One day as she was passing the farmer she stopped to greet him. After answering her greeting the farmer added this dictum: ‘If you do good you do it to yourself and if you do evil you do it to yourself.’ Each day as the woman passed the farmer on her way she would stop to greet the farmer. The farmer after answering her greeting would add his usual dictum. The woman was not happy with this saying of the farmer. She thought to herself ‘What does this farmer mean by saying that if you do good, you do it to yourself and if you do evil you do it to yourself?’ The more she thought about it the angrier she became. The next morning she got up and prepared some sεnsε (bean cakes). She then poisoned them and carried them in a bowl. She stopped as usual to greet the farmer. The farmer answered the greeting in his usual manner. The woman then said, ‘I have prepared some sεnsε for you. Here they are.’ The farmer asked her to put the bowl under the tree. The woman then passed on to her farm.

3

This story was performed by Mr William Daakang, a farmer aged about 55 in his compound in the village of Ko in the Nandom Traditional area. The audience consisted of six men (including the author), five women and several children. The time was 8.00 p.m. and the date was October 14, 2002.

98

Gervase Angsotinge

Shortly afterwards the little son of the woman came along the road crying. He was following the mother but the mother was not aware that her son had been following her. The farmer stopped him and asked him why he was crying. He said his mother had prepared some sεnsε but refused to give him some. The farmer smiled and asked the boy to go to the tree and take the bowl of sεnsε that the woman had left. The boy rushed there and began to eat the sεnsε. He ate all the sεnsε and lay under the tree to sleep. Shortly after this, the woman was returning home. She was sure to find the farmer dead. But to her surprise when she was passing she saw the farmer still working on his farm. The farmer called out to her and said that her little boy came crying and running after her and that he had stopped him and given him the sεnsε to eat. When the woman heard this she screamed, ‘What did you say? You gave those sεnsε to my boy to eat?’ The man said, ‘Yes, your son said he was hungry and I gave them to him to eat. I was not yet hungry.’ The woman then broke down and started to cry, ‘Oh, my son! What have I done? Oh, my son! I have killed my own son!’ The farmer looked at the woman and asked, ‘What are you talking about? The boy is sleeping soundly under the tree.’ The woman replied, ‘Yes, he is sleeping a sleep from which he will never wake up. Those sεnsε were poisoned. You see each day as I passed by and greeted you, you always added the dictum that if you do good you do it to yourself and if you do evil you do it to yourself. I did not like that saying. But I now see clearly the wisdom in your saying that if you do good, you do it to yourself and if you do evil, you do it to yourself. I wanted to do evil to you but that evil has fallen back on my head.’ That is the end of my story.

Analysis of the story of the Farmer and the evil Woman In this narrative we are dealing with human characters instead of animal characters. Since stories purport to deal with events that are supposed to have taken place in the distant past, one cannot exclude the possibility that similar events could occur again in the present. Indeed, some of the events that the narratives deal with seem to transcend time. Moreover, the question whether the events actually occurred is not as important as the reason why the story is being told. The Dagaaba believe that events that take place in narratives can also be events of everyday occurrence. Suom-Dery confirms this as he states “everybody knows that the story-world is a world of its own, a make-believe [sic] one. However, the fact that the behaviour traits of the story characters are also reflected in the human world makes them not entirely devoid of educative import” (Suom-Dery, 2000: 227-228). The protagonist in our narrative is a farmer. The main occupation of the Dagaaba society is farming. It is customary for women to bring food and drink to their husbands working on the farm. So the action of the woman bringing the bean cakes to the farmer is not unusual. She seems 99

Retribution in the Oral Narratives of the Dagaaba

to be carrying out a laudable custom. But her action cannot be interpreted as yel-v’la, ‘good deed’, because of her evil intention. The aggression of the woman is clearly unjustified since the farmer does not target her personally by his dictum. His dictum clearly underscores the Dagaaba’s view that humankind is segmented into good and bad. The woman saw herself as belonging to the bad and took offence. She demonstrated her evil by attempting to poison the farmer. Her wickedness is worse than that of the Hyena in the other story. The farmer’s utterance can be compared to the Delphian Oracle4. The Oracle’s prediction was often shrouded in ambiguity. The utterance of the farmer came to pass in a way least expected by the woman. The woman never for a moment thought her own son would come along and eat the poisoned cakes. The case of the intended victim not eating or drinking the poisoned food or drink is a popular motif in both drama and narrative. The following extract from Shakespeare’s Hamlet clearly brings this out. King: Gertrude, do not drink. Queen: I will, my Lord; I pray you, pardon me. [Drinks] King: [Aside] It is the poisoned cup; it is too late. (Hamlet: Act V, Sc ii, lines 272-274)

The King’s intended victim was Hamlet but in a dramatic twist it is the Queen who drinks “the poisoned cup.” Similarly, in our narrative, the intended victim was the farmer but in a retributive twist it is the son of the woman who eats the poisoned cakes. In a male-dominated society like the Dagaaba the woman’s crime is very reprehensible. Even though it is directed against an individual this individual can be seen as a representative of an important segment of society and hence her crime can be seen as being directed against the male group. Her action therefore risks annihilating a member of the male population. Besides, the Dagaaba, as an agricultural society, hold the tengan, ‘earth,’ in great esteem. It is therefore a heinous crime to poison someone working on the farm. Suom-Dery mentions “thou shall not possess poison or poison anyone” on the farm as one of the prohibitions of the tengan (Suom-Dery, 2000: 106). The gender aspect is hard to ignore in these stories. In the first story we mentioned that the way the lioness behaved showed her as a greedy 4

The Oracle of the god Apollo at Delphi gave answers held by the ancient Greeks to be of great authority but the oracles were also noted for their ambiguity.

100

Gervase Angsotinge

character. In the second story the villain is a woman on the same level as the real-life event mentioned in the first story. It can be interpreted that men and women are viewed as different kinds of moral beings. It would seem that men live in continual danger from women. It can then further be said that what the man said when he answered the greeting of the woman is a reminder of the fact that women are a threat to men. The action of the woman is the more reprehensible because she perverts a cherished custom in a bid to accomplish her diabolical intention. Outwardly, she seems to be fostering some relationship with the farmer. But as the end of the story reveals her action far from fostering relationship was truly destroying it. The retributive result is intended to serve as a warning to the audience. If the woman had done good to the farmer that good would have come back to her through her son. If she had provided nourishment to the farmer that nourishment would have come to her son. Instead, she wanted to destroy the farmer’s life and in the end destroyed her own child’s life. Before the coming of Christianity to the Dagaaba land they relied on their traditional religion and their oral narratives as the main sources for ordering their social and cultural lives. In my doctoral dissertation I came to the conclusion that “among the Dagaaba, the traditional narratives serve as vehicles for older generations to pass down the cultural heritage to younger generations” (Angsotinge, 1986: 15). Suom-Dery also attests to this when he states that “oral narratives are a very important source of Dagara conceptual thought relative to the world, man and society, religion and morality, and therefore, exercise a strong influence in shaping the thought and life of the people” (Suom-Dery, 2000: 221). Before the advent of Christianity among the Dagaaba, there sprang among the people religious leaders who ensured the continuity and enforcement of their religion and its practices. These individuals were the custodians of the traditional norms and practices and they can be said to exercise leadership role based on their religious authority. It is not surprising that Cardinal Dery who started off as an assistant apprentice to his uncle a great baghr bugre (diviner) later translated the leadership qualities that he had exhibited in his youth into his new ministry as a priest and a bishop. Dery in his Memoirs says the following: “My principal focus in these pages has been to make a meaningful sharing of those experiences of mine that shed light on the development of Christianity in this area and how the evangelising task of the Church was carried out in those early ages” (Dery, 2001: 6).

101

Retribution in the Oral Narratives of the Dagaaba

Conclusion Our two narratives vindicate the moral saying that if you do good, you do it to yourself and if you do evil you do it to yourself. In both narratives we see the principle of retribution coming to pass. This principle is upheld no matter whether the characters are animal or human. One may question whether the child deserved to die. In answer to a question like this one would have to say that the child is not the target of the retributive justice. It is the mother. According to Dagaaba thought to be a person it is not enough to have been born. According to Suom-Dery the Dagaaba recognise the fact that “one must also become a person in time through one’s multidimensional relationships and through social integration” (Suom-Dery, 2000: 73). The Dagaaba believe that it is only an adult who is capable of maintaining correct relationship in society. Children are considered not capable of knowing or being able to maintain the right relationships in society. Tengan in his study of the notion of person among the Dagara comes to the conclusion that “the person is the centre/hub of diverse relationships which go together to make a person who he or she is” (Tengan, 2007: 13). A child is not capable of maintaining such diverse relationships and thus is not regarded as a person. Fortes in his study of the Tallensi, a Gur-speaking society like the Dagaaba, says “a child cannot be a full person” because it is “not required or expected to conform to totemistic observances” (Fortes, 1987: 286). So we can conclude that the son is not the target of retributive justice in the story since in the Dagaaba world view he would not be considered a person. We can conclude that narratives play an important role in the upholding of moral values among the Dagaaba. These narratives seek to inculcate into the listeners the right kind of values that they should strive for. These include the ideals of friendship, sharing, caring and honesty in social relations. These are the values that promote good social relationships and make a person a ni-v’la ‘good person.’ The Hyena (and to some extent the lioness) and the woman failed to promote these values. The evil that they intended for others eventually fell on them. Thus, the principle of retribution is closely linked to the principle of morality among the Dagaaba. We also need to mention that the traditional Dagaaba society before the coming of Christianity had its mechanisms for transmitting religious and moral values through their oral narratives. In their social structure there are religious leaders who are responsible for ensuring the transmission of the religious and moral values from one generation to the next. Cardinal Dery was one such leader in the traditional society through his apprenticeship to the baghr institution. 102

Gervase Angsotinge

Remigius F. McCoy (1988) and Paul Bemile (1987) both attest to the fact that Peter Poreku Dery as a man, a priest, a bishop and in his “dying years”, a Cardinal, has made a great impact on the Church in Ghana in particular and the world at large. His ministry as a priest and bishop has brought great service and benefits to his people. Dery explains his vision at the time of his ordination as a bishop as follows, “as an apostle, I am called to evangelise, to bring people from the old to the new family of God. I am called to participate in the work of salvation” (Dery, 2001: 95). After his conversion to Catholicism, Peter Dery continued to exercise this leadership role in the shepherding of his flock in his diocese. Cardinal Dery who had been trained in the traditional art of communicating messages used this skill to the full in his Christian ministry of preaching. Cardinal Dery was a renowned preacher and his successor Archbishop Gregory Kpiebaya attests to this truth as he says “when Dery gives a homily, the average time is fifty minutes. The underlying principle is the same: thoroughness in what you do” (Kpiebaya, 1987: 113). Cardinal Dery is able to hold his congregation spellbound for such a long time through his dexterous use of proverbs, short stories and riddles in his preaching. Cardinal Dery is a man who has blended in an exceptional manner his traditional roots of communicating through the oral narratives with the Christian art of preaching the Word of God to his people. We can conclude this paper by stating that Cardinal Dery’s innovative way of preaching the gospel to his people through his knowledge and use of Dagaaba verbal art form poses a challenge for modern day preachers of the word of God among the Dagaaba. And it would be a befitting legacy to Cardinal Dery if this challenge is taken up seriously by the Dagaaba Christian leaders of today.

References Alexander, P. (1951). Complete Works of Shakespeare. London: Collins. Angsotinge, G. (1986). Wisdom of the Ancestors: An analysis of the oral narratives of the Dagaaba of northern Ghana. Los Angeles: University of California. Bemile, P. (ed.). (1987). From Assistant Fetish Priest to Archbishop. New York: Vantage Press. Bemile, S. K. (1983). Dàgàrà Stories: the Wisdom that Surpasses that of the King. Heidelberg: P. Kivouvou Verlag. Dery, P. P. (1979). The Coming of the Christian Faith to the Upper West. In V. Gregoire (ed.), That They May Have Life: An Account of the Activities of the Church in North-west Ghana, 1929-1979. Wa: Wa Catholic Press.

103

Retribution in the Oral Narratives of the Dagaaba

Dery, P. P. (2001). Memoirs of Most Reverend Peter Poreku Dery: Arch Bishop Emeritus of Tamale. Tamale: GILLP Press. Fortes, M., & Goody, J. (1987). Religion, Morality, and the Person: Essays on Tallensi Religion. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Gregoire, V. (1979). That They May Have life: An Account of the Activities of Church in North-west Ghana 1929-79. Wa: Wa Catholic Press. Kpiebaya, G. (1987). Shepherd of his flock. In P. Bemile (ed.), From Assistant Fetish Priest to Archbishop. New York: Vantage Press. Kuwabong, D. (1992). Naa konga: A collection of Dagaaba Folktales. Accra: Woeli Pub. Services. Kyoore, P. (2009). Folktales of the Dagara of West Africa. Vol. 1. Accra: Qolys-Skan Multimedia Ltd. Leach, E. R. (1967). Genesis as Myth. In J. Middleton (ed.), Myth and Cosmos. Austin: University of Texas Press. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1978). Myth and Meaning. New York: Schoken Books. McCoy, R. F., Dionne, R., & Dewart, J. C. (1988). Great things happen: A Personal Memoir. Montreal: Society of Missionaries of Africa. Naameh, P. (1986). The Christianization of the Dagara within the Horizon of the West European Experience. Unvesitat Munster, Munster. Suom-Dery, E. (2000). Family as Subject of Moral Education in the African Context: Incarnating Christian Ethics among the Dagara of North-western Ghana. Hamburg: Kovac. Tengan, A. B. (2006). Mythical Narratives in Ritual: Dagara black bagr. Brussels: P.I.E. Peter Lang. Tengan, E. (1991). The Land as Being and Cosmos: the Institution of the Earth Cult Among the Sisala of Northwestern Ghana. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Tengan, E. (2007). Person-oriented Ministry: The human person as subject and end of pastoral ministry. Wa: African Research and Documentation Centre.

104

PART II RECONCILING RELIGIONS, RECONCILING PEOPLE

Paul’s Call for Reconciliation and its Relevance for the Church with Particular Reference to Africa Richard K. BAAWOBR M.AFR (Superior General)

Introduction An earlier version of this conference was presented as an article in Missionalia, Vol. 59 (2010), a Missiology journal from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome (Italy). It has been reworked for the purpose of this Colloquium upon the invitation of Alexis Tengan, who convinced me that in spite of my heavy administration schedule I should not deprive people of the fruits of this research. Following the publication of the Post-Synod Exhortation, Africae munus, by Pope Benedict XVI, bringing to a close the synodal journey, the conference has also been updated. One of the important themes Paul explores in his writings to the communities that he founded was reconciliation. Although God is the one to whom people are reconciled, it is achieved in and through the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus reconciles humanity to God and at the same time reconciles people among themselves. This article will first of all explore how Paul approached the subject of reconciliation in his letters1. The second part will consider how this was later developed in the letters attributed to Paul. In the third and final part, attention will be paid to the importance of this theme for the Church, with particular reference to the Church-Family of God in Africa. Throughout his ministry as priest, Bishop and Archbishop and later as Cardinal, Dery promoted reconciliation whenever it was necessary between individuals, in families, between different tribes and even at the 1

The letters that practically all Bible scholars agree as genuinely Pauline are in the order of writing: 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, Philemon, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians and Romans.

107

Paul’s Call for Reconciliation and its Relevance for the Church

national level. I recall how during the celebration of his funeral, Archbishop Philip Naameh, then Bishop of Damongo, lauded Dery’s capacity to reconcile people and get couples to regularise their marriage. He noted that not all of them were successful, but at least the effort was made and it must have borne fruit for them, their children and the society at large during the time that the marriages held together. I believe that Dery’s perseverance was rooted in the call of the Bible for reconciliation part of which is strongly expressed by Paul in his letters and in those letters attributed to him and which pope Benedict XVI explored with Bishops and delegates from Africa during the Second African Synod. I believe that the challenges contained in Paul’s approach, Dery’s ministry and in the African Synod are addressed to each one of us where we are. Let us face them together.

Part I. Reconciliation in Paul’s Letters The word “reconciliation”, in many modern English2 and other versions, translates the three key Greek words rooted in katallassô3. The first keyword, katallassô, (cf. Rom 5:10; 2 Cor 5:18.19.20) refers to “restoring a relationship between individuals or between God and man, reconcile, change from enmity to friendship”4. The second keyword, apokatallassô5 (Eph 2:16; Col 1:20.22), refers to “transfer from one state to another quite different, hence of broken interpersonal relations, reconcile, restore (from enmity to favour)”6. The third keyword, katallagē (Rom 5:11; 11:15; 2 Cor 5:19), means “exchange, profit from exchange … the re-establishing of personal relations, reconciliation, change from enmity to friendship”7. This change benefits both partners and we could suppose that one side probably stands to gain more than the other. There is, consequently, no desire to go back to the former state of affairs. On the contrary, efforts have to be made by one or both sides to maintain the new state of affairs.

2 3

4 5 6 7

This is the case in the King James Version, The New American Bible, The Revised Standard Version, The New Revised Standard Version, etc. The Greek Text referred to is that of Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece, Stuttgart, 1993. Katallassô is initially a combination of two words: the preposition kata, which has a wide range of meanings, and the verb allassô. Friberg, Barbara, Friberg, Timothy, Miller, Neva F., Analytical Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 2000, electronic version. Apokatalassô appears more emphatic through the addition of another preposition apo. Friberg, Barbara, Friberg, Timothy, Miller, Neva F., Analytical Lexicon. Ibid.; cf. Dictionnaire grec-français, 1040, col. 3.

108

Richard Baawobr

The root verb allassô “make otherwise; change, alter, transform (…) exchange, give in exchange (…)”8 shows that the fundamental meaning of the word group is to change or alter (understood) for the better in a relationship. This is what happens in the reconciliation process. Outside the Pauline corpus when allassô occurs, it is always in link with reconciliation between human beings whose relations have broken down9. This sets the tone for understanding what Paul is getting at when he speaks of reconciliation. It supposes that there has been a breakdown in interpersonal relationships between two parties or individuals and that now there is a change, an alteration or transformation in the relationship between them. The state “before” and “after” is common knowledge to both parties. Paul’s use of the term reconciliation10 comes in very precise contexts. We shall now explore the contexts in the letters to the Corinthians and to the Romans.

1. Reconciliation in Corinthian Correspondence The Pauline authorship of 1 & 2 Corinthians is not in doubt. Paul founded the Christian community of Corinth during his second missionary journey (Acts 18:1-8) from 50-52 AD. Corinth, situated on the isthmus joining Peloponnessus to Greece, is some 60 km west of Athens. This cosmopolitan town had been destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC, but rebuilt about a century later. Because of its wealth, due mainly to its two trading ports, although home to Greeks, it quickly attracted people from as diverse backgrounds as Greece, Italy, Egypt, Syria and Judea who made it their home. The meeting between cultures was part and parcel of the daily lives of its inhabitants. Corinth was also legendarily famous for its immoral practices although probably not worse than other cities at the time. Such a diverse background is enriching, but it also brings with it challenges that do not just disappear because people have come to faith in Jesus. Among the questions we could imagine they had to tackle are 8

9 10

Büchsel, Friedrich, Katalassô, in Kittel, Gerhard, Friedrich, Gerhard, The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids 1985, Vol. 1, 254; Bailly, A., Dictionnaire grec-français. Rédigé avec le concours de E. Egger, Paris, Hachette 1950, 83, col. 1. This is the meaning in its use in Ac 6:14; Rom 1:23; 1 Cor 15:51.52; Gal 4:20 and Heb 1:12. Cf. Mt 5:24: diallagēthi; Lk 12:58: apallēxthai; Ac 7:26: sunēlassen. Although the reality of reconciliation is wider than the word group katallassô, I have chosen to limit the study to it in order to show the pertinence of Paul’s thought; how it developed, and its relevance for today. The expressions like ‘He [Christ] is our peace’ (Eph 2:14), for example, translates the same idea of reconciliation and are worth considering in other contexts.

109

Paul’s Call for Reconciliation and its Relevance for the Church

the following: Is a particular cultural practice superior to another? Is there a common way forward in relations in the new faith of Christianity? What about those who were slaves or still are slaves? Do they have the same rights as those who have also been full/free citizens or those who have just earned that status? The community, as in many towns, was composed of few rich and many poor people (1 Cor 11:21-28). The presence of many schools of thought did not make things any easier. Such questions did actually lead to some divisions or divisive attitudes in the community in Corinth which were only worsened when other preachers entered the city and preached a message contrary to what Paul had preached and even challenged his apostolic authority (2 Cor 2:14-6:10). People who, till then, had lived peacefully together, probably under the inspiration of one spiritual leader (Paul), began to claim that they belonged to Cephas, or to Apollos or to Paul or to Christ (1 Cor 1:11-13; 3:1-8; 9:5). In what is left of Paul’s copious correspondence with Corinth11, we see how he tackles the question of reconciliation in 1 Cor 7 & 2 Cor 5.

Reconciliation in Marriage (1 Cor 7:11) The first application of reconciliation in 1 Corinthians is in the context of Paul’s advice about marriage and divorce. Writing probably from Ephesus, Paul’s advice to the unmarried and widowed is that they remain “as they are”, as he does12. However, he specifies that whoever cannot remain alone should marry (1 Cor 7:8-9). He then offers personal advice that married couples should not separate. If they do, they should either remain single or “be reconciled” (katallagētô) to each other (1 Cor 7:10-11). The verb is in the third person singular of the imperative aorist passive form of katallassô. Paul insists that it is a command not from him but from the Lord (1 Cor 7:10). This reveals a pastoral concern for the family that he will express throughout this chapter. The split-up of the couple due to the rejecting of marriage obligations on false ascetic grounds is one of the many divisions about which Paul wants to give a pastoral response13. It 11

12

13

We concur with most Bible scholars that there are indications of earlier correspondence of Paul with the Corinthians. In 1 Cor 5:9-13; 2 Cor 2:3; 7:8, for example, he speaks of former letters. The entire Corinthian correspondence would range from 54 AD to 57/58 AD. This has given rise to some discussions as to whether Paul was married or not. For some of the major positions, cf. Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome, Paul. A Critical Life, Oxford, University Press 1996, 62-65. Cf. Fee, Gordon D., The First Epistle to the Corinthians (The New International Commentary on the New Testament), WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids 1987, 290.

110

Richard Baawobr

is not immediately visible in whose interest is the restoring of strained relations. Is it in the interests of the woman or of the man? Since it is the woman who is exhorted to come back to the man, we might be tempted to think that the reconciliation benefits her. However, the second part of 1 Cor 7:11 specifies that the man is not to repudiate his wife, thus implying that he also stands to gain from the re-establishing of relations between them. From this first text, we can say that the reconciliation of a couple, according to Paul, might be initiated by one, but both parties have an obligation to ensure that it continues. When it is between human beings, there is a degree of reciprocity, since they are considered as equals. Both parties are actively involved in the reconciliation process.

Reconciliation In and Through Christ (2 Cor 5:18-20) The next textual occurrences of the word reconciliation are in 2 Cor 5:18-20. These verses contain what is probably the clearest Pauline expression of what he means by reconciliation. The root word katallassô (reconcile) is used 4 times in these few verses! Writing probably around 57 AD from Macedonia (cf. Ac 20:1-2)14, one of the issues Paul has to tackle is his mandate as Apostle. Unlike other itinerant preachers, who moved around from community to community with letters of recommendation15 to show that they had a mandate from the Apostles in Jerusalem (cf. 1 Cor 3:1-5), Paul had no such letters. He considered the response and subsequent life of the Christian community as his “recommendation letter”. He saw himself and his co-worker, Timothy, as ministers of a new covenant (2 Cor 5:11-21). A closer look at 2 Cor 5:18-20 reveals the following chiastic structure in the thought of Paul. A v. 18a: the source of reconciliation (katallaxantos) – God; B v. 18b: through Christ (1st reconciliation agent); C v. 18c: reconciliation (katallagēs) ministry given to Paul and others; D v. 19a: God in Christ is [still] reconciling (katallassôn) trespassers; C’ v. 19b: the message of reconciliation (katallagēs) entrusted to Paul and others;

14 15

Many scholars identify at least two separate letters in 2 Corinthians: Letter A would be chs. 1-9 and Letter B would be chs. 10-13. Cf. Witherington III, Ben, Conflict and Community in Corinth: A socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians, WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids 1995, 377.

111

Paul’s Call for Reconciliation and its Relevance for the Church

B’ v. 20a: ambassadors for Christ: Paul and his co-workers (2nd reconciliation agents); A’ v. 20d: the terminus of being reconciled (katallagēte) with God.

God (A; A’) initiates the process of reconciliation and is its term. He works through Jesus at the beginning and later through Paul and others (B; B’) who have been entrusted with a message of reconciliation (C; C’). The gratuitous nature of the reconciliation stands out right in the centre of the chiastic structure (D). Even from the verbal point of view, the difference in the form of the verb that is used catches the attention of the reader. When God is the subject of reconciliation, the verb katallassô is in the active voice (A [katallaxantos] & D [katallassôn]). When reconciliation is facilitated by others (the rest of the occurrences), the verb katallassô is in the passive voice. This underlines all the more strongly that God is the main actor in the reconciliation process and that the human agents facilitate this process either by being instruments of the reconciliation or participating in it as the beneficiaries who are being reconciled to God. It is possible that Paul is appealing to the Corinthians to be reconciled to him as the minister of reconciliation after their own relations had been strained because of outside interference16. He tries to bring home the point that logically if they accept the message of reconciliation with God through Christ because of his preaching, they should not reject the bearer of the message since the two (message and messenger) are linked in pointing to the one who had sent him (God)17. It is in the course of developing the implications of his ministry, that Paul affirms that in fact, it is God who renews all things (cf. Gal 6:15). God, he affirms, “has reconciled [katallaxantos] us to himself through Jesus Christ” and has given Paul and his co-workers the “ministry of reconciliation” ([diakonian tēs katallagēs] 2 Cor 5:18) in view of bringing all to himself through Jesus Christ. In order to show that the initiative is from God, Paul stresses, that God did not wait for people to be free of sin before reconciling them. He did not count their trespasses against them (2 Cor 5:19a). S/he has been trespassing and that is not counted against him/her. God intervened with the message of reconcilia16

17

Cf. Martin, Ralph P., 2 Corinthians (Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 40), Dallas, Word Book Publisher 1986, 137. According to him, “The plea is a renewed call to them to leave their hostile dispositions and suspicions of both his message and his ministry and accept his proffered reconciliation, already given to the ringleader (2:511; 7:12)”. Cf. Turner, David L., “Paul and the Ministry of Reconciliation in 2 Cor 5:11-6:2”, in Criswell Theological Review 4.1 (1989) 86.

112

Richard Baawobr

tion through Jesus and for our sake, made Jesus “to be sin” (2 Cor 5:21) although he did not know sin, “so that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor 5:21). Jesus’ role in the reconciliation between God and people is that he represents us before God; he takes our place. Through the total self-gift of Jesus, the sinless one, the sinner enters into a new relationship with God and others. Jesus reconciles people to God from his own personal experience of being immersed in what constitutes their brokenness, namely sin, and transforming this as an opportunity for grace. People, as a result of the reconciliation, no longer live for themselves but for Jesus who died for us (2 Cor 5:14-15). The de-centring from self and re-centring on Jesus and others is the fruit of reconciliation. What is more, in order to ensure that people will always have the chance to be reconciled to God, he entrusted the message of reconciliation to human beings to carry on what God was doing in and through Christ. The verb katallasson (2 Cor 5:19) is in the present active participial form. Paul and his co-workers (2 Cor 5:19b) have received this ministry of reconciliation and he takes it very much to heart. It is made possible through their ministry when they proclaim the Gospel. Because of this, he appeals to the Corinthians as an “ambassador for Christ”, the Reconciler. His message is that they should “be reconciled [katallagēte] to God” (2 Cor 5:20). In 2 Cor 5, Paul shows that the reconciliation is something that is happening even while people are still trespassing. God does not count this; he offers reconciliation all the same. Unlike in 1 Cor 7:11, where we could have some questions as to who benefits from the reconciliation, in 2 Cor 5, the most developed of the reconciliation passages, it is clear that the one who stands to benefit from the restoration of the relations between God and human beings is the person himself. Reconciliation brings about a total renewal in the person to the point that the person is really a new creation. The one who is in Christ because of the reconciliation in and through him is a “new creation”, the old order has passed away (2 Cor 5:17). It is expected that this newness of life will be visible in different forms, in interpersonal relations and in relation to the whole of creation. This newness is made more explicit in 2 Cor 5:18-21. This second set of texts on reconciliation shows that it is not a reciprocal act between God and humanity as it would be between husband and wife. God is not on the same terms as human beings and he does not stand to benefit in any way from the reconciliation. The act of reconciliation that was once initiated by God in and through Christ’s death on the cross is continued down through the ages, Paul’s time and ours included, through the ministry of the Gospel (of reconciliation) that is proclaimed to all people. The opportunity of reconciliation is offered to 113

Paul’s Call for Reconciliation and its Relevance for the Church

the entire universe (cf. Rom 8:18-21; Phil 2:9-11). Paul and anyone who announces the Gospel becomes an agent of reconciliation in God’s name. It could not be any different for Cardinal Dery

2. Reconciliation in the Roman Correspondence There are four references to reconciliation in three verses in Paul’s letter to the Romans (5:10.11; 11:15). Over the years, Christians had migrated from various parts of the Roman Empire to Rome for various reasons. This eventually gave rise to a Christian community that was later led by Peter after he arrived in Rome around 50 AD. The community consisted of some Christians of Jewish origin and a majority of Gentile Christians18. Paul’s letter to the Romans is dated around 57-58 AD. Paul would have written this letter during a three-month stay at Corinth in the winter of 57-58 at the end of the third missionary journey (c. 53-58 AD [Ac 18:23-21:14]). He was about to set out for Jerusalem with the collection that he had organised from the other Churches of Macedonia and Achaia19. The letter comes as the summit of Paul’s theological reflection. Contrary to the other letters that were always in response to pastoral situations in communities he had founded, Romans is addressed to a community that Paul had not founded. He carefully explains what his teaching has been to the non-Jews. These explanations are neither due to questions that have been raised by the Romans, as was the case in Corinth, nor due to the malpractices which he wanted to correct as, for example, in Corinth and Galatia. The letter is thus more purposefully set out as a theological reflection than a confrontation or correction. According to some scholars, Paul also hoped to convince the Christian community in the capital of the Roman Empire that it was important to support his planned mission to Spain financially (Rom 15:18-24.28; 11:13-15.25-26)20. This, for him and for many in the Roman Empire at the time, was the end of the known world21. This would be a missionary 18 19 20

21

Cf. Rom 1:16; 2:9-10; 3:9.29; 16:1-16. Cf. Rom 15:15-26; Acts 20:1-4; 24:17; 1 Cor 16:1-4; 2 Cor 8:1-9 & 15. This has recently been argued for by Kizhakkeyil, Sebastian, The Pauline Epistles. An Exegetical Study, Bombay, St Pauls, 2006, 161 and Tosolini, Fabrizio, “Il progetto missionario di Paolo nella Lettera ai Romani”, in Ad Gentes. Teologia e antropologia della missione 1 (2009) 23-40. This is how some people have interpreted the expression of 1 Clement 5,7 (written around c. 97 AD) which says that Paul « after having taught justice to the entire whole, reached the end of the West, gave witness before those who govern, left this world and went to the holy place » (cf. Légasse, Simon, Paul apôtre, Paris, Cerf, 2000, 248). However, it is difficult to explain that such an affirmation would have gone unchallenged since all knew that Paul died in Rome and not elsewhere. The

114

Richard Baawobr

motivation22. Financial support from Rome would have spared Paul the trouble of having to depend on the funds of the community he was evangelising with the danger of having to compromise his message (2 Cor 11:8-9). A presentation of his Gospel, as he sets it out in the letter, could have shown the Romans the importance of supporting the mission he was about to undertake.

Reconciliation through Justification by Faith in Jesus (Rom 5:10-11) The theme of justification by faith is important in Romans23 and has been present in the ecumenical dialogue and exegetical works. When dealing with the question of justification through faith in Christ (Rom 3:21-5:21), Paul speaks of reconciliation in an explicit way. Faith in Jesus, and not observance of the Law of Moses, Paul insists, has made believers just, thus establishing peace between them and God (Rom 5:1-2). As a result, God generously pours out his Holy Spirit into the hearts of his children (Rom 5:5). The state of God’s children before this moment was that of helpless sinners and enemies (Rom 5:6.8.10). Relations had deteriorated between God and us and somebody had to intervene to repair this state of affairs, which is what Jesus did. Paul’s argument is: 10

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled (katēllagēmen) to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled (katallagēntes), shall we be saved by his life. 11 Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation (katallagēn) (Rom 5:10-11)24.

Reconciliation brings about a definite and radical change; its result is that we pass from the state of being “God’s enemies” to that of people

22

23 24

Muratori fragment (c. 180 AD) and the Acts of Peter (c. 190 AD) also allude to a journey of Paul to Spain (ch. 8). Some wonder if Clement and others after him did not go from the idea of journey as announced in Rom 15:24.28 to the affirmation that Paul actually travelled to Spain! Kizhakkeyil, Sebastian, Pauline Epistles, 161, also argues that Paul had three other reasons for writing: apologetic – he had to defend his preaching that had been attacked; pastoral – “to mend real or potential divisions among the Christians in Rome” (Rom 14:1-15:6); and personal – in order to present himself to Roman Christians before his arrival. The apologetic content is less pronounced in Romans than in Gal 2:11-21. Panjikaran, J.G., Paul’s concept of Mission. An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 10:8-17, Delhi, ISPCK 2009, 30-57, considers similar arguments for his purpose in writing Romans. It is already announced in Rom 1:17 and will be developed in greater detail in Rom 3:21-4:25. The translation is from The Holy Bible. Revised Standard Version, 21971.

115

Paul’s Call for Reconciliation and its Relevance for the Church

he has redeemed through the death of his Son. As Friedrich Büchsel understands it: The essential features of man’s state prior to reconciliation are entanglement in a self-seeking which cannot fulfil the divine covenant of love (R. 8:7c) and his consequent standing under the divine displeasure (R. 8:8), wrath and judgment25.

Reconciliation is therefore an expression of the unlimited love of God (Rom 3:25; 2 Cor 5:19)26. People regain the fellowship with God they once enjoyed before relations were strained because of the way they lived. Paul takes the argument in 2 Cor 5:18-20 a step further and links it to the wider question of justification through faith. God’s reconciliation through Jesus (2 Cor 5:18) is still present but he now specifies that God does this through Jesus’ death (Rom 5:10.14.15). It was present in the earlier writing, but had to be deduced. This is a central assertion in Paul’s teaching in other instances (cf. 1 Cor 15:3-4; 2 Cor 13:4; Rom 8:34). The reconciled believer who has died with Christ and risen with him27 tries to live a new life with God and neighbour in his or her daily life (cf. Rom 6:6; 7:6). While a change happens in human nature, this does not change something in God who initiated the process. In Rom 5 and 2 Cor 5, reconciliation is thus not a reciprocal act. It is freely granted to people by an all-loving God through his Son28. The use of the divine passive form of the verbs underlines and preserves God’s initiative. In Paul’s thought, reconciliation and justification go hand-in-hand. Believing in Jesus leads to justification, which in turn leads to reconciliation.

Reconciliation of the World (Rom 11:15) The last mention of katallagē by Paul is in Rom 11:15 when he speaks of the reconciliation of the world (katallagē kosmou). Paul has been trying to spell out the place of the Jews in the plan of God (Rom 9:1-11:36). Paul’s argument is what we will call a minori ad maius (“if …X … how much more …Y”). Starting from a lesser point, he makes a more relevant point. He had proceeded in this manner in Rom 5:9 when he argued that since God proves his love for us while we were still 25 26

27 28

Büchsel, Friedrich, “Katallassô”, 257. Cf. also Fee, Gordon D., Pauline Christology. An Exegetical – Theological Study, Peabody, Hendrickson, 2007, 245. He does not hesitate to affirm that “it is God’s love that is fully demonstrated in the death of his Son” (Emphasis in text). Cf. 1 Cor 6:14; 2 Cor 4:14; Rom 6:1-11; 1 Th 5:10. Cf. Wilckens, Ulrich, Der Brief an die Römer 1. Teilband Röm 1-5 (EKK VI/1), Neukirchener Verlag 1978, 298.

116

Richard Baawobr

sinners and Christ died for us (Rom 5:8), will he not save us now that we have been justified through Christ (Rom 5:9)? Reconciliation comes as the logical consequence of this gratuitous love of God and justification of the believer because of his/her faith. The reader is expected to exclaim, “Of course God will save and justify us since we have been reconciled already” (cf. Rom 5:10-11). According to Paul, the fact that Jews did not accept the message of Jesus led Gentiles to faith and later provoked the jealousy of the Jews (Rom 11:11). If the coming to faith of non-Jews has enriched the world – because the salvation that was meant for Jews has been shared with others also – salvation will be all the greater when Jews turn to God, (Rom 11:12). The reader is expected to imagine this and acclaim the extraordinary nature of salvation. Paul uses the image of the reconciliation of the world to speak of the coming of the Jews to faith. This “acceptance [of the Jews] will be but life from the dead” (Rom 11:15). He shows that God’s plan, although apparently initially destined for the Jews, was not limited to them alone; it was meant for all! The fact that others (Gentiles) come to faith in Jesus and benefit from new life with him does not mean that they (the Jews) are now excluded from God’s grace. They still have their place which is still far more glorious than what the rest of the world is experiencing now through their recent reconciliation with God in and through Jesus Christ. Paul’s message is always inclusive and since all people, in and through Christ, are one, he could affirm that in Christ there are no more Jews or Greeks, men or women (Gal 3:28; 1 Cor 12:13), because in Jesus, all the divisions between God and people (vertical) and among people themselves (horizontal) are abolished. In Romans, Paul stresses that reconciliation creates oneness in Christ that was not there before and that has to be preserved and promoted.

3. Individual Reconciliation and Humanity’s Reconciliation In the texts mentioned above, it is clear that reconciliation in Paul’s teaching is something that is both individual and collective. What emerges in Rom 5 was already present in the earlier letters in a less systematic way. The Corinthian community had experienced division because of socio-economic and theological reasons. When the interests of the individual had the upper hand, the community suffered as a result. Paul, as a pastor, tries to help them to reunite among themselves and with him, aiming at what will build up the community. In a community that was tempted to pitch one pastor against the other (1 Cor 3:1-8), Paul reminds them that the pastors are only “God’s co117

Paul’s Call for Reconciliation and its Relevance for the Church

workers” in God’s field (1 Cor 3:9). The Corinthians themselves are God’s building. The image goes from agriculture (the field) to architecture (the building) but the message is fundamentally the same. Paul would not use his status of Apostle for his own gain, but sees himself as collaborating in God’s work. The message of reconciliation that he preaches as an ambassador of Christ does exactly that. This awareness of being God’s co-worker enabled him to give up his own rights for the good of others (1 Cor 9:1-14) so that he could offer his services free of charge (1 Cor 9:19-23). He invited others to do likewise, that is, to renounce their own interests for the good of others (1 Cor 10:23-33; 11:1) and be mindful of those who have less (1 Cor 11:17). The diversity of gifts of the Spirit, for example, had tended to be divisive for the community in Corinth (1 Cor 12). Some sought the more spectacular gift of tongues for their own personal glorification. Love, Paul insists, is the greatest of the gifts, because it puts the interests of the other persons before individual interests (1 Cor 13). The variety of gifts, like the diversity of the parts of the body, is a necessity for the building up of the same body, the community of believers29. Some exegetes claim that Rom 5:1-21 comes as the conclusion to Paul’s teaching on justification through faith in Christ (Rom 3:214:25)30. Paul dwells on the implications of justification and reconciliation for the individual (Rom 5:1-11) before considering the implications for the rest of humanity (Rom 5:12-21). These conclusions serve as a springboard for further development of the teaching on justification and, by implication, on reconciliation. The effects on the individual that are first spelt out in Rom 5:1-11 are further developed in Rom 6-8, while the part concerning humanity as a whole that was mentioned in Rom 5:12-21 is also further developed in Rom 9-11. This systematic and aesthetic presentation brings across a message to the readers that we can enlarge on in our discussion on reconciliation. It is as though Paul was saying to the Romans (and to us) that faith and the resultant justification and reconciliation cannot just be lived at an individual level. There are consequences for both the individual person and the rest of humanity. Keeping in mind that 1 Corinthians comes before 2 Corinthians 5 and Rom 5 – where Paul dwells more explicitly on reconciliation – we can draw a tentative conclusion. The pastoral realities of the communities to which Paul ministered made it clear to him that it is God who 29 30

Cf. 1 Cor 14:4.5.17; Rom 15:1-6. Cf. Aletti, Jean-Noël, Comment Dieu est-il juste? Clefs pour interpréter l’épître aux Romains, Paris, Cerf 2000, 41-49, who examines this point of view together with two others: that it is linked to 1:18-4:25 or that it inaugurates a new logical section.

118

Richard Baawobr

reconciles humanity in and through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and that this has consequences for the individual and for the society in which he or she lives. If this is not visible, there is something that is not completely in place. As we shall see in the next part of this article, this thought is developed further in the letters attributed to Paul when their writers apply his teaching on reconciliation to other communities in the first century AD.

Part II. Reconciliation in Letters attributed to Paul In the letters attributed to Paul31, the writers speak of reconciliation in three different instances in Colossians and Ephesians32. It is only in these letters that we find apokatallassô (Col 1:20.22; Eph 2:16) rather than katallasso. The meaning is the same as the other derivatives from allassô in the Pauline letters, namely to change, to transform and when applied to reconciliation, to re-establish personal relations. The novelty in all three references is that Jesus is at centre stage while God (the Father) remains in the background, even if he is the one to whom human beings are reconciled. This is a shift in emphasis.

1. Colossians: Reconciliation through the Cross (Col 1:20-22) The writer of Colossians speaks of reconciliation in the hymn celebrating Christ as the Lord of creation (Col 1:15-23). The main part of the hymn (Col 1:15-20) takes up and transforms a liturgical hymn that was used at Colossae33. The emphasis of the writer, as rightly noted by C.K. Barrett and adopted by Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, is not to lift the readers into the cosmic sphere, but to ensure that they do not lose 31

32

33

We consider Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, and the Pastoral Epistles (1 & 2 Timothy and Titus) as Deutero-Pauline. Although they build on Pauline theology, they often show a development of thought that is more appropriate to the postPauline period. Colossians and Ephesians, in our estimation would date between 80 and 90 AD. Scholars are divided about the Pauline authorship of these letters. Cf. Aletti, JeanNoël, Lettera ai Colossesi, Bologna, Edizione dehoniane 1993, 24-30. While the majority would advance arguments to support the non-Pauline authorship, others use the same arguments to prove that Paul wrote these letters. Fee, Gordon D., Pauline Christology, 289, for example, argues that Colossians and Philemon should be read together since the “house code” of Col 3:18-4:1 dealing with slaves would have given Onesimus, the slave, an opportunity to hear what Paul had to say about the behaviour of slaves. Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome, Paul, 242, who accepts the Pauline authenticity of Colossians, supposes that it was Epaphras (cf. Col 4:12) who brought the hymn to Paul in prison and the latter reworked it before inserting it in the letter. It is certainly a pre-existent hymn, but the supposed reworking by Paul can be debated.

119

Paul’s Call for Reconciliation and its Relevance for the Church

contact with the mundane. The Saviour must stand on terra firma. His disciples must not retreat into ascetic isolation34. The hymn exalts Christ above every visible and invisible creation, angels included, before making the affirmation, at the end, that Christ’s mission was “to reconcile (apokatallaxai) in35 him [God]” (Col 1:20a) all things. This happened when he made peace through “the blood of his cross” (Col 1:20b). Since Christ is Lord of all, the visible and the invisible beings, the reconciliation he has wrought is also for all, whether they are on earth or in heaven. After the hymn, the writer turns the attention of Paul directly to the readers and still carries on the theme of reconciliation. He underlines that because of their changed state, they have passed from being “alienated and hostile in mind” (Col 1:23) – because of their evil deeds – to being “reconciled (apokatēllaxen) in his (Jesus’) physical body through his death” (Col 1:22). The development that we can perceive in the reconciliation theme in this passage in Colossians is that what was implicit in Paul’s earlier thought is now made explicit. In the hymn in Phil 2:8, Paul had explicitly referred to the “death on a cross”, but in the passages of 2 Cor 5 and Rom 5, where he spoke of “reconciliation”, (although the cross is understood because he speaks of “death”), he never mentions the word “cross” by name. This development will be maintained in Eph 1:13.16 where it is further enlarged into a vicarious death for both Jews and Gentiles. In order to live in the new state “holy, without blemish, and irreproachable before him (God)” (Col 1:22), the Colossians have to persevere in their faith and hope in the Gospel that has been proclaimed to them, as to everyone else, by the minister Paul. Reconciliation is mediated by Jesus, but those who benefit from it also have an active role to play in it. They have to live according to the Gospel.

34

35

Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome, Paul, 240, takes it as a third option in the interpretation. Cf. Barrett, C.K., Paul. An Introduction to his Thought (Outstanding Christian Thinkers Series), London Chapman 1994, 146. He further uses the link with Phil 2:10b-11b and is further used as an argument of Pauline authorship of Colossians. The preposition eis with the accusative has a variety of meanings such as, “into, to; in, at, on, upon, by, near; among, against, concerning”. We have chosen to translate it as “in” and not “to” as the RSV does for two reasons. Firstly, Christ is the subject throughout the hymn and secondly, in keeping with the common understanding, Christ is the agent who reconciles us with God (the Father), through his death and not “to” himself.

120

Richard Baawobr

2. Ephesians: Reconciling Jews and Gentiles to God (Eph 2:16) The Pauline disciple behind the letter to the Ephesians takes up and develops several themes that were already present in Colossians36 and in Paul’s letters to some communities that he had founded. The question of reconciliation is one of them. In Eph 2 the author tackles the issue of unity in Christ. He spells out the condition of the readers prior to their coming to faith in Christ. According to him, they lived in transgression and sin, following what everybody did (Eph 2:1-3). However, God intervened in their lives through Jesus Christ, restoring them to life through his death and resurrection and exaltation at God’s right hand (Eph 2:4-7). Having now been saved by grace through faith, the readers are expected to live this newness of life that Christ has earned for them (cf. Col 2:6). This affirmed, the writer goes on in vv. 11-22 to develop a very Pauline thought, namely, that Christ is the one who breaks down the walls of division between Jews and Gentiles, making them all one family in God because of their faith in him (cf. Gal 3:28; 1 Cor 12:13). Christ is our peace; he is the one who has abolished the law that divided people into classes, thus creating “in himself one person in place of two” (Eph 2:15) so that he “might reconcile (apokatallaxē) both [Jews and Gentiles] with God” (Eph 2:16). The verb is the aorist subjunctive active (of apokatallassô), thus emphasising the punctual and effective nature of the action situated in the past. The presence of the particle ina (“so that”, “in order that”) in the preceding verse pointed towards a purpose of the action. In simple terms, we could say that the author affirms that the purpose of the death and resurrection is to bring about the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles. The dissimilarity between 2 Cor 5 and Rom 5 on the one hand and Col 1 on the other is in the way Paul or his disciple speaks of reconciliation. Paul had insisted that God was the source of reconciliation through Jesus Christ and that he did this while people were still transgressing (2 Cor 5:19; Rom 5:10). God was very much in the forefront and the noun that Paul preferred to use was katallagē. Now, it is Jesus who is at centre stage and the Pauline disciple uses apokatallassô. The reconciliation in all cases re-establishes the estranged relationship between God and human beings.

36

Lincoln, Andrew T., “Ephesians”, in The Cambridge Companion to Paul, edited by Dunn, James D.G., Cambridge, University Press 2003, 135, expresses a commonly held position when he writes that “… the writer of Ephesians knew Colossians well enough to employ it creatively in his own fresh reinterpretation of the Pauline gospel”.

121

Paul’s Call for Reconciliation and its Relevance for the Church

However, before reconciliation with God, there is the reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles. This, in our opinion, is also a novelty and an expansion of Paul’s thought on reconciliation as presented in Corinthians and Romans. Jesus reconciles the two people first before reconciling “both with God”. This, according to the Ephesians author, was possible due to the message of peace that Jesus preached to “you who were far off” (Gentiles) and “to those who were near” (Jews) thus giving “access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph 2:18). That Jesus’ message was meant for both his own people (Jews) and others is sufficiently substantiated in the Gospels that postdate Pauline letters. The fact that, for example, Matthew, the most Jewish of the Gospels, includes right from the beginning characters from the East who come to adore the infant King (Mt 2:1-12) is a warning to the reader that Jesus is born for all people and that it is in fulfilment of the prophetic expectations of the First Testament (cf. Is 60:3). Although we have the injunction to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel appearing in the sending of the disciples for the first time (Mt 10:6), nevertheless, at the end of the Gospel, the command of the Risen Lord is to go make disciples of all nations (Mt 28:19-20). In Luke’s Gospel, which is the most sensitive to the Gentiles, nonJews are constantly portrayed in a very positive light and as examples to be followed. This, for instance, is the case with the Good Samaritan parable (Lk 10:25-37) and the story of the ten lepers who were all cured, but of whom only a Samaritan returns to give thanks to Jesus (Lk 17:1119). They are not the examples that others would have thought of, but they make the point that God’s mercy is not reserved to one category of people but instead is all-inclusive. In as far as this message was available to all (Jews and Gentiles), Jesus enabled “both” sides to be one in and through him and together to be reconciled with God. This conviction had been the basis of Paul’s own vision of his mission. His encounter with Jesus on the way to Damascus37 had convinced him that he was to bring God’s salvation to all nations. After initially offering the message to the Jews (Ac 13:47), while not despising or 37

Cf. Ac. 9:15; 22:15; 26:16-18; cf. Gal 1:16. There is a difference between how Paul presents his call in Galatians and how Luke presents it in the Acts. In Gal 1:16, because of the need to assert his apostolic authority, Paul downplays the role of intermediaries in his call. Even if one does not want to take the Acts of Apostles as historical, in our opinion, passages like 1 Cor 11:23-26; 15:3ff, show that Paul did acknowledge that he stood in a tradition. We could, therefore, understand that Luke, in his account of Paul’s call, showed how the human intermediaries were important for him in spite of the fact that the call was from God himself.

122

Richard Baawobr

neglecting his own people38, he turned more resolutely to the Gentiles with the same message that Jesus is the one who reconciles all people to God through his death and resurrection. The writer of Ephesians takes this idea further. He shows that it is not just Gentiles or Jews as separate people who are reconciled to God but “both” peoples, formerly so different that they were opposed to each other, who are now reconciled with each other and with God. Reconciliation in this Deutero-Pauline line of thought, is inter-culturally and internationally contagious when it is true and in Christ. Different cultures and nations previously at loggerheads reconcile with each other in Christ’s death on the cross. As in 2 Cor 5:18-20, Paul has the role of continuing the ministry of reconciliation that Jesus began (Eph 3) so that this good news of the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles in Jesus might reach all. As mentioned above, it is in the context of the hymn to Christ that the writer of Colossians speaks twice of Christ as the one who reconciles all things (Col 1:20.22) through his death on the cross. The effect is that all those who were “alienated and hostile” are now at peace with God. Ephesians, in our judgement, elaborates a lot more on this latter concept when the writer dwells on how Jews and Gentiles are brought together in Christ. The former alienation has ended because of him. The study of the differing contexts of Paul’s and his disciples’ use of reconciliation, as presented above, has implications for the Church today. The next and final part of this article tries to explore this from the perspective of the African Synod39 of October 2009.

Part III. Active Reconciliation in the Church-Family of God in Africa: The Option of the Second African Synod In this third and final part of the article, we will limit our attention to the way the relevance of Reconciliation in the Church-Family of God is viewed in recent African Synods. This, we must acknowledge, does not do full justice to the entire Synod deliberations, since it treated reconciliation, justice and peace as related to one another. By isolating Reconciliation, we miss the wider picture; but at the same time, it allows it to stand out as the starting-point or the basis without which the other two 38

39

Later passages in the narrative like Ac 18:4-6.19; 19:8; 28:11-16.17-28 show that Paul still continued to preach his message first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles when he was in a town with Jews. This is in keeping with what he had understood at the Damascus event. They are officially referred to as Special Assemblies for Africa of the Synod of Bishops. I will refer to them as the First or Second African Synod according to the case.

123

Paul’s Call for Reconciliation and its Relevance for the Church

(justice and peace) cannot be attained40. Just as the foundations of a building, it remains hidden and taken for granted, but if it is not present, the rest will collapse! After exploring the concept of Church-Family of God itself, we will mention some of the main areas in the Church-Family of God in Africa, according to the Synod, standing in need of Reconciliation and how that can be brought about. At the end, we will consider how far this corresponds to Paul’s invitation to the Churches he founded to live active reconciliation with God, with each other and with the whole of creation.

1. The Church-Family of God and the African Synods So far, there have been two Special Assemblies for Africa of the Synod of Bishops: in 1994 and 2009. The First African Synod (10th April-8th May 1994)41 focused attention on five main areas of the Church-Family’s evangelisation and witness: Proclamation, Inculturation, Dialogue, Justice and Peace, as well as Social Communications42. The entire event was termed the “Synod of Resurrection and Hope”. It was this Synod that officially referred to the Church in Africa as “Family of God”43. Before the Synod, the term was already in use, but it was adopted as a valid ecclesiological term to speak of the Church in Africa. Theologians in and from Africa are still spelling out the details and implications of the terminology to avoid misinterpretations of it when used to refer to the community of disciples of Jesus in Africa44. According to Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, the General Rapporteur of the Second African Synod, the expression “Church-Family of God” in Africa, “is an expression of the truth of the Church and of its identity as sharing in the life of the Triune God through Christ”45. 40

41 42 43 44

45

Some would have seen justice as the starting point but where there is no reconciliation after confession of guilt and forgiveness, the old wounds will remain and further injustice can be committed in the fight for justice. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, “One might say that reconciliation and justice are the two essential premises of peace and that, therefore, to a certain extent, they also define its nature.” Africae Munus, Editrice Vaticana, 2011, No. 17. The guiding theme was The Church in Africa and her Evangelizing Mission Towards the Year 2000: “You shall be my Witnesses” (Acts 1:8). Cf. John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation of, Ecclesia in Africa, Vatican City 1995. Cf. John Paul II, Ecclesia in Africa, No. 6. Cf. doctoral thesis of Francis Appiah-Kubi, Eglise famille de Dieu. Un chemin pour les Eglises d’Afrique, Paris, Karthala 2008; Augustin Ramazani Bishwende, Eglisefamille-de-Dieu. Esquisse d’ecclésiologie africaine, Paris, Karthala 2001. Cf. Turkson, Peter Kwodo, Relatio post disceptationem. The Church in Africa in Service to Reconciliation, Justice and Peace. “You are the salt of the earth … You are the light of the world” (Mt 5:13-14), Vatican City, 2009, 9 (emphasis in text).

124

Richard Baawobr

Negative traits in some families are excluded. For example, the dominant father, the submissive and servant mother and immature children who follow everything adults say. The notion of a family that excludes anyone outside the clan is not intended either46. Some of the common characteristics that relate to the image of the family in Africa are communion in sharing the same life and love in the group and outside of it, and the preservation of this love and life. Family members normally care for one another, converse with one another and warmly trust one another47. This takes various forms according to need. Living active reconciliation in the Church-Family of God in Africa is one such way of sharing the same life and love that we all receive from the same God and Father. Just as brothers and sisters do not choose one another, so too, within the Church-Family of God, people do not choose one another. Together they are called into life by the same Father God to be his children and thus brothers and sisters of one another. The same Spirit fills their hearts with love of God and neighbour and makes them cry to God as Abba (cf. Rom 8:15). The relevance of this terminology “Church-Family of God” is corroborated by its continuing use and the commentaries created around it. Announced on the 13th November 2004 by Pope John Paul II, the Second African Synod was confirmed by Pope Benedict XVI on the 22nd June 2005 and celebrated from the 5th-24th October 2009 in the Vatican City. This event took place fifteen years after the first such Synod for Africa was celebrated. The Synod Fathers and other participants baptised it “the Synod of a New Pentecost”48. The unifying theme for the Second Synod was “The Church in Africa in Service to Reconciliation, Justice and Peace. ‘You are the salt of the earth (…); You are the light of the world’ (Mt 5:13-14)”. In their Propositiones to the Pope at the end of the Synod, the Synod Fathers explained the reason behind the reference to the Second Synod as a “New Pentecost” in the following terms: They [the Synod Fathers and other participants] pray that the Spirit of Pentecost may renew our apostolic commitment to making reconciliation; justice and peace prevail in Africa and the rest of the world. May it also not let

46

47 48

Cf. Liche, Dominic, “Looking back at the First African Synod”, in Henriot, Peter & Liche, Dominic, Church in Africa: Relevant and Credible? The Challenge of the Second African Synod, Lusaka, Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection, 2008, 10. Turkson, Peter Kwodo, Relatio ante disceptationem, 15. Cf.: http://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/sinodo/documents/bollettino_23_ii_ speciale-africa-2009/xx_plurilingue/b33_xx.html, Propositio, No. 2.

125

Paul’s Call for Reconciliation and its Relevance for the Church

the immense problems weighing down Africa overcome us, so that we may become “salt of the earth” and “light of the world”49.

The different documents prepared proceedings50, during51 and after52 the Synod all show the relevance of the theme of Reconciliation, Justice and Peace and the link between these three keywords. They also show that what was discussed concerned not only Africa, but the rest of the Church in her evangelising mission53. This gives grounds for hope that the Second African Synod will be an opportunity for Africa to refocus and to set the pace in showing how far Reconciliation, Justice and Peace are not optional in the Christian message, but integral to it54.

2. Areas in the Church-Family of God Needing Reconciliation After examining the state of the Church as Church-Family of God in Africa since the First Synod and explaining the theological basis of the theme of the Second Synod, the Instrumentum laboris (No. 5-47)55 of the Second Synod presents Reconciliation, Justice and Peace as urgent needs for the Church in Africa today56. It is important to keep in mind that what is said of Africa and its Islands could also be applied to the 49 50 51

52

53

54

55 56

Ibid., No. 2. Second Special Assembly for Africa, Lineamenta, Vatican City, 2005; Second Special Assembly for Africa, Instrumentum Laboris, Vatican City, 2009. In particular, Turkson, Peter Kwodo, Relatio ante disceptationem, Vatican City, 2009 and Turkson, Peter Kwodo, Relatio post disceptationem, Vatican City, 2009. For the news bulletin during the Synod, cf. http://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/ sinodo/documents/bollettino_23_ii_speciale-africa-2009/bollettino_23_ii_ speciale-africa-2009_index_xx.html. For the Final Message of the African Synod, cf. http://www.vatican.va/news_ services/press/sinodo/documents/bollettino_23_ii_speciale-africa-2009/xx_ plurilingue/b30_xx.html#MESSAGGIO_AL_POPOLO_DI_DIO. For the Propositiones to the Holy Father in view of the Post-Synodal Exhortation, cf. http://www. vatican.va/news_services/press/sinodo/documents/bollettino_23_ii_speciale-africa2009/xx_plurilingue/b33_xx.html#ELENCO_FINALE_DELLE_PROPOSIZIONI; for the Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Benedict XVI; cf. http://www.vatican.va/holy_ father/benedict_xvi/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20111119_ africae-munus_en.html. Cf. Dorr, Donal, Mission in Today’s World, Dublin, Columba Press 2000, has a whole chapter (pp. 128-143) with the title “Mission as Reconciliation”; Stephen B. Bevans & Roger P. Schroeder, Constants in Context. A Theology of Mission for Today, Orbis, Maryknoll 2004, pp. 389-395 treat Reconciliation as Prophetic dialogue an important concept of mission and they show its relevance worldwide. Cf. Ennin, Paul Saa-Dade, “The Second Synod of Bishops for Africa and ‘The African Reconciliation Project’: The Role of Missionary Institutes”, in Sedos Bulletin Vol. 41, No. 11/12 (2009) 272. Abbreviated here after as IL followed by No. to indicate the number in the document. Ibid., No. 48-69.

126

Richard Baawobr

whole world, since problems of war, greed, bad government, human trafficking, xenophobia, etc., are not limited to Africa alone, but are part and parcel of what human beings do to each other. Some writers have also thought that since the objectives of the First Synod were far from being implemented across Africa, a Second Synod was not necessary57. However, from the examination of the responses to the Lineamenta as contained in the Instrumentum laboris, we can say that the event itself was necessary and, hopefully would give an added impetus and direction as to how to fulfil the objectives of both Synods58. For each of the keywords – Reconciliation, Justice and Peace – the Instrumentum laboris points out where society and/or the Church falls short in the socio-political, socio-economic and socio-cultural dimensions, before touching the experiences of the Church-Family of God in that particular area and the challenges that are still to be faced. Since these dimensions have local, national, sub-regional, pan-African and international implications59, in searching for Reconciliation, Justice and Peace, one is constantly led beyond the self to question how they relate to others in the wider picture. We shall limit ourselves to what the document explicitly says about the keyword ‘Reconciliation’. In the socio-political sphere of life, the document deplores the crises and conflicts in certain countries and their resulting divisiveness. In some cases, such divisions have also affected the Church when politicians use tribal and other divisive tactics to rally support for gain and the maintenance of power (IL, No. 50). It also affects the Church and lessens its prophetic voice when Bishops’ Conferences or priests are separated along tribal lines (IL, No. 53). The same could be said of splits among Religious in National or International Missionary Institutes. In the socio-economic sphere of life, the document noted how poor financial administration has given birth to poverty, human trafficking and other forms of human exploitation, thereby destabilising the family network (IL, No. 51). 57

58

59

Cf. Henriot, Peter, “Second African Synod: Challenges and Hopes from a Zambian Perspectives”, in Henriot, Peter & Liche, Dominic, Church in Africa: Relevant and Credible? The Challenge of the Second African Synod, Lusaka, Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection 2008, 15-17; Ndi-Okalla, Joseph & Ntalou, Antoine, D’un synode africain à l’autre. Réception synodale et perspectives d’avenir: Eglise et société en Afrique, Paris Editions Karthala, 2007, offer a variety of articles from different parts of the continent on how the First Synod was received. Fianu, Emmanuel Kofi, “Salt and Light for reconciliation, Justice and Peace in Africa. Biblical-Pastoral Considerations on the Theme of the Second Special Assembly for Africa”, Verbum SVD 50:3 (2009) 266, sees it as a kairos moment for stocktaking and refocusing on the “evangelising mission of the Church on the continent”. Cf. Ennin, Paul Saa-Dade, “African Reconciliation Project”, 273-274.

127

Paul’s Call for Reconciliation and its Relevance for the Church

Lack of reconciliation, according to the document, is also visible in the socio-cultural sphere when we see how some media have misinformed people and promoted violent reactions and disrupted family ties. It is also visible in the derisory attitude some people have towards values in African Tradition Religion and, according to the document, in rivalry between Muslims and Christians in some parts of the continent (IL, No. 52). In many parts of Africa where people of different faiths peacefully live and work together, violence is not always due to their faith but rather to political, economic, ethnic and other reasons. Subsequently, such violent episodes are politicised and wrongly attributed to their differing religions60. In view of living its prophetic role, the Synod Fathers were invited to help the Church-Family of God in Africa speak an authoritative word to political society through its own internal unity and way of dealing with contradictions. Due to his family and educational background, Cardinal Dery was exposed to so many different tribes and nationalities that he felt at home with all and all felt at home with him. This will turn out to be instrumental later on when he would speak out on behalf of the voiceless or oppressed. Divisions of any kind anywhere – ethnic, social, political, religious, etc. – weaken the prophetic voice of the Church in promoting Reconciliation in divided society and the Church (IL, No. 107)61. The role and dignity of women is a cause of concern. In a prophetic gesture, Benedict XVI, in the Apostolic Exhortation, affirms that “The Church has the duty to contribute to the recognition and liberation of women, following the example of Christ’s own esteem for them”62. In his years as pastor, Cardinal Dery showed his great esteem for women through the different things he did to promote their participation in society through formal education and in the religious life. The Synod Fathers and other participants also noted that there were challenges in the line of Reconciliation, seeking ways and means of rebuilding communion, unity and brotherhood between people in pastoral responsibilities and their collaborators. This is the case between bishops and priests and, we could add, between priests, Religious, catechists, leaders of Small Christian Communities, etc., and the people they are called to serve. Effective leadership has always been and will always be through leading by example rather than by mere words. It is difficult to challenge outsiders to practise Reconciliation, Justice and Peace when these are absent from the lives or communities of those 60 61 62

Cf. Proposition, No. 11. Turkson Peter Kwodo, Relatio post disceptationem, 19-20. Africae munus, No. 57.

128

Richard Baawobr

advocating them. For Reconciliation to be a way of life for the members of the Church, the Apostolic Exhortation of Benedict XVI published in 2011 after the Synod, points out four main sources that have to be lived by all who engage in Reconciliation, Justice and Peace. These are: union with Christ, knowledge of the Scriptures as a life-giving Word, knowledge of the Social Teaching of the Church and the practice of a Sacremental life, especially the Sacraments of the Eucharist and of Penance63. The Church, according to the Synod Fathers, is also challenged to take up her prophetic courage and educate more politicians in their faith so that they can overcome the tribal, ethnic, racial or social class differences and live and work together in a peaceful way64. It is in this way that all the baptised can be witnesses of the Kingdom of God, as the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Mt 5:13.14). These and other areas of human brokenness underline the need of Reconciliation in the Church-Family of God in Africa and elsewhere.

3. Promoting Reconciliation, Justice and Peace in Africa A quick reading of the Instrumentum laboris shows that in spite of the many obstacles and challenges in its way, there are already some instances whereby the Church-Family of God in Africa is involved in the Reconciliation, Justice and Peace ministry65. The document notes with satisfaction all that has been done by the Church in the line of education, health and development programmes, as well as by other Church institutions and communities (IL, No. 87-99). These are ways in which the Church is of service to human society and is effectively contributing towards Reconciliation, Justice and Peace. Such services contribute in the long run to narrowing the gap between the rich and poor and would thus promote lasting Peace and Justice. According to the Instrumentum laboris, dialogue with other Christian traditions (Ecumenism), with African Traditional Religion and with Islam is possible and should be promoted as ways of building a recon-

63

64 65

Africae munus leaves no category out: cf. § 47: the elderly; 54: men; 59: women; 63: young people; 100: bishops; 109: priests; 116: deacons; 117: consecrated person; 120: Seminarians; 127: Catechists; 128-129: lay people. Propositio, No. 87; 109. Turkson, Peter Kwodo, Relatio post disceptationem, 5-8, summarises the challenges to justice, peace and reconciliation as they emerged in the speeches of the different Synod Fathers. Since the point of departure of the speeches was the Instrumentum laboris, it is not surprising that they very much reflected what was already stated there.

129

Paul’s Call for Reconciliation and its Relevance for the Church

ciled, just and peaceful society66. This can be done through promoting dialogue, “so that believers work together in associations dedicated to peace and justice, in a spirit of mutual support”67. This supposes that already in families, people are taught to listen patiently to each other and to respect each other fearlessly. When it comes to dialogue with other religions, the Synod suggests that “each religion begins from the depths of its faith and encounters the other in truth and openness”68. Dialogue, as we know, takes different forms69. In dialogue of life, we rub shoulders with each other and get to know and appreciate one another better. In dialogue of social action, the type that the Synod speaks about, we carry out actions for a better world. This is more effective when carried out by all concerned irrespective of their religious belonging. Knowledge of the social doctrines of the different religious traditions is helpful in this type of dialogue. In dialogue of theological exchange while experts of different beliefs study each others’ doctrines and ways of living their faith, ordinary believers also learn from reading each others’ sacred and inspirational texts. In the dialogue of religious experience people of different faiths come together to pray for a common cause, each drawing from its own religious. The experience of Assisi in 1986, 2002 and 2011 is a good example. Among the ministers and means of reconciliation, the Instrumentum laboris notes the role that can be played by Bishops when they use the prophetic word (IL, No. 107-110); priests in the ministry of preaching and administering the Sacraments of Reconciliation and others, and when they meet people in daily life (IL, No. 111-112); consecrated people when they live and serve according to their specific charisma (IL, No. 113-114); laywomen and laymen in their active living out of their faith, even in the face of conflict (IL, No. 115-118). The Postsynodal exhortation further underlines this when it exhorts all to practise Reconciliation, Justice and Peace as a way of life70. There is an effort on the part of the Synod Fathers to show that each category in the Church-Family of God in Africa can do something to promote Reconciliation, Justice and Peace. This is also very much 66 67 68 69

70

Ibid., No. 99-102; Propositiones, No. 11-13. Propositio, No. 11. Ibid., No. 11. Cf. 1984 document of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Dialogue and Proclamation No. 42; Michael L. Fitzgerald & John Borelli, Interfaith Dialogue. A Catholic View, London, SPCK, 2006, pp. 28-35; S.B. Bevans & R.P. Schroeder, Prophetic Dialogue. Reflections on Christian Mission Today, Maryknoll, Orbis Books, 2011, pp. 68-69. On “Spirituality of communion” cf. among others Africae munus, No. 34-35.

130

Richard Baawobr

reflected in the Proposition71. We can understand that just as all can and do contribute to the breakdown of relationships, all can and must play their part in order to rebuild these relationships and promote Justice and Peace for all. One of the proposals for promoting Reconciliation, Justice and Peace in the Church-Family of God in Africa, the Instrumentum laboris suggests, would be to set up mediation groups at different levels (IL, No. 109). Some writers had envisaged this as one of the specific contributions that Missionary Institutes could make to the Church-Family of God in Africa72. It is understood that other Church groups, with means and vision, can found and promote such mediation groups according to need and depending on where they are. Although the idea of a “Council of Elders” for the entire continent and its Islands was not taken up in the final Proposition in such clear terms as some would have wished, it is certain that more often than not, facilitating reconciliation is done by a group of mediators in the “palaver hut”. Jesus’ disciples in Africa, and elsewhere, constantly need to promote reconciliation between wounded and estranged parties of conflict and various forms of dispute73. Through the “palaver hut” in which the mediation is done by the wise elders of the community, the two opposed sides are brought to reconcile with each other74. This process ensures that the confession of guilt by the offender is received by the offended and that it is accompanied by some form of compensation on the part of the offender to the offended. In this manner, the offended party does not take the law into its own hands with violence and the desire for vengeance that could emanate from the other if there is no confession, forgiveness or reparation. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the post-Apartheid South Africa engaged on this road but has probably not yet gone the whole way. In some other countries, like Ghana, a National Peace Council plays an important role in reconciling conflicting factions. These attitudes and actions proposed above suppose that fundamentally each person has first of all come to terms with his/her relationship with God and that this has opened up avenues for taking up the challenge of living in a new way. In Church circles the Sacrament of Reconciliation celebrates the inner healing of the wounds caused by divisions of different kinds. This carries with it the challenge and obligation to 71

72 73 74

The Propositiones mention the laity (No. 37), the family (No. 38), priests (No. 39), seminarians (No. 40), permanent deacons (No. 41), consecrated persons (No. 42), catechists (No. 43-44), women (No. 47), youth (No. 48), persons with disabilities (No. 50). Cf. Also, Turkson, Peter Kwodo, Relatio post disceptationem, 15-26. Cf. Ennin, Paul Saa-Dade, “African Reconciliation Project”, 276-278. Fianu, Emmanuel Kofi, “Salt and Light”, 278. Cf. Africae munus, No. 47-50 on the role of elders in promoting reconciliation.

131

Paul’s Call for Reconciliation and its Relevance for the Church

live a new life which will benefit not only the person, but also those around him or her and larger groups, such as faith groups and other nations. Reconciliation, here again, is not just a personal affair, but something that has social and political ramifications.

4. The Relevance of Paul’s Message for Africa The call of Paul “be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20) still resounds in the Church-Family of God in Africa and is even more relevant. As in the first Christian century, the appeal is the same: to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, to be reconciled to one’s neighbour, to other tribes and nations and to the whole of creation. These are the final elements that will be considered in this article as we try to make the links possible between the call of Paul and the option taken by the Synod Fathers.

Reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ From the Pauline texts, we gather that although God is the source and ultimate end of Reconciliation, this happens in and through Jesus. The Christ-centred nature of Reconciliation is reflected in the manner in which the Synod Fathers and other participants approached the question of Reconciliation, Justice and Peace. All the documents of the Second African Synod reflect this orientation and insist on the fact that each person who wants to promote Reconciliation, Justice and Peace has first to take more seriously his or her call to be a disciple of Jesus75. Pope Benedict XVI, in Africae munus, always puts the invitation to be united to Christ as the starting point whenever he lists the four elements of the sources for living Reconciliation, Justice and peace. In a similar manner, he always closes the list with an appeal to a sacramental life in which the Eucharist and the Sacrament of reconciliation have privileged places. This underlines strongly the conviction that without personal ongoing conversion, turning to God and to others, the promotion of Reconciliation will not last, because it will be inauthentic. The experience of being forgiven without deserving it brings home the message that God loves us freely and that he expects us to respond to his love with equal love. Paul stressed this in different ways whenever he reminded the communities to which he wrote that their reconciliation with God happened even while they were still trespassing (2 Cor 5; 11-12; Rom 5:10). His teaching was carried forward into the tradition after him (Col 1:21-22; Eph 2:1.16). From his own life as pastor, Cardinal Peter Poreku Dery gave an eloquent example of his union with Christ through the faith with which he celebrated the Eucharist and the care in which he put into it to ensure 75

For a good summary, cf. Turkson, Peter Kwodo, Relatio post disceptationem, 10-11.

132

Richard Baawobr

that it spoke to people’s lives and culture. His readiness to forgive, even people who had done wrong to him, showed that he had personally experienced God’s forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Far from being an impediment, his personal knowledge of so many people was reassuring for them when they sought, with his guidance, to be reconciled with God and with neighbour.

Reconciliation with God leads to Reconciliation with Neighbour Paul was very conscious of the fact that he and his co-workers had received a “ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:18) and because of that they could invite others to be reconciled with God. The rest of the letters show the effects of such reconciliation. Reconciliation leads to greater love of the other person (1 Cor 13), created in the image and likeness of God (Gn 1:26). It also leads to docility to the Spirit of Jesus, reflected in “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5:22-23). The result is to seek ways of building up the community76. The effect of the personal reconciliation of the disciple of Jesus is that he or she seeks to be a “minister of reconciliation”. For the Synod Fathers and other participants, it means “promoting communion among pastors, the witness of their life, their relationship with co-workers and their treatment of employees”77. This brings us back to the foundation in the teaching of the Prophets (Is 58:6-8) and of Jesus himself – that before offering sacrifices to God, it is important to be reconciled with the neighbour (Mt 10:23-25) and to recognise him in those most in need of love and care (Mt 25:31-46). Faith in Jesus and reconciliation to God has always had social dimensions and the Church-Family of God in Africa cannot ignore these and limit the call to Reconciliation to the purely individual level.

Reconciliation between Nations Although present in Paul’s thought, it is the letters attributed to him, thus post-Pauline, that dwell more on reconciliation between nations as a consequence of reconciliation with God and with neighbour, in and through Christ. Ephesians 2:11-21 stresses how Christ has brought about the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles, who till then, were thought to be so different that they were irreconcilable. The concept of purity and impurity, those within the Law (of Moses) and those outside the Law, reflects this divisive attitude. The two groups of humanity that 76 77

Cf. Baawobr Richard, God’s Word for Christian Communities. Second Reading of Sundays. Year B, Nairobi, Paulines Publications Africa 2009, 69. Turkson, Peter Kwodo, Relatio post disceptationem, 15.

133

Paul’s Call for Reconciliation and its Relevance for the Church

were consequently alienated one from the other, however, were brought together in and through the death of Jesus on the cross (Eph 2:13). Each group needed to be reconciled to God; thus the unifying nature of the Christ-event that simultaneously reconciles them to God and to one another. According to the Second African Synod, it is important to give a good solid Christian (and we would add religious) education to politicians in order to ensure good governance, first of all within each nation and a better order at the international level78. In order to achieve this, they see also that it is necessary to establish advocacy bodies “to lobby members of parliament, governments and international institutions, so that the Church can contribute effectively to the formulation of just laws, and policies for the people’s good”79. As long as one group, for historical and other reasons, sees itself as better than or superior to the other and does not make the effort to learn from the other, reconciliation is not possible in times of conflict. However, where there is good will, “Men and women, in the variety of their origins, cultures, languages and religions, are capable of living together in harmony”80. Politics can sometimes, for other motives accentuate the religious element in a conflict in order to take advantage. In the different tribal conflicts that arose in the vast Tamale Archdiocese, Dery was instrumental in bringing the different factions to try the way of peace. He was not always understood and accepted at first go, but time proved his initiatives to be right ones.

Reconciliation with the whole of creation This aspect of Reconciliation is developed in the hymn in Col 2:1520, where the Pauline disciple celebrates how Christ reconciles all dimensions of the cosmic existence – heaven and earth, visible and invisible. In Biblical terminology, the totality of creation is envisaged81. Nothing is excluded. Understood in these all-inclusive terms, the reference that all things in heaven and earth were created in Christ and that he reconciles the visible and the invisible is another way of affirming that Jesus, as the 78 79 80 81

Propositio, No. 25.37. Ibid., No. 24. Africae munus, No. 39. For example, God is the Creator of heaven and earth (Gen 4:19), meaning he is Creator of all. Heaven and earth are invoked as witnesses to the terms of the Covenant between God and his People (Dt 4:26) implying that the whole of creation has witnessed it. When Jesus speaks of the validity of the Law of Moses, he says that even heaven and earth (all) will pass away, but not one iota of the Law will pass without being established (Mt 5:18).

134

Richard Baawobr

firstborn of all creation, leads all things that have been affected by the disintegration of its relations back to communion with God. Jesus does this because he himself partakes in the fullness of God as the firstborn of the entire universe. When he reconciles all things in himself, he restores them to their original state of harmony. Although not formulated in such explicit terms as Col 1:5-20, we can affirm that the vision of the Synod Fathers and participants is that if all the ministers of Reconciliation, Justice and Peace are to set to work in Africa and its Islands, it will be a transformed continent. The concluding words of the Final Message of the Synod, for example, affirm the following: Africa is not helpless. Our destiny is still in our hands. All she is asking for is the space to breathe and thrive. Africa is already moving; and the Church is moving with her, offering her the light of the Gospel. The waters may be turbulent. But with our gaze on Christ the Lord (cf. Mt 14:28-32), we shall make it safely to the port of reconciliation, justice and peace82.

True Reconciliation is bound to have an effect on the way people in Africa relate to the entire universe. It will lead to seeking ways of promoting life as God wanted it for the entire continent and beyond it. In order to attain this, it is important that the gaze be fixed on Christ, the one who reconciles people to God and to each other at different levels and to the whole of creation. This message, although addressed in the first place to the ChurchFamily of God in Africa is valid for the community of nations. Believers, because of their faith in Jesus and their reconciliation, are daily challenged to promote a greater communion between people of all cultures, religions and languages.

Conclusion Paul’s call for Reconciliation, as pointed out in the first part of this article, was addressed to Christian communities in very specific circumstances. Although God is the source and goal of Reconciliation, he does it through his Son Jesus, the expression of his unfailing love. This is the ground for Reconciliation. Reconciliation allows people to experience once again the reality of God’s love. It begins with the individual’s reconciliation to God, but does not end there. It opens up new avenues of relationship that had been thought to be closed. Paul addressed his message of Reconciliation not only to Gentiles, but also to Jews. He saw that it was important that the two peoples 82

“Draft of the Final Message of the African Synod”, No. 42.

135

Paul’s Call for Reconciliation and its Relevance for the Church

become reconciled to each other, because both have experienced God’s love in the same way and to the same degree. It has been freely given. This same message was ultimately envisaged for the entire creation. A reconciled humanity in a reconciled world! This, we could say, is a further development in Paul’s call to Reconciliation that was taken a step further by his disciples. When the African Synod took Reconciliation as its point of departure and linked it to Justice and Peace, it underlined the relevance of the message of Paul for the Church-Family of God in Africa and in the entire universe. It is in the degree to which the Church-Family of God in Africa allows God to reconcile people with himself through Christ and his ministers of Reconciliation that they can in turn become ministers of Reconciliation to other people who are different because of their religion, tribe and social standing. This will then, hopefully, open the way for Justice and Peace as constitutive elements in the proclamation of the same good news of the Kingdom that Paul preached to the world of his time to both Jews and Greeks and that is still preached in the Church, in general, and in Africa, in particular. This will always be a challenge, but anything that builds up the human and international community is a sign of God’s presence and action through his Son. Hopefully, reconciled individuals, families, clans, tribes, nations and continents will open our eyes more to the injustices and the lack of peace in the world scene and help us look for ways of restoring God’s Justice and Peace. True to his calling as a pastor of God’s family in Ghana, Dery served his people, fully rooted in the Christian faith and in the culture of his people as he journeyed with them in the search for life in the fullness that Jesus promised (Jn 10:10). For the delegates of the Second African Synod, it is through living as agents of Reconciliation, Justice and peace, that we can attain this life to the full and share it with others. This, in our estimation, has been a guiding principle in Dery’s life. If we were to lend Paul’s word to Dery, we would say: “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1).

136

Conversion and Transformation of Worldviews The Case of the Dagara of Northwest Ghana Edward TENGAN Director, SS Peter and Paul Pastoral Institute, Wa

Introduction Till recent times, scholars studying African conversion have focused on the initial conversion experience of various African peoples. Seeing conversion as a turning around at a specific point in time, scholars like Horton (1971), Der (1983), Naameh (1986), Tengan (2000) and Naaeke (2010) have tried to examine the historical, socio-political and cultural factors that would have led to the conversion experience. In this context, their discussions of the relationship between culture and conversion have been rather piecemeal and from a functional perspective. That is, specific cultural elements such as the family structure, the ethical system and the belief system are extracted from their life world and discussed in relation to their role in the conversion process. Those cultural elements that are seen to have some affinity with the gospel are then seen to be ‘seeds of the gospel’ in as far as they accelerate the conversion process. In this way, not only is conversion seen to be a one-time affair. Cultural elements are treated as units on their own right. In recent times, scholars argue against a static understanding of conversion. As Hierbert (2006) rightly notes, conversion is a point, a turning around. But it is also a process, a series of decisions that grow out of this initial turning. Conversion goes beyond the mere adaptation of our forms of life to the new religion. It demands a paradigm shift which sees culture as a system that is being transformed in its totality. As such, it is principally a shift from one sense of grounding to what is experienced as a more effective/fulfilling ground for one’s existence.

137

Conversion and Transformation of Worldviews

African Conversion This view of conversion as a process has led scholars to shift from analyzing the impressive initial conversion stories to examining how that conversion experience has been lived out over time. Looking at African Christianity from this perspective, Schwartz (2009) opines that, for one reason or the other, African Christians have not really converted to Christianity as they continue to take recourse to their traditional religions in the taking of their life decisions. He supports his argument by noting the ease with which African Christians turn to the old paradigm which indicates that no genuine “encounter” has taken place at the centre of the concentric circles. In his view ‘the guiding light at the centre of the circles is still African spiritism and not the Lordship of Jesus Christ’. This leads him to conclude that what we experience in Africa is a phenomenon of “marginal conversions”. He finds support for his position on African conversion in Shorter (1977) who writes: During the past hundred years African Traditional Religion has been visibly sinking beneath the surface of modern social life in Africa, but what remains above the surface is, in fact, the tip of the iceberg. At Baptism, the African Christian repudiates remarkably little of his former non Christian outlook. He may be obliged to turn his back upon certain traditional practices which the Church, rightly or wrongly, has condemned in his area, but he is not asked to recant a religious philosophy. The church, in any case, takes no cognizance of this philosophy. Consequently, he returns to the forbidden practices as occasion arises with remarkable ease. Conversion to Christianity is for him sheer gain, an ‘extra’ for which he has opted. It is an overlay on his original religious culture. Apart from the superficial condemnations, Christianity has really had little to say about African Traditional Religion in the way of serious judgments of value. Consequently, the African Christian operates with two thought-systems at once, and both of them are closed to each other. (p. 10)

In the same vein, Hiebert (2006) argues that what is happening in Africa is a subversion of the gospel. This is because the gospel has failed to transform the African worldview which remains the life spring from which people take their life’s decisions. He argues that, if the worldview is not transformed, in the long run the gospel is subverted and the result is a syncretistic Christo – paganism. Christianity becomes a new magic, and a new, subtler form of idolatry. In the view of William Williamson (1986), Christian conversion without worldview change is in reality syncretism. Hiebert (1997: 84) shares the same opinion when he states that ‘if the gospel does not have to do with worldview matters, it remains surface and transitory’. In his view, ‘for true Christianity to continue over the generations, there must be a transformation in the 138

Edward Tengan

world view people have’. He concludes by saying that, it is increasingly clear that we must deal with Christian faith on the worldview level. If we do not do so, the church will become captive to the surrounding culture, just as early Christianity was received into Rome, and not Rome into Christianity. He therefore sees the transformation of the worldview as the task of the missionary in the 21st century.

Possible Explanations for Marginal Conversion Reflecting on the phenomenon of marginal conversions in Africa, Schwartz (2009) offers three possible reasons to explain why things must have gone this way in Africa. In the first place, he believes that some people converted because they were offered Christianity as a religion that grants its members free salvation without the cost of discipleship. In the case of the Dagara, a typical case of such a conversion is that of Mr. Dieodeblo who saw his conversion to Christianity as a liberation from the numerous kontomε (nature spirits) and tibε (shrine institutions) he had inherited and the demands these beings were making on him (Tengan, 2000: 136). He believed Christianity to be a cheaper and less demanding religion. One wonders what his decision would have been if he had been made to understand the full import of the cross and the cost of discipleship. Secondly, Schwartz argues that if conversion to Christianity was presented as a means of social upliftment or development, it did not make the convert see the import of the relationship that he was to build up with the person of Jesus. In this way, religion was only seen as a means to an end not as a life-long commitment to a person and his cause. Once the given end is achieved be it some material gain or a social status, religion loses its relevance. Thirdly, Schwartz notes that some early missionaries had a negative attitude to culture. They regarded all the beliefs and realities of the traditional religion to be ‘useless things’ that one had to discard to become a Christian. In this case, they urged the convert to live outside his culture even if on the unconscious level, he continued to be part of that world. As the convert continued to look to his traditional religion for answers to the fundamental questions relating to life and death his conversion to Christianity remained at the surface level without affecting the depths of his being. In conclusion, one can say that conversion was neither seen as a lifelong process of commitment to a person nor was it placed within the context of the culture which defined and determined the people’s lives. In as far as culture defines humans and remains the context of their daily living and decision-making, no meaningful conversion can take place 139

Conversion and Transformation of Worldviews

outside culture. Indeed, true conversion is at the same time a personal and cultural transformation. That is why we need to examine more closely the relationship between conversion and culture.

Conversion and Culture In the history of the church in Africa, converts to Christianity have experienced a shift in their understanding of the relationship between culture and conversion. Before Vatican II, culture was regarded as the creation of the devil. As such African converts were expected to denounce the ‘useless things’ (bonwiiri) of their culture and religion that held them under the sway of the devil and its evil spirits, to embrace the true religion. Even though the converts continued to live in the cultural context of their old religion, he was expected to fight any urge to embrace it. Hence, even linguistic terms, symbols and instruments of their cultural world had to be treated as suspect. Among the Dagara, the terms “tengvula” and “sacrificio” were used to refer to heaven and sacrifice respectively instead of the Dagara terms daparε and bagr maalu. Unfortunately, externally professed rejection of the cultural world is not matched by an accompanying internal conversion. African Christians still live under the spell of the spirits. They also still believed strongly in the diffused mystical power that is available for use by good and bad people alike. This explains the physical and spiritual ailments that befall us which need spiritual healing. African Christians cannot go to a church that urges them to deny these forces for assistance against the latter. As such, they have no option but to take recourse to the numerous indigenous churches which take these forces seriously. After Vatican II, when the church adopted a more positive view of culture, it was believed that every culture presented some positive elements which could be seen as ‘seeds of the gospel’. Given that culture is the creation of humans who are created in God’s image, culture must therefore bear something of the goodness of God. It behoves on the Christian to identify these good elements and seek to adapt them to the new religion. This shift in attitude led to the use of certain cultural terms and music in the Christian religion. Among the Dagara, tengvula and sacrificio were dropped for the cultural terms daparε and bagr maalu. However, this attitude had its own demerit. For, in adapting these terms and practices into Christianity, one was at the same time importing the underlying worldview that lent meaning to these terms and practices into Christianity. This ran the danger of creating a syncretistic religion. For example, the Dagara translation of the Christian sacrifice by the term Krista Bagr is laden with difficulties. The term bagr when seen in its various contexts such as maale bagr (perform a bagr ritual), nyog bagr (join a bagr society ritual), bagr yi fo na (you have bagr 140

Edward Tengan

symptoms) refers more to some mysterious incomprehensible event or condition that one should avert or attend to in order to continue to live in harmony with one’s self and/or environment. In this context, the term bagr lile often refers more appropriately to a divinatory chicken than a sacrificial chicken. As such, it is completely out of context, as far as Christianity is concerned, to sing that ‘bagr lile de na’ (the sacrificial has been accepted) at consecration as if to say the sacrificial chicken has been accepted by the father. In the Dagara religion, the bagr lile (the bagr chicken) is only used to find out the mind of the ancestors after which one may then be told the sort of sacrifice one is to make. This goes to say that a total adaptation of a cultural act or symbol into the Christian religion without sifting it of its underpinning beliefs can lead to misinterpretation and misunderstanding. Besides these two attitudes of total denial and adaptive continuity, Van der Walt (2008) rightly points to a third attitude that Christianity can take towards culture. He refers to it as one of relative continuity in radical discontinuity. This attitude argues for the fact that people are saved in their culture. As such Christianity must address them in words and symbols that are familiar to them. It must also be seen to be responding to their most fundamental questions of life. It is this attitude to culture that Dery epitomized in his emblem by the symbols of the house without the cross and one with the cross. Explaining the two houses in his coat of arms, Dery (2001:87) Figure 1: The Coat of Arms of Dery Depicting noted that: the Two Houses

141

Conversion and Transformation of Worldviews

A critical observer will notice that the house on the right has nothing on it whilst the house on the left has a cross. I see my vocation as bishop as a call, addressed to me by the Lord, to continue the work of the apostles in building up his family, the new family of the children of God. But to build up this new family, I am expected to use the old material. As an apostle of Jesus Christ, I must help transform the old material (...) into the new people of God. Hence, in my apostolate, I must bear in mind not to destroy the treasures that are of value in the old house. Rather, I should keep and use them in the construction of the new family so that the people of the old house who have to leave certain things that are unacceptable to the Gospel, will still identify themselves in their new house and feel at home in it. When this is adequately done, people, coming from the old house into the new immediately recognize themselves in it. They see in the new house things that they have always cherished. Looking around in the new house and seeing these things, even if they are present in a transformed state, they will say: “We were afraid we were leaving our values behind but here they are in our new house even in a better state than we could ever imagine”. In this case, they will experience their belongingness to the new house. They will not feel themselves to be strangers in the new house.

Dery saw his conversion and his apostolate to convert others as a continual process of transformation of the old into the new. As such, he believed in inculturation through transformation; a transformation that should go to the very depth of the people’s being and culture. This is what Hiebert (2002) refers to as the transformation of the worldview without which we would be caught up in Christo-paganism. In order not to fall prey to christo-paganism, missionaries in Africa are urged to see conversion both as a personal transformation and a transformation of the worldview, the arena in which the drama of our Christian life is lived out.

Worldview and conversion Hiebert argues that in the 19th century, missionaries looked for changes in behavior and rituals as sings of conversion. Hence, people were expected to give up certain practices as a mark of their conversion. However, it was soon realized that such changes did not necessarily mean an change in their underlying beliefs. People could accept some behavior change in order to get a job or win some favour from the missionary without necessarily sharing in his Christian beliefs. This led missionaries to insist on the need for a transformation of the people’s beliefs. True knowledge of the creedal formulas of the new religion became a hallmark of true conversion. But here again, it must be noted that, people can use the same words and mean different things. For 142

Edward Tengan

example, a person can explicitly state his belief in one God but the reality understood by this God could be different for different people. This is because the each person is influenced by the deeper level of culture which lends meaning to and shapes the categories they use. It is for this reason that Hiebert (2002) notes that If their (christians’ behavior is based primarily on tradition and not Christian beliefs, it becomes dead ritual. Conversion must involve a transformation of beliefs, but if it is only a change of beliefs, it is false faith (James 2). Conversion may include a change in behavior, but if the worldview is not transformed, in the long run, the Gospel is subverted and the result is a syncretistic Christo-paganism (...). If behavior change was the focus of the nineteenth century mission movement, and changed beliefs the focus of the twentieth century, transforming worldviews must be central to the mission task in the twenty-first century (p. 11).

What then do we understand by worldview? According to Luzbetak (1989) A worldview represents the deepest questions one might ask about the world and life and about the corresponding orientation that one should take toward them. More concretely, the worldview provides answers to such basic questions as: Who am I? Why am I in the world? What is reality? how do humans differ from non-humans (...). Who belongs to the invisible world and what are the invisible forces in the world? What is the proper orientation to time and space? What about life after death? What in this life is desirable or undesirable and to what degree? (p. 252).

In the same vein, Tengan (1991) notes: A people’s worldview is always a culturally constructed world. As such, it results from the double dialogue among humans and between the latter and their natural milieu. Nevertheless, its adherents regard is as given in nature, that is, the natural way the world is actually ordered. In this wise it is taken as the model for structuring their society. It is also seen as the foundation for their ethical and moral norms. As a design for living, such a cosmological vision is thus held sacred by members of the society. A challenge to it would mean shaking the very foundations on which their social structure, ethical values and notions of personal identity are based (p. 2).

Worldview thus refers to the unconscious culturally constructed representation of reality, the beings in it and their interrelationships which serves as a blue print for people’s beliefs about the world and the way they are to behave in order to achieve their end. On the cognitive level, the worldview gives a rational justification for a people’s beliefs and creedal systems. It also offers them emotional security, validates their deepest cultural norms and integrates the culture into one overall design. Hence, for enduring behavior change, one must 143

Conversion and Transformation of Worldviews

go beyond the cognitive and affective to the deeper cultural level by working for a transformation on the level of the worldview. Table 1: Dagara and Christian Worldviews Reality Supreme Being Deities Spirit Beings & Diffused Power Human Beings Space and Time Afterlife

Dagara Worldview Creator God Land/Rain (sustenance) Medicinal and Other cults for extraordinary feats/protection Diviners, witchcraft (good and Bad) 4-eyed Ordinary humans Interpenetration of visible and invisible spaces, Good and Bad, diffused with power Heaven (Dapare); Continued existence within the family; same chores as before (cf. funeral rites and dirges)

Christian/Biblical Worldview Triune God -

All are created in the image of God and are thus equal Continuum, amoral Heaven: Transformed life with the Father

True conversion from the traditional to the Christian religion must involve essentially a paradigm shift from the Dagara vision of reality to the biblical one. Central to conversion is the notion of repentance, that is, the turning away from the evil in the culture which is the result of our sinful nature. Mulenga (2010: 163) quotes Hiebert as saying that ‘repentance and transformation (behavior change) are two different sides of the same coin. In a word, then, biblical transformation presumes and anticipates repentance’. In this vein, sincere inculturation implies the willingness to shed those elements of one’s culture which are contrary to the Christian values whilst infusing those good elements of the culture with the Christian spirit and content. In order to arrive at such a transformation in worldview, Hiebert suggests that, in as far as worldviews are often subliminal and unconscious, we must start by ‘surfacing’ them. In this way, we make explicit its underlying presuppositions, evaluations and allegiances. Secondly, the elements of the worldview so exposed must be subsumed to critical examination. Granted the difficulty of getting outside one’s own worldview to examine it from the outsider’s perspective, the role of the missionary as an outsider remains vital at this stage. It is only after one has gone through this process of critical examination against the background of other worldviews that one is ready to work towards a worldview transformation from the biblical perspective.

144

Edward Tengan

Dagara Conversion and Need for Worldview Transformation Hiebert’s assertion that the transformation of the worldview is the main thrust the mission in the 21st century is a challenge to the Dagara. No doubt, the church has brought development to Dagara land and this is attested to by the transformation we have undergone in terms of education, health and socio-cultural development. Furthermore, the church has also produced great men and women of faith whose lives, have influenced and continue to shape the lives of others both here in Ghana and beyond. However if conversion is both a personal and a corporate transformation touching on the deep-seated elements of one’s culture, we must admit that, in some areas of our lives, we have not yet been able to place the person of Christ at the centre of our world and its culture. Let me take three examples to illustrate my point. Whilst Dagara profess the triune God as the supreme creator and sustainer of the universe, they continue to hold onto their traditional conception of the spirit world and the diffused mystical power that pervades their universe. If earlier missionaries tried to deny the existence of the spirits and such other beings that wield mystical power in the Dagara universe as witches and so on, contemporary missionaries prefer to gloss over them. The result is that, many Dagara Christians who still hold onto the powers of these beings and their effects in their lives see nothing wrong in going to other churches as they would to their former medicinal and other cults for salvation and assistance. A worldview transformation has never taken place at their baptism and as such, they do not see such acts as a betrayal of the trust they have invested in the personal God whom they are to look up to as their only source of true life and redemption. One old convert to Christianity noted to me that the missionaries were able to convince the Dagara to drop polygamy but when they started to touch on their funeral performances, they met with such a resistance that they had to allow the converts to continue with their traditional funeral practices. Indeed, the Dagara view of death and the rites that accompany the dead have undergone very little transformation even for Christians. The symbols, the symbolic acts and the dirges sung at Christian funerals find their meaning from the traditional worldview. The woman is staged facing the west, where the sun sets, such that she may remember to go home early from farm to prepare supper for her husband. The deceased are also equipped with the tools and implements they need to continue their sex-related roles in their respective families. As such the dead forebears as called upon to receive the deceased whom they are expected to recognize because they have lived out faithfully the 145

Conversion and Transformation of Worldviews

values and injunctions of the given family. It is as if life continues as before. There is no issue of transformation nor is there mention of a Father of all into whose house we all come at death. On the level of the social structure, Dagara still look to their traditional conception of the family and marriage as the yardstick for taking fundamental decisions. Hence, they claim that it is the consecration of the bride price to the ancestors that ‘blesses’ the union and binds the woman in total fidelity to her husband. The role of the woman in the family and the rites she has to undergo at the death of her husband all hinge on this traditional perception which has not been transformed by our Christian faith which professes the equality of the sexes in marriage. In the light of the above, we can see Cardinal Dery as an avant-garde and a visionary whose ideas came too early to be accepted by his contemporaries. In his booklet, Free Wives Freed Women, Cardinal tried precisely to unearth the subliminal Dagara cultural perception of the world, examine it critically and critique it from the perspective of the Christian faith. Unfortunately, this booklet presents ideas that Dagara are not yet ready to admit. I hope that this colloquium will present us the occasion to reflect and continue this legacy of his which served as the beacon for his life and ministry. As Cardinal Dery expressed in his emblem, we are called from our old house into a new house in which we should recognize ourselves in a transformed state. Do we accept the indispensable painful transformation that makes us live authentically as Dagara Christians?

Conclusion In conclusion, though I have tried to apply the issue of cultural transformation to the case of the Dagara, I daresay conversion as a process of transformation is an urgent task for the entire church. In as far as conversion to Christ is a life-long process that is only finally achieved at the end time, there is no point in time that any person or culture can pretend that ‘Christ is at the centre’ of their culture to direct all their decision making as Schwartz would like us to believe. All Christians, be they African or western, are on a journey to total union with Christ and this journey is marked by its high and low moments. In this struggle, we all live in the two worlds, that is, our cultural world and the spiritual world presented to us in Christ. That is why we can say with Paul that we are torn between the world of the flesh and the spiritual one. In this vein, I do not share Shorter’s (1977: 10) view that ‘the African Christian operates with two thought systems at once, and both of them are closed to each other.’ This is an overstatement that does not match the reality on the ground as these two thought-systems have influenced each other in a variety of ways as is normal of any culture contact. Maybe, it is the 146

Edward Tengan

result of such contact that Hiebert sees as a subversion of the gospel which he calls Christo-paganism in as far as it is not judged to be a pure form of Christianity. However, there is no culture that has been so purely informed by the gospel that it presents its members with a pure form of Christianity. In this sense, every inculturated Christianity is by necessity imperfect as it attempts to hold the perfect treasure of the gospel in its earthenware vessel. In this context, Pope Benedict’s call for a new evangelization for the entire church is a call for all Christians and cultures to work against the ‘christo-paganisms’ that plague our Christianity. In the African worldview, the traditional beliefs in spirits and the powers they engender may be seen as the issues they need to be transformed. In the case of the Europeans, they will have to be cured of the diseases of secularism, materialism and individualism as forms of christo-paganism that do not allow Christ to be at the centre. In the end, conversion as transformation of the worldview is a never-ending ongoing process that is urgent for the entire church in the twenty-first century.

References Der, B. G. (1983). Missionary Enterprise in Northern Ghana 1906-1975: A Study in Impact. Accra: University of Ghana, Legon. Dery, P. P. (2001). Memoirs of Most Reverend Peter Poreku Dery: Archbishop Emeritus of Tamale. Tamale: GILLP Press. Dery, P. P. (2003). Free Wives Freed Women: The Effects of the Bride-Price on the Position of Women among the Dagara. Wa: Wa Catholic Press. Hiebert, P. G. (2002). Transforming Worldviews in Mission Focus: Annual Review. Vol. 10, Retrieved 20th June, 2011, from http:www.ambs.edu/files/ documents/news. Hiebert, P. G. (2006). Conversion and Worldview Transformation in International Journal of Frontier Missions. Vol. 14 (2), Retrieved 24th June 2011 from http://www.ijfm.org/PDFs. Horton, R. (1975). On the Rationality of African Conversion: Parts I and II. Africa, 45 (3&4). Horton, R. (1971). African Conversion. Africa, 41 (2). Malony, N., & Southard, S. (eds.). (1992). A Handbook in Religious Conversion. Birmingham: Religious Education Press. Mulenga, C. K. (2010). Changing Risky Behaviour Through Worldview Transformation: A Pastoral Intervention to the Spread of HIV/AIDS in Zambia. Pretoria: University of Pretoria. Naaekeh, A. (2006). Dismantling Fear and Establishing Ethos: Missionary Activity as Persuasion. Journal of Dagaare Studies, Vol. 6. Naameh, P. (1986). The Christianization of the Dagara within the Horizon of the West European Experience Unvesitat Munster, Munster. 147

Conversion and Transformation of Worldviews

Schwartz, G. J. (2009). A Review of Christian Conversion in an African Context. World Mission Associates. Retrieved 18/06/2011 from. http://www. wmausa.org/page.aspx?id=83837. Tengan, E. (1991). The Land as Being and Cosmos: The Institution of the Earth Cult among the Sisala of north-western Ghana. Frankfurt am Main; New York: Peter Lang. Tengan, E. (2000). Dagara Conversion in Terms of Personal Memory. In H. Sten & A. B. Tengan (eds.), Bonds and Boundaries in Northern Ghana and Southern Burkina Faso. Uppsala: Uppsala University Press. Van der Walt, B. J. (2007). Culture, Worldview and Religion: Towards a Biblical-reformational Perspective on Development retrieved 18/06/2011 from http://www.freewebs.com/vanderwaltBJVDWCulture.pdf.

148

Evangelizing the Dagaaba through Bible Translation Then and Now Fabian N. DAPILA UBS Bible Translation Consultant, Accra

Introduction The late Cardinal Dery was already mature and capable of taking independent decisions when the Missionaries of Africa (then called the White Fathers) arrived in what is now the Upper West Region of Ghana, to begin their missionary activities. As an early convert, Cardinal Dery grew with, and went through the changes that the early Church among the Dagaaba experienced. He observed and actively participated in the development of the early Church in the area, first as a lay person and then as part of the clergy and finally as the leader of the Church as a whole. The late Cardinal Dery participated in the administration of the young Dagaaba Church as it grew in the hands of the expatriate clergy, and also when the administration of the young Church was handed over to the native clergy. The late Cardinal Dery therefore served as a bridge in the history of growth of the Church among the Dagaaba. Firstly, he was the bridge between the traditional religious practices of the Dagaaba and Christianity as a whole. If we are to extend this analogy further, he was the bridge between the expatriate clergy and the clergy of the sons of the land. In this second role he steered the young Church through the vagaries of two cultures with both serving as vehicles on which the message of the scripture rode. Both roles in which he linked the expatriates and the local clergy as well as his linkage of the Dagaaba religion and culture to that of missionaries can constitute fertile research areas. However we have chosen to look at the language element as the vehicle of transmitting the Gospel message to the Dagaaba in a form that they can understand. 149

Evangelizing the Dagaaba Through Bible Translation

General Observation of Missionary Approach to Evangelization It is observed that in missionary work, when the missionaries arrive in an area, the first thing they do is to learn the language of the people among whom they intend to work. Invariably, as the missionaries learn the language, they also begin to establish a writing system for the people through the establishment of orthographies and writing styles in the communities which have no established writing systems. This is often done from the background knowledge of the missionaries. If they came from Germany, the orthography of the local community will be German inclined, if Francophone, then the orthography will be French inclined with the many diacritics to go with it. Ewe (Eʋe) and Dagara are respective examples. When the missionaries had successfully identified the various sounds (phonemes) of the language, they represented these sounds using symbols known to them and which technology allowed them for easy representation. If a sound like \ɔ\ was identified but could not be represented by the typewriter, the linguist may choose to represent the identified sound as \o\. The result was fewer vowels and more consonant clusters. After the missionaries had established a writing system, the next major step was to translate the Holy Scriptures into the language in which they are working. For most Protestant Churches, the drive was to give the new converts the whole Bible in their language. They will often begin by translating single books of the New Testament and eventually have a complete New Testament translated. This will give the new converts the full Jesus story. The Protestant missionary will then go on to translate the Old Testament books. On the other hand, the Catholic missionaries had the tendency to translate the Lectionary (consisting of selected scripture passages) into the local language for liturgical purpose. The Bible translation may later be undertaken, or abandoned altogether as unnecessary. The activities of the Missionaries of Africa did not depart from this standing trend. In the 1940s, Fr. John Baptist Durand began compiling a Dagaare dictionary. When he was leaving the God Coast, he handed over the unpublished manuscript to Richard Kuntaa who had helped Fr. Durand with the research. Unfortunately this manuscript was never published until the early 1990s when Msgr. Lawrence Kyemaalo revised and published the manuscript under the title: Dagaara – English Dictionary. The missionaries in the Dagaare speaking area also went on to translate the sacred scriptures into Dagaare. As Catholic missionaries, emphasis was placed on the translation of the Lectionary for use during the 150

Fabian N. Dapila

Liturgy. In the Preface of the Third Cycle readings of the Dagaare Lectionary, Kyemaalo wrote: When the White Fathers started missionary work in this area, they did not teach by mouth only but they put some of what they taught into writing. We are very grateful to the Very Reverend Father John Baptist Durand, who worked zealously on the language. Thanks to him we have the unpublished rudiments of Dagaare Grammar. Those pioneer missionaries were great men. From zero they worked to establish Dagaare orthography. Unfortunately the work was never finished. Thus the spelling of Dagaare words took different forms up to the present day. As we work continuously on the language and with the guidance of men who are experts in linguistics, we have reached some principles which guide us in our writing of Dagaare1.

Again he wrote concerning bible translation: The Bible is a record of the history, life, and experiences of God’s people. It was written thousands of years ago and in languages different from the languages of today. Its various books were written by people of widely different backgrounds and epochs. But they all had one aim: to make mankind know God their Creator and father, and what he has done for them, especially in the person of Jesus Christ His Son whom he sent to be their saviour. As it contains this wonderful message for all men, it is only normal that it be translated into languages spoken by the men of today. Pushed by the desire to bring this message to the Dagaaba in their own language, we have been at pains to translate these parts of the Bible into Dagaare principally for use in the Sunday worship. We do not by any means claim to be authorities in the Dagaare language, nor do we pretend to understand fully all that the Bible says. It is the pastoral need of the people that prompts us to make the attempt of putting these passages into Dagaare. We did not do it on our own authority, but on the authority of the Bishop. We try in this translation to keep as close as we can to the message the Bible wants to give rather than seeking the purity of the language. That is why some sentences may seem queer or sound odd but there we want to keep to the doctrine the Bible wants to convey, V.G., ‘K’O voorong yi’ (give up the spirit); ‘De o tere’ (Betray him). (Kyemaalo p. iii)

He continued in the same line with regard to language difficulties by saying: As Dagaare is not a written language yet, the eyes do not recognize the words at first sight. You may have to read a passage several times, even aloud, to get the meaning. One who is going to read in public should not at-

1

Lawrance Kyemaalo, Yuon poɔ Koseɛre Ngmen-Yelnoore III, 1975, p. i.

151

Evangelizing the Dagaaba Through Bible Translation

tempt reading without having prepared very carefully the text he is going to read. As Rev. Fr. Paul Bamile has well said, this translation is only an interim one and not by any means final. All constructive criticisms as regards the language, spelling and mode of expression are very welcome. We hope this translation will help the preacher to get the message across to his hearers in a meaningful way, and the reader to read the word of God in his own language. For as St. Paul says, “Everything written in the scriptures was written to teach us, in order that we might have hope through the encouragement the scriptures give us2.

We are quoting this at length because it gives us an idea of the method of scripture translation embarked on during Cardinal Dery’s era. The Third Cycle of Sunday readings in Dagaare was published in 1975, the year he was elevated to the post of Archbishop with his seat in Tamale. The bishop who authorized the translation of the Sunday readings would therefore have been Cardinal Dery. From the thought pattern of Msgr. Kyemaalo, we will be able to see how translation was done then and why, and what is to be done now so as to ensure that the Dagaare Bible translation “will help the preacher to get the message across to his hearers in a meaningful way, and the reader to read the word of God in his own language.” This was the primary aim behind Biblical apostolate during the Dery era. It was always the desire of Cardinal Dery to make the liturgy meaningful to his people including the use of Dagaare. However, within the requirements of pre-Vatican Council II which saw Latin as the liturgical language, there was not much he could do without attracting the displeasure of the Vatican. The strict demands of Vatican filtered down to all missionaries who left home to bring the word of God to other people. The missionaries in turned inculcated this discipline into their converts. It was therefore not surprising that the missionaries will be the first obstacle in his quest to make the liturgy understandable to his people in the language they best understand. Cardinal Dery’s approach to inculturation was to begin with the translation of parts of the liturgy which were less sensitive. He began by translating some of the hymns and the litanies into Dagaare, and encouraging them to be used during liturgical services. While this step was hailed by the Dagaaba, the expatriate clergy were not amused3. Commenting on this issue many years later, he wrote: 2 3

Msgr Lawrance Kyemaalo, Yuon poɔ Koseɛre Ngmen-Yelnoore III, 1975, p. iii. Dery, Peter Poreku, Memoirs of Most Rev. Peter Poreku Dery, Archbishop Emeritus of Tamale (Tamale, GILLBT Press, 2001), p. 111.

152

Fabian N. Dapila

In fact, celebrating the Eucharist in a language that the people could not understand is theologically unjustifiable. The Eucharist is the central point of our Christian life. Now, if you wrap it up in a language that is unintelligible to the people, they can only believe in what the priest is saying. But they have no way of understanding what is going on4.

After translating the hymns into Dagaare so that they could help the Dagao pray, his next step was “to make certain adaptations in the liturgy to make it more meaningful.” Dery’s thinking was that even though God understands our stammering he believed that God wishes to relate with all peoples as intelligent beings5. Despite the constant fear of being seen as attempting to adulterate the faith, Cardinal Dery was granted permission to make experiments at adapting the liturgy to the local culture. When the initiative was taken, first by using Dagaare tunes taken from the traditional folk songs for the Latin chants and then gradually introducing Dagaare songs accompanied by the traditional drums and the xylophone, it was not long before the Dagaare Christian could say “Aha, now we can understand this celebration. That is what we should have been doing since long”. With the success of the externalisms such as the adaptation of traditional songs and instruments into the liturgy, Dery introduced the translation of the Bible into the local language “to enable the illiterate folk hear the word of God in their own language”. He had paved the way to make his people “interiorize their faith” and “live their faith authentically”. Unfortunately, the translation of the Holy Scriptures into Dagaare did not go beyond the Lectionary project. A Dagaare Language Committee was formed around 1976 under the supervision of Lawrence Kyemaalo. The aim of the committee was to standardize the writing system of the Dagaare language and to embark on the translation of the Bible into Dagaare. However, no coordinated translation was made to bring the full Bible to the Dagaaba in their language. Cardinal Dery did sponsor some people to attend a United Bible Societies’ training workshop in Burkina Faso, with the aim of promoting Bible translation into Southern Dagaare. Beneficiaries of this workshop included Archbishop (retired) Gregory Kpiebaya and Kyemaalo. Pockets of translation exercises were going on by those who felt the need to have a Bible in Dagaare. However, each did what was right in his own sight. 4 5

Dery, Peter Poreku, Memoirs of Most Rev. Peter Poreku Dery, Archbishop Emeritus of Tamale (Tamale, GILLBT Press, 2001), p. 112. Dery, Peter Poreku, Memoirs of Most Rev. Peter Poreku Dery, Archbishop Emeritus of Tamale (Tamale, GILLBT Press, 2001), p. 112.

153

Evangelizing the Dagaaba Through Bible Translation

A Brief History of Bible Translation among the Dagaaba Some time around 2003, Mr. Justin Frempong and Mr. Sylvester Nkrumah the Language Project Officers of Ghana Institute of Language, Literacy and Bible Translation (GILLBT) went to Archbishop Gregory Kpiebaya (Retired) in Tamale to discuss with him about beginning a Bible translation into Dagaare, since linguistic survey showed that there was scripture need among the Dagaaba. Some Evangelical Dagaare Christians had gone to the office of GILLBT to ask for a Bible in Dagaare. The team was redirected by Archbishop Kpiebaya (retired) to go and see Bishop Paul Bamile, the bishop of Wa Diocese where the Dagaaba were located. The team from GILLBT went to Wa and met with Bishop Bamile and suggested that the translation of the Bible into Dagaare should begin then. It was suggested that a partnership between the Bible Society of Ghana, the Catholic Church and GILLBT should be formed to support the translation project. The delegation from GILLBT was told that the Catholic Church had translated a good portion of the Bible into Dagaare. They were also informed that the Church was preparing for an anniversary celebration the coming year and would be ready to print the New Testament to mark the occasion. Therefore the delegates from GILLBT should wait until after the celebration for them to see the way forward. The delegates saw the response of the Catholic leaders as a polite form of rejection. That ended the GILLBT initiative to begin Bible translation among the Dagaaba6. The New Testament that was prepared for publication to mark the 75th Anniversary of the arrival of the missionaries in the Diocese would eventually be the factor for a more systematic translation of the Bible into Dagaare. The search for a publishing house to print the Dagaare New Testament to mark the 75th Anniversary of the arrival of the missionaries in the area brought the authorities of the Catholic Diocese into contact with the Bible Society of Ghana. They requested the Bible Society of Ghana to publish their draft translation. It therefore became necessary to check the quality of the draft translation. As a mother tongue speaker of Dagaare, the author of this article came from Nairobi in August of 2004 to go through the draft to assert its quality. The problems encountered led to the beginning of the Dagaare First Bible Project. We shall revisit these problems later on in this paper. In the meantime, GILLBT and other Bible translation agencies were translating the Bible into Birifor (2006, GILLBT), Lo Wulli (SIL in Burkina 6

This information is from an email communication with Justin Frempong, former language coordinator for GILLBT.

154

Fabian N. Dapila

Faso), and Waalii (Baptist Mission)7. The Bible Society of Burkina Faso (2004, Alliance Biblique du Burkina Faso) was also doing a translation into Dagara. Southern Dagara or Dagaare remained isolated.

Background to Bible Translations As it has been observed by the early Christians among the Dagaaba, the messages of the sacred scriptures were first delivered by a wide variety of messengers with variant cultural backgrounds. They delivered their messages in different time periods, with specific target audiences. The messengers of God used the culture of the people to deliver the messages they received such that they could communicate effectively to the target audience. The messages aroused the emotions of the target audiences, causing them to be angry, sad, sorrowful, joyful, and in some cases even caused laughter. The translation of scriptures into other languages became necessary when the message of the Bible began spreading out of its initial cultural milieu. The aim of the early translators and for that matter all translators, was to transfer the message of the source language into the language of the recipient such that the message caused the same emotional stir as it did among the original hearers. Translation is therefore the retelling of the message of the source text using the language structure of the target audience such that the new recipients will feel at home with the message as if the message was first proclaimed in their language. The Dagaaba should hear the message of the Gospel as if Jesus was a Dagao speaking to the Dagaaba. The words of the original message are relevant in the original language, but may be meaningless in the target language if translated literally. The aim of translation is to be as natural as possible with the goal of delivering the message, not the words. The principles that guide translators to do good translations which really transfer the meaning from the source language to the target or receptor language include the idea of being accurate and faithful to the source text. Accuracy in translation does not mean mapping every word in the source language to its equivalent in the target language, nor does 7

When the early Baptist missionaries arrived in Wa, they felt that the Word of God would not have much impact on the lives of the Christian in the region if they did not have the scriptures in their hands. The Baptist therefore began by developing literacy primers in Waalii to teach the people how to read in their own language. The primers were followed by the translation of portions of scripture into Waalii. Around 1970, the Baptist began the translation of the New Testament in Waalii which was completed around 1984. The Old Testament translation also started 1996 and was completed 2006 and printed in 2009. Rev. Samuel Seidu and Boyer were the translators of the New Testament, while the Old Testament was translated by Mr Hamidu Insa, Solomon Dansie and Boyer.

155

Evangelizing the Dagaaba Through Bible Translation

it mean having the same number of words in the target language as in the source text. Such a translation will be an interlinear of the source text and will not be meaningful to the target audience. Accuracy in translation means retelling the exact meaning as is in the source text. This principle often requires that if the source text is evasive or ambiguous, the translation should also be evasive or ambiguous. The translator is not also expected to add extra information to the source text or leave out any information for that matter. If Peter’s mother-in-law was down with fever, do not say she had malaria. If St. Paul says the weak in faith should eat vegetables, do not translate the verse to say the weak in faith should not eat beŋ vaare (bean leaves). Be faithful to the text you are translating. Another guiding principle to translation is that the translation should be natural. In other words, the wording should conform to the structure and categories of the receiving language, as well as the use of the idiomatic expressions of the recipient language. There should be no “queer” constructions, and there should be no borrowing of words from other languages when the language has its own words for the item concerned. Finally, a good translation must be clear in the meaning it transmits such that any reader within the targeted group would have no doubt as to what the meaning of a word or phrase is, when read. Many factors can contribute to a translation not being clear to the target audience. If the translation introduces foreign or borrowed words into the translation, these words will make a translation unclear. The introduction of a foreign word in a translation is like introducing a lacuna into the translation. Since the target audience does not know the meaning of the word, the space occupied by the foreign word serves as a gap in the text. When the reader gets to such a word, they may pause to try and understand the meaning. If they fail to understand, they may fill the gap with what they think the word or term means and continue reading with the hope that they will come to an understanding through the context. If while struggling to gain understanding of the text the reader should encounter another foreign word, (another hole or lacuna), it will be harder for the reader to be able to understand the text thereafter. In languages where there are tones, the meaning of one word may defer from another depending on whether the voice is raised or lowered. If not guided, the reader may go the wrong way by giving the text a completely different understanding. We cannot always rely on the context for help. The reader will need to be guided in such a situation, so as to enable the reader to get the meaning the translation is intending to communicate. The approach adopted by the translators may also contribute to the lack of clarity in a translation. To do a translation which is close to the 156

Fabian N. Dapila

forms and structures of the source language to the neglect of the forms and structures of the target language, will make the translation unclear in the target language. The Revised Standard Version (RSV) and all other formal translations including the King James Version (KJV) and the New International Version (NIV) are often difficult to understand because they are closer to the Hebrew and Greek forms than that of the English language.

Stages of Bible Translation Due to the great need to ensure that the translation of a Bible into a local language is of the highest quality, certain steps are put in place to check the quality at each level. The stages a Bible translation goes through include:

Preparation The translator studies the source text carefully to discover the meaning accurately. He studies different Bible versions and also consults commentaries

First Draft The translator then makes the first draft translation

Team Check Other members of the translation team (e.g., other translators, advisors) study the first draft and make their comments and suggestions.

Second Draft The first draft is then polished and revised, and a second draft is produced and duplicated

Reviewers At this stage, copies of the translation are then sent out to the Reviewers. The reviewers make their comments and suggestions and send these back to the translators.

Testing The translation is also widely tested with other speakers of the language to see whether it is understood by them.

Consultant Checking The translation team will also check the translation with a Translation Consultant who will help check it for accuracy with the meaning of the original text. 157

Evangelizing the Dagaaba Through Bible Translation

Revised Draft The translation team studies the suggestions from the suggestions from the reviewers and the result of the testing. They decide which suggestion should be followed and make the revised draft.

Further Checking At this stage, the revised draft may, if necessary, be tested and checked again by reviewers. This is advisable if a lot of changes have been made in the first draft.

Final Stage At this stage there is final checking and proofreading before printing.

Other Limitations Furthermore, to ensure that the translator does not rush through the translation and do less exegesis which will lead to a poor quality translation, the number of verses to be translated per day is also limited based on the degree of difficulty of the book to be drafted. The Book of Genesis which is more of a narrative and much easier is not as difficult as the book of Psalms which is mainly poetry with a lot more imagery. As such a translator will be required to translate twelve (12) verses a day when drafting the book of Genesis, but will have to do eight (8) verses per day when it comes to the book of Psalms. As a result, a regular Bible without the books of the Deuterocanon (DC) will take twelve (12) years to complete – four years for the New Testament, and eight years for the Old Testament. Another three years will be required to translate and publish the DC books. Bible Translation is labour intensive and requires skills, dedication and time. The structures that have to be in place to produce a good Bible translation that the target audience will understand include the setting up of a translation team of two or three who will do the day to day drafting of the Bible into the local language. The appointment of the translators should reflect the Church representation in the language area. Unless the translation in geared towards a specific Church, as many Church representation as possible should be reflected in the translation project as a whole. The translators should be full time workers, with a well equipped office space for the translation work. The qualifications of the translators should include: 1. Minimum of a Diploma in Theology or its equivalent from a recognized theological institution. 2. Good knowledge of Greek and/or Hebrew is an added advantage.

158

Fabian N. Dapila

3. A mother-tongue speaker with a good knowledge of speaking and writing the language being translated. 4. Minimum of twenty-eight (28) years of age. 5. Mature and committed Christian in good standing with their Church.

The Bible translation project must also include reviewers who review the work of the translators and offer comments and suggestions that will help improve the quality of the translated Bible. A minimum of ten (10) reviewers are required and their selection should reflect the church representation, the dialects and the age groups in the target area. Finally, the translation project must have a management team consisting of the leaders or representatives of the leaders of the major Churches in the language area. Their responsibility will be to ensure that the translation meets the taste of their congregations and monitor the activities of the translation team and the reviewers.

Bible Translation Then and Now The early missionaries to the Dagaaba land saw the need for scriptures to be translated into Dagaare. However, they did not put in place the structures that would allow them to make a Bible translation that will communicate accurately to the Dagaaba, the message of Christianity. The writing system was not standardized and even though the orthography was established, it was not stable either. When the language committee was set up in the late 1970s, the aim was to stabilize the orthography and establish a unified writing system. However the influence of the French-guided orthography of Dagara in Burkina Faso did not make the problem easier to solve. Whereas Dagara had nine (9) vowels and thirty (30) consonants, Dagaare still worked with five (5) vowels and twenty-two (22) consonants. The linguists among the Dagaaba identified two more vowels /ɛ:Ɛ/ and /ɔ:Ɔ/ but the handicap of the typewriter restricted them to stay with the five vowels. The consonant cluster of /ng/ was used to represent the nasal /ŋ:Ŋ/. The presence of dialects in the language did not make the writing system any easier to harmonize. There was no consensus on which dialect should be adopted for the writing even though the central dialect a good reflection of both the northern and southern dialects. Most writings tended to go with the dialect of the author, a problem which surfaced in the anniversary New Testament compiled in the early 2000s.

159

Evangelizing the Dagaaba Through Bible Translation Dagaare

Dagara a/A á Á à À ã Ã b/B ɓ/Ɓ c/C d/D e/E é É è È ẽ Ẽ ɛ/Ɛ ɛ́ Ɛ́ ɛ̀ Ɛ̀ ɛ̃ Ɛ̃ f/F g/G gb Gb h/H ‘h ‘H i/I í Í ì Ì ĩ Ĩ ɩ/Ɩ ɩ́ Ɩ́ ɩ̀ Ɩ̀ ɩ ̃ Ɩ ̃ j/J k/K kp Kp l/L ‘l ‘L m/M n/N ny Ny ŋ/Ŋ ŋm Ŋm o/O ó Ó ò Ò õ Õ ɔ/Ɔ ɔ́ Ɔ́ ɔ̀ Ɔ̀ ɔ̃ Ɔ̃ p/P r/R s/S t/T u/U ú Ú ù Ù ũ Ũ ʋ/Ʋ ʋ́ Ʋ́ ʋ̀ Ʋ̀ ʋ̃ Ʋ̃ v/V w/W ‘w ‘W x/X y/Y ƴ/Ƴ z/Z

a/A b/B d/D e/E ɛ/Ɛ f/F g/G gb Gb h/H i/I k/K kp Kp ky Ky l/L m/M n/N ny Ny ŋ/Ŋ o/O ɔ/Ɔ p/P r/R s/S t/T u/U v/V w/W y/Y z/Z

Dagaare is a tonal language which mean that the meaning of certain words depend on the raising or lowering of the voice. The context in which the word is used can often help the ready to know whether to raise or lower the voice. It is often helpful to readers when these tones are marked to warn the reader to raise or lower the voice as they read so as to communicate effectively to the listening audience. However, the Linguistic Association of Ghana has indicated that for reasons of simplicity, tones should not be marked. This means that the reader would 160

Fabian N. Dapila

have miscommunicated before the error is realized and rectified. Some of such errors may be embarrassing. Whereas Dagara marked toned to guide the reader, this was lacking in Dagaare. As such communicating the wrong meaning was common when a text was read. It is for this reason that the warning is sounded in the Preface of the Dagaare Lectionary (I) that “As Dagaare is not a written language yet the eyes do not recognize the words at first sight. You may have to read a passage several times, even aloud, to get the meaning. One who is going to read in public should not attempt reading without having prepared very carefully the text he is going to read.” This warning would have been unnecessary if tones were marked. The translation of the Bible, either entire books or selected texts, was done by many people with different levels of training in translation and the use of the biblical languages of Hebrew and Greek. The criteria for being a translator then seem to be based on knowledge of Dagaare and interest in the translation exercise. There was not much coordination of the translators with the result that no standardized source text was determined and recommended for use by all translators. Each translator therefore used the Bible that was either available to them or easier for them to understand. Some used the Good News Bible, others the Revised Standard Version and a third group used the Jerusalem Bible. With so many versions in use without a common base text, the result is a free style translation with its associated problems of preaching, unnecessary additions and missing verses. The result was that the New Testament that was to be published to mark the arrival of the missionaries in the area reflected major problems.

Inconsistencies There were many inconsistencies in spelling and writing systems due to the many translators involved in the translation process. Proper names and place names were inconsistently rendered. Jerusalem, for example, is differently rendered as: Gyerusalem, Gyɛruzalɛm, Jeruzalem and many other forms. Eight different ways for rendering Egypt came out. Much harmonization exercise was still needed. There was also the need to harmonize parallel texts within the synoptic gospels. The preaching of John the Baptist which is almost the same in Matthew and Luke (one word difference in the passage of about 33 words) were vastly different in the Dagaare New Testament. There was also the need to harmonize numbers such as plurals and singulars which most often did not agree. For example, it is common to see constructions such as “kobo turpie” (literally, ten thousand penny) “Hɛrɔd ane a Gyeruzalɛm deme zaa pulaa da teɛ la”, “zommo (….) yoo o noɔre” (literally, “fishes (…) open its mouth”). 161

Evangelizing the Dagaaba Through Bible Translation

Archaism Some archaisms were introduced that required explanations in the form of footnotes. For example, John the Baptist wore a Kpagre (Mt) around his waist and Mary is described as a Bitoroo (Mt). A greater percentage of Dagaare-speakers will know the meanings of such archaic words. In line with this problem were words and expressions not popular across the Dagaare speaking area

Loan Words There were many foreign words which needed to be thought through and replaced with Dagaare terms or described to transfer the meaning required. Words such as “turali” (Mt 2:11), “see” “barika” (Hausa words?), solgyɛ, masengɛre (English transliterations) and many others. The book of Revelation in particular suffered more in this respect. Biblical weights and measures were not harmonized. Many minerals and precious stones and fauna as well as flora were left as spelt in English. Words such cinnamon, turquoise, carnelian, Sapphire, emerald etc. are not properly handled (see Revelation 21). The language does not have consonants such as “c”, “q”, and “x” but were all used because the English language rendered them so.

Inaccuracies The major setback was the problem of inaccurate translations. The translators were “preaching” rather than translating, that is the transferring the message of the text from one language to another. The translators were not able to recognize biblical figures of speech such as metaphors, euphemisms, rhetorical questions etc., and thus rendered all such figures of speech literally, thereby rendering the message of the biblical text as no message. The different professions in the New Testament were not clearly differentiated. All Roman army officers are rendered as “Solgyɛ kpoŋ” (senior soldiers) irrespective of whether they are centurions, or are in charge of cohorts, legions, etc. These distinctions are important.

Genre Originally rendered poetic passages were rendered in prose thereby changing the genre of the Biblical text as if to suggest that there is no poetry in Dagaare.

Further Progress: The Bible Society of Ghana When the Church authorities approached the Bible Society of Ghana to start a translation of the Bible into Dagaare, the Society set up a team to conduct a sociolinguistic survey in the area to determine: 162

Fabian N. Dapila

• The kind of churches people belong to. • The native language of people in the communities. • The existence of educational institutions and facilities within reach of communities • How do people say certain words in Dagaare language? (wordlists) • How do people relate to their neighbours in other villages? • Are the people happy to use bibles written in different languages other than theirs? • Would the people be happy to use a bible written in their own Dagaare language? • What language do the people speak in their homes, schools, community meetings and in front of their elders? • Attitude of people on their mother tongue • The different dialects of the Dagaare language • Type of languages used at different functions, occasions, meetings and ceremonies. • Existing literacy programs in the study district8.

The survey was complete which confirmed some positions that were held in the past. The survey confirmed that there were many Christian denominations in the area, with the Catholic Church as the major Church. It also confirmed the existence of dialects in the language and also established that the central dialect could be used to communicate with the two dialects to the north and to the south. More importantly, the survey confirmed the need for the Bible to be translated into the Dagaare language. All the Churches in the Dagaare language area were invited to submit representatives who were to be screened to select the translation team. Nine candidates representing the Roman Catholic Church, the Assemblies of God, Fountain Gate, Protestant Churches, Living Faith, Church of Pentecost and the Methodist Church. Out of the nine candidates, a team of three (3) translators were appointed consisting of a Catholic (representing the northern dialect), Assemblies of God member (representing the central dialect) and a Protestant/Baptist (representing the southern dialect). The team is backed by a twenty member committee of reviewers selected from across the three dialects and Churches in the language area with five (5) from the Catholic Church, four (4) from the Assemblies of God, three (3) from the Baptist Church, and the rest from other denomination of Christian Churches within the area. The reviewers are mostly educationists teaching Dagaare as a subject and who are active members 8

Pius Agyekum and Thomas Gyedu, “Sociolinguistic Report on the Dagaare Language” (2006, p. 4).

163

Evangelizing the Dagaaba Through Bible Translation

in their various Churches. They reflect the major dialects of Dagaare as they are drawn from across Nandom to Pisi. Both the translators and the reviewers have been trained in the principles of translation with the translators receiving more in depth training in translation and Dagaare Linguistics. While the reviewers are volunteers, the translators are full time employees of the Bible Society of Ghana with an office in the Building of National Culture and Tourism on the Wa-Kaleo Road. They are equipped with computers and software that helps in their translation exercise. Helps such as Biblical commentaries, Exegetical notes and other Bibles are part of the software they are using to help them produce a high quality Bible in Dagaare for the people of the area. Below is a comparative text between the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), the Dagaare Lectionary Translation and the Dagaare First Bible Translation project. The NRSV is the source language translation used by the Dagaare translators since it is a literal translation of the Hebrew and Greek text and reflects the structure and idiomatic expressions of the Hebrew and Greek languages. It is considered to be a really close substitution of the Hebrew and Greek texts of which the translators have no expertise. NEW REVISED STANDARD VERSION (Mk 16:1-8) \v 1 When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. \v 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. \v 3 They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” \v 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. \v 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe,

DAGAARE LECTIONARY TRANSLATION (Mk 16:1-8) A Sabbat nang da wa te tɔle, Maria Magdalena, ane James ma Maria ane Salome da da la turale ka ba gaa te zɛ a Yezu engɛ. A koseraa bebi dendeng soba bebi pipi, ba da gaa l’a yaa zie; ba da yele korɛɛ taa: “Ang nã billi a kuuri a yaa noɔre bare te? Ba nang e ka ba kaara, ba nyɛ l’a kuuri nang da waa kpong yaga zaa k’o billi yi gang. Ba nang da kpɛ ba nyɛ la pɔlle kang nang zeng a dolong seng, a su kpar pelaa. Dabeɛ̃ da kpɛ ba la yaga. K’a pɔlle yeli ba: Yɛ ta zoro dabeɛ,̃ Yezu Nazaret bie ba nang da kpa a dagaraa zu la ka yɛ boɔrɔ; O leɛiree la, O ba kye kyɛ. Yɛ wa nyɛ a zie

164

DAGAARE FIRST BIBLE TRANSLATION (Mk 16:1-8) \v 1 A pɛnnoo bebiri daare naŋ da wa di yi baare, Mareya Magdalina, ane Mareya a Gyimisi ma, ane Salome da da la turaali ka ba te sɔ a Yeezu eŋɛ. \v 2 A koseɛraa bebi-dɛndɛŋ daare bagu-pipi saŋ, ŋmenaa naŋ da wa puro, a pɔgebɔ da iri gaa la a yaa zie. \v 3 Ba da yele korɔ la taa: “Aŋ mɔɔ na billi a kuuri yi a yaa noɔreŋ a ko te?” \v 4 Ba naŋ da wa doɔ ba zuri kaara, ba da nyɛ la a kukpoŋ na naŋ da pɔge a yaa noɔre ka ba billi bare. \v 5 Ba naŋ da wa te kpɛ a yaa poɔ, ba da nyɛ la pɔlbile kaŋ ka o zeŋ a duluŋ seŋ a su kparrepelaa, ka dabeɛ̃ da kpɛ ba yaga zaa. \v 6 Kyɛ ka a pɔlbile

Fabian N. Dapila sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. \v 6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. \v 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” \v 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

ba nang da gaal’O. Ye gaa te yeli ko a O potuuribo ane a Peter, K’O de la yɛ weɛ a gɛrɛ Galilee. Be la ka yɛ nã ny’O a seng O nang da yeli lɛ ko yɛ.” Ka ba yi a yaa poɔ a zo, bonso engmĩĩ ane nɔmãã da nyɔge ba la. A dabeɛ̃ nang da kpɛ ba a yaga lɛ, ba da ba yeli yeli ko neɛ zaa

yeli ko ba: “Yɛ ta zoro dabeɛ;̃ a Yeezu naŋ yi Naazɛrɛ, ka ba da kpa a dagaraa zu la ka yɛ boɔrɔ. O ba kye kyɛ, ba eɛɛ la ka O leɛ-iri yi a kuuni poɔ. Yɛ nyɛ zie ba naŋ da gaale O. \v 7 Kyɛ yɛ gaa te yeli ko a O potuuribo ane Piita, ka O de la yɛ weɛ a gɛrɛ Galili teŋɛ; be la ka yɛ na nyɛ O, a seŋ O naŋ da yeli ko yɛ lɛ.” \v 8 A lɛ la ka ba da zo wa yi a yaa poɔ, bonso, pɔlteɛ ane nɔmaa da kpɛ ba la; ka ba da ba yeli yelzaa ko neɛzaa, dabeɛ̃ naŋ da kpɛ ba zuiŋ.

Bible Translation during Cardinal Dery’s era tended to be close to the source language they were using without much regard to the clarity of the meaning or the structures of the Dagaare Language. Proper names were transliterated without paying much attention to the phonology of Dagaare. The names James, Peter, Galilee and Nazareth are transliterated without considering how the Dagao will naturally pronounce such proper names. Since \J\ is lacking in the Dagaare alphabets, it would have been more appropriate to render them with \Gy\, thus Gyimisi. Similarly, the name Peter often come out as Piita, and since the Dagao does not know much about Galilee, even though the source text does not add the description qualifying it as a territory, it is implied knowledge and the translation should do well to make that explicit – Galilii teŋɛ. The Dagao is most likely not to understand the word “Sabbat.” Such a translation is more “churchy” than anything else and the argument often put forth is that if you attend Church you will know what the word means. The other side of the argument is that if you do not attend Church you will not know the meaning, suggesting that our translations are not meant for non-church goers. Such a translation will strangle evangelization and limit conversion to the already converted. The Dagao will be more comfortable if we render it as “pɛnnoo bebiri daare” (a day of rest) which often calls to mind a day set apart with taboos to guide the activities of the day. Again, the desire to stay close to the source text meant that translation during the Dery era could not be accurate in meaning to the source 165

Evangelizing the Dagaaba Through Bible Translation

text. In most cases, the wrong doctrine was presented. Jesus is presented as having raised Himself from the dead “O leεiree la” as opposed to “ba eɛɛ la ka O leɛ-iri yi a kuuni poɔ.” The teaching is that there was an agent behind the raising of Christ. Similarly the stone covering the tomb was rolled away rather than that it rolled itself away (compare “ka o billi ye” and “ka ba bille bare”). Metaphors and idiomatic expressions are often rendered literally, leaving such passage to convey either the wrong meaning or no meaning at all. Let us look at one such as case in Rom 12:20. NEW REVISED STANDARD VERSION (Rom 12:20) \v 20 No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.”

DAGAARE NT TRANSLATION (Rom 12:20) V20. Azuiŋ a seŋ ba naŋ yeli: ‘Ka kɔŋ wa kpɛ fo dɔndɔma, ko o bondiraa ka o di, ka konnyuuriŋ wa kpɛ fo dɔndɔma ko o koɔ̃ ka o nyu. Bonso, fo eebo ŋa zuiŋ, a vũũ naŋ na le o zu na waa kpoŋ zaa.’

DAGAARE FIRST BIBLE TRANSLATION (Rom 12:20) \v 20 Ai, “Ka kɔŋ wa kpɛ fo dɔndɔnne, ko ba bondirii ka ba di; ka kɔnnyuuri wa kpɛ ba, ko ba koɔ̃ ka ba nyu. Bonso, ka fõõŋ wa erɛ a lɛ, fo na gbɔgrɔ la vũũsaalbie dɔglɔ ba zuriŋ.”*

The corpus of text running from Romans 12:14 down to Romans 12:20 suggest non-retaliation. Paul is labouring to teach the early Christians that they should not take revenge but leave vengeance to God. Rather they should repay evil with good. In that context, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. Paul then used an idiomatic expression common in Greek to say that in so doing, “you will heap burning coals on their heads” meaning, you will put your enemies to shame. Both the earlier and current translators rendered this verse literally, with the earlier translators saying “Bonso, fo eebo ŋa zuiŋ, a vũũ naŋ na le o zu na waa kpoŋ zaa.” This translation, literally rendered, means: “because of this your deed/action, the fire that will fall on him will be really big/great.” The Dagao reader is likely to understand the verse to be saying that because of one’s good deed, the punishment to befall your enemy will be great. In other words, the more good I do to my enemies, the greater will be their punishment from heaven. The message of Paul is completely distorted. The current translators also gave a literal translation, “Bonso, ka fõõŋ wa erɛ a lɛ, fo na gbɔgrɔ la vũũsaalbie dɔglɔ ba zuriŋ,” which means “Because, if you are doing this, you will be preparing live coal fire and putting it on their heads.” Whatever this means, it indicates bringing punishment upon one’s enemies by showing them hospitality. However, the current translators have recognized the meaning of the Greek idiom which is different from the way they rendered it. They therefore brought 166

Fabian N. Dapila

in a footnote to give the meaning the idiom will convey in the Greek language: “A Gbɔge Vũũsaalbie Dɔgle Neɛ Zu: A Giriki mine kɔkɔre poɔ, a yeluu ŋa tɛgɛ la: a eŋ neɛ vi poɔ.” The use of footnotes is a step employed by Bible translators to explain cultural differences that will help readers in the receiving language to understand what the Biblical text mean. However, since many people are not keen in referring to footnotes, the translation would have been richer if the meaning of the idiom was put directly in the verse. This will not be an addition to the verse, but making the Dagao understand the verse the same way the Pauline audience would have understood the expression. Despite the desire to allow the culture of the Dagaaba to serve as vehicle for the transmission of the Gospel message, the translation exercise hesitated in using the culture of the people. Cultural elements were left out in place of foreign and unknown words and expression used in the Greco-Roman world. Let us look at one example. NEW REVISED STANDARD VERSION (Mat 13:31-32) \v 31 He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; \v 32 it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

DAGAARE NT TRANSLATION (Mat 13:31-32) 31. A Yeezu da la lɔɔ la a sekpagre kaŋ ko ba: a dapare naaloŋ manno seŋ ŋa mɔsta biri dɔɔ kaŋ naŋ bore o weɛ poɔ. 32. O sereŋ waa la bile gaŋ a bonboorɔ zaa. Kyɛ o naŋ wa te baa baare, o waa la kpoŋ te gaŋ o taaba zaa, a leɛ teɛ eŋ ulli ka nuuli maŋ wa wuo kyori a ulli zu”.

DAGAARE FIRST BIBLE TRANSLATION (Mat 13:31-32) \v 31 A Yeezu da la lɔɔ la sekpɔgre kaŋ ko ba: “A tenvelaa naaloŋ waa seŋ ŋa tobiri neɛ kaŋ naŋ de bore o weɛ poɔ; \v 32 a tobiri sereŋ waa la a teere zaa poɔ bombi bile, kyɛ ka o naŋ wa te baa baare o maŋ waa la kpoŋ gaŋ a teere zaa, a leɛ teɛ ka nuuli maŋ wa wuo a kyogri o ulli* zu.”

In the parable of the mustard seed the earlier translations transliterated the mustard seed, since it is unknown in the Dagaare culture. However, the topic (the subject which is compared) is the smallness of the seed. This therefore makes the image (the thing which is compared) irrelevant. In other words, the mustard seed is not the important thing in the parable, but its smallness. Therefore, it is important that the idea of the smallness of the seed be emphasized. It therefore ceases to communicate if the emphasis is shifted from the topic to the image as the Dagao cannot picture what “mɔsta biri” (mustard seed) is. The current translators decided to make the topic more important than the image and therefore found a cultural equivalent of the image (tobiri) to which every Dagao can relate. The role of dialects in making a written message understood to all speakers cannot be underestimated. Dagaare as a chain language is 167

Evangelizing the Dagaaba Through Bible Translation

particularly delicate to handle in relation to dialects. As one travels from Nandom down to Pisi some expressions assume the opposite meaning. The expression “ŋmɛtaa” may mean “similarity” in the Nandom area but “fight” as one moves southwards towards Pisi. Bible translation during Cardinal Dery’s era acknowledged the existence of dialects, but could not pin the writing system to one dialect. Currently, the Central dialect (spoken between Jirapa and Nadowle) is the recommended dialect of writing since both the Nandom and Pisi communities can understand what is being meant. However, to provide help for members of all dialects, the current translators footnote expressions that are in the central dialect, but may not be too clear to one community or the other. For example the word “teɛ ullee” (a tree branch) or “teɛ ulli” (tree branches) assumes difference in meaning between communities among the Dagaare speakers. It therefore becomes necessary for the translators to put in a footnote the variant term used in other communities. So they say: “A Dagaaba mine maŋ boɔle la teɛ ullee bee teɛ ulli ka danu bee danuuri.” Any community that uses “danu” will immediately know what “ullee” mean. Such help were not employed by previous translators, but which are now used to make the translation communicate more.

Conclusion It is often pointed out that the Bible is the major sole converter of people to Christianity more than any one priest can ever do. People have read Bible passages on their own and changed their way of life and become Christians because they are able to understand the passage they read. Missionaries throughout history have placed emphasis on the translated word. As soon as the Baptist missionaries arrived among the Dagaaba, they immediately concluded that the people of the area will not change their way of life if the Bible was not put into their hands. They therefore began Bible translation immediately. Bible translation is necessary because God wants to communicate with his people. Unless you can read the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, Bible translation will always be necessary if the converts are to understand what God is telling them. We must therefore be bold to translate such that it communicates with the target audience.

Reference Agyekum, P., & Gyedu, T. (2006). Sociolinguistic Report on the Dagaare Language. Unpublished. Dery, P. P. (2001). Memoirs of Most Reverend Peter Poreku Dery: Arch Bishop Emeritus of Tamale. Tamale: GILLP Press. Kyemaalo, L. (1975). Yuon poɔ Kosere Ngmen-Yelnoore III. Wa: Wa Catholic Press. 168

PART III RENEWING CULTURE, RENEWING RELIGION

Quality Teaching and Education in Northern Ghana The Role of the Church Gregory B. DONGKORE Lecturer, SS Peter and Paul Pastoral Institute, Wa

Introduction Over the past two decades educational standards in Ghana have been falling. While there are many reasons for such developments, it is disheartening to note that politicians and decision makers continue to ignore the underlying causes of the nosedive of educational achievements in Ghana, especially in the rural areas. This paper argues that until educational equity is restored in Ghana, the country as a whole will continue to suffer a deficit of intellectual and economic development. As a developing country we must tap from the best skills of the best of our society. This will not happen if, from the outset, some of our talented children are already precluded from the basic literacy and mathematical skills simply because they happened to be born in rural communities. My personal dream has been informed by Cardinal Dery’s position on education which included the desire to ensure that the rural communities receive adequate education. That is the only way to stem the tide of the rural-to-urban migration that has created the new social phenomenon of street children in urban centres in Ghana. Several proposals have been made on how to improve the educational standards in Ghana. My attention is, however, directed toward the Upper West Region for which research has been very scanty. My preliminary survey and the available literature will indicate that giving rural communities their fair share of qualified teachers is what would reverse the imbalances between the north of Ghana, which has the majority of rural schools, and the south of Ghana which has a preponderance of urban and better schools.

171

Quality Teaching and Education in Northern Ghana

Relevance of Quality Teaching Recent government pronouncements have continued the usual refrain that “the three Northern Regions are victims of deprivation caused by man-made circumstances” (Gambilla 2007 General Ghana News of Thursday, 22nd March). The 2000 Population and Housing Census of Ghana suggests that Ghana’s rural population will grow from 11 million in 2000 to 16 million in 2020 and to 22 million by 2050. This represents an annual growth rate of about 1.4%. Within this period the overall dependency rate is projected to rise markedly (Mba, 2004). What this means for rural education is that the burden of educating the young will continue to weigh heavily on the old men and women who have no social security to draw from. The security of the elderly in the rural communities lies with the young girls and boys who have no future ahead of them because of the poor system of education in these communities. My discussion will centre on: Ensuring quality teaching in rural schools in northern Ghana: the true investment for the future As a developing country, education should be the engine of economic growth and development. Unfortunately for Ghana, we have had to sing the tune of the developed countries that are paying for our education. But the fact is lost on the politicians who try to convince the ordinary citizen that educational reforms will make him/her a better person tomorrow. The latest educational reforms, which occurred in 1989, reinforced the colonial inequities that had been addressed by the first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkurmah. As far as the educational history of Ghana is concerned, there have always been educational inequities. In 1908, four boys from Northern Ghana – then known as the Protectorate of the British Crown – were sent to Cape Coast by the Director of Education. The first school in the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast was established in 1909. At the end of the year the Principal Teacher commended the boys for their willingness to apply themselves to the learning process. “Official policy was not only aimed at educating the ruling classes but an attempt was later made to enrol the sons of serving members of the Northern Territories Constabulary” (Bening, 1978, p. 5). If we consider that western education started in Ghana – then Gold Coast – in 1529 (Wiltgen, 1956, p. 17), then there is a time lapse of about 400 years between the north and southern Ghana. We often hear it said that “time is money”. It is true in educational reckoning in Ghana. It is one of the significant issues of disparity. Southern Ghana had links with western education over three centuries before their northern counterparts. It is, therefore, an illusion to hope that the northern Ghana will ever catch up with the south as far as educational achievement is con172

Gregory B. Dongkore

cerned. The clock of history cannot be wound back. But the need to bridge the educational gap between the rural and urban communities is urgent. Inequalities in educational attainment exist all over the world. The difference between the developed countries and the developing countries is in the will to change and to improve. This is what my research is about. In the north of Ghana the younger men and women in the rural areas who would otherwise go to school constitute the labour force in the urban centres. What do the rural communities get in return? Only the hope that they do not die out before Ghana becomes a developed country. But that begs the question. How is Ghana ever going to develop if the young people are not given the skills and education for national development? The education of rural communities should form part of a strategic development plan for Ghana. Ghana is endowed with many natural resources such as, gold, cocoa, fish, diamonds and many more. However, economic development does not rely on only raw natural resources no matter how abundant they might be. Commenting on the recent discovery of sizeable deposits of crude oil (Ghanaweb, accessed: June 24, 2007) and confirmed by the Ghana National Petroleum Cooperation on July 3, 2007, a leading economist of Ghana, Nii-Moi Thompson (Ghanaweb, July 5, 2007) has questioned the ability of government to manage this natural resource. The doubts of Nii-Moi Thompson regard the ability of the government of Ghana to create the appropriate institutions that will derive maximum benefits from the discovery of oil. It is clear to me that the poverty of Ghana and many developing nations is not caused by lack of resources. It is in this regard that there is the need to set our priorities right. Investment in education is the only way of ensuring that improved skills to propel the nation into a medium income economy. The need for manual labour to explore and exploit the natural resources drove the government to exploit the manual labour from the Northern part of Ghana. It is time to invest in the education of the rural communities in Ghana

Educational Review in Ghana The Situation of Rural Education in Ghana and the role of the Teacher In the review report of the Republic of Ghana submitted to the African Peer Review Commission1 the government stated its policy of a “strate1

The African Peer Review Mechanism was set up by some African States as a measure of keeping leaders accountable to their people. The process which began in 2005 currently comprises 22 member States.

173

Quality Teaching and Education in Northern Ghana

gic plan for education, in the form of the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) programme” (APRM: Ghana, 2005, p. 112). The government of Ghana pledged to provide accessible quality education to all by 2005. In the report, it pledged to improve the quality of teaching and learning, and, “in particular, to enhance educational access and opportunity for females and other disadvantaged groups” (APRM: Ghana, 2005). Many of the disadvantaged groups can be found in the north of Ghana. When asked what ought to be done to attract girls to school, money was not the outstanding issue. Thirty-three percent of respondents said the Northern Scholarship Scheme (NSS)2 should be extended to basic education, while 31.5% think that parents should be educated on the importance of schooling. “It has been confirmed that the educational programme of the Catholic Church has raised the people’s awareness of the value of education to the extent that the educated citizens of the area organize school enrolment promotion activities in the region.” Atakpa concludes that, “it is the importance that the people attach to education which makes the parents to enrol and support their wards in school” (Atakpa, 1996, p. 23). The government of Ghana has publicly declared decentralization and community involvement the educational delivery as a policy of educational administration. By decentralization, the government of Ghana intended to make rural communities partners in their own educational development. Reports show that education delivery in the rural areas has not improved from the time of the new education policies that were started in 1987. On the other hand performance of private schools improved (Acheampong, 2004). According to Pryor and Appiah (2003), decentralization also speaks to the general situation because of the particular nuances of the concept of community in the African context. But in the case of Ghana, “decentralization remains an aspiration rather than recognizable feature of the scene” (Pryor & Appiah, 2004, p. 4). Decentralization is being implemented through policy change, e.g. school management committees and not just through resources provided by the Non governmental Organizations (NGOs). Besides the financial assistance provided, NGOs both in 2

The Northern Scholarship Scheme was a financial support program established by the first president of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Nkurmah to offset the disparities in schooling opportunities that were established by the British colonial government. In the decades following the overthrow of Nkurmah there have been debates over the relevance of the Northern Scholarship Scheme. The research of Atakpa was designed to evaluate the administration and relevance of the scheme and to advise government accordingly.

174

Gregory B. Dongkore

the north and southern Ghana have been instrumental in facilitating community participation (Acheampong, 2004; Pryor, 2004). Pryor and Appiah argued that the failure of rural communities to participate in their own educational development was a result of misunderstanding about the value of education for the rural communities. Accordingly, parents showed apathy toward the schooling of their children. Rural communities saw schooling as a waste of time and resources. As a result of this mentality children are engaged in household chores and therefore do not have enough time for studies. Acheampong on the other hand suggested that there must be a partnership between the rural communities and the school environment (Acheampong, 2004). He proposed that school calendars and curricula respect the activities of these rural communities and accept what the local communities are able to contribute toward the education of their kids. He also thinks that the only way that the schools started by the NGOs can be sustainable when they pull out is to involve the district educational authorities early enough in the NGO projects. According to Acheampong, parents in the rural communities ascribe entirely different reasons for the poor education of their children. For rural communities the bad moral behaviour of the teachers in the rural areas was identified as the reason why the kids were not successful in school. Parents did not also know what was happening in the schools and that gave the chance to the teachers to be irresponsible (Acheampong, 2004). According to Acheampong, what the rural communities need is responsibility, accountability and power. On the other hand, teachers blamed parents for not supervising their children well enough. Acheampong concluded that the tension between the parents and teachers made the local community apathetic to the community schools that should have made them better. For Pryor, successful education is attainable if rural populations see progress and direct measurable benefits of education such as qualification for secondary level education (Pryor, 2005). Accountability and proficiency are values that rural communities ought to be able to demand of educational institutions. Social capital is not recognized or used in the field of education (Pryor, 2005). Although individual families are poor as communities and working in concert, dwellers can accomplish a lot. Training for communities before decentralization is the better approach (Pryor & Appiah, 2003). Pryor believes that community involvement in schooling must go hand in hand with the school involvement in the community. Pryor used the head teacher of Akurase to support his view. He said he observed that initially the head teacher of the Akurase village who was seen as an

175

Quality Teaching and Education in Northern Ghana

outsider by the community, later on, was at the forefront of electrification for the village although he did not come from there originally. Another voice that contributes to the situation of rural education in Ghana is Heady. He examined the effect household chores had on school attendance in Ghana especially in the rural areas. Heady went beyond the examination of school attendance and looked at the relationship between schooling and the employment opportunities for parents. His study showed that the type of work the children did at home was directly related to their achievement in school. Heady concluded that household chores that are not related to academic work impact negatively on educational achievement in the rural areas. He is convinced that further studies would be able to establish what amount and type of work, if any negatively affects educational achievement or the pupil’s motivation (Heady, 2000). Pryor also remarked that as far back as 1965 there were some communities that were able to set up their own schools. This is several years before the government policy of rural participation in education. As partners, rural communities ought to be consulted by teachers and others who make and implement policy in the educational sector and their views taken seriously. In order to improve the situation of rural schools, the government of Ghana has opened its doors to various Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs). In this regard, Acheampong argued that there must be a partnership between the rural communities and the school environment. In his view school calendars and curricula ought to respect the activities of rural communities and accept what the local communities are able to contribute toward the education of their kids. He also thinks that the only way that the schools started by the NGOs can be sustainable when they pull out is to involve the district educational authorities early enough in the NGO projects. Ankomah and others have also looked at several studies, which link the quality of studies to poverty in the deprived areas. These studies show that quality in education is worse in the deprived communities, especially in the rural communities (Ankomah et al., 2005).

Peculiar Conditions of Rural Education in Northern Ghana The northern part of Ghana, which provided most of the labour for building the initial economic infrastructure of the nation, has to sacrifice education to continue to sustain the economy. What are the reasons for the widening educational gap between the rural poor and the urban communities? A study in 1998 conducted by the World Bank indicated that the only parts of Ghana where the level of poverty did not decline were the Upper West and Greater Accra Regions. The study suggests 176

Gregory B. Dongkore

that the increasing percentage of the poor in Accra is due to rural migration to the cities (Mba, 2004). The above observation can be traced back to the formal education in “northern territories”. The history of education in Ghana, suggests that it is not just a question of resources but a lack of will to reverse the systemic imbalances in education in Ghana. Available data point out those current inequities in the Ghanaian educational system already existed the colonial structures as far as the provision of education to the northern regions is concerned. Iddrissu, for example, observed that: The collapse of hopes of finding exploitable minerals, the later failure of mechanized farming, and the decline of the caravan trade… rendered the North an area lacking the resources for development present in the south. The North was rather to serve as a provider of cheap labour for the plantations and mines in the south. There was an overriding need therefore to prevent the acquisition of new ideas, and Islam and its modes of education were viewed as [eminently suited to the native] making them easier to deal with than their compatriots at the Coast (Iddrissu, 2005, p. 5).

The British government set the pace for the subsequent neglect of the north in the provision of education. The first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkurmah tried to redress the educational imbalances between the north and south of Ghana by establishing the Northern Scholarship scheme (Atakpa, 1996). The gains made by the Northern Scholarship scheme were, however, undermined by subsequent educational policy changes. But bad policies for the northern rural communities had serious consequences for the development of Ghana as a whole. Professor Gyan-Baffuor3, in a paper written on the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy, stated that the national average level of poverty is 40%. He went on to say that, “Nine out of ten people in Upper East or 88%; eight out of ten in Upper West or 84%; and seven out of ten people in Northern Region or 69% of their populations lived [sic] below the poverty line” Gyan-Baffuor (2003, p. 2). Professor George Gyan-Baffuor notes that the latest statistics “mask the uneven distribution of poverty across geographical areas in the country.” In his presentation the three northern savannah regions (Upper East, Upper West and Northern Regions) record high levels of poverty. According to Gyan-Baffuor, school drop out rates in the north for boys and girls were 74% and 83% respectively in the 1990s. It would be interesting to find out if there is a correlation between poverty and rate of retention in school in the rural areas. It is my firm belief that govern3

Professor George Gyan-Baffuor was Director-General of the National Development Planning Commission. He is currently the deputy minister of finance and economic planning.

177

Quality Teaching and Education in Northern Ghana

ment is aware of the situation. And one would hope that something is being done about the dropout rate in schools. In the review report of the Republic of Ghana submitted to the African Peer Review Commission4, the government stated clearly a “strategic plan for education, in the form of the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) programme” (APRM: Ghana, 2005, p. 112). What the government had pledged to do was to provide accessible quality education to all by 2005. In the report, it pledged to improve the quality of teaching and learning, and, “in particular, to enhance educational access and opportunity for females and other disadvantaged groups”. According to the study of Atakpa’s (1996) there are large groups of parents who see public education as inferior to the one offered by private schools and Religious institutions. Some parents fear that the schools do not instil good morals and, therefore, will not risk sending their kids to the school environments. They fear, for example, that their girls will not be able to go through school because of the scourge of teenage pregnancies that are so rampant in the schools. 48.2% of respondents in northern Ghana say that parental neglect and traditional and cultural practices account for illiteracy in the rural communities (Atakpa, 1996). For the rural communities, education tends to create a cultural alienation with the traditional society. High dropout rates are often blamed on child labour enforced by parents (54.9%) or peer group influence (48%). A relatively small number of school dropouts (18%) said they lost interest in schooling. Most of these come from the Muslim communities who discourage modern education for their children or who encourage their daughters to marry at a relatively young age. Atakpa also asserts that “the study has shown that in communities where people know the value of schooling, the negative effects of poverty on educational participation are significantly alleviated” (Atakpa, 1996, p. 24). The negative contribution of traditional concepts and values on education are clearly demonstrated in the area of girl education and, therefore, draw the attention of policy makers to the gender imbalance in educational delivery in the rural areas. While the retention rate of girls in school in the south stands at 96% students in the north, which represents the poorest parts of the country, stands at about 42%. Even in the north, it has been shown that in the Upper West Region, where the Catholic religion has been able to educate parents on the

4

The African Peer Review Mechanism was set up by some African leaders to make African leaders accountable to their respective citizenry. The process which began in 2005 at the moment comprises 22 member states.

178

Gregory B. Dongkore

value of education, the retention of girls in school meets the national standards of about 60% (Atakpa, 1996). Alicia Fentiman, Andrew Hall & Donald Bundy (1999) compared different situations of rural education in the south and north of Ghana and they concluded that in the main, there is a higher enrolment and retention rate in our schools in the south than in the north. They observed that there is a correlation between the age of enrolment in school and dropout rate in rural schools. The study also concluded that girls were more disadvantaged than boys in terms of access and attainment – ability to complete school. To help address some of the challenges of rural education Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have established educational programs in Northern Ghana (Acheampong, 2004). Acheampong argued that in order for true sustainability to be achieved in education, there need to be a viable working relationship between government institutions and the NGOs. He also argued that the key to promoting greater participation and commitment among rural communities in basic education is by showing that access to higher education does not conflict with the sociocultural and economic activities of the society. The program has made a significant impact on the levels of education in the deprived communities in northern Ghana. A question remains: how will these rural communities sustain the schools when the NGOs folds up? It is clear that rural communities by themselves cannot keep up the momentum of educational development. These are deprived communities. Acheampong, therefore, argued that the collaboration between the governments of Ghana must start now, to pave the way for a smooth transition from NGO-community partnership to governmentcommunity partnership in providing education for rural communities in northern Ghana (Acheampong, 2004).

Lack of Teachers in Rural Schools in Upper West Region Because the bulk of the economic activities and entertainment industries are concentrated in the urban centres, they also attract the skilled labour from the countryside. While trained teachers from southern Ghana refuse postings to the rural areas in the north, the rural populations lose some of their best teachers to the southern cities. The general news of Friday, May 11, 2007 had this title: 257 Teachers Redundant in Eight Districts. The article drew attention to the phenomenon of overstaffing in 165 public and private primary schools in the central region located in southern Ghana. Around the same time, the general news of May 7, 2007 had this title: Inadequate Infrastructure Hampers Quality Education in Upper West. 179

Quality Teaching and Education in Northern Ghana

At a recent workshop it came to light that, “out of a total of 2,719 trained teachers required for schools in the region there were only 1,659 trained teachers” (Wa, May 7, 2007 GNA). This represents a lack of approximately 40% of qualified teachers in the region. Available comparative data would further reveal the disparities in the provision of quality education between the northern and southern parts of Ghana. From the point of view of the economics of education in Ghana, it is necessary to observe that the bulk of the investment in the educational sector (90%) is spent on the salaries of teachers. Therefore, educational equity will never be attained as long as the majority of those teachers who receive their pay checks migrate to or stay in the South. Recent research and studies sponsored mainly by NGOs and recorded in the Review of Educational Sector Analysis of Ghana, 1987-1998 and beyond have concluded that privatization and decentralization of education has not benefited rural populations. The dependency rate of the rural populations is increasing; families are becoming poorer: land, high aging rate, poor health and death rates in the rural communities have grown despite a nationwide improvement in the healthcare system; child labour and its attendant phenomenon of street children has become a new menace in Ghana; education has become not just expensive but unaffordable for rural communities. On the educational quality continuum Ankomah et al. (2005) identify educational personnel before instructional content and material, educational facilities and educational finance. I could not agree more with him. In the rural communities, educational investment is largely directed toward physical structures. These structures are not used to their full capacity. There is a tendency to mismanage unmovable educational resources such as school buildings and study materials. In as much as these are indispensable for educational development, educational investment should be in activities that benefit the children (Ankomah et al., 2005). It has been demonstrated through the articles, that rural communities are capable of making a difference in educational delivery. What they need and what is lacking is empowerment. This empowerment will come from knowledge of what is being done for them and the benefits that will accrue from schooling. When rural communities are convinced that they alone are the beneficiaries of education participation will follow naturally. Pryor has observed that as far back as 1965 there were some communities that were able to establish their own schools (Pryor, 2004). This was several years before the government policy of rural participation in education. As partners, rural communities ought to be consulted and their views taken seriously by teachers and others who make and implement policy in the educational sector. 180

Gregory B. Dongkore

Research Study In this paper, I assert that in an effort to ensure better educational development in rural communities, government policies have overemphasized the role of physical structures to the detriment of personnel development for rural schools. I want to show that other factors are equally important, if not more important, than the provision of physical school structures. Education is not about physical but functional human and community structures that enhance teaching and learning. Abundant research has shown that the educational changes since 1987 have failed the majority of Ghanaians. The price of such failure is very high: street children and new phenomenon alarming rate of crime in our cities because of rural-urban migration is the result the high rate of school drops that rural schools produce. The urgent question becomes, how do we fix the rural educational system so that the young men and women develop employable skills that can benefit the whole nation? What are the main elements for making education succeed in the rural areas? While I agree with a lot of the literature that physical structures are important to improving the quality of education in rural communities, there is more to be done. My thesis is that the government of Ghana has not been fully committed when it comes to taking the right decisions to improve rural education. The relevant question to ask is, what did the government of Ghana intend, demand or expect when it spoke about participation of rural communities in the provision of education? What do rural communities expect when they demand the involvement of government in rural education?

Method of Research Study Population and sampling strategy My sample was drawn from a population of 600 people in the rural areas in the north of Ghana. I focused my attention on six zones: Nandom, Ko, Hamile, Piina, Fielmua, and Duatang, which form the Nandom traditional area where I was born. The five areas are of differing sizes ranging from 15,000 to 25,000 inhabitants each. These communities can all be described as rural areas since they have minimal social and educational structures compared to other parts of the country. Most people in this part of Ghana are peasant farmers. The survey questionnaire was sent to Ghana through an e-mail attachment and was administered to three groups of people:

181

Quality Teaching and Education in Northern Ghana

1) Young boys and girls of school going age (between 10 and 25 years) who are attending school or who dropped out of school; 2) Teachers (both retired and current) from various schools in the area 3) Parents (both literate and illiterate).

My survey sought to know how the socio-cultural, economic situations and religious faith affect the perception of the government’s role in education in rural communities. Colleagues in Ghana agreed to administer the surveys in their various areas that are identical with six parishes in the Upper West Region. Each zone was given 100 questionnaires. After two weeks the people were reminded about the questionnaires through announcements in Churches and personal contact. By the third week the surveys were gathered in bulk and sent back to a central place to be posted to California. The compiled responses were returned by post. It took approximately 6-8 weeks from the time the questionnaires were mailed to be returned. Because of the risk of loosing the responses by post, I decided that they should be sent to me in batches. I was also advised to make photocopies and leave them in Ghana in case the ones sent to me got lost. After much waiting and anxiety, a parcel of 100 surveys arrived in my post. Due to the peculiar nature of the survey process of gathering the data, I eventually decided to reduce the sample size to 100 surveys. The other responses will be considered in a future study. Fr. Edward Tengan, who holds a degree in anthropology from the University of Birmingham, was my link with the rural communities and coordinator of the survey. I was in contact with Fr. Edward throughout the process survey by telephone conversation and received updates on what was happening. At the time of posting the selected sample, he indicated that the response rate to the survey was between 80% and 90%. It was easy to calculate because each region received 100 questionnaires. Of the surveys that he received, Fr. Edward sent me a random selection of one hundred responses on which my analysis will be based.

Questionnaire and definition of key variables The questionnaire was made up of 44 variables of various categories. Questions 1 and 2 concerned the educational status of the parents of the respondents. A represented literate and B represented illiterate. Questions 3 through 22 dealt with the educational background of the respondent. The questions in these sections sought to know when and where the respondent attended primary, junior and senior secondary school. Question 6, for example, sought to know the highest educational 182

Gregory B. Dongkore

standard in the family while question 11 asked about who encouraged the respondent to go to school. Questions 23 through 29 dealt with employment and the relationship between educational standards and the respondent’s profession. Questions 30, 31, and 32 dealt with educational financing. In asking about the level of poverty of a respondent’s parents, A. represented Very Poor, B. Poor, C. Average, D. Wealthy, and E. Very Wealthy. Question 33 stood on its own. It sought information on the involvement of respondent in school activities in the past year. The issues dealt with in this category were (A-E) attending Parents-Teacher Association (PTA) meetings, organizing fun raisers for school projects, visiting schools, participating in class room activities and arranging learning material for the schools their children attended. Questions 34 through 36 concerned government’s involvement with rural education. Here, the questions sought information on the level of involvement of government in rural education. The levels of measurement of government involvement in rural education were: A. 90-100%, B. 80-89%, C. 70-79%, D 60-69%, E. 50-50%, and F. less than 50%. Questions 43 dealt with gender. Question 44 was concerned with the age of the respondents. On age A. represented 10 years or younger, B. represented 11-20 years, C. represented 21-30 years, D. represented 3140 years, E. represented 41-50 years, and F. represented 51 years or older. Questions 37 through 42 were open-ended questions. They were designed to get some additional information on the perception of the respondents about quality of rural education. However, the open-ended questions are not part of my statistical analysis in this paper. For the sake of the SPSS program and statistical data, A=1, B=2, C=3, D=4, E=5, F. or Other=6. There were some question that required higher and as many alphabets as were required. Because of the peculiar nature of the information we wanted to get we did not use ticket scale questions.

Results Descriptive Statistics: Frequencies My select sample of 100 respondents that I surveyed from the rural communities turned out to be skewed toward the literate population. About 82% of my respondents said they were educated. However, I considered the fact that the respondents are involved with rural education, as we want to define it. By rural communities I am referring to 183

Quality Teaching and Education in Northern Ghana

people who have no access to modern facilities such as electricity or running water. Most of these people are subsistent farmers. Although some of people in these communities are engaged in art work and are artisans, their main source of livelihood is farming. 44 of the selected respondents were male and 42 were female. About 83% of my selected sample described their fathers as illiterate and an even greater number of them (about 94%) described their mothers as illiterate. This gives us a 12% average literacy rate of parents in this section of Northern Ghana that was surveyed. The average national rate of illiteracy in Ghana is quoted as 40%. Therefore, our sample compares unfavourably with the rest of the country. The family background of the respondents was fairly homogeneous. Although most parents of the respondents are illiterate, about 90% of the respondents now have somebody in the family with a college certificate, a university degree or their equivalent. The illiteracy of the rural parents is not an obstacle to higher studies. Indeed, 54% of the respondents said their fathers were the most influential people in their going to school while 26% said their mothers were the most influential persons in their attending school. Regarding educational funding, about 51% did not work to support their education. Looking at the other variables dealing with the options of educational financing in the rural communities, it can be concluded that 50% of the respondents were supported their families through rural income. In all, about 83% of the respondents either supported their own education or they were helped by other resources, the bulk of which came from their parents. It therefore made sense when a greater proportion of respondents identified poverty of rural parents as the main obstacle to rural education. The majority of respondents believe that the government should be 90-100% involved in rural education. What is interesting at this point is this: although most people think that government should be involved in rural education, they don’t believe that the involvement should be primarily about providing infrastructure for rural schools. An equal proportion of the survey population believes that assuring that rural schools have qualified teachers is as important, if not more important than, providing the physical school infrastructure for rural communities. More than half of the population did not give the details of their results at the end of their junior secondary school. Those who answered the question provided a clue as to why people shy away from giving information on academic success or failure. Of those who responded, the medium score is between a B- and C. Although the mode is a B+, the second highest score is a D. This indicates that the scores are mov184

Gregory B. Dongkore

ing toward two extremes. One is either very good or very weak academically in the rural schools. I wonder what this says about quality of teaching in the rural schools! Whatever we want to make of results, only about 23% of students from junior secondary schools would be able to gain admission into good senior secondary schools. And even those who are lucky to advance will face innumerable challenges during their precollege years. Given the poor quality of rural education, it is understandable that 81% of our respondents think that the government should be heavily involved with rural education. However, how the government should be involved was not clear. When asked what should be the most important role of government in rural education, 26% of the respondents think it should be infrastructural development. However, about 32% of the respondents said the more important role of government in rural education should be to assure that rural schools have qualified teachers (cf. table 8). It was surprising that the second highest percentage of respondents (27%) think that the most important thing the government should do for rural education is to educate rural communities about educational policies. Quite related to the above information is the fact that about 40% of the respondents believes that their parents are poor. A greater percentage of respondents thought that their parents’ economic status was average. However, 81% of the respondents thought their parents earned $2,600 or less the last year. About 16% of the respondents said that they thought their parents earned above $2,600 dollars the last year. If we compare this figure with the 59% of the population that thought their parents’ economic status was average, wealthy or very wealthy, we have to conclude that most people living in the rural areas who consider their economic status to be average cannot afford the basic costs of education for their children up to senior secondary school level. Another way of looking at the responses with regard to income variable is that it betrays an unrealistic assessment of rural income levels.

Correlations Given the fact that a significant percentage of the respondents stated that their fathers were the most influential people in their education, I tried to see if the father’s educational status correlated with the level of education of their children. What I found out was expected. There is indeed a statistically significant correlation between the education of parents in the rural areas (in this case the father) and the educational level of their children. There is also a significant relationship at the 0.01 level (0.398) between the ability to attend junior secondary school and educational status of one’s 185

Quality Teaching and Education in Northern Ghana

father. The more literate a father is, the greater is the likelihood that his sons or daughters will attend a junior secondary school. The bulk of the respondents identified their senior secondary schools as rural. There is a 95% level of significance that the senior secondary school that the respondent attended is related to the education level of his father. This shows that if the father has a higher educational standard, he will be able to assure that his child attains a level of education that he can choose and afford. What was disappointing for me about the results was the fact that I did not see any statistically significant correlation between the economic status of the parents of the respondents and the role they think the government should be playing with regard to rural education. However, there is a statistically significant correlation between the highest educational level in the family and their economic status.

7. Discussion The literature review provides a realistic assessment of the educational situation in Ghana. The suggestions given to improve rural education were, however, predictable. What is lacking in the articles is the role that rural communities can or should play in their own educational development. How can rural communities cooperate with government institutions to better the situation of rural education? Most of the literature suggests that the improvement in infrastructure is what would fix the problems related with poor rural education. The literature review has reported about many educators and economic advisors who argue that building schools and providing educational material is all it takes to educate the rural poor. But we find that the hype about educational equity, which spans many policy documents dealing with education, is often hypocritical if not outright criminal. Money is given to developing countries because governments make a compelling case for rural education. Why is funding education in the rural areas still a problem? Most donor institutions and developed countries have been generous in contributing to the educational development in the rural areas in Ghana. However, these efforts have not translated into an improved educational system for rural communities. This has convinced me that it is not just the question of pumping money into rural schools. It is important, in my opinion, to assess areas of investment in rural education. Therefore, what I want to add to the study on rural education is to create a forum with the rural communities to brainstorm and come out with strategies that would suite rural conditions as far as schooling is concerned. For example, the time of schooling, combination between 186

Gregory B. Dongkore

practical exercises and classroom work are issues worth discussing with rural communities. In a word, I seek to establish and explore ways in which the rural communities in the north of Ghana can be involved in the education of their children. An effective collaboration between teachers and parents in rural communities is required for the success of rural education. I believe in empowering the parents to hold the teachers accountable for what they are doing. In this regard, Acheampong makes the point that supervisory institutions at the district educational office should be working. He pointed out that the district office was aware of certain things that were going wrong in the rural schools but did nothing about them. Poor attendance of teachers at school affected the success of pupils. Acheampong seemed to have taken for granted that these educational institutions will be enthusiastic about improving educational delivery in the rural communities. This is often not the case. The above explains why NGOs are playing such a major role in educational delivery in the rural communities in the north of Ghana: the government institutions have neglected their responsibilities. The study of Acheampong has already suggested that rural parents are important when it comes to the educational success of their children (Acheampong, 2004). However, he failed to show what rural parents can do. Acheampong failed to consult individual institutions, such as the schools, and students and their parents that the School for Life (SFL) was involved with to strengthen the data that he gathered. Because of the limited nature of his study, in the end Acheampong offered no alternative routes to the plight of rural education apart from proposing the collaboration between government and the Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Acheampong proposed as a solution toward improving rural education that the government of Ghana prepares to step up to the plate when the NGOs fold up. But this suggestion seems to me unrealistic. In essence he is proposing that the government should do what it is supposed to be doing in the first place. Because he did not speak to the rural communities who are the beneficiaries of the SFL program, the author failed to suggest what role deprived communities will play under the changing circumstances. However, Acheampong (2004) and Pryor (2004) make the strong point that beyond the economic financial commitment and the provision of other resources for education there is more that rural communities can do. I believe that the supervisory role of parents has not been taken seriously enough in rural communities. Because of their inability to contribute financially to education of their children, government educational institutions often deny them a voice in decisions that affect them.

187

Quality Teaching and Education in Northern Ghana

Beyond the economic means of rural communities, it has been demonstrated through the article that they are capable of making a difference in educational delivery. What they need and what is lacking is empowerment. By empowerment of rural communities, I mean discussing with rural communities about the options of their own educational development. This empowerment of the rural communities, I believe will result from an understanding that the collaboration asked of them will benefit the rural communities; that education and the social transformation that it will bring will improve the quality of life of the rural communities. Rural communities should be told that if they allow their kids to spend more time on studies they will succeed in school. Education among rural populations should be achievement driven. Since according to Stevenson and Stigler (1992, p. 102) learning is cultural activity, rural communities are active participants in it and can contribute to the success or failure of education in the rural communities. When rural communities are convinced that they are the beneficiaries of education participation will follow naturally. Although results of such a process may be slow in coming, when these rural communities eventually become convinced about the benefits of education, their participation in educational delivery will be enduring and sincere. For example, I find it surprising that when Gyan Baffuor was proposing strategies for poverty reduction, there was no particular attention paid to the geographical and regional imbalances that have been so clearly indicated. Education is not even mentioned on the medium term priority list of the government. I think we must go beyond the beautiful papers and speeches that are written or delivered to convince donor agencies and win the votes of the rural communities. An overwhelming majority of respondents in the survey believes that if the government does not intervene, rural education could get even worse. An overly privatized school system sells education to the highest bidder. The catastrophic consequences of the neglect of rural communities as far as educational improvement is concerned have already been felt in the cities. What can the government do? The government of Ghana cannot undo the time deficit in education between the north and the south. What it can do is to ensure that well trained and qualified teachers are assigned to and stay in the rural areas. There is no way of moving beyond the rhetoric of providing accessible quality education for all if trained teachers continue to be assigned only to the urban communities. It is only through insisting that teachers are posted to these rural communities that the government’s commitment to developing the rural communities will be actually evident. Even from the point of view of economics and human development, the educational quality gap between the rural communities and the 188

Gregory B. Dongkore

urban centre winds back the clock of progress. From a social standpoint educational disparities are major obstacles to cohesion. The way to address these social imbalances is to design rural social services that can attract young people who want to continue to build their teaching career but who may also be willing to take up the challenges of eradicating or minimizing the scourge of poverty in the rural communities through sharing of their basic educational skills. I have already pointed out that the news reports captured by the Ghana News Agency hide the essential disparities in educational achievements between the north and south of Ghana, and which the government continues to ignore. This might stem from the assumption that the main cause of poor education in northern Ghana is infrastructural. It seems obvious to me that every government should be responsible for the educational development of its people. I will argue that, because of the largely rural nature of the Ghanaian population, the government tends to manipulate the rural communities by presenting them with a self-destructive logic of educational investment. I will play the devil’s advocate and suggest that since the country has few resources, no one will blame the government if only a few schools are built over an extended period of time. Government can easily convince the rural communities that it is working hard to solve the problems of rural education. Everyone understands the problem of limited resources. However, in my opinion, the May 7 general news about Wa in the northern Ghana captured the crucial point about the educational inequities in Ghana. The Ghana News Agency (GNA) reported that the ministry of education organized a workshop on education in collaboration with the United Nations’ Children’s Fund (UNICEF). I noted earlier on that the GNA reported on May 7, 2007 that the Upper West lacked 40% of qualified teachers that would support adequate learning in the schools. Many of the schools concerned are in the rural communities. Pryor (2005) blames the poor educational quality in rural communities on the negative attitudes these communities have about modern education. In the judgment of Pryor, rural communities do not support education enough. In my view Pryor minimizes the social transformation that is taking place in the rural communities. The rural communities cannot take full responsibility for the disintegration of their culture and social structures. It is up to government and people that want to help rural communities to engage them through dialogue. The government must be able to identify the priorities of rural communities and help them overcome cultural and social barriers that impede success in educational delivery in the rural areas. This can be done through dialogue.

189

Quality Teaching and Education in Northern Ghana

To reverse the educational imbalances in Ghana, some researchers suggest that we work toward reducing the age of entry into school, increase female participation in education through culturally sensitive strategies and initiate special interventions to bridge the gap between the north and the south as far as access to education is concerned. Several studies have underlined the fact that the education of communities is dependent on the educational level of the women who will raise families. If women are educated, they will be better able to support the education of their children (Fentiman et al., 1999; Omari, 1960). I could not agree more with such a proposal. However, improvement of the educational standards must go further. Rural girls need role models in the rural schools and communities that would understand and encourage them to study. In order to do this, a significant proportion of female teachers ought to be placed in rural communities and be adequately equipped to influence the perceptions about the advantages of sending girls to school. This is where the greatest challenge of government may lie. If the government decides to send female teachers to the rural communities, it ought to be able to provide the basic facilities that enable them stay and teach in those communities. Since these are serious challenges, I am convinced that the government prefers the easier option of keeping the female teachers in the urban centres. This in fact turns out to be an attractive compromise, which the female teachers are more than willing to accept. Meantime, the educational standards of the rural communities continue to fall. Generally speaking, rural communities lack the requisite personnel to ensure high educational standards. Management is lacking in the rural schools in Ghana and the educational system and gets worse as one travels deeper into the rural communities. The few teachers who do go to school often report late. Sometimes there are no serious excuses or queries and worse yet, no consequences. The school year conflicts with the season of the main economic activity of rural poor in the north, which is farming. Students must write their critical exams at the beginning of the raining season. This is a time when feeding is very poor. These are critical issues that ought to be addressed when we speak about educational investment in the rural communities. Electricity is lacking in rural areas and so the students cannot be held responsible for failing to do personal study. The precious daylight hours are shared between school activities and home chores. All these issues have more to do with time and resource management and capacity building in our rural educational sector. The critical disabilities of rural education are not the lack of physical structures, important as they are. It is the lack of capacity and human development capital, that is, lack of qualified teachers and administrative staff. 190

Gregory B. Dongkore

Conclusion My study on the topic of rural education in the Upper West Region can be described as ground breaking since I have not come across any such study so far. Needless to say, by the same token my study contains various constraints and limitations. I realized during the process of entering the data, that some questions should have been better formulated and more refined. Some of the questions were ambiguous and thus, generating ambivalent conclusions about rural education. A great limitation of the research was that 80% of the respondents were educators. The views of rural parents about the situation of rural schools are obviously lacking in this study. The research also failed to report the voices of students currently engaged in learning activities in rural areas. I will, therefore, consider this study to be preliminary. Further research will endeavour to focus on the relationship between teachers and parents in rural communities. Through this approach, I believe I will better ascertain the dynamics of the school and rural community relationship.

References Acheampong, K. (2004). Aid for Self-Help Effort? A Sustainable Alternative Route to Basic Education in Northern Ghana. Journal of International Cooperation in Education, 7(1). Ankomah, Y., Koomson, J., Bosu, R., & Oduro, G. K. T. (2005). Implementing Quality Education in Low Income Countries. Cape Coast: Institute for Educational Planning & Administration (IEPA), University of Cape Coast. Atakpa, K. (1996). Factors Affecting Female Participation in Education: A Research Report for the Ministry of Education Supported by UNICEFGhana. Bening, R. (1990). A History of Education in Northern Ghana 1907-1976. [s.l.]: Ghana U. Press. Clark, R. (1992). Multinational Corporate Investment and Women’s Participation in Higher Education in Noncore Nations. Sociology of Education, 65 (1). Fentiman, A., Hall, A., & Bundy, D. (1999). School Enrolment Patterns in Rural Ghana: A Comparative Study of the Impact of Location, Gender, Age and Health on Children’s Access to Basic School. Journal of Comparative Education, 35 (3). Gyan-Baffuor. (2003). The Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy. Elmina. Heady, C. (2000). What is the Effect of Child Labour on Learning Achievement? Evidence from Ghana. Florence: Florence Innocenti Research Centre. Iddrisu, A. (2005). The Growth of Islamic Learning in Northern Ghana and its Interaction with western secular education. Africa Development, 30, 1&2, 53-67.

191

Quality Teaching and Education in Northern Ghana

Mba, C. J. (2004). Population Aging and Poverty in Rural Ghana. Legon. Accra, Legon: Regional Institute of Population Studies. University of Ghana. Omari, P. T. (1960). Changing Attitudes of Students in West African Society Toward Marriage and Family Relationships. The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 11, 3, 172-210. Pryor, J., & Ampiah, J. G. (2003). Community Participation in Rural Schooling: The Cart before the horse, a case study from Ghana Sussex: Centre of International Education, University of Sussex. Ray, R. (2001). The Determinants of Child Labour and Child Schooling in Ghana. Journal of African Economies (Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE) University of Tasmania), Vol. 11. Stevenson, H. W., & Stigler, J. W. (1992). The Learning Gap: Why Our Schools Are Failing and What We can Learn from Japanese and Chinese Education. New York: Summit Books. Subrahmanian, R. (2004). The Politics of Resourcing Education: A Review of New Aid Modalities from Gender Perspectives. Paper presented at the Beyond Access Seminar Series, Oxford. Wiltgen, R. M. (1956). Gold Coast Mission History 1471-1880. Techny: Divine Word Publications. World Bank Reports on Education in Ghana (2004-2006).

192

Role of Christian Education for Sustainable Development in Northern Ghana Africanus L. DIEDONG Lecturer, University of Development Studies, Wa Campus

Introduction The journey of evangelisation by the White Fathers in Northern Ghana, which started with their settlement at Navrongo in 1906, was strewn with thorns and roses. Not only did the White Fathers face the huge task of overcoming cultural barriers to win the hearts and souls of the people to the Good News, much more daunting was the challenge of obeying some rules and regulations laid down by the Governor for the administration of the Northern Territories and the management of its schools. Despite adhering to the conditions the colonial authorities place on them, the political system at the time still harboured some fears as the Governor requested the Chief Commissioner of the Northern Territories “to report as to whether the establishment of the Mission at Navarro is not detrimental to the status of the Whiteman in this country, as they are the first to appear to the natives as settled in their country, doing nothing, and with no visible reason for remaining there” (Bening, 1990, p. 22). Yet the Superior of the Navrongo Mission, Fr. Oscar Morin pointed out that the apprehensions of the government about the evil influence of idle priests at Navrongo were without foundations. Fr. Morin was a man of great faith and hope. It is therefore not surprising that despite the many hurdles they faced, he asserted that the mission had great hope of success and that no other of their missions in this part of Africa has had so hopeful a beginning (Bening, 1990, p. 23). It is this spirit of optimism, enthusiasm, humility and service that catapulted the early missionaries’ efforts to establish a school in Navrongo on 16th December 1907 with twenty-six pupils. The move was strategic because it was aimed at avoiding the 193

Role of Christian Education for Sustainable Development in Northern Ghana

threat of expulsion from the Northern Territories by the British colonialists. It underscored their strong interest to use education as an intercultural link between them and the people in Navrongo and the surrounding villages. Therefore, the missionaries viewed the opening of mission school as important because language teaching and trade training were considered vital means of apostleship. That singular, unrelenting and sustained effort, laid a solid foundation for the growth and development of Christian education in Northern Ghana. The initial steps that the missionaries made in establishing schools notwithstanding opposition from the colonial authorities sowed the seeds for propelling, especially human development through western education in northern Ghana. The evidence of the missionaries’ effort in contributing to the development process in northern Ghana can not only be quantified in the number of schools, hospitals, and special agricultural projects established, but more importantly what has perhaps facilitated the realisation of these nobles goals of the early missionaries up to now, is holistic education as an approach to enabling people make best uses of their potentials and the resources of their environment in such a manner that future generation can have the opportunity to built on their achievements. The need for education for sustainable development is so important that the United Nations declared the period of 2005-2014 as the Decade of Education for Sustainable. Education for sustainable development is important because it goes beyond the provision of information and addresses the cultural values and ethics that underpin sustainable development. It has the capacity to bring a right-based and global justice perspective to development issues for inclusive societies. In Christian perspective, education for sustainable development becomes more meaningful if the legacy of committed service to humanity, care for environment and hope for a better future left behind by the early missionaries, energise people in exploiting their potentials in partnership with other individuals/organisations to address the challenges of development in northern Ghana. Among the persons, who imbibed such sterling Christian values from the early Christian Missionaries, was Cardinal Peter P. Dery. Cardinal Dery had a vision for education for sustainable development, which is well captured in his commitment to the idea of the holistic development of the human person. An important factor in realisation of this idea is that it enabled many people to benefit from female education and vocational schools as well as the sponsorship of lay people for further studies both locally and abroad. Evidently, having been nurtured with such values, Cardinal Dery’s priestly ministry did not only amplify and expand the frontiers of the Christian patrimony and heritage in northern Ghana, but ensured that it was directed 194

Africanus L. Diedong

toward the total development of the human person. The paper has five main sections: 1) Problems and Challenges in Education; 2) The Church’s Philosophy of Education; 3) The Role of the Teacher in Education; 4) Quality Education: A Shared Venture among Main Stakeholders; 5) Conclusion.

Problems and Challenges of Education There is awareness among Ghanaians about the importance of education in improving the quality of life of people. It is in response to this awareness that various pre-independence and the post-independence governments have implemented programmes aimed at setting up schools to provide formal education. Despite, these efforts a lot still remains to be done in terms of addressing the infrastructural needs of schools, provision of competent human resources for teaching and administrative work and the creation and sustenance of quality environment for education, especially at the basic level of education. The challenges in the education sub-sector are not peculiar to Ghana. The six goals Education for All (EFA) adopted in 2000 at the World Education Forum in Dakar remain the benchmark for assessing progress on the international commitment to expand learning opportunities for children, youth and adults by 2015. Advances have been made across the board in sub-Saharan Africa, but progress has been uneven and the region generally lags behind others. In particular, early childhood care and education, youth and adult learning needs, and education quality have received insufficient attention. Countries also need to address internal disparities to improve equity in access and participation. Illiteracy in youth and adulthood is the price people and countries are paying for past failures of education systems. When people emerge from school lacking basic reading, writing and numeric skills, and obtain no other education, they face a lifetime of disadvantage (EFA, 2009). At the World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000, governments pledged to achieve a 50% improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015. Currently, in Ghana literacy is at 65% – for men: 71.7% and Women: 58.3% (EFA, 2009, 19). Despite the United Nations Literacy Decade (2003-2012), literacy continues to receive insufficient attention and financial commitment and is often not incorporated into wider poverty reduction strategies. As regards adult literacy, the disparities are wider between the three northern regions and other regions of Ghana. About 51% adults in Ghana can read and write English or a local language. Disparities exist between urban and rural areas. Among 70% adults in urban areas are literates, whilst 40% in rural areas are literate. In Accra, 80% of adults 195

Role of Christian Education for Sustainable Development in Northern Ghana

are literate, but only 22% of adults in rural savannah are literate (Ghana Living Standards Survey, 2008). There are great geographical disparities in quality of education, with students in rural schools, especially in the north of the country, at a big disadvantage (World Bank, 2011). Non-formal education is an indispensable factor in the quest for education for sustainable development in northern Ghana. Since 1997, the Non-Formal Education Division (NFED) of the Ministry of Education has offered adult learning to many people in functional literacy covering reading, writing, and calculations in many districts in Ghana. The main themes/developmental activities include family planning, health, environment and sanitation, income generation activities, tree planting and livestock rearing. The provision of a kind of education that would enable people gain knowledge and skills to be in a better position to critically analyze developmental issues that negatively impact their lives and find solutions to them could liberate them from poverty. Since knowledge is power if there is an efficient and effective non-formal education system that incorporates a logic of inclusiveness, participation, ownership and self-worth, people would be more willing to be involved in the activities of non-formal education in order to realize their potentials. Without an appreciation of such an approach to sustainable development by relevant state institutions and civil society organisations, especially in deprived communities in Ghana, whatever gains that have been made by the church in the field of education may not stand the test of time. Many schools in Ghana lack basic infrastructure that is vital to effective teaching and learning. With a total of five thousand schools holding classes under trees across the country it is not an under-statement that sub-Saharan Africa will not reach the literacy target set 2015 (Ghana News Agency, 2011). Even though the government of Ghana has awarded a contract for the construction of permanent classroom blocks for 1,305 under-trees schools under the ‘No Under Tree Projects’ across the country, the effort is inadequate in view of the enormity of the problem. What happens to the 3,695 schools, which are still left uncovered, majority of which are located in poverty-stricken regions of Ghana? Communities, parents and students, especially in poor areas have legitimate concerns about sub-standard schools, sub-standard supply of human and financial resources, missing teachers, poor results, and lacking services. Despite investments, many classes are still held under trees, many children are turned away from higher levels of schooling and many fail comprehensive examinations and do not find post-basic school places or job opportunities (World Bank, 2011). What impact has the implementation of Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy one (GPRS I) and GPRS II made in improving the quality of education in Ghana particularly at the basic level of education? 196

Africanus L. Diedong

Generally, there are some positive indications on enrolment figures at the basic level of education in Ghana, perhaps due to the introduction of the School Feeding Programme in some deprived Schools. However, large shares of children enrolled in schools in sub-Saharan Africa never complete primary education. The median survival rate to the last grade of primary education was lower than in any other region, at 67% in 2005 (UNESCO, 2010, p. 20). The reality is, there are increasing numbers of children in classrooms without the requisite teaching and learning facilities, human resources and conducive learning environments in schools, especially in deprived communities, which impact negatively on quality education. Not only is access to secondary and tertiary limited particularly in the three northern regions, it is also marked by disparities related to factors such as household wealth. The financing of education solely by the state over the years has become a very difficult task for successive governments. In the 2010 Financial Year Budget, the government of Ghana spent GH¢4.9 million to subsidize the cost of conducting Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE). About 23 million exercise books were distributed to school pupils and 526,263 uniforms provided to children in need; GH¢23.8 million was paid as capitation grant to pupils in all public basic schools while GH¢50 million was spent by government to support the School Feeding Programme under which 670,000 pupils benefitted. Even though budgetary allocation on education alone takes a lot of money, the amount can hardly address the myriad of problems in the sector. It is in such a situation that over the years the church has devotedly contributed in diverse ways towards the growth and development of the education sub-Sector of the Ghanaian economy. The Catholic Church stands ahead of the State in terms of her contribution, particularly in vocational and technical education in Ghana. The Church’s vision and premium on vocational and technical education is in the right direction and well in tune with the EFA Global Monitoring Report (2010) that vocational education has the potential to play a far greater role, however, not least in providing second-chance opportunities to marginalized groups. As a partner in education, the Church can perform even far better than it is doing now if government is committed to giving her Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFUND) support.

The Church’s Philosophy of Education The world-over the Church has demonstrated unflinching support to promote education from the basic to the tertiary level of education throughout the ages. It is important to underline what the Catholic Church understands by education and why sometimes, the Church takes 197

Role of Christian Education for Sustainable Development in Northern Ghana

a firm stance on certain issues on education. The Church attaches a lot of importance to the education of the youth as highlighted by Vatican II’s Declaration on Christian Education, Gravissimum Educationis, which points out that education should equip young people with the necessary and useful skills with which they will “be able to participate actively in the life of society in its various aspects” (Gravissimum Educationis 1). According to the document – The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third Millennium, “the Catholic school should be able to offer young people the means to acquire the knowledge they need in order to find a place in a society which is strongly characterized by technical and scientific skill” (par. 8). The Church’s efforts at devoting time and energy on the total development of human persons without any form of discrimination is informed by the Declaration on Christian Education, which sees “The person of each individual human being, in his or her material and spiritual needs, is at the heart of Christ’s teaching: this is why the promotion of the human person is the goal of the Catholic school” (par. 9). In an effort to realise the goal of a Catholic school, Cardinal Dery played a lead role in the development of youth movements such as the Young Catholic Students (YCS), Legions of Mary and Catholic Youth Organisation (YCS), Young Christian Workers (YCW) in many second cycle institutions in northern in particular and the country as a whole. Through these movements Cardinal Dery inspired and motivated the youth to have faith in God, be disciplined, be the best they can in everything they do by means of interactions with them at workshops and several fora, and in some cases one-to-one pastoral counselling sessions. In 1974, Cardinal Dery united the Catholic Youth of Ghana under a mother umbrella of the Ghana National Catholic Youth Council (GHANCYC) through the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference. He received the title: “Indefatigable Renowned Pastor and Patron of the Youth,” from his teeming admirers across the globe popularly known as “Friends of Cardinal Dery”. As a major contributor to education in the country, the Church needs to continually safeguard fundamental values in society, and ensure that they are not thrown off from national policy documents on education. Current developments as regards discipline in some schools, is quite worrisome. Critical look at the Senior High Schools in Ghana, indicate that while some students are well behaved others are not. Some of the students play truancy, others engage in alcoholism and drug abuse, indecent dressing, and the watching of pornographic videos. The youth need a strong moral formation not only at the family level, but also in school. Education without discipline and integrity hardly impact positively on the development of a nation. As Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) 198

Africanus L. Diedong

says in Rasselas, “Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful”. The review of education reforms in Ghana in 2007 attempted to down-play the relevance of Religious and Moral Education even though it is acknowledged that it has a positive influence in character formation. The Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference found the education reforms incomprehensive and strongly opposed attempts at spreading across school curriculum Religious and Moral Education (RME), which hitherto was a full subject in the primary school curriculum. Fostering a good ground in Christian educational establishments for the youth to imbibe moral values is even now more crucial than before because of the increasing influence of western secular values on our society. Reportedly over the past few years the Ghana Education Service (GES) has observed with grave concern and disappointment increasing cases of indiscipline in some schools. These acts manifest themselves in drug abuse, sale of narcotic drugs on campuses, stealing and destruction of school property, sexual abuse and harassment, occultism and examination malpractices, among others. In present times students are found to falsify results and certificates to enable them to gain admissions into tertiary institutions. No wonder, degrees and diplomas from Ghana are nowadays vigorously scrutinised in most developed countries before they are accepted in those countries (Eyiah, 2007).

The Role of the Teacher in Education The laying of a sound foundation for a holistic development of the human person begins at home. At the centre of this education, are the parents who should serve as role models to the young ones in the family. Common wisdom shows that a good teacher robs off something good about himself/herself on those who come within his/her sphere of influence. Can a father/mother who teaches and forms the character of children, if they have morally questionable character? Notably, the family is the first school of the social virtues that every society needs. At the level of formal education, what is said about the need for parents to be of good character in order to be in a good position to form and teach the youth should also applicable to the teacher. The life of a teacher should be an inspiration to others. As the Latin saying goes, “Nemo dat quod non habet”, that is: “No one gives what he/she does not have” (cited in Osei Bonsu, 2010). In other words, one cannot give what one has not got. In most deprived schools in northern Ghana, it is heart-warming to find a quite a number of dedicated teachers, who brave all odds to give off their best to the pupils under their care. Such teachers by what they 199

Role of Christian Education for Sustainable Development in Northern Ghana

do within the settings of a school, give a tangible expression to service. A similar attitude to work is manifested by some administrators and allied workers of the Ghana Education Service. The Catholic Church has contributed significantly to teacher education in Northern Ghana through the establishment of the St. John Bosco Training College in Navrongo. Generally, a good number of teachers in the primary and Junior High Schools in Northern Ghana were trained at the St. John Bosco Training College. However, sometimes the behaviour of some of the teachers leaves much to be desired. When a teacher fails to plan his/her teaching schedule and work at random, what impact can his/her work make on students? Of what value is the supervisory role of the supervisor if he/she condones with the absenteeism, laziness and indiscipline of some teachers? Does the kind of relationships the teachers/administrators build with members of the community create cordiality and mutual support or does it spark tension and an air of superiority on the part of teachers/administrators towards the communities in which they work? In some of the universities in Ghana some lecturers sell photocopies of their lecture notes in order to get some money, and students who refuse to buy such photocopied notes can receive low marks for their assignments and examinations. Such practices are areas of concern, which fall short of acceptable standards of effective teaching. The motivation of teachers is vital to their commitment to work. However, no matter the situation, a good teacher, especially tries to brighten the corner – village or city where s/he finds himself. An effective teacher is passionate about his/her work. Cardinal Dery, being a true disciple of Christ, manifested a spirit of commitment, service and love for others. For example when he was asked to take care of all the schools at Ko and Nandom in addition to his pastoral duties, he willingly accepted. He was given such far away villages as Fielmuo, Mho and Kokoligu in the Upper West Region of Ghana. He never complained. In his memoirs he noted: “I cherished particularly the continual close contact with the people, young and old, men and women, and so on. I tried to build close relationships with all those I met” (Dery, 2001, p. 71). Today, do teachers, especially newly trained teachers accept postings to remote parts of the country? One of the cardinal qualities of the teacher in the classroom is his/her leadership role. The pupils look up to him/her to guide them as to what they can do with the knowledge and skills imparted to them to improve on the quality of their lives. In the midst of the many challenges facing education in northern Ghana, transformational teachers are needed. Such teachers in their personal lives are able to prioritise on things that develop them and others, but not so much on material things (Ocran, 2008). Helping to develop the lives of other persons through quality teaching is one of the 200

Africanus L. Diedong

most important investments because it guarantees a better future for people. In this process the teacher good conduct is essential. It is well known that conduct is always much more important than speech. In this light, teachers are not just “mere teachers” but professional teachers/educators, who must have the moral courage to discipline students who misbehave and resist pressure from influential opinion leaders who sometimes dissuade them from doing what is right. However, in trying to ensure discipline and order, no rush action should be taken in punishing students without following laid down rules and regulations. Discipline and order cannot prevail in schools when the necessary administrative and communication structures are weak or in some cases totally non-existent.

Quality Education: A Shared Venture Among Main Stakeholders In view of the problems in education in northern Ghana in particular, there is the need for the strengthening of collaboration among major stakeholders in education. The major stakeholders in education in Ghana comprises not only the Ministry of Education, school management boards, parents, staff (academic and non academic), and students but also include local private investors, professional organizations, civil society organizations, the media, and faith community. Anyone who in any way affects or is affected by the school’s actions or inactions has a stake in education. The guiding principle in the content of the shared venture should be the quest for quality teaching and learning in a conducive environment, capable of producing students who can contribute meaningful toward the realisation of decent living condition for all Ghanaians. The objectives of sustainable developments would suffer if efforts are not doubled to properly provide schools in rural areas with sufficient trained teachers and infrastructural facilities. When students who are poorly educated and complete Senior High School without any employable skills, engage in illegal gold mining activities, which degrade the environment, the negative repercussions of such activities are far-reaching. Therefore, the Church more than ever before needs to play a more proactive role in encouraging parents, pupils, teachers, nongovernmental organisations and the State to be more committed in their responsibilities towards building and supporting congenial teaching and learning environments across the country. The principle of subsidiarity in the social teaching of the Church argues for recognition, respect and autonomy of local groups. It is closely related to the concept of selfreliance. The fundamental principle of subsidiarity requires that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community 201

Role of Christian Education for Sustainable Development in Northern Ghana

what they can accomplish by their own initiative and creativity (Ayaga, 2000, p. 29). The Good Pope John XXIII, known as the people’s Pope concerning principles pertaining to subsidiarity sates: Included among [basic rights of individuals] is the right and duty of each individual normally to provide the necessities of life for himself and his dependents. (…) Experience, in fact, shows that where private initiative of individuals is lacking, political tyranny prevails (Morriss, 2012).

In the Diocese of Wa, the early missionaries’ effort in putting this principle into practice to improve the quality of life of the people led to the setting up of the first Credit Union of the whole of Africa in Jirapa in 1954. The Credit Union concept empowered the people in diverse ways. According to Bekye (2009, p. 99) the first Credit Union succeeded so well. The youth found that when they got the farms, they got tired and could not do much work. So, the young men went in for loans, and went to the Southern Ghana to work, and by the end of the month of March they would return with new bicycles. They would pay their loans with interests, and still have money for pito (locally brewed alcoholic beverage) and other expenses. Therefore, the spirit of a shared community life culminated in the growth and expansion of the Credit Union Movement. Through the Credit Union, some members in Ko Parish were able to obtain loans to pay the school fees of their children. The character of the Church as a communion of persons in practice makes that interactive quality more meaningful when people who are involved in formal education delivery do it with a high sense of devotion, care and love for helping to transform the lives of pupils with the available facilities at their disposal. Co-operation among the major stakeholders needs to be strengthened, re-aligned and focused at different levels. Despite the recognition by government for need for joined responsibility between itself and stakeholders, currently there is no formalized cooperation among stakeholders in Ghana. What exists now can best be described as a sort of erratic and patchy cooperation, which manifests itself on need basis among a section of stakeholders. Every school needs to initiate/strengthen the holding of regular meetings and other relevant programmes such as “Speech and PrizeGiving Day”, to make parents more conscious of their role to contribute financially to the successful organisation of such special events. In the northern regions of Ghana the “Old Boys Associations” need to reorganise themselves and implement projects such as the provision of relevant reading materials, the establishment of educational endowment funds to support poor and brilliant children, which ultimately can uplift the profile of their alma mater. This can be done through the formation 202

Africanus L. Diedong

of strong regional executives and networking across the regions and internationally by means of the world wide web of communication. It is important for the Ministry of Education to establish and/or strengthen guidance and counselling services in all schools to help in counselling the youth who are in need of role models, who can direct them in taking concrete steps towards becoming self-reliant and responsible adults in future. At the diocesan level, lay counsellors and priests in-charges of the youth apostolate need to collaborate with the management of Catholic Education Unit to enable them have a space and a time-table in schools for counselling sessions for students. Such counselling sessions could be effectively carried out through the various youth associations in schools. In the three regions of the north, poverty should no longer be an excuse to deny children access to quality education. The economic fortunes of contemporary Ghana are far better than what use to prevail some years ago. In the same Upper West Region of Ghana for instance, pupils used to walk very long distances to school, which is no more the case in many parts of the region. But even before being offered that unique chance, the few lucky ones during farming seasons have to do a bit of farming before trotting to school. The progress so far achieved in delivery of quality education to children in northern Ghana should not be sacrificed on the altar of economic expediency. To some extent, it is not an over statement to point out that some of the problems of education in northern Ghana are due to the attitude of some parents. If it is not for immediate material gain, why should some parents push their children unto the streets to sell iced water, dog chains, to do artisanal mining, and to serve as head porters (“Kayayei”) in some major cities of the country? Apart from the physical harm these economic activities have on them, the future of children who engage in these practices is bleak (Ghana News Agency, 2009). Paradoxically, parents are the ones who are bemoaning the state of poverty in which they wallow. There is the need for change of attitude among people in northern Ghana to be sincerely commitment in the education of children through self-reliance. Government and international assistance to education is much needed in the north. However, in enjoying such aid packages, strategic mechanisms and sensitisation programmes must be implemented towards educating people on what they need to do by themselves to improve the current state of education. Effective and beneficial partnership in education can only be forged on a platform on which all partners are ready to sacrifice something towards building a better future.

203

Role of Christian Education for Sustainable Development in Northern Ghana

Conclusion Quality education is the bedrock for human development in the 21st century. The efforts of the Church over the years in providing education have yielded some positive results. The benefits of education are clear and western education is recognized as a dynamic cultural force. The graduates from these schools have become indispensable to national collective efforts directed at providing a decent social and economic environment for all Ghanaians. Some of them are also performing positively on the international stage and these achievements are clear signifiers of what education has to offer (Kuyini, 2011). It is worthy of note that some are engaged in institutions of high learning as lecturers and researchers in Europe and the U.S. The knowledge they share, results into brain gain by the migrant-receiving country and constitutes a rich source for generating inter-cultural dialogue for peaceful coexistence in the world. The graduates’ contributions to the improvement of the social and economic lives of Ghanaian are seen in philanthropic gestures such as cash and material donations to schools, hospitals and orphanages. Remittances to families by particularly graduates abroad constitute a vital source of income. It has been observed that remittances do have a very important effect on the standard of living of the households that receive them, constituting a significant portion of household income. They are an important social safety net for poor families, possibly reducing additional out-migration in particularly difficult times (Newland, 2003). Despite these achievements, mission schools in the three regions of the north need the support of government through the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFUND) towards infrastructural development, capacity building and to make education affordable to the majority of Ghanaians, especially those in the rural areas. By the GETFUND Act, Act 581 of 2000, its main mandate is, bringing tremendous improvement in the provision of educational infrastructure across all sectors of public education in Ghana. In terms of the provision of physical infrastructure at the basic and second cycle level of education in northern, Ghana mission schools stand out prominently. This remarkable achievement over the years is strengthened and sustained by the calibre of trained teachers produced by the St. John Bosco Teacher Training College to supplement the government of Ghana efforts to properly equip all schools with the requisite human resources. In line with the Church’s Social Teaching of Preferential Option for the Poor, the setting up of the Wa School for the Deaf by the Church to equip students with knowledge and employable skills marked a positive and innovative approach to how people ought to relate with physically challenged persons in society. Despite these achievements, there is the need to provide better incen204

Africanus L. Diedong

tives to attract qualified teachers to deprived communities to ensure quality education in all parts of the country. It is important that existing relevant administrative and communication structures are made more dynamic and function to help in fostering discipline and order in schools. The Management of Catholic Schools and parishes need to step up their support for School Management Committees, Professional and Lay Associations, Counselling Units and Students’ Representative Councils because of their capacity to impart values towards integral development of persons. Parents need a change of attitude in how they perceive investment in the education for children in order to successfully confront the current challenges of education. Change of attitude requires ability to adapt to the changing trends and realities of education in Ghana. “Enjoying success requires the ability to adapt. Only by being open to change will you have a true opportunity to get the most from your talents and ‘knowledge’” (Nolan Ryan as cited in Ocran, 2008, p. 4). The need to involve all parents in participatory processes aimed at creating quality teaching and learning environments is vital. Consequently, apart from formal education, efforts aimed at changing people’s attitude to self-reliance in education require non-formal education as a strategy and a vehicle in the effective realisation of development projects. Non-formal education as a kind of liberating education forms local leadership at different levels to carry on the creation and sustenance of a just and enlightened society (Amboise, 2002). Therefore, to improve and sustain quality and holistic education in Northern Ghana, there is an urgent need for people to embrace self-reliance as a powerful tool of empowerment in partnership with major stakeholders in education to fight the scourge of poverty in northern Ghana in particular and the country as a whole.

References Ambroise, Y., Britto, P. J., & Andhra Pradesh Social Service Society (2002). Methods of Non-formal Education: a practical guide for animators. Secunderabad: APSSS Publications. Ayaga, M. A. (2000). Common Values, Contradictory Strategies: a study of Church, State and NGO Relations in Ghana. Accra: SonLife Printing Press and Services. Bekye, K. P. (2009). Seventy-five years of mission and development in Nandom. In K. P. Bekye (ed.). Takoradi: St Francis Press Ltd. Bening, R. (1990). A history of education in Northern Ghana 1907-1976. [s.l.]: Ghana U. Press. Dery, P. P. (2001). Memoirs of Most Reverend Peter Poreku Dery: Arch Bishop Emeritus of Tamale. Tamale: GILLP Press. 205

Role of Christian Education for Sustainable Development in Northern Ghana

Eyiah, K. J. (2007). Ghana @ 50: the state of education. http://www.ghanaweb. com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php?ID=120210. Agency, G. N. (2009). Economic activities draw children out of school. Retrieved July 3, 2011, from http://www.newtimes.com.gh/story/225. Iddrisu, B. M., & Agency, G. N. (2011). Schools under trees across the country. Retrieved: 3/07/2011 http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/ NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=213052. Kuyini, B. (2009). Celebrating 100 Years of Western Education in Northern Ghana. http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php? ID=173226 Accessed on February 2, 2011. Morriss, F. (2012). Catholic Social Doctrine begins with subsidiarity. http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=6155&CFID=11 6814693&CFTOKEN=88625556 Accessed January 28, 2012. Newland, K. (2003). Migration as a factor in development and poverty reduction. http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=136 Accessed January 28, 2012. Ocran, A., & Comfort. (2008). 101 keys to achievement and fulfilment. Accra: Legacy and Legacy. Osei-Bonsu, J. (2010). Provision of quality education in Ghana: The role of the Catholic Church. Ejisu: First Graduation Ceremony of the Spiritan University College. UNESCO. (2010). Education: huge disparities: New People.

206

The Use of Religious Education in Fostering Inter-Religious Peace in Ghana Nora KOFOGNOTERA NONTERAH Catholic University of Leuven

Introduction Ghanaians are said to be very religious. According to Joseph Osei, a Ghanaian writer, even if it is possible for any country to refute the famous saying by the African philosopher, John Mbiti, that Africans are ‘notoriously religious’ “it certainly would not be Ghana, where almost everybody is associated with one religious tradition or another”1. This Ghanaian deep religious roots shapes and influences their lives in many aspects – spiritually, socially, economically, educationally, and even politically. This makes religion hold a significant stake in Ghana. The three main religions practiced in Ghana are Christianity, Islam and African Traditional religion (ATR). However, there are indications of the presence of many other religions like “Baha’i Faith, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Ninchiren Shoshu Soka Gakkai, Sri Sathya Sai Baba Sera, Sat Sang, Eckankar, the Divine Light Mission, Hare Krishna, and Rastafarianism”2. These religions, however, are yet to find their footing in the Ghanaian society3. In the Ghana population census conducted in 2000, Christians were said to constitute about 69% of the total population4. Muslims constituted about 16%, whereas the practitioners of the traditional religion and other religions made up 9% of the population5. 1

2 3 4 5

Joseph Osei, “Manipulation of the Mass Media in Ghana’s recent political experience” in Ghana: Changing Values/Changing Technologies, Ghanaian Philosophical Studies, II, ed. Helen, Lauer (Washington, DC: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophies, 2000), 147. Ghana: International religious freedom report, 2002, available from: http://www. state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2002/13835.htm (accessed on 10/03/2011). Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

207

The Use of Religious Education in Fostering Inter-Religious Peace in Ghana

These figures, however, were being contested by the Islamic community who argue that their population was about 30% of the country’s population6. Like most religions, the three main religions practiced in Ghana uphold peace. Nevertheless, there are inter-religious conflicts which have caused much loss to Ghana as a nation. Educating the (religious) Ghanaian people to appreciate the value of peace from their own religious backgrounds and learn to live with the others who are of different faith tradition remains pivotal in the Ghanaian search for peace. This work explores peace-building in Ghana from a theological perspective. It addresses such questions like: How do we understand the mechanisms at play in the origin of violence and conflicts in Ghana, with special attention to the role of religion? What are the available theories of interreligious peace education? How do these available theories of interreligious peace education apply to Ghanaian context? What new pedagogical and didactical strategies can these new theories of inter-religious peace education offer to Ghana? Our conviction is that contemporary Christian theology has many resources to develop a new theory of inter-religious peace education with moral, pastoral and pedagogical relevance to foster peace in the public arena of Ghana.

1. Religion and Conflicts in Ghana There is a strong influence of religion in Ghana. For instance, the moral, social and economic life of Christians is influenced by religion. On one hand, religion, especially Christianity and Islam, have had a great influence on Ghana in the areas of health, education, and provision of other social amenities. In this regard, Gifford for instance notes: “Catholic involvement in many areas can rival or even surpass the governments’”7. He made this claim with reference to its immense establishments of educational institutions, health institutions, and food supplies during the famine in the 1980s8. Similar contributions are made by Muslims and other Christian denominations in Ghana. The contributions of African traditional religion include the consciousness of the presence of the Supreme being, morality, solidarity, sense of community

6 7 8

Ibid. Paul Gifford, African Christianity: Its Public Role (London: C. Hurst and co., 1998), 65. Ibid.

208

Nora Kofognotera Nonterah

life among the Ghanaians which not only shapes their lives but also have “far-reaching impact on every sphere of the life of Africans”9. On the other hand, it is significant to note that the socio-economic needs of people have also influenced and determined their choice of religious tradition. For instance, among the Kassena in Northern Ghana, Allison Howell observes that people’s physical needs, like getting healed from sickness and other hazards, and also the “provision of daily needs influenced their conversion”10. Gifford makes it clear that daily needs like food and clothing draw people to one religious group or another11. This is readily seen in the swelling of Catholics populations during the famine period in Ghana – “mid-1980s” – ignited by the relief service offered by the Catholic Church12. Religious influence when well harnessed could be very positive but it could also be negative, especially if people’s particularities are not taken into account and when their divergent religious opinions are not well respected and appreciated. Ghanaians have seen the effects of the negative side of religion. The Ghanaian theologian, Johnson Mbilla, states that in the northern part of Ghana, there “are longstanding religious conflicts, some involving intra and inter-ethnic rivalries”13. This is the case in both Tamale and Wa, which are capital towns in the area, for many years, inter-religious related conflicts, especially between Muslims and Christians have left bad memories in the minds of the people14. Nathan Samwini notes that, around the year 1995, there have been cases of Muslims attacking Christians in Tamale and in Kumasi for speaking about Jesus as God and for showing disregard to the Qur’an15. Other similar clashes between Muslims and Christians also in Wa have created religious tensions among the people16. Samwini records a very crucial point raised by a Tamale Christian on how they are not being regarded

9

10 11 12 13

14 15 16

S. Agang, “African Traditional Religion,” in Global Dictionary of Theology: A Resource for the Worldwide Church, eds. William Dyrness and Veli-Matti Karkkainen (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 2008), 22. Allison Howell, The Religious Itinerary of a Ghanaian People: The Kasena and the Christian Gospel (Accra: Africa Christian, 2001), 146. Gifford, Paul. African Christianity: Its Public Role. London: C. Hurst and co., 1998. Ibid. Johnson Mbillah, “Inter-Faith Relations and the Quest for Peace in Africa,” in The Interface between Research and Dialogue: Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa, ed. Klaus Hock (London: Transaction Publishers & LIT verlag, 2004), 77. Nathan Samwini, The Muslim Resurgence in Ghana since 1950: Its Effects upon Muslims and Muslim-Christian Relations (Berlin: LIT verlag, 2006), 206. Ibid. Ibid.

209

The Use of Religious Education in Fostering Inter-Religious Peace in Ghana

as equal to their Muslim counterparts in the town17. In line with this, “many people perceive a growing rift between Christians and Muslims in the northern regions”18 of Ghana. It is important to note that religious conflicts are not always inter-religious but also intra-religious. In Wa, Samwini, observes how conflicts and rivalry existed between two different Muslim factions – the Ahlussunna Wal Jama’a (ASWAJ) and the Ahmadis and later ASWAJ and the Tijaniyyah19. This rivalry leads to intermittent violent conflicts and destruction of properties especially in Tamale and in Wa. Mostly the reason for the conflicts goes back to the lack of understanding of each other’s religious teachings, lack of respect and tolerance. Religious rivalry, tensions, and conflicts do not only result in considerable loss of lives and properties but they also impact negatively on the society through its negative influence on the younger generation and posterity. In addition, we are well aware of the deadly ethnic conflicts in Northern Ghana. Popular examples are the towns of Yendi and Bawku, both in the Northern part of the country, where there has been long standing inter-ethnic and inter-clan violent conflicts. We are witnesses to how these conflicts have left Northern Ghana very volatile. There are also instance of ‘indirect’ religious connections to ethnic conflicts. Mbillah, a Ghanaian anthropologist, explains that in 1994 the “inter-communal conflicts between Dagomba, Gonja, and Nanumba who are largely Muslims, and Konkomba who are largely Christians led to losses of lives and property”20. Although this “‘small’ African civil war”21, as Arthur Bogner calls it, did not start with religious reasons, it still had a religious backing. The challenge/question remains how religious leaders can be trusted when they are made part of peace talks and commissions. How can Ghanaians turn their religious differences into a blessing and pathway to peace instead of making it hindrance to peace and serenity of Ghanaian people?

17 18 19 20 21

Ibid. Steven Salm and Toyin Falola, Culture and Customs of Ghana (London: Greenwood, 2002), 56. Samwini, The Muslim Resurgence in Ghana since 1950, 198-200. Johnson Mbillah, “Inter-Faith Relations,” 77. Arthur Bogner, “The Peace Process in the Wake of Ghana’s Northern Conflict: Its Course and Conditions for Success,” in Ethnicity, Belonging and Biography: Ethnographical and Biographical Perspectives, eds. Gabrielle Rosenthal and Arthur Bogner (Berlin: LIT verlag, 2009), 42.

210

Nora Kofognotera Nonterah

2. The Place of Religion and Religious Education in Peace Building Process in Ghana Against the aforementioned background, how can religious education help in fostering peace? How can religious education function as an instrument in building peace and more significantly as an instrument for avoiding reoccurrences of violent conflicts? Attempt at answering these questions is the focus of this section. “Although Christians and Muslims meet each other every day in many places and on many occasions, many Christians have no knowledge of Islam and Muslims”22. The vice versa is also true. Misunderstandings in families about different religious practices ranging from birth ceremonies, marriages, to funerals, are not rare. One would, therefore, think that teaching religion in Ghanaian schools will be welcomed by all and sundry. But that is not the case. In this regard, a brief look at the history of religious education in Ghana will be helpful. Religious education in Ghana has witness a considerable paradigm shift and has been inconsistently part of the educational curriculum of Ghana. Religious education in Ghana is believed to be as old as formal education in Ghana. Around the 18th century when Christianity finally came to stay in Ghana, missionaries who brought Christianity also established schools aimed at teaching children how to read and write so as to serve as interpreters for the colonial masters23. Religious education was also taught as a means of converting children to Christianity24. In Awuah-Nyamekye’s view, because of the early Christian domination in formal educational sector, religious education under the name Religious Instruction was taught25. However, at the wake of Ghana’s independence, the then president, Nkrumah, had a new vision for these schools. With Nkrumah’s idea of reconnecting “the [Ghanaian, in fact, African] people to their past”26 and of restoring “their pride in things African”27, he did not find the administration of the missionary schools by the 22

23 24 25

26

27

Catholic Bishops Conference of Ghana, Ecclesia in Ghana: On the Church in Ghana and its Evangelizing Mission in the Third Millennium (Cape Coast: no publishers, 1997) 152. C. K. Graham, The History of Education in Ghana: From the Earliest Times to the Declaration of Independence (London: Frank Cass, 1971), 1-2 and 13. Ibid. Samuel Awuah-Nyamekye, “Religious Education in a Democratic State: The Case of Ghana,” 11, available from: http://law.biu.ac.il/files/law/shared/FinalRevised IsraelKwasi.pdf (accessed on 26/03/11). Kwame Botwe-Asamoah, Kwame Nkrumah’s Politico-Cultural Thought and Policies: An African-centred Paradigm for Second Phase of the African Revolution (New York: Routledge, 2005), 175. Ibid.

211

The Use of Religious Education in Fostering Inter-Religious Peace in Ghana

missionaries helpful to this project28. Nkrumah, therefore, made educational policies that led to the government takeover of the missionary schools in Ghana, nonetheless, these schools still maintain their original names and are identified as schools started by the ‘missionary Churches’29. Awuah-Nyamekye’s notes that the “Church did not take kindly to this condition, for it felt it was a threat to Religious Education”30. Nkrumah’s aim was to open up the study of religion to include other religions practiced in Ghana, especially, the African Traditional religion31. Religious education has been taught in Ghanaian schools as Religious Knowledge (RK). However, it did not continue in a very consistent manner in the curriculum. For instance, at one time it was integrated into a subject named Cultural Studies, later renamed as Religious and moral Education. In the 2007 educational reforms in Ghana, religious education was totally eliminated from the curriculum of basic schools – especially in the elementary and secondary school curriculum32. Christian and Muslim leaders fought to have religious education reintroduced in the educational system and curriculum. This is laudable, however, the question of how religious education can be taught in such a way that, it has an effect on the lives of the students is yet to be answered in the Ghanaian situation. The problem of religious education not having effect on the lives of the students even when it is fully incorporated into the curriculum is a fact that should not be overlooked. I agree with Norbert Okoledah, a Ghanaian theologian, that: religious education in Ghana is “a mere exposition of religious beliefs, tenets and practices of these three major religions [Christianity, Islam, and African traditional religion] existing side-by-side in a multi-religious Ghana”33. Given this situation he “doubts how this religious education really equips the pupils and students for life”34. From this backdrop, we understand that part of the problem of religious education in Ghana has to do with the style of teaching it (teacher-centred lecture method) and also the comparative nature of religious education (multi-religious learning) which in Ghana, involves only a mere presentation of religious facts with a “purely external and objective description of the different reli28 29 30 31 32 33 34

Ibid., 182. Ibid. Awuah-Nyamekye, “Religious Education in a Democratic State: The Case of Ghana,” 11. Ibid. Ibid., 15. Norbert Okoledah, Problems and Prospects of the Search for a Catholic Spiritual Tradition in Ghanaian Catholic Pastoral Ministry (Munster: LIT verlag, 2005), 125. Ibid.

212

Nora Kofognotera Nonterah

gions”35 that are practiced in Ghana. The teacher-centred approach and the multi-religious model to learning religion does not serve the purpose of students’ active involvement which hinder correct assimilation of what is taught to the student. This, therefore, denies students the possibility of building dialogical skills, and the possibility of dialoguing with other religions.

2.1. Proposed Steps and Models for Improving the Role of Religion and Religious Education in Peace Building in Ghana It is our suggestion that for religion and religious education to play a vital role in fostering peace in Ghana, religious education should be given a new approach. Due to the complex and multi-religious nature of Ghana, religious education should shift from comparative study about religions to a more dialogical study encouraging interactions of religions. There has been the discussion on three main pedagogical models which has been adopted in one way or another by different religious traditions in the teaching of religious education as a subject in schools. These models are, mono-religious, multi-religious and inter-religious. Each of them has distinctive effects on either promoting or retarding the rate of inter-religious relation and peace among people. Mono-religious model does not recognise plurality of religions36. Thus, religious education becomes a way of teaching only one religion. This model follows the theology of Christian exclusivism or inclusivism and limits religious education to Christian ideas and theories37. Based on this, the two versions of the mono-religious model are referred to as ‘hard’ and ‘soft’38. When religious education is taught from an exclusivist point of view, Christianity is recognised as the sole bearer of religious truth and moral ethics – the ‘hard’ version39. This version does not include any other religion in religious education. And on the other hand, when taught from an inclusivist point of view, other religions are considered but these other religions are read, interpreted and understood only on the basis of Christianity’s own conception about the religions in

35 36 37 38 39

Pollefeyt, “Introduction,” xii. Carl Sterkens, Interreligious Learning, 52. Pollefeyt, “Introduction: Religious Education,” xvii. Chris Hermans, Participatory Learning: Religious Education in Globalizing Society (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 338. Ibid.

213

The Use of Religious Education in Fostering Inter-Religious Peace in Ghana

question – ‘the soft’ version40. In both cases the centrality of religious education is based on only one religion. The second model is the multi-religious model, which started around the 1970s as a response to the multi-religiosity of society and therefore of educational institutions too41. In this model, religious education can be taught at schools, recognising the plurality of religions but with a possibility for one (the student/learner and even teacher) to detach oneself from any religious tradition42. It seeks to present a comparison of different religious traditions43. Those who advocate for this model argue that it proceeds from a neutral and descriptive approach, thereby does not focus on developing the religious self through religious practices and participation since one participates as an outsider44. This model, following the theology of pluralism, is “based on the notion that all religions are equal, or strictly relative, worth”45. This, however, poses some dangers to dialogue and consequently to peaceful co-existence in societies. On one hand, it does not allow engagement which is “contradictory with the pedagogical goals of religious education classes that invite students to become competent in engaging themselves as responsible human persons and as (religious) believers in the society and (...) of the future”46. Secondly, what goes with this model is the risk of “reducing religions to the status of only being relative and interchangeable human constructions”47. Such a model is likely to produce citizens and religious believers who will understand peace only as the mere absence of war. This is because the multi-religious model does not educate relation to and appreciation for the other but focuses on tolerance and respect. There is a risk of not achieving unity, harmony and collaboration for development, if we only seek mere tolerance and respect of the other. Religious education should seek to help people to know about their own faith and about other’s faith. It is only in appreciating one’s own beliefs that room is created to learn from, accept, and respect others in their own beliefs. The inter-religious learning model, the third, offers a better opportunity. This approach acknowledges plurality of students, allows them to enter into a “cognitive and value commitments underly40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

Ibid. Pollefeyt, “Introduction: Religious Education,” xi. Carl Sterkens, Interreligious Learning, 55. Ibid. Chris Hermans, Participatory Learning, 343. Pollefeyt, “Introduction: Religious Education,” xi. Ibid. Ibid.

214

Nora Kofognotera Nonterah

ing the different religions, giving them the opportunity to enrich and develop their own personal religious identity”48. The orientation of this model is in the need for one to open up one’s “linguistic world”49 to enter into a conscious interaction with the other – translational approach to dialogue; in this case, religious education becomes a “place of encounter and dialogue between different religious convictions”50. In the inter-religious model of learning religion, what is significant is that, people uphold their religious beliefs but at the same time, are open to the ‘other’. Thus inter-religious learning involves one keeping “the commitment of [his/her] religious identity”51 but at the same time “openness”52 to the other. This is what the theology of inclusivism holds, though, in inclusivism the effort to open up towards the other also mean to “inclusion” of the other to one’s own religious convictions53. This makes the openness in inclusivism limited only in so far as the other is included. Inter-religious encounters, however, should be a forum whereby people share their religious beliefs freely in a translational manner with the other and learn from the other by being open to listen to the way the other tries to translate his/her beliefs54. For one’s ability and openness to listen to and learn from the other, offers him great opportunities to grow, develop and reinterpret one’s own religious convictions55. Nonetheless in an inter-religious learning, we cannot deny learners of their “heartfelt convictions that make”56 them who they are. To engage in an inter-religious encounter, and therefore, inter-religious learning, “conversation and discussion”57, one does this, “start[ing] from and always remain colored by one’s own original language”58 making inclusivism “inescapable”59. 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

57 58 59

Ibid., xii. Pollefeyt, Interreligious Dialogue Beyond Absolutism, Relativism and Particularism, 11. Pollefeyt, “Introduction: Religious Education,” xii. Moyaert, Fragile Identities, 81. Ibid. Ibid., 82. Pollefeyt, Interreligious Dialogue Beyond Absolutism, Relativism and Particularism, 11. Carl Sterkens, Interreligious Learning, 63. T. Merrigan, “Interreligious Learning’ in the Light of the Contemporary Catholic Theology of Interreligious Dialogue” in Interreligious Learning, ed. Didier Pollefeyt (Leuven: Peeters, 2007), 198. Ibid. Pollefeyt, Interreligious Dialogue Beyond Absolutism, Relativism and Particularism, 10. Ibid.

215

The Use of Religious Education in Fostering Inter-Religious Peace in Ghana

Religious education that makes use of the inter-religious model would aim at: developing dialogical competence in religious traditions60; “cultivating the capacity to change perspective”61 including, among other things, the cognitive aspect which deals with “acquisition of knowledge and insight regarding religious traditions and world views”62, the affective aspect which is the “involvement with these religious traditions”63 and the attitudinal aspect which refers to the “willingness to communicate, (...) foster (...) respect for one’s own and other religious traditions.”64 This is what is invariably needed in the process of peace building from the multi-religious society of today, where people learn to understand their own faith, appreciate it and acknowledge other religious traditions, giving respect and opening up to learn from them. As Thomas Groome, the American theologian and religious educationist, notes we should reject any form of “religious education that does not engage and affect people’s lives.”65 Rather, having religious education with such a model helps to pave a good space for an agenda for peace. This becomes an important initial and concrete step in search for peaceful co-existence among people of different religious backgrounds. Here, we go beyond tolerance and respect, to include, dialogue, appreciation of the other, and learning from the other. Introduction of inter-religious learning in the multi-religious Ghana will bring the different religions into contact with each other for interaction and conversation. It will not only avail the adherents of the different religions, the opportunity to learn to understand each other, tolerate, respect but also an opportunity to learn from the other, value the other, and appreciate the other. This will be an important step in the search for peace in the multi religious Ghana. This inter-religious learning paradigm will involve two things.

2.1.1. Self Deepening of Faith In the three main religions practiced in Ghana (Christianity, Muslim and African Traditional Religion), peace as a value occupies a central place in their teachings. In Christianity, “peace be with you” which is found in the gospel of John 20, 19 as Jesus’ own words accompany not only the liturgical aspect of the Christian life but all it’s daily life. Peace 60 61 62 63 64 65

Carl Sterken, Interreligious Learning, 63-64. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Thomas Groome, “Catechesis and Religious Education: A Vision for Now and Always,” in Horizons and Hopes: The Future of Religious Education, eds. Thomas Groome and Harold Horell (Mahwah, Paulist, 2003), 1.

216

Nora Kofognotera Nonterah

in Christianity can be said to be the manifestation of the presence of the kingdom of God. It is its nucleus: “an eschatological reality with present implications”66 in which the mystery of God’s coming on earth is affirmed and made meaningful67. With this in the mind of Christians, they believe that “through their baptism they are called and empowered to make the reign of peace present in this world”68. We can emphasise this by affirming that peace on earth is a special mission to Christians. The cardinal element of peace in Islam are, co-existence of all faiths, virtue of universal humanism, love and tolerance, “unity of creation in the being of God,” love and compassion towards all69. Peace in Islam goes beyond mere respect and being able to tolerate others (including non-Muslims) to include, making conscious efforts to live in unity and harmony. In the African Traditional Religions, Peace is a practical concept that means order, harmony and equilibrium which has both a religious and a moral value70. Peace is not selfish and is not at an individual’s sphere but within a communal and societal realm – Peace means: good relations with other humans, with environment and with the spiritual world; ability to welcome differences and seek ways to be able to live harmoniously in them; a gift from the supreme being who commends human beings to be co-responsible for building peace on earth; as a “precondition of progress” where the human society makes effort to get closer to fullness of life, thus to be able to have what is necessary for good human living71. How can we base the search for peace on these religious values? A famous theologian of religious and peace education, Ernest Nipkow, informs peace seekers that, “in looking out for peace-promoting potentials, the criteria are to be found in the origins of each religion”72. It is important to acknowledge that, what most religions work to achieve in society: unity, good behaviour, fraternity, salvation (eschatological but 66 67 68 69 70

71 72

Mary Elsbernd, A Theology of Peacemaking: A Vision, a Road, a Task (New York: University Press of America, 1989), 41. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Godfrey Onah, “The Meaning of Peace in African Traditional Religion and Culture;” available from: http://www.afrikaworld.net/afrel/goddionah.htm (accessed on 27/01/2011). Ibid. Karl Nipkow, “Education for Peace as a Dimension of Inter-religious Education: Preconditions and Outlines,” in International Handbook of Inter-religious Education, eds. Kath Engebretson, et al., International Handbooks of Religion and Education, Vol. 4, (London: Springer, 2010), 657.

217

The Use of Religious Education in Fostering Inter-Religious Peace in Ghana

now manifested in the present life), love and justice will only be a mirage without peace on earth. Peace and justice on earth is the common theme for most religious leaders and educators73. In this regard, there is a two way interdependent/co-working nature of peace education and religious education: a) Peace as an end of religious education, and b) religion as a main criterion that can be used in educating for peace. Thus, self-faith deepening either in the religious communities or in school setting is important: by this everyone needs to “do the hard work of developing our faith and have a profound inner knowledge of as well as a deep commitment to it in all the situations of life”74. If this is done, we can contend that peace and value to life will become rooted in most hearts, thus conflicts will be minimised and better handled when they occur, fraternity will flourish and unity and peace among the community inhabitants will be realised.

2.1.2. Learning about and from the Other Religious education should seek to help people to know about their own faith and about other’s faith. It is only in appreciating one’s own beliefs that room is created to learn from, accept, and respect others in their own beliefs. This requires an approach that acknowledges the reality of religious differences among students from various faith backgrounds, bring them to an awareness of the different religions, in a way that creates room and challenges them to self deepening of one’s own faith. The multi-religious nature of Ghana and the reality of absence of peace, calls religious bodies, institutions and the society at large to rethink a way of living together and, therefore, a new way of perceiving people of other faith. The need to go beyond mere study of religion without any relational dialogue between the various religions is necessary. On this backdrop, we propose that religious education should be approached from a translational model viewpoint. In this case, learners in a religious education lesson share their religious convictions and beliefs in a translational manner with the other and learn from the other by listening to the way the other tries to translate his/her beliefs. Thus, everyone coming from his or her own religious convictions is willing to share with the other and is willing to listen to, learn from, and appreciate the other. By this, the ability to dialogue can be built. Only then, can we begin to go beyond a mere superficial respect and tolerance to a 73

74

Linda Baratte, “Religious Education and Peace Education: A Partnership Imperative for Our Day,” in International Handbook of the Religious, Moral and Spiritual Dimensions in Education, eds. Marian de Souza et al., International Handbooks of Religion and Education, Vol. 1, (Drordrecht: Springer, 2009), 248. Wayne Teasdale, Catholicism in Dialogue: Conversations across Traditions (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), 71.

218

Nora Kofognotera Nonterah

more grounded way of relating, learning from each other, and appreciating each other. Here, we are seeking peace that goes beyond absence of war to include positive harmony and appreciation. Educating for peace in/within religious education, therefore, will have these four aims to work with75: 1) Equipping “learners with histories, practices, beliefs and values of various religions in the world” with the basic objective of a dialogue that will lead to the ability to “engage in common thinking and actions towards goals and mutual benefit[s]”; 2) Revealing “to individuals and groups that all religious people consider their own as authentic and therefore they are the ‘chosen people’”. This then brings an understanding that one could be wrong with his or her assumption that his or her religion is the only true one; 3) Revealing that in history, “one’s own religion, like other religions, has made similar mistakes” usually because of lack of deep faith. In this case, all religions are challenged – to teach deep faith, dignity of human life and the deeper value of peace and if all people follow what their religions teach, there could be peace; 4) Religious education from an interreligious perspective should aim at paving the way for dialogue.

2.2. Methodology and Approach to Religious and Peace Education in Ghana The search for truth, knowledge and understanding of the nature of human beings, and the world, origins of human existence are the very pursuit of many religious traditions. It, therefore, becomes meaningful that, religious education makes use of hermeneutics not only to mean a mere interpretation of religious text76 or a means of making generalisations from facts and observations (inductive learning) but it should also make evaluation of the text to construct arguments (deductive)77. In this sense then, an effective method is one that puts the learners/ “young people”78 themselves at the centre of the learning process. It also will 75

76 77

78

Eunice Kamara, “The role of Interreligious Education in Fostering Peace and Development,” in International Handbook of Inter-religious Education, eds. Kath Engebretson, Marian de Souza, Gloria Durka, and Liam Gearon, International Handbooks of Religion and Education, Vol. 4, (Berlin: Springer, 2010), 659-672. Ibid. Annemie Dillen, “Theologizing with Children: A New Paradigm for Catholic Religious Education in Belgium,” in International Handbook of Catholic Education: Challenges for the School System in the 21st Century, eds. Gerald Rupert Grace and Joseph O’Keefe, International Handbooks of Religion and Education, Vol. 2 (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007), 360. H. Lombaerts and Didier Pollefeyt, “The Emergence of Hermeneutics in Religious Education Theories,” in Hermeneutics and Religious Education, eds. H. Lombaerts and Didier Pollefeyt (Leuven: Peeters, 2004) 17.

219

The Use of Religious Education in Fostering Inter-Religious Peace in Ghana

reflect a broader spectrum such as the family background, contacts with peers, youth culture, media, information and communication technology (ICT), and the like in religious education79. Here, the central ideas are: the agents of the learning process being the children (not exclusively though) and the scope not limited to just personal experience or textual interpretations but open to a wide range of learning elements. By this we can begin to move away from the traditional teacher-centred lecture method and also the comparative nature of religious education (multireligious learning) which involves only a mere presentation of religious facts with a purely external and objective description of the different religions. Such a method does not encourage student’s engagement in the learning process and does not encourage dialogue in learners. The central idea of having good methodology in the teaching and learning of religious education in Ghana is based on the following80: (a) a learner-centred approach – the teacher of religious education should have at the back of his/her mind that it is the learners’ (students’) understanding and ability to make meaningful arguments and decisions based on religious ideas that is important and not the teacher’s capacity to give information on religious facts; b) hermeneutically – communicative – teachers should aim at helping their learners (students) to be able to interpret religious text, facts, and observations, and to be able to critically digest them to make constructive arguments; c) and open to a wider scope of reference in religious education – going beyond the traditional sources, such as the Bible, the Qur’an, religious text books, and religious institutions to embrace the larger society, the family, ethnic and tribal issues, economic issues, etc. Since in religious education, it is not only the content of study or ideas that should be evaluated but also (especially with the interreligious model) the students’ competence in dialogue, therefore, many other forms of evaluation should be employed in religious education in addition to the end of lesson and term examinations. Thus, included is the evaluation of the “associated behaviour”81 that is expected as an outcome in process of inter-religious learning. Here observation, organised classroom debate, questionnaires and oral interactions through organised discussions can be used as forms of evaluation. The Self Confrontation Method (SCM), advanced by Hurbert Hermans, can be 79 80

81

Ibid. The ideas that follows are taken from the work of H. Lombaerts and Didier Pollefeyt, “The Emergence of Hermeneutics in Religious Education Theories” in Hermeneutics and Religious Education (Leuven: University Press 2004), 17. Carl Sterkens, “Changes in Commitment and Religiocentrism,” in Interreligious Learning, ed. Didier Pollefeyt (Leuven: Peeters, 2007), 141.

220

Nora Kofognotera Nonterah

employed in inter-religious learning82. Here, it will help to measure “personal identity by means of questionnaire that elicits the person’s focal religious concerns”83.

2.3. The religious educator Before the 2007 reforms which saw the removal of religious education in Ghana, religious education was taught in all schools but with a lecture method, Awuah-Nyamekye laments about this, that religious education in Ghana is usually “teacher-centred”84. In the teacher-centred approach to learning, information is given out to learners without their contribution to the learning process. In this case, the teacher was “required to study and teach all the religions with the major educational aim of helping the students to understand and appreciate the beliefs and practices of the religions”85 The religions under study are Christianity, Islam, and the African traditional religion86. With this, the duty of the teacher is simply to have religious information about the various religions and to offer this to students. Since the religious education class is often made up of students of the three different religions practiced in Ghana, a good inter-religious educator should learn to make use of resource persons. The religious educator should avoid presenting mere religious information to students since it does not give them the opportunity to enter into a conscious interaction with the other. Rather, the religious educator should learn to encourage and build in students the dialogical/conversational capabilities. The teacher should aim at helping students to understand their own faith well and to understand the other, so that there can be interaction between faiths in the learning process87. It is important to stress on the need for special training both religious and professional, for the teachers of religion in Ghana. This is because; “some of the teachers of Religious Education in Ghana lack the required 82

83 84 85 86 87

Ina Ter Avest, “Identity with a View: The Children’s Self Confrontation Method (SCM) as a Diagnostic and Development-stimulating Instrument in the Process of Religious Identity Development,” in Interreligious Learning, ed. Didier Pollefeyt (Leuven: Peeters, 2007), 309-331. Hans Schilderman, “Personal Religion,” in Social Constructionism and Theology, eds. Chris Hermans et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 221. Awuah-Nyamekye, “Religious Education in a Democratic State: The Case of Ghana,” 23. George Awuah and Owusu Afriyie, General Introduction to Religious and Moral Education: For Higher Level Studies (Mamponteng: Erinor Ventures, 2005), 217. Ibid., 216. J. Berling, “The Process of Inter-religious Learning,” in Interreligious Learning, ed. Didier Pollefeyt (Leuven: Peeters, 2007), 34.

221

The Use of Religious Education in Fostering Inter-Religious Peace in Ghana

academic and professional competencies”88 which means that, “they do not have the requisite training in imparting Religious Education”89. The usual feeling is that once one professes a particular faith, one should be able to teach that faith, for example, any Muslim should be able to teach Islam90. This has affected the teaching of religion in Ghana and can be said to have led to the aversion of religious education in Ghana. This is because some parents think that their children are being polluted with strange and unrealistic religious ideas which will be of no help either to them or to the society. To this, we suggest that nobody should be allowed to teach religion in the schools without having gone through a theological/religious study with the aim of becoming a teacher of religions. Here, the professional training is important so that the teachers can acquire the pedagogical skills, methods and approaches to the teaching of the subject. The government should make room for this, by providing more facilities, and creating programmes for the special training of religious teachers in Ghanaian teacher training colleges. This will help avoid the unprofessional handling of Religious Education now that it is again fully reintroduced in the Ghanaian educational system.

3. Pastoral Aspect An informal approach is equally necessary in advocating for a religious education that could contribute to good inter-religious relations and peace in Ghana. From the Christian perspective, the family is seen as a “domestic Church”91. This was an idea that was used in Vatican II to deal with the role of parents towards their children’s growth and formation in faith. Parents have it as a duty to bring their wards to faith, done through sharing of their experience, teaching, and by living exemplary lives92. Any religious family must not, however, limit itself only to its religious background but open up, acknowledge and prepare themselves willingly to accept other realities. It is true that many religions have always had their own means of educating its adherents in faith. For example, in Christianity, catechesis has been the well-known method of educating its members in faith. This 88 89 90 91 92

Samual Awuah-Nyamekye, “Religious Education in a Democratic State,” 22. Ibid., 22-23. Ibid., 23. Vatican II, “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 21 November, 1964,” AAS 57 (1965), No. 11. Nora Nonterah, The Role of Youth in Evangelisation: With Particular Reference to the Diocese of Navrongo-Bolgatanga (Unpublished Master Thesis, Pontificia Univerità Urbaniana, 2009), 103.

222

Nora Kofognotera Nonterah

we find in Catechesi Tradendae, a catholic document on the teaching of faith, where the specific aims of catechesis is “to develop, with God’s help, an as yet initial faith, and to advance in fullness and to nourish day by day the Christian life of the faithful, young and old”93. For the sake of the nature of Ghanaian society today, where even a family could be multi-religious, our attention is called to an inclusion of the interreligious aspect of religion, even in catechesis. This does not mean that a particular faith group, Catholics for instance, must concentrate on giving inter-religious education to it members without reflectively educating them in the “spiritual wisdom of Christianity”94. What is intended here is that, informing one religious group about how to read the other, understand the other, relate with the other and even learn from the other should be made part of every religious tradition’s form of teaching. The purpose is always for peaceful co-existence.

4. Application to the Ghanaian Context Although this paper did not include a detailed description of the various agencies and groups that should implement the proposals made in this paper, suffice it to say a word about that. The inter-religious learning model of teaching religious education in Ghanaian schools with the advocated communicative-hermeneutic methodology and strategies, can be made accessible to the concern people and agencies through this publication. Hopefully it will get into the hands of agencies and groups like the Ghana government, Ghana Education Service, teachers, priest, pastors and educational policy makers who will read it and make use of its content where applicable.

5. Conclusion The consequential effects of misery, hunger and un-dignifying life that go with violent conflicts do not actually represent what most religions teach about life. If most Ghanaians are religious, our interest should be in making the religious influence a blessing to Ghana and not a curse. This we suggest can be done through education from an interreligious perspective – this involves growing in one’s own faith and being open to dialogue, interaction with the other (religious) person of different faith tradition. What is needed in the Ghanaian society is, on the one hand, the avoidance of religious tensions, conflicts, and disuni93 94

John Paul II, “Apostolic exhortation, Catechesi Tradendae, 6 October, 1979,” AAS 71(1979), No. 20. Thomas Groome, “Catechesis and Religious Education: A Vision for Now and Always,” in Horizons and Hopes: The Future of Religious Education, eds. Thomas Groome and Harold Horell (Mahwah, NJ. Paulist, 2003), 1.

223

The Use of Religious Education in Fostering Inter-Religious Peace in Ghana

ty, and on the other hand, the attainment of inter-religious peace, which will serve as an eye-opener, a guide and a pointer for the people of the value of peace. Its implication will be the reduction of the rate of occurrence (if not a total eradication of) inter-ethnic conflicts. This is the role that a peace education from a religious background has to play in Ghana

References Agang, S. B. (2008). African Traditional Religion. In W. A. Dyrness & V.M. Kärkkäinen (ed.), Global Dictionary of Theology: A Resource for the Worldwide Church. Downers Grove, Ill. Nottingham: IVP Academic; InterVarsity Press. Awuah-Nyamekye, S. (2005). Religious Education in a Democratic State: The Case of Ghana Retrieved 26/03/11, 2011, from http://law.biu.ac.il/files/ law/shared/FinalRevisedIsraelKwasi.pdf. Baratte, L. (2006). Religious Education and Peace Education: A Partnership Imperative for our Day. In M. De Souza (ed.), International handbook of the religious, moral and spiritual dimensions in education. Dordrecht; London: Springer. Berling, J. (2007). The Process of Inter-religious Learning. In D. Pollefeyt (ed.), Interreligious learning (pp. 25-53). Leuven; Dudley, MA: Leuven University Press; Peeters. Botwe-Asamoah, K. (2005). Kwame Nkrumah’s politico-cultural thought and policies: an African-centered paradigm for the second phase of the African revolution. New York: Routledge. Catholic Church. (1965). Dogmatic constitution on the Church: Lumen Gentium, solemnly promulgated by His Holiness, Pope Paul VI on November 21, 1964. Boston: St. Paul Editions. Dillen, A. (2007). Theologizing with Children: A New Paradigm for Catholic Religious Education in Belgium. In G. R. Grace & J. O’Keefe (ed.), International Handbook of Catholic Education: Challenges for the School System in the 21st Century (Vol. 2, pp. 347-366). Dordrecht: Springer. Elsbernd, M. (1989). A theology of peace making: a vision, a road, a task. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Gifford, P. (1999). African Christianity: its public role in Uganda and other African countries. Kampala: Fountain Publishers. Graham, C. K. (1971). The history of education in Ghana from the earliest times to the Declaration of Independence. London: F. Cass. Groome, T. H. (2003). Catechesis and Religious Education: A Vision for Now and Always. In T. H. Groome & H. D. Horell (eds.), Horizons & hopes: the future of religious education. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press. Howell, A. M. (1997). The religious Itinerary of a Ghanaian People: The Kasena and the Christian Gospel. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Kamara, E. (2010). The role of Interreligious Education in Fostering Peace and Development. In K. Engebretson (ed.), International Handbook of InterReligious Education. Dordrecht; New York: Springer.

224

Nora Kofognotera Nonterah

Lombaerts, H., & Pollefeyt, D. (2004). The Emergence of Hermeneutics in Religious Education Theories. In H. Lombaerts & D. Pollefeyt (eds.), Hermeneutics and religious education (pp. 3-53). Leuven; Dudley, MA: Uitgeveru Peeters. Mbillah, J. (2004). “Inter-Faith Relations and the Quest for Peace in Africa.” In Publishers & LIT VERLAG, 2004. In K. Hock (ed.), The Interface between Research and Dialogue: Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa. London: Transaction Publishers & LIT VERLAG. Moyaert, M. (2011). Fragile identities: towards a theology of interreligious hospitality. Amsterdam; New York: Rodopi. Nipkow, K. (2010). Education for Peace as a Dimension of Inter-religious Education: Preconditions and Outlines. In K. Engebretson (ed.), International handbook of inter-religious education. Dordrecht; New York: Springer. Nonterah, N. (2009). The Role of Youth in Evangelisation: With Particular Reference to the Diocese of Navrongo-Bolgatanga, Pontificia Univerità Urbaniana, Rome. Onah, G. The Meaning of Peace in African Traditional Religion and Culture. Retrieved 27/01/2011, 2011. Osei, J. (2000). Manipulation of the Mass Media in Ghana’s recent political experience. In H. Lauer (ed.), Changing values, changing technologies: Ghanaian philosophical studies, II. Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. Pollefeyt, D. (2010.). Interreligious Dialogue Beyond Absolutism, Relativism and Particularism: A Catholic Approach to Religious Diversity. Unpublished Work. Salm, S. J., & Falola, T. (2002). Culture and customs of Ghana. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. Samwini, N. (2006). The Muslim resurgence in Ghana since 1950: its effects upon Muslims and Muslim-Christian relations. Unpublished Thesis (doctoral). University, Birmingham, 2003, Berlin. Schilderman, H. (2002). Personal Religion. In C. A. M. Hermans (ed.), Social constructionism and theology. Leiden; Boston: Brill. Sterkens, C. (2001). Interreligious learning: the problem of interreligious dialogue in primary education; Boston: Brill. Teasdale, W. (2004). Catholicism in dialogue: conversations across traditions. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Ter Avest, I. (2007). Identity with a View: The Children’s Self Confrontation Method (SCM) as a Diagnostic and Development-stimulating Instrument in the Process of Religious Identity Development. In D. Pollefeyt (ed.), Interreligious learning. Leuven; Dudley, MA: Leuven University Press; Peeters.

225

The Presence and Works of the Brothers of Immaculate Conception (FIC) in Ghana Aloysius POREKUU FIC Brother and Head Teacher, Wa

Introduction The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary Brothers – Ghana (FIC Brothers as they are commonly known in Ghana) is a branch of an International Religious Congregation that is now working in many countries. The acronym (FIC) comes from Latinized version of the name: Fratres Immaculatae Conceptionis Beatae Mariae Virgin and it is by this name that the congregation is officially registered by the Roman Catholic Church. The FIC Congregation was originally founded in Holland in the city of Maastricht around the year 1840 when many of the youth in the city were in need of material support. The needs of the neglected youth of Maastricht around the year 1840, like many other cities in Europe, were many and varied and included material poverty and spiritual abandonment. Moved by the degrading levels of poverty and other human needs, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, the two founders of FIC, namely, Mgr. Louis Rutten and Bro. Bernardus Hoecken founded the congregation in order to try and bring some relief to the neglected youth whose parents were deeply engrossed in their work. This was a period when workers were required to work from early in the morning till late in the night for very low wages which could not enable them to feed their families. They were also so involved in their work that they had no time to properly look after their children or give them a proper education. This led to a great religious indifference among the youth (Patricio Winters, 1981).

227

The Presence and Works of the Brothers of Immaculate Conception (FIC) in Ghana

Foundation History Louis Rutten was working as a diocesan priest in Maastricht when he first noticed the situation of the youth. As a young man Luis wanted to become a missionary but could not join any of the missionary organisations because of poor health. He therefore decided to be a “missionary to his own land”. Within the parish he was working, he took in neglected young people and provided them both with catechism and material support, mainly something to eat. As the number of young people turning up in his parish for catechism increased, he found it necessary to start a kindergarten and later an elementary school and to encourage lay people to assist him in the running of these institutions. The lay assistants later became the founding members of the organization originally known as the Teaching Brothers of Maastricht which came to be known as the FIC brothers. Indeed, the congregation of the FIC brothers could be said to have really began when in 1840 Brother Bernardus Hoekrn left his training as X brothers in Belgium to join the congregation of Rutten as a noviciate. Brother Bernardus has extraordinary leadership qualities and even though he was still in the noviciate, he was quickly made the brother superior and he became instrumental in the foundation of the congregation. The Brothers FIC, ever since their establishment as a congregation, has continued to live in the spirit of the founders Mgr. Louis Rutten and Bro. Bernardus Hoecken and this means: – to have an open eye for human needs; – to help build together a more humane world; – to be ready to serve within our apostolic tradition: education, teaching and formation; – to bind yourself completely to Christ and his Gospel; – to realise the Good News in your everyday life by living as brothers in fraternal community It is with this spirit that the Brothers lived and worked in Holland, teaching, educating and forming future members till 1920 when the Congregation entered into an era of apostolic missionary work outside the Netherlands.

228

Aloysius Porekuu

Mission out of Europe The first missionary country the Brothers went to when they entered the apostolic missionary work in 1920 was Indonesia1. In 1953 their missionary work extended to South America, Chile, where the Brothers opened a community and started their apostolic works. In 1958, a group of Brothers were sent to Sierra Leone in West Africa to start open a new mission. This mission, however, did not last. The Brothers left there in 1960. Some of them came back to the Netherlands and the rest were sent to Malawi to open the first missionary house of the Brothers FIC in that country2. This group of Brothers later extended their missionary activities across the national borders into Zambia between 1978 and 1990 when it was closed down. In 1962, the Congregation opened two mission houses at the same time; one in Pakistan3 and the other in Spain. The Brothers however did not last in these missions. The mission in Spain was closed in 1984 and that of Pakistan in 1985 for similar reasons as stated above. In the year 1965, Bishop Dery got to know of the brothers when he was looking for a congregation that would come over to his diocese and take over the training of an indigenous congregation that was about collapsing. He had tried several male congregations but to no avail. He finally got good news from Fr. Van Rest, a Dutch missionary, who was already working in his diocese. The latter, knowing his Bishops’ plans and search for missionary educators, asked if he could contact the FIC brothers of Maastricht on his behalf. His Bishop wasted no time in doing so and was even more inspired and motivated when he got to know of the charisma of the brothers was devoted solely to education.

The FIC Brothers in Ghana In 1965, the first Brothers of FIC arrived in Ghana and settled in Kaleo in the western part of the then Upper Region of Ghana, now known as Upper West Region. The first brothers to arrive in Ghana were Bros. Martin Bouw and Oventius van Dooren. Prior to their arri1

2

3

Indonesia was, at that time a Dutch Colony. The FIC brothers extended their work there via invitation by the Jesuits who were already established as missionaries in the colony. The main purpose to help the Jesuit fathers with their educational mission. The zeal to spread the Good News of the Lord through education was always the motivation that moved the brothers to go anywhere they were invited. The closing of mission in many countries was often due to the breach of contract between the Bishop of the Diocese and the Congregation (e.g. a Bishop might want to overrule the activities of the brothers that under minds their constitutions). See webpage: http://www.brothers-fic.org/archives/history-pakistan.htm accessed 20/06/2012.

229

The Presence and Works of the Brothers of Immaculate Conception (FIC) in Ghana

val, the then Vicar General of the congregation, Brother Remund Pennings accompanied by Brother John van Winden, traveling on tourist visa, made an exploratory visit to Ghana and to ensure that the project will start on schedule. According to the official planning, Brother Remund had been assigned to take charge of the novice training of the Ghanaian brothers while Bro. John was assigned for all building and construction work. The novitiate institute had been re-scheduled to start on 8th September 1965 on account of the fact that these two brothers who had been officially appointed to Ghana could not get their resident permits in time. It must be stressed here that Cardinal Dery, then Bishop of Wa, did not only ask the FIC Brothers to come and take over an indigenous congregation, St. Joseph Brothers4, that was struggling to survive, but he also instructed them to focus on education in general and to open as many schools as possible. This is a clear indication that as a new bishop, Cardinal Dery had made education one of his key pastoral projects. Already, in 1966, the first Ghanaian Brothers made their first commitment in the Congregation of the Brothers of the Immaculate Conception.

The FIC Brothers and their Educational Achievements in Ghana Two years after their arrival in 1968 the brothers proceeded to open Nandom Senior High School. By 1976 the School was elevated to a Sixth Form school due to the hard work of the brothers and wonderful performances of the students at the Ordinary Level Examinations. In fact the school was one of the best in the Country, especially in the North of Ghana. Hence, since its inception of in 1968 the school has produced over 6,208 graduates at various levels; (see the table bellow). Table 1: Graduates of Nandom Secondary School

4

TYPE OF CERT.

YEAR RANGE

SC/GCE ‘O’ Level GCE ‘A’ Level SSSCE WASSCE Total

1973-1997 1978-1992 1993-2009 2011-

No. OF CANDIDATES 1,117 605 2,985 168 4,874

No. OF PASSES 1,055 411 2,585 142 4,193

The St. Joseph Brothers were a group of brothers founded under the patronage of St. Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, by Bishop Bertrand of the Missionaries of Africa as a diocesan congregation in 1948. There weren’t any clearly defined charisma and vision. This could be seen in the informal nature of the education and training of the brothers and the ad hoc approach to apostolate. They were only trained in carpentry, masonry and mechanics to take care of the manual aspects needs of the diocese.

230

Aloysius Porekuu

In 1972, the Brothers opened two (2) Vocational Schools, one in Nandom and the other in Kaleo. The Nandom Practical Vocational Centre (NPVC), as the one in Nandom was called, offered training courses in Building and Carpentry whereas the one in Kaleo which was called Carpentry and Joinery Vocational School offered Cabinet Making and Joinery as training courses. In-between the years, both institutions has grown tremendously. Hence, the Nandom Practical Vocational Centre was upgraded to Nandom Vocational School and is now known as St. John’s Vocational School and has added Building; Welding and Fabrication, Auto Mechanics and Plumbing as training courses. The Carpentry and Joinery Vocational School in Kaleo has been renamed St Basilide’s Vocational School and has also broadened its courses to include Carpentry; Building; Welding and Fabrication and Electrical engineering. Both institutions also prepare students for the national vocational training exams which is allowing their graduates to pursue further studies up to university and college level education. The FIC brothers did not limit their educational projects to lay community but also sought to recruit Ghanaian into their congregation. In order to do this, a Formation Centre was opened in Wa. St Louis Formation Centre as it is called was opened in 1976 to trained young boys who have the desire to become Brothers in the future. These young people have their initial formation, thus, Petulancy, or Pre-Novitiate, and the Canonical Year of Novitiate in the Formation Centre. Their Second Year of Novitiate, which is more or less a practical year (pastoral year), is spent in one of the communities to learn the way of life of the Brothers in the field of their apostolate. After this one year of experience these young men are sent back to the Formation Centre to make their first profession if they still have the desire to become Brothers. In 1973 the first Ghanaian Brothers made their final commitment in the congregation. Further developments took place in Ghana beyond the diocese of Wa. Hence, in 1981, acting on a request of the late Cardinal Dery, who had then become the metropolitan Archbishop of Tamale, opened a community in Tamale and sent competent people to take charge of the administration of St. Charles Minor Seminary. For practical reasons, the Brothers, in 1989, had to open a community in the national capital, Accra. The community was opened with the consent of the Bishop of the Archdiocese of Accra and was meant to serve the own needs of the brothers themselves by providing such services as taking Brothers to and from the airport, purchasing provisions for the Brothers and their institutions etc. However, as part of their apostolate in the diocese, the brothers initiated the apostolate for the street children headed by Bro. Jos van Dinther. 231

The Presence and Works of the Brothers of Immaculate Conception (FIC) in Ghana

Presently the Brothers are living and working in the following places: Kaleo, Nandom, Tumu, Wa, Tamale, Accra, Damongo, Zebilla, Sunyani and Bole. All their work is geared towards education, training, formation and teaching. This is done in schools, but also in the field such as in agricultural projects and farmers’ co-operatives.

Life of the Brothers5 The Constitutions of the Congregation is the basic Rule of life for all the Brothers in the Congregation. It is with these Constitutions that the Brothers commit themselves to God. The Constitutions formulates what the Brothers want to achieve with their lives in service to God through His people. The following are the extracts from the Constitution of the Brothers.

Brothers in the Church of Christ We form a congregation of people, who address each other ‘Brother’ and we must bear witness to this word in our lives. In a community, those who live under the same roof form a brotherhood. We manifest Christ to one another and to all people.

Apostolic Community We form an apostolic community to promote this unity and brotherhood. In the light of this we desire to our fellow men and women. Thus all work undertaken by the brothers is ultimately oriented towards this aim. One of the greatest traditions of the Congregation is her special concern for teaching and education.

Prayer Our apostolate cannot be seen as separate from our sacramental life and our prayer life. Our work for our fellow men and women should continually become more fruitful through contact with Christ in the sacraments and in prayer.

Life under vows For the sake of God’s presence among us, for the sake of the Kingdom of God we dedicate ourselves to Christ in this Congregation and through Him to one another and to all people. On the day of his profession, a brother commits himself to live unmarried. We believe that a man can be so absorbed by God and the 5

Read more about the current life of the brothers from their discussions network: http://www.brothers-fic.org/site/fic_cafe/viewtopic.php?pid=453#453 accessed 20/06/2012.

232

Aloysius Porekuu

coming of His Kingdom that he wishes to remain unmarried. Christ gave the advice to those who could understand it not to marry for the sake of the Kingdom of God. The brother also commits himself to live in Community of property. Our Community should be based on unity and solicitous love for one another and for others. In our personal as well as in our communal life, we dispose of money and goods, of what we earn and receive, in a manner which promotes the growth of Christ New World of justice and unity. The brother commits himself to live in obedience. We are attentive to the will of the Father in our community; in the circumstances in which we find ourselves and what is asked of us by those who lead us.

Preparation for life in the Congregation Those who consider themselves called to share our life undergo a preparatory period before they become members of our community. During this period of preparation, the young people have ample opportunity for acquiring a clear insight into the Congregation, and the Congregation on the other hand also get to know them. Such knowledge of each other is necessary for both parties to come to a definite decision based on sound motives. Any young man who wants to join the Congregation must be a professional. They are to follow the various stages of formation as listed below. These include: Aspirancy; the PreNovitiate; the Canonical Year of Novitiate; Pastoral Year of Novitiate; Temporary Commitment and then the Perpetual Commitment. Before I go on to explain each stage I would like to draw your attention to the fact that our formation programme is now a joint one, Ghana and Malawi Formation Programme. This means that one of the initial stages will be in Malawi and the other in Ghana. It has been decided that the Pre-Novitiate will be in Malawi and the Novitiate in Ghana.

Aspirancy Aspirancy is the period where a young man aspires to the religious life in the Congregation. He makes his first contact with the Aspirancy Coordinator or Vocation Director of the Congregation by an application. The Vocation Director upon receiving the application would respond appropriately to begin the process. This period can last two to three years depending on the situation of the candidate.

Pre-Novitiate This is period after the aspirancy where candidates after completing his professional studies and is still interested write an official application to the Provincial Superior to begin his Pre-Novitiate in the For233

The Presence and Works of the Brothers of Immaculate Conception (FIC) in Ghana

mation Centre in Malawi. This stage lasts for two years during which the pre-novices follow a programme of studies. These among others include Scripture, Liturgy, Christian Doctrine, Religious Life, Theology of Religious Life, Spirituality and Prayer and other Social Teaching of the Church etc.

Novitiate Novitiate follows the Pre-Novitiate stage. At the end of the PreNovitiate period, the pre-novices who still have the desire to continue with their formation writes an application to the Provincial Superior for admission in to the Novitiate. When accepted to the Novitiate, life proper begins in the Congregation. This means that the novice is now a full member of the Congregation. The Novitiate lasts for two years of which the first is a spiritual year and the second a practical or pastoral year. The first year is a year of studies, prayer, reflection and discernment through which helps the novice to come to understand his vocation. He studies in depth the Constitutions of the Congregation, the Theology of the religious life, the teaching of the Church and other relevant documents of the religious life. The second year of novitiate is a practical or a pastoral year during which the novice does a part-time job. In this he tries to come to a proper integration of work, prayer and communal living. This exposes the novice to experience the real life situation of a brother in the Congregation.

Temporal Commitment At the end of the novitiate, the novice if so willing and desires to make first commitment, applies officially to the Provincial Superior to ask for permission to make his first commitment in the Congregation. The period of the Temporal Commitment is nine years of which a temporally profess brother either makes his final commitment or terminate his life as a religious brother. During these years of temporal commitment, the brother renews his commitment every three years as a constitutional requirement till he makes the final commitment.

Final/Perpetual Commitment This is the final stage of formation programme. The brother at this stage, professes solemnly and publicly that he wishes to live this life as a religious forever till his death.

234

Aloysius Porekuu

The Patronage of our Congregation Our life as brothers is placed under the patronage of our Blessed Lady, Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus. We have chosen her as our inspiring example. This must be evident in our personal and communal life of prayer and work, and that each brother should hold the mother of our Lord in special honour. This is why the Congregation is called The Brothers of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary; (FIC-Fratres Immaculatae Conceptiones) as its Latin version.

Conclusion: Future/Vision of the Congregation The congregation is committed to fundamental changes for adaptive renewal. The process of searching for a new life-style and new apostolic works is open to experiments. This renewal should be rooted in the Gospel and the Charisma of the Congregation. The growth of the Congregation implies a growth in the Lord which will create a community of faith truly integrated. This is preferred to and outweighs the numerical growth of members.

References FIC Brothers. (not dated). Brothers FIC café. http://www.brothers-fic.org/site/ fic_cafe/viewtopic.php?pid=453#453 accessed 20/06/2012. FIC Brothers. (not dated) The Presence of The Bothers F.I.C. in Pakistan (19601985) http://www.brothers-fic.org/archives/history-pakistan.htm accessed 20/06/2012. FIC Brothers (not dated) Our founders: Louis Rutten and Bernard Hoecken http://www.brothers-fic.org/site/our_mission/detail.php?ID=70 accessed 20/06/2012. Winters, Patricio, (1981). Short History of the Congregation of the Brothers of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin Mary (F.I.C.).

235

“Were It Not in the Bush, Will A Man Abandon His Wife This Way?” Northern Immigrants and the Dilemmas of Social Reproduction in the Forest Transition Zone of Ghana Isidore LOBNIBE Associate Professor of Anthropology, Western Oregon University

Introduction Since the early 1980s, the decline of African agriculture and economy has resulted in sustained interest in the studies of agrarian change on the continent (for a review, see Berry 1984). A major outcome of this interest is the special effort scholars have put into exploring the ways in which domestic relations are being reshaped in regions that have been incorporated into the international economy through labor migration1. In Lesotho, male out-migration has often created female-headed households and feminized agriculture (Murray, 1981: 102). Exploring the links among labor migrations, agricultural decline, and social change in Koguta District of western Kenya, Francis notes that “Gender relations – in particular, divisions of labor and rights over resources – are critically important arenas in which economic change has been registered, acted out, often struggled over” (Mackintosh, 1981: 3) echoes a general sentiment about the decline of women’s autonomy in poorer agricultural areas of West Africa, where the spread of cash-cropping and the money economy changed women’s domestic duties and privileges. The situa1

See Lobnibe 2007. This paper is the result of a larger research project undertaken between 2002 and July 2005, in the Upper West region and selected villages in the Brong-Ahafo and the Afram plains. I gratefully acknowledge useful comments and suggestions I received from two anonymous reviewers of Africa Today which published a longer of the paper. I thank the publishers of Africa Today for granting me permission to reprint this shorter version that was presented at the Cardinal Dery Colloquium, Wa.

237

“Were It Not in the Bush, Will A Man Abandon His Wife This Way?”

tion, she argues, resulted in the reorganization of household divisions of labour and domestic responsibilities, so that even as women’s unpaid labour and burden of work increase within the household economy, their mode of participation ensures that they do not have money income of their own. Grier (1992: 319) adds a historical dimension to these discussions by showing how the consolidation of the new export-based economy in the early decades of the colonial rule in the Gold Coast intensified the exploitation of rural Akan women’s labour in what is now southern Ghana. In this chapter, I draw on these insights to explore how similar processes have been registered and acted out by Dagara migrant women of north-western Ghana who accompany their husbands to the yamproducing areas along the forest fringes of southern Ghana. Like other peoples of the West African Savanna, Dagara and other northern Ghanaians have been migrating to southern Ghana since the early decades of the twentieth century (Thomas, 1973; Lentz, 1989). First, I examine the daily experience of these women (who, like their husbands, lack formal education) by analyzing the reasons that underlie their migration to the farming villages of southern Ghana. Second, I highlight the problems that confront these women away from their home region, and discuss interhousehold and intrahousehold level relations as constitutive of the structural changes that have recently occurred within the migrant communities. I interrogate what broader sociocultural implications these changes hold for the individual migrant women’s autonomy, their roles (food production, nonagricultural income, meal preparation, childcare, and so on), and their statuses in this new setting. To address the question of whether women’s obligations and privileges have increased or eroded as husbands and relatives have tried to appropriate their labor in their struggle to keep a foothold in their new environment, I examine the life stories of three women in the south. I argue that most women are caught up in the imperative logics of their husbands’ projects of accumulation and survival, as opposed to their own initial aspirations. These three women’s accounts were collected as part of an ethnographic project conducted among rural migrants from the Upper West who live in the Brong Ahafo regions, shaded in the regional map of Ghana. As a participant-observer, I observed migrants’ interactions with their hosts, and conducted oral interviews with migrant groups and ninety-five former and current migrant farmers over a period of thirteen months.

Invisible Northern Migrant Women In their introduction to Women in Anthropological Perspectives, Knorr and Meier (2000: 9) remind us that woman’s experiences as 238

Isidore Lobnibe

migrants were largely ignored in the social sciences until the mid-1970s. Because female migrants’ experiences were not analyzed from anthropological perspectives, they became largely invisible in the social sciences. When mentioned at all, they were considered dependents of the husbands. Only in the mid-1980s did we see an increase in gender analysis within the migratory process. Over the past few decades, we have learned that migration affects men and women differently, even in situations where women may not be directly involved. To examine the dynamics of migration and the migrant household economy in the present paper, I discuss how relations of gender were affected and reshaped by changes in the Ghanaian political economy of the 1980s, and draw on the insight that we “take into account the cultural background of the migrant women’s societies of origin […] for it is within this complex that their roles are defined” (Knorr and Meier, 2000: 10) in the destination areas. More generally, southern Ghana boasts of rich ethnographic studies on women’s experiences and participation in the rural economy during the pre-colonial and colonial periods (Busia, 1951; Fortes, 1978; Mikell, 1988; Okali, 1983; Rattray, 1956). Older works have been complemented by more recent, historically informed studies on Akan women’s responses and labor contributions to rural production (Allman, 2001; Allman and Tashjian, 2000; Grier, 1992); however, similar efforts are yet to be replicated with regard to northern migrant women residing in the south, whose labor contribution remains veiled in the scholarly literature. It is unclear what accounts for the relative neglect of the experiences of these rural producers. As I show in the following pages, this neglect perhaps has to do with the recency of their involvement in farm-labour migration or inaccessibility to researchers. That women’s life experiences have not received ample attention cannot be overemphasized. Since the 1990s, there has been a growing interest in migrant women’s associations (Kroger and Meier, 2000; Meier, 2003) and the plight of northern street-girl porters (kayayoo) in larger Ghanaian cities (Agarwal et al., 1994), but we have yet to understand the experiences of rural migrant women, especially those involved in food-crop production. Filling this gap is another aim of this paper.

Northern Female Migrants in Southern Ghana In the pre-colonial period, Northern Ghanaian women, like their men, provided slave labour in various capacities in rural production in southern Ghana (Grier, 1992; see also Austin, 2005; Sutton, 1983; Wilks, 1975). With regard to the colonial period, Grier (1992: 317-319) has called attention to the dearth of written material on the labor contri239

“Were It Not in the Bush, Will A Man Abandon His Wife This Way?”

butions of women and girls to the cocoa economy of southern Ghana up to the 1920s. According to her, there are hardly any “specific written references” to the role of women labor contributions in the colonial records, but “the available references make it clear that female labor played a central role in almost every aspect of cocoa production and sale” (Grier, 1992: 317). Our knowledge about the extent to which female slaves participated in agriculture labor during the early years of colonial rule is thus largely obscured by the lack of records; it would appear, however, with the abolition of slavery and subsequent consolidation of colonial rule, that savanna women ceased to feature prominently as migrants in search of wage labor in the forest area (Cordell et al., 1996; Mikell, 1988; Skinner, 1960). That women did not often participate in migration in search of labor can be attributed largely to the gender ideology among societies in the West African Sahel and savanna regions that discouraged individual women migration (Koenig, 2005). Even societies in the southern Akan region of Ghana with strong matrilineal institutions had a widespread sexual imbalance in favor of men among the laboring people in the older coastal cities and Kumasi (Akyeampong, 1996: 63). Akyeampong’s analysis of the colonial census data of the working-class town of Takoradi, for example, shows that few Nzima and Fante women from nearby villages and Cape Coast, Liberia, and Nigeria were attracted to the port city. Unlike the eastern, central, and southern African regions, where women’s migrations were strictly regulated (Little, 1973), West African women were freer to migrate to the urban colonial cities, but were discriminated against in gaining access to job opportunities available to Africans. In the Gold Coast, prostitution and domestic services were the only jobs meant for women in the early days of colonial occupation; the colonial city was hostile to the African female, and “A young woman in town without a guardian was likely to be branded a ‘prostitute’ and treated as such” (Grier, 1992: 322). The male-female ratio was even higher in the mining and agricultural districts (where northerners filled most jobs) because imported laborers often were unaccompanied by their women (Akyeampong, 1996: 6364). We know, in contrast, from Rouch’s (1956) ethnographic survey in Accra and Kumasi among immigrants from the sahelien and the savanna regions, that urban migrants, once fully settled, invited their wives to join them. This practice, which dated back as far as the 1920s (Lentz, 2006: 143), was uncommon among temporary migrants from the Northern Territories who worked as laborers in cocoa or maize farms. In Brong Ahafo, for instance, Mossi migrant laborers arrived without their

240

Isidore Lobnibe

wives (Mikell, 1989: 128-132)2. In order to integrate easily and have easy access to farmlands, most of them married divorced Akan women or widows, with the encouragement of the women’s brothers, who readily claimed the children from such marriages as members of their matrilineage (abusua). Because the migrants were often deprived of their children, these relations never resulted in stable families. The situation with regard to immigrants from the less distant region of what is now northern Ghana as recounted to me by older Dagara former migrants in the Lawra and Lambussie districts suggested that the brevity and rigor of rural migration during the colonial and early independence days dictated that only young men traveled to the farming villages in the south; those with wives left them behind, perhaps because, before the introduction and expansion of road motor transportation in the 1920s, it took them several months to undertake the journey on foot. Unlike the Mossi, who regularly took up long-term contracts in the cocoa farms (Hill, 1970), their primary objective was to look for short-term wage work, which did not warrant traveling with their entire households. The evidence suggests that rural migration from northern Ghana, and the Upper West especially, was largely a male affair; not only did men regularly return to their wives, but the circulatory nature of migration, coupled with the demographic profiles of the migrants involved, hardly favored household reproduction in the rural south, except in the Muslim quarters (zongos) of the urban areas (Schildkrout, 1978). This pastgendered nature of north-south migration has informed the present view of women’s involvement in rural migration, which some have labeled as associational, meaning that women follow their husbands and do not migrate of their own accord (Geest, 2005). As we shall see, the 1980s signaled a change: women started migrating from the Upper West in increasing numbers to urban and rural areas for reasons that I examine in the next section. In 1979, a military coup d’état led by Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings left the country in a tense political situation; in December 1981, he came to power for a second time and declared a revolution. The political instability generated by these events was exacerbated by a prolonged drought, the outbreak of massive bushfires in the south, and the forced return of more than a million Ghanaians from Nigeria in 1983 (Chazan, 1983; Dei, 1986; Van Hear, 1998). The combined effect of years of economic mismanagement and these disasters severely strained 2

Mikell 1989 explains that Mossi men experienced delays in marrying their own wives and that it was common for younger adult men to inherit wives of their fathers when the latter died.

241

“Were It Not in the Bush, Will A Man Abandon His Wife This Way?”

the national economy and overstretched the nation’s ability to feed its citizens when it celebrated its silver jubilee of independence, in 1982 (Chazan and Shaw, 1988; Price, 1984). At the time as Price notes, “Production in all sectors was abysmally low. Food production had not kept up with population increase, and cocoa production was approximately half of what it had been two decades earlier” (Price, 1984: 165). Reported GNP, according to Price’s calculations, stood at -3.0, with inflation at 32.4%. Most people’s standard of living had deteriorated to the extent of threatening the survival of entire families for lack of access to basic foodstuffs (Clark, 1994). In response, the Provisional Defense Council military government, headed by Rawlings, sought assistance from the World Bank and IMF; these institutions recommended the implementation of a structural-adjustment program, which in turn compelled the Provisional Defense Council government to cut spending on social services and reduce subsidies on local agricultural production. Employment in key public sectors and the ministries was put on hold, and a mass retrenchment was initiated to reduce the number of salaried workers on the government payroll. These measures had deleterious effects on the informal economy, upon which most of Ghana’s rural people depended for their livelihood. In northern Ghana, the situation was even more precarious because of the collapse of commercial rice farming and the regions’ marginality within the national economy (Konings, 1986; Van Hear, 1982, 1984). The deteriorating economic circumstances, exacerbated by the effects of structural adjustment, drew women outside their traditional productive and reproductive roles into joining their husbands in search of livelihood in the south (Lobnibe, 2008). Moreover, the building of a major bridge linking the Upper West with the south on the Wa-Kumasi road over the Black Volta River at Bamboi was completed in 1981. Previously, the conditions for crossing the river by the pontoon boat (i.e., a mechanized ferry) had been formidable, and if former migrants’ descriptions are anything to go by, the bridge reduced a physical and important psychological barrier (Stahl, 2001). The decline of the agricultural export economy in the forest region shifted attention to increased local food-crop production in the forest fringes, the Brong Ahafo and the Afram Plains (Amanor, 2001; Berry, 2001; Lobnibe, 2007). In these places, several southern landowners invited northerners to settle on their fallow lands to increase food production. The opportunities for easy access to farmland, which the migrants could obtain by paying affordable fees or share-cropping (dominyenkye), encouraged men to travel with their families to settle permanently, starting the increased participation of women in the migration process.

242

Isidore Lobnibe

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Africanist neo-Marxist scholars attributed women’s nonparticipation in migration largely to the need for them to stay behind in the peripheral regions to reproduce the needed labor power for the capitalist export-crop enclaves (Amin, 1974; Meillassoux, 1981; Terray, 1972). Amin and Meillassoux posited that migrants’ earnings would not be enough to pay for all the costs of child rearing, medical care, and the care of the elderly, if whole families migrated; the ones who stayed behind assured the community would survive, produce new workers, and be there to receive migrants back, with the result that lower wages were sufficient for the migrants. Their insights illuminated the structural conditions of this kind of capitalism, but were criticized for ignoring individual experiences and African women’s place in the migration process. Scholars concerned with demonstrating women’s agency argue that even in communities such as those of the savannah regions, where many women may not have been involved in migration, they still play a key role in decision-making in the migration process; whether at home or in the destination areas, women’s labour contributions, they contend, are germane to the success of the migrant households (Cordell, Gregory and Piche, 1996; Knorr and Meier, 2000; Koenig, 2005; Mikell, 1997) – a topic to which I now turn. Knorr and Meier make a strong case for a need to consider women migrants’ experiences in any intercultural encounter that migration entails. As they note: Confrontation of the migrants’ own culture of origin with foreign culture (or cultures) and social conditions encountered where migrants settle results in migratory cultural changes and identity-related transformations. These processes are experienced and influenced by women in specific ways and shape the results of migration as a whole. Women hold specific roles and functions in the mediation between different cultures. Consequently, they influence intra- and intercultural relations and associated identity-related developments that are affected and enacted both on the social and individual level (2000: 10).

Before we further examine how an understanding of women’s experience can shed light on the total social universe within which a given migrant population may be embedded, it is necessary to make a few remarks on Dagara social organization.

243

“Were It Not in the Bush, Will A Man Abandon His Wife This Way?”

Dagara Social Organization The Dagara are a Gur-speaking group of people living in what was formerly the Lawra District in the northwest corner of Ghana3. Like other West African savanna people, they live in large compounds occupied by extended family households. A basic unit of Dagara social organization is the clan (yie), often referred to as house (yir)4, which takes the name of any of numerous exogamous patriclans, with higher connections recognized among some of them. Oral tradition of the people has it that some clans were subdivisions of others, and have segmented and broken off from each other (Goody, 1967; see also Lentz, 1994; Tengan, 2000: 165-167). Within each yir are agnatic descent segments (also called lineages), which in the case the Bobo of Southwest Burkina Faso are “corporations that maintain permanent rights over tracts of farmland, that are transmitted as joint estates from one generation to the next and managed by the head of the group on the basis of strict seniority” (Saul, 1989: 58). Each Dagara patriclan is composed of persons whose mothers were married by transferring to the in-laws cattle belonging to the clan. A woman married into a clan is considered a housewife (yir pog). In classificatory terms, all of a man’s lineage brothers are called husbands (sirbe) by his wife, and they, in turn, call the married woman wife (pog), but a (yir pog) retains membership of the clan to which she was born. Patrifiliation determines a child’s membership in a patrilineage, but this is only possible after the transfer of bride wealth from the father’s lineage to the mother’s. Alongside the agnatic descent groups are uterine descent groups or categories (belo), which are nonlocalized and composed of persons of the same matriline: maternal siblings and mother’s brothers. Norms regarding marriage among the Dagara prescribe patriline exogamy, forbidding marriage of both close and classificatory patrikin. The wife usually moves to live with her husband, close to the latter’s father and other patrikin. The Dagara consider that a husband has rights over the sexual services of woman only upon the payment of bridewealth to her lineage. The bridewealth grants him exclusive sexual rights over her, but his lineage and indeed the entire body of clan mem3

4

There is debate over what nomenclature should be used for the dagaare-speaking people (Goody, 1967; Lentz, 2000, 2006; Lobnibe, 2004) of northwest Ghana; however, to reflect local usage of my interlocutors, dagara is used throughout the paper. Also, my use of the ethnographic present is not meant to describe dagara society in timeless fashion: rather, I seek to underscore the fact that while the social organization has undergone several transformations, the basic structure remains largely the same. Depending on the context, yir may be interpreted as the physical living compound, a local kinship group, or a patriclan.

244

Isidore Lobnibe

bers have interest in her reproductive responsibilities, since it is upon her fertility that the group’s social reproduction rests (Goody, 1967). Goody was perhaps referring to this kind of relation-ship between a married woman and her husband’s lineage when he noted that “the lineage possesses rights over and duties towards its widows and wives arising from a common interest in the bride [sic] wealth accumulated through farming, as well as in its own continuity as a social group” (Goody, 1967: 69, my italics). Until the past few decades, bridewealth payments for the marriage of Dagara men within the patrilineage were the collective responsibility of other lineage members, who were expected to make individual contributions or part with their own daughters’ bridewealth to enable the acquisitions of wives for other lineage men. In parts of the West Africa savanna (and the Former Lawra District, especially), the search for bridewealth has long been identified as a major motive of young men’s migration to the forest region in search of wage labor (Skinner, 1960); however, when migrants decide to leave their wives under the care of other family members, the tension and conflict this conjugal payment creates in the migrant home communities between the individualized sexual rights of the wife’s husband and the corporate rights of the lineage or clans over the woman’s procreation have largely escaped attention (see Lobnibe, 2005).

The Dilemma of Migrants’ Wives in the North Shortly before I visited Piina in the Jirapa-Lambussie District in the Upper West and surrounding areas in 2002 to conduct surveys among migrant labourers, the village had witnessed a sexual scandal involving a woman named Ayuo5 and a man named Beyuo, her husband’s classificatory brother. This was one of many cases that confront wives of absentee migrants and their patrikin, and it became one of numerous narratives of experiences I obtained concerning migrant laborers from this area. The sexual liaison between Beyuo and Ayuo resulted in pregnancy. Before it had come to light, Ayuo had been spotted by many villagers on several occasions enjoying the generosity of Beyuo, who used to invite her to share a pot of sorghum beer. While I was in the village, the scandal appeared to have been resolved, following the performance of a sacrificial ritual meant to restore normal relations between the adulterous wife and her husband, should he return, and to ensure the woman’s

5

Most names used here are pseudonyms.

245

“Were It Not in the Bush, Will A Man Abandon His Wife This Way?”

safe delivery6. Her husband, Dozie, who returned from the south after the birth of her son, readily accepted his status as husband of the mother and social father of the new-born. In the village, it was largely perceived that Dozie’s absence from the village had caused his wife’s adultery: many female informants especially blamed him for Ayuo’s extramarital affair. Several villagers told me that such multiple relationships involving wives of absentee husbands were common. They cited another case, involving a woman of about 40, whose husband had not returned to the village from southern Ghana for twenty years. It was rumored mainly among the older men that because an extramarital affair by a married woman is considered injurious to the husband’s health (for reasons of ritual pollution), the husband’s refusal to return had to do with the fear of dying, even after the performance of two separate ritual cleansings. In contrast to this rumor, some middle-aged women deplored the plight of their fellow female villager, who, they said, was unlucky to be married into a lazy family, whose men had all abandoned their families and migrated to southern Ghana. These incidents foreground our analysis of possible reasons for the increase in the number of women who are participating in rural migration to southern Ghana. Allman argues that indirect rule in Africa not only sought to provide the colonial administration with cheap labor and legitimate colonialism, but “facilitated the colonization of the domestic realm – the world of marriage, divorce and childbirth, and death” (2001: 141). Indeed, her observation seems to find support in the colonial administration’s interest in resolving the marital affairs and disputes of Africans in the labor-producing areas (Hawkins, 2002a). The colonial archive on the former Lawra District is filled with court cases among men over women whose husbands migrated to southern Ghana for wage labor. Hawkins (2002b: 122-123), who has analyzed several of these documents, suggests that most colonial district commissioners of the then Lawra District were “eager to provide coercive sanctions to protect conjugal unions against the interference of rivals, so as to protect the interest of migrant laborers,” whose labor was badly needed in the south. According to him, most of the cases involved former husbands or their families seeking to regain wives who had escaped from marriages made against their will, or rival complainants who were seeking to recover their bridewealth payment or their children from their estranged wives. Because colonial officers and traditional authorities often conspired to prevent women from migrating on their own accord, a few of them took advantage of the absence of husbands to 6

For a detailed description of the ritual and its purpose, see Lobnibe, 2005.

246

Isidore Lobnibe

remarry a local man of their choice, or they eloped with a new husband to the south. What this means is that marriage provided the conduit through which Dagara women visited the south during much of the colonial and early post-independence periods. From the late 1970s onward, opportunities for household reproduction in the rural southern economy opened, enhancing women’s mobility and participation in the north-south migration. How did this happen? In an analysis of the changing nature of house-hold production, distribution, and consumption among the Kusase of north-eastern Ghana, Whitehead (1981) coined the term conjugal contract, with which she analyzed the shifting gender and household economic relations, which she argues, were shaped largely by the broader political economy. According to her, such transformations over time ensue from the national economy and impact directly on household relations, roles, and work. As we shall see, these insights equally apply in the case of the northern migrant households in the south, as women migrants’ role in agricultural production in the villages were affected and amplified in specific ways. During fieldwork, I found among Dagara rural migrants a clear linkage between the current pattern of migration and changes within the larger political economy in the 1980s, one that compels most men to migrate with their wives and other family members; this holds significant implications for household composition and intergenerational and gender relations in the migrant communities in the south. The mass retrenchment of unskilled public-sector workers, many of them from northern Ghana, increased the number of rural migrants with families searching for farmlands. It would appear that several wives of retrenched mineworkers had persuaded their husbands to relocate with the entire households in farming villages in the south instead of returning to the north. A factor in this desire may have been that women who moved with their husbands to the south preferred living without the extended family members. Abdul-Korah, who conducted interviews with migrants, including ex-miners in Brong-Ahafo, not only confirmed this trend, but found that “more than 60 percent of male migrants interviewees admitted that their wives came up with the idea that they should move to their present places of residence instead of going back home” (2006: 13). In the north, I found that the difficult economic conditions resulted in high school-dropout rates, and many young girls who fell victim to the economic situation could not continue with their education and started to migrate on their own accord, in contrast to the gendered nature of early rural migration. Their presence helped reshape the character of rural migration from the Upper West.

247

“Were It Not in the Bush, Will A Man Abandon His Wife This Way?”

To understand the larger social and economic contexts affecting the universe of which migrant women have become a permanent part, it is necessary to delineate the main features of the economy within which the migrant households have been situated. As some authors have shown, women in societies with strong patrilineal identities, such as the Dagara, may not have a major say in decision-making in the migration process, but husbands will not succeed in what they have sought to achieve without the active participation of wives, once they are in the south (Koenig, 1997).

Interhousehold and Intrahousehold Relations in Context During the early stages of my fieldwork, when I disclosed to my friends in villages of Nkoranza my intention to visit Kwame Danso, many of them warned me to be careful when interacting with the migrant farmers of that village: they said that even people from my home region or those who may turn out to be relatives of mine could not be trusted. I accepted this advice, but I seized the opportunity to elicit from them the reasons for their mistrust. I had sensed that it might have to do with rumors that the southern rural migrant economy was driven by sorcery and ritual cults that had become popular among northern migrants. One of them explained that I needed to be careful in answering nature’s call and warned me against urinating publicly in people’s farms without permission. Pressed for explanation, he said I could be struck by a venereal disease such as gonorrhea, or even AIDS. This caveat illustrates the mutual suspicions that characterize inter-migrant social and economic relations in the south; it provides a striking insight into the economic logic underlying the migrant economy and raises a broader question about the economic universe out of which migrant households have been constituted. Only midway through my field research did I realize that smallholder farming is an extremely competitive business. Because several migrant house-holds struggle over access to village resources, including farmland, for subsistence production to feed their households and generate surplus to satisfy monetary aspirations, such competition results in tensions and conflict between migrants and among households. At harvest time, all migrants are keen about how much crop each household has harvested. Usually, rumors spread about who has succeeded in achieving a bumper harvest in yam or maize and whether his success derives from supernatural sources or not. The result is that a pattern of family-farm ownership has emerged among migrants; and a basic economic logic that drives the household competition and success stems from the idea that there exist hidden natures from which surpluses can be generated, distributed, and accumulated. 248

Isidore Lobnibe

Grindal (2000) writes about the widespread use of witchcraft in daily life among the Sisala, noting that many villagers believed that some farmers have the ability to spiritually remove the stalks of growing crops from their neighbor’s field, which they then transfer to their own farms to ensure better crop yields at the expense of the original owner. To guard against the nefarious activities of such “crop collectors,” as he calls them, migrants claim that any serious farmer wishing to succeed has to install protective ritual cults or shrines on their farms. Most of these farming cults believe that human sexual and bodily fluids and excreta can unleash deadly diseases on violators. The use of these cults in farming has especially been necessitated by the enormous pressure the interhousehold competition has brought to bear on northern immigrants. As heads of household take advantage of such possibilities to generate surplus for sale, many of them shift the burden of work onto their wives and other women relatives. My conversation with several female informants reveals an increasing exploitation of their labour; their lives and those of their children in the south largely revolve around helping their husbands earn wages and cash from surpluses from their farms. This effort leaves the women vulnerable to new capitalist challenges and demands from the ritual cults, which, I was told, tend to restrict communication between a farmer and his wife and other members of the household, as these cult objects cannot be kept with a wife under the same roof. Their use makes trespassing on another person’s field in his absence a serious infringement. Most farmers who possessed these cults were generally silent about the sources. At first, some of my contacts denied any knowledge of such rituals; but as our conversation continued, many opened up. Speaking of the (gbalagba), a mobile cult that had been popular among young migrants in the mid 1980s, one farmer painted a grim picture of the havoc that bad people (nifaar) can cause to a person’s crops and his household; this was what compelled him to seek some ritual protection for his farm. Sammy, one of my key interlocutors, disclosed that people employ farming rituals not only for defense, but to boost their farming careers. Unlike others, he relies on power-objects that his father gave him to protect his farm produce from being removed by crop collectors; they form a ritual assortment called pobera or potiibe, a well-known lineage or household medicine (tiib), made in Dagaraland in the north. This object is one that does not forgive a person for urinating on the farm. Sammy did not hide from me that he has installed a pobera or potiib that was made up of herbal medicine and painted; it was meant to keep away those who “enter the farm with bad intentions”; innocent persons 249

“Were It Not in the Bush, Will A Man Abandon His Wife This Way?”

with no evil intentions did not have a reason to fear. When migrants visit their native villages in the north, which they frequently do, the reason is to attend funerals of a deceased relative and fulfill sacrificial obligations arising from these cults. Because women are generally kept out of these activities, they have little reason to travel up north as regularly as their husbands do, or to remonstrate against the husbands’ excuse for travel to offer sacrifice to these cults. This is the broader context in which to examine the plight of migrant women and compare their experiences with those of their counterparts in the north. Their burden and the demand of farm work itself needs to be put into perspective, as they limit migrant women’s economic freedom and independence. The transformation of migrant smallholdings into family farms has deprived them of the benefits of reciprocal aid in labour, upon which they sometime depend in the north. Several husbands insisted that they cannot afford to allow their wives to waste time visiting markets or to cut out a piece of farmland they control for their women’s own agricultural activities, because of the increasing cost of land rent. Thus, even when women manage to cultivate vegetables on their husbands’ fields, the produce counts first as a men’s crop. Since most farmlands lie five to ten miles from their owners’ houses, wives have to walk a long distance back and forth, in addition to the household chores that they must perform. Several women I spoke to held the view that, compared with their counterparts in the north, they are drawn more intensely into agricultural production and spend an average of eight to eleven hours a day in performing farm work and household chores. The opportunity for year-round farm work because of the double rainy season in the savanna-forest transitional zone seems to have compounded the tasks for them. The stories of three female migrants that I present below will illustrate how the fabric of the social support system Dagara women traditionally enjoy in the north is being weakened once they live with only the inner household members in the south. It poses enormous challenges for their social and economic livelihood and their traditional contribution to agricultural labour – the nature of their work, what they should do in the production process, their conjugal or reproductive rights, and how they negotiate with their husbands over certain rights over the management of their households in the south. The adjustment constraints for newly married women are especially challenging, as most of them are deprived of crucial support from their mothers-in-law and relatives to help them manage their new households in the south, where they lack not only social facilities, but institutionally and culturally safeguarded support, as they relate to the adjustment problems in new social spaces that are specific to them. 250

Isidore Lobnibe

Women’s Autonomous Income If women’s property ownership is critical to their autonomy from their husbands (Mikell, 1984: 211), it means that migrant women in the south are placed in a much worse situation compared with their counterparts in the north. In their home region, Dagara women may cultivate – often with assistance from their sons and other young men – their own vegetable or groundnut gardens, on which they work after they finish their tasks on the household fields managed by the husbands. From these fields, they harvest vegetables and condiments, which they use as ingredients in their kitchen; or sell for money. In the south, by contrast, this right, as well as other economic activities such as beer (pito) brewing, cooking, and processing food for sale, and the chance to attend market days, are infrequent and in most cases nonexistent. Most market centers are beyond women’s reach because migrant households are situated in the remote periphery of urban markets. The poor regional road network makes the situation much worse, leaving husbands to ride their bicycles to attend such markets. As we shall see, most women’s inability to participate in market activities deprives them even of their traditional control over the household kitchen, a domain that is “a no-go area” for men in most communities in the north. Let us now examine the dilemma women face in the south by looking closely at the stories of three women in the farming villages.

The Case of Zaama When I visited Kyerediesu village near Nkoranza, Zaama’s husband, Der, was getting ready to travel to his home village in the north, and before setting out for the trip, he could afford to visit Nkoranza only on market day. As part of his preparation for the journey, he bought some dried fish (amani) and gave part of it to his wife to use in her cooking until his return in two weeks’ time; the rest he stowed away, hidden from her, for later use. While in the north, he was unable to do as planned and extended his visit for three additional weeks. During his absence, Zaama ran out of fish. She and her children did without meat or other desirable sauce ingredients for ten days. She did not know where her husband had put the extra fish he had bought, and she had no means of visiting the distant market to buy fish since he had left no money behind and she had no income of her own. Explaining her situation to me, she lamented that she could not leave the children alone in order to engage in any income-generating venture, which would have required traveling to the market in Nkoranza. In the north, she could easily have relied on her mother and friends. It is indeed difficult to conceive of such a situation for a young woman in the village in the

251

“Were It Not in the Bush, Will A Man Abandon His Wife This Way?”

north, either for her to be so devoid of resources or for a husband to manage so closely the affairs of the kitchen. I once asked Der why he would not allow the wife to assist him in buying things in the market. He explained that women were crucial in the success of the farming business. This means that a man must constantly cajole his wife to do farm work by pleasing her. The ideal is to provide for her needs, especially cloth – a demand that many men like himself, hardly are able to satisfy. To allow his wife to frequent market days in Nkoranza is to expose her to other women’s influences. What women do on market days, he explains, is compare cloths, which he anticipates will leave her dissatisfied with what he can provide for her and spell trouble for him. Apparently, Zaama suffered from periodic depression and had to be sent to Nkoranza hospital for treatment. One of her visits to the hospital coincided with the market day that I attended. After receiving treatment, she told Der she was not returning to the village that day and insisted on spending the day in Nkoranza. He was upset, but asked me for a ride so he could return to the village to take care of the children, leaving her behind with a relative. What made possible Zaama’s daylong absence from the village was the presence of another younger woman, Der’s niece. According to Der, this niece had escaped from her husband in the northern town of Domango and had to come to his house at Kyerediesu for his assistance because of serious marital problems. As my fieldwork wore on, I was told that the niece’s husband had asked her to return to him, but she refused. At a funeral in Nkoranza, Der arrived late and explained that he was returning from a village where he had been consulting with a herbalist over the cause of a strange illness that had afflicted his niece. He had no doubt that the estranged husband of the niece was responsible for her illness; after he had failed to persuade his wife to follow him, they had discovered that he had left behind in the house an unknown object, which Der believed was causing his niece’s illness.

The Case of Nuncia The labour demands on migrant women are such that even older women are not excluded from the pressure of farm work. My first visit to Birim in the Sekeyere West District in 2002 coincided with the arrival of the old mother of a farmer who hosted me during my weeklong stay there. A widow in her late 1960s then, Nuncia had been invited by her son to assist his wife, who had given birth barely a month before. Two of her sons had been farming for twenty years in the south and visited her only occasionally. This was the perfect opportunity for

252

Isidore Lobnibe

her to reconnect with them and see the grandchildren whom she had heard about but not yet seen. Upon arrival, Nuncia realized she needed to help out her daughterin-law with the farm work in the groundnut field. She left one morning and returned only in the evening. I once overheard the son urging her to embark on the three-mile journey to the farm work sooner in the morning to spend more hours in the field. When I returned in 2004 for my second stint of fieldwork, I was told that Nuncia had died. Her daughterin-law, who disclosed the news to me, lamented how she missed her assistance, especially in helping her with the baby, while they both had been engaged in farm work. A Dagara woman in her late 60s with numerous children and grandchildren is expected to per-form only light and largely symbolic tasks. For the sons to have allowed her to engage in regular farm work in the eyes of the public in the north would be interpreted as reneging in the obligation to care for the old mother.

The Case of Makum The stories of migrant women’s lives are entangled with many issues besides working on the land. In the village of Afrisere, 80 kilometers from Agogo on the banks of the River Afram, Makum, a 30-year-old mother, had been living with her husband and their six children for seven years. When I met her in the village, she complained that she had been unable to visit her village in the north until recently. Not long before, she had finally been done so, and had been happy to see her siblings and attend the funerals of deceased relatives; but after staying only two weeks in the north, she had had to hurry back to take care of the children left behind in the south. It was harvest time: groundnuts waited to be brought in. But something unexpected happened to Makum three days after her return from the north. The Agogo police had been looking for her husband for farming and selling marijuana (wee) and came to raid their house to arrest him. As they descended on the house, he escaped across the River Afram, leaving her alone. Knowing that he often left the wee in the small hut, she tried desperately to dispose of it, but the police went into the hut after her and discovered some of it. She was arrested and detained at the Agogo police station for three days, until a friend of her husband paid a bribe of 2 million cedis (equivalent to $250) for her release without any trial. “Were it not in the bush, does a man in Dagara society ran away leaving behind his wife to face a crime he has committed?” Makum wondered aloud.

253

“Were It Not in the Bush, Will A Man Abandon His Wife This Way?”

Discussion of Women’s Experiences The migrant women’s experiences I present above appear not to be good. Why then do wives and many other female relatives of migrant farmers continue to migrate to the south? How widespread are the women’s difficult experiences? My hypothesis is that women migrate to the south because of the favorable stories they have long heard about it from men and which they themselves have not had the opportunity to experience. In fact, even in 2004, wives who had not yet traveled south but whose husbands had been there for some time thought that the husbands do this because they want to escape village hardship, and this is why they do not always wish to return to their families as promised. As one woman informant lamented: It is common these days for husbands to travel to Kumasi for a whole year or more, abandoning their wives with relatives. Some of them even refuse to come home for a visit, but their families will expect you to stay and take care of the children until the man returns. If we are expected to fend for ourselves and the children while our men enjoy life over there, why would some women not become pregnant from other men?7 This complaint reflects the general impression I gathered, especially from middle-aged married women, as a reaction to the resolution of the adultery case involving the wife of an absent migrant farmer given above. Though some older women thought it was indecent for women to have affairs with other men, even in the absence of their husbands, a wide spectrum of middle-aged women argued strongly against what they thought was unfair treatment of women by their husbands. It seems that, in this case, gender solidarity among middle-aged women with regard to sexual deprivation was stronger than patrilineal solidarity with kinsmen. Not only do living Dagara women insist on being with their husbands more than their ancestors did, but some of my interlocutors pointed out that, though many of their friends find the conditions unbearable once they have arrived in the south, those friends find it extremely difficult returning to the north alone because of problems they may have with other members of their matrimonial homes. Writing of spousal separation in Lesotho, Murray (1981: 102) observed that while a man’s absence during migration ensures his family’s survival, it tends to undermine the conjugal stability from which the family derives its identity. This observation fits northern women whose husbands travel to southern Ghana alone while leaving them behind. Besides the economic challenges, they face sexual temptations. Younger 7

Interview with Kulama (aged 35), 7 July 2001, Piina.

254

Isidore Lobnibe

women, however, are reacting against such separations from their migrant husbands by redefining the normative gender expectations of staying chaste in the absence of their husbands. This situation has compelled migrating men wishing to stay longer in the south to take their wives along. At another level, migrants who have their families with them in the south face a different kind of dilemma. The consumption of the now enlarged domestic unit comes into competition with their husbands’ projects of accumulating wealth through farming in the south, and with the productive uses to which the households should put the crops they produce. Saddled with responsibility, both in the productive process and in running the households, women bear more of the household’s burden, namely the permanent struggle between resources earmarked for selfconsumption and those designated to bring in income. The practice by which middlemen buy food crops from villagers cheaply and then hold on to them for the lean season means that migrant women are constantly on edge. The result is that prices of farm produce are higher than in the cities in the period before the harvest, when food is unavailable for sale in the village or is scarce and has to be brought back from cities. One woman in Birim, dissatisfied with the current conditions in which she and her family lived, lamented that she would not advise any young woman in the north to come to a farming village, even to visit relatives: “I was excited about joining my husband, having heard good stories about “Kumasi” (i.e., the south), but as I speak to you, I saw Kumasi the night we traveled through it, and have not gone out of this village since I arrived here.” This woman’s predicament illustrates how women have difficulties in returning home by themselves and are usually caught up in their husbands’ farming projects or burden of work in the remote villages and the desire to return home, which they cannot do without their own income. As to whether there are differences in women’s experiences in the south, one can say that women face difficult conditions everywhere, and there are not major structural differences between the families. People say that some women do better because they have better husbands. In these circumstances, women’s satisfaction depends on random and idiosyncratic factors, not on objective variables, readily identifiable from the outside.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have examined Dagara women’s participation in labour migration from northwest Ghana to villages of southern Ghana as a significant transformation that has characterized the century-old 255

“Were It Not in the Bush, Will A Man Abandon His Wife This Way?”

migration after the start of colonial rule. I have argued that women’s increasing involvement in joining their husbands to settle along the edges of the forest in southern Ghana has been necessitated by new prospects of easy access to farmland in response to increased local food production, and in the 1980s by economic conditions that drew northerners (many with their families) to settle in the area. Most women who accompany their husbands lack the economic and social support of their wider family members. Because access to land is entirely dependent on men, women have few possibilities and an added burden of work, which limits their chances to generate an autonomous income; struggling with their children alone in the north, they find attractive the prospect of going south and being with their husbands. Once they arrive, many become disillusioned, but cannot easily go back. Northern women who have unfavorable or strained relations with members of their husbands’ extended family say they prefer a nuclear family and want other extended family members not to meddle in their marriage. Despite the difficulties associated with north-south migration, however, these women, including former urban migrants whose wives have been key in the family’s decision to resettle in the rural south, feel that the south provides the rare opportunity to spend more time and enjoy greater intimacy with their close family members. It is unclear whether the contented women or wives whose husbands are supposed to be doing better can be explained solely in monetary terms. For one thing, if the husbands’ income makes some women happier, this opens up the question of why the latter are doing better (that is, if husbands are doing so without squeezing their wives harder). Women face problems everywhere in the south, but what the analysis in this paper points to is a subjective element entailed in understanding women’s experiences, namely the nonmaterial dimension of the individual migration experience, including women’s sense of being valued (or not), peer-pressure, and the implications of particular types of work for social rank within and between households (Rogaly and Coppard, 2002: 398). As Knorr and Meier foresaw, the situation of Dagara migrant women may encapsulate the ambivalent experiences of northern migrants in the southern villages.

References Abdul-Korah, G. (2006). Where Is not Home: Dagaaba Migrants in the Brong Ahafo region, 1980 to the present. African Affairs, 1 06(422). Agarwal, S. (1994). Bearing the Weight: The Kayayoo, Ghana’s Working Girl Child’, Paper presented. Paper presented at the UNICEF Conference on the Girl Child, Delhi.

256

Isidore Lobnibe

Akyeampong, E. K. (1996). Drink, power, and cultural change: a social history of alcohol in Ghana, c. 1800 to recent times. Unpublished Thesis (Ph.D.), Heinemann; James Currey, University of Virginia, Portsmouth, NH Oxford. Allman, J. (2001). Rounding up Spinsters: Gender Chaos and Unmarried Women in Colonial Asante. In D. L. Hodgson & S. McCurdy (eds.), “Wicked” women and the reconfiguration of gender in Africa Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Allman, J. M., & Tashjian, V. B. (2000). I will not eat stone: a women’s history of colonial Asante. Portsmouth, NH; Oxford; Cape Town: Heinemann; J. Currey; D. Philip. Amanor, K. (1994). The new frontier: farmer responses to land degradation: a West African study. Geneva; London; Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: UNRISD; Zed Books. Amin, S., & International African Institute. (1974). Migration Phenomenon in Contemporary West Africa: nature and definition. In S. Amin (ed.), Modern Migrations in Western Africa: Studies Presented and Discussed at the Eleventh International African Seminar, Dakar, April 1972. London; New York: Oxford University Press. Austin, G. (2004). Labour, land, and capital in Ghana: From Slavery to Free Labour in Asante, 1807-1956. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. Berry, S. (1984). The Food Crisis and Agrarian Change in Africa: A review essay. African Studies Review, 27(2). Berry, S. (2000). Chiefs know their boundaries: essays on property, power, and the past in Asante, 1896-1996. Portsmouth, NH; Oxford; Cape Town: Heinemann; J. Currey; D. Philip. Busia, K. A. (1951). The Position of the Chief in the Modern political System of Ashanti; A Study of the Influence of Contemporary Social Changes on Ashanti Political Institutions. London, New York: Oxford University Press. Catholic Church. Dogmatic constitution on the Church: Lumen gentium, solemnly promulgated by His Holiness, Pope Paul VI on November 21, 1964. (1965). Boston: St. Paul Editions. Chazan, N. (1983). An Anatomy of Ghanaian Politics: Managing Political Recession, 1969-1982. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. Chazan, N., & Shaw, T. M. (1988). The Political Economy of Food in Africa. In N. Chazan & T. M. Shaw (eds.), Coping with Africa’s food Crisis. Boulder: L. Rienner. Clark, G. (1994). Onions are my Husband: Survival and Accumulation by West African Market Women. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cordell, D. D., Gregory, J. W., & Piché, V. (1996). Hoe and wage: a social history of a circular migration system in West Africa. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. Dei, G. J. S. (1992). The Renewal of the Ghanaian Rural Economy. Canadian Journal of African Studies, 26(1).

257

“Were It Not in the Bush, Will A Man Abandon His Wife This Way?”

Eutton, I. (1983). Labour in Commercial Agriculture in Ghana in the Late nineteenth and early twentieth Centuries. Journal of African History, 24. Fortes, M. (1975). Strangers. In M. Fortes, S. Patterson & I. Schapera (eds.), Studies in African Social Anthropology. London; New York: Academic Press. Goody, J., & International African Institute. (1967). The Social Organisation of the LoWiili (2nd ed.). London: Oxford University Press Grindal, B. (2003). Why the Young Leave Home: witchcraft, Authority, and the Ambiguity of evil in Sisaland. In F. Kröger & B. Meier (eds.), Ghana’s North: Research on Culture, Religion, and Politics of Societies in transition Frankfurt am Main; New York: Peter Lang. Hawkins, S. (2002). “The woman in Question”: Marriage and Identity in the Colonial Courts of Northern Ghana, 1907-1954. In J. M. Allman, S. Geiger & N. Musisi (ed.), Women in African Colonial Histories. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hawkins, S. (2002). Writing and Colonialism in Northern Ghana: The Encounter Between the LoDagaa and “the World on Paper”. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. Hill, P. (1970). The occupations of migrants in Ghana. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. Knörr, J., & Meier, B. (2000). Women and migration: Anthropological Perspectives. Frankfurt; New York: Campus Verlag; St Martin’s Press. Koenig, D. (1997). Women’s Role in Settlement and Resettlement in Mali. In G. Mikell (ed.), African Feminism: the politics of survival in sub-Saharan Africa. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Koenig, D. (2005). Multilocality and social stratification in Kita, Mali. In L. Trager (ed.), Migration and Economy: Global and Local Dynamics. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Konings, P., & Ravell, J. J. (1986). The state and rural class formation in Ghana: a comparative analysis. London; Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Kröger, F., & Meier, B. (2003). Ghana’s North: Research on Culture, Religion, and Politics of Societies in Transition. Frankfurt am Main; New York: Peter Lang. Lentz, C. (1994). A Dagara Rebellion against Dagomba Rule?: Contested Stories of Origin in North-Western Ghana Journal of African History, No. 35. Lentz, C. (2000). Colonial Constructions and African Initiatives: the history of ethnicity in northwestern Ghana. Ethnos, 65 (1). Lentz, C. (2006). Ethnicity and the Making of History in Northern Ghana. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Lentz, C., & Veit, E. (1989). A Working Class in Formation? Economic Crisis and Strategies of Survival Among Dagara Mine workers in Ghana. Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines, 113 (29), 69-111.

258

Isidore Lobnibe

Lobnibe, I. (2004). (Review of) Writing and Colonialism in Northern Ghana: The Encounter Between the Lodagaa and The World on Paper by Sean Hawkins. American Anthropologist, 106(2). Lobnibe, I. (2005). Forbidden Fruit in the Compound: A Case study of Migration, Spousal Separation and Group-wife Adultery in northwest Ghana. Africa, 75(4). Lobnibe, I. (2007). Going to Jong: A Burden of History and Current options among northern Ghanaian Migrants. University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, Illinois. Mackintosh, M. (1981). The Sexual Division of Labour and the Subordination of Women. In K. Young, C. Wolkowitz & R. McCullagh (eds.), Of Marriage and the Market: Women’s Subordination in International Perspective. London: CSE Books. Meillassoux, C. (1981). Maidens, Meal, and Money: Capitalism and the Domestic Community. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Mikell, G. (1984). Filiations, Economic Crisis, and the Status of Women in Rural Ghana. Canadian Journal of African Studies, 18(1). Mikell, G. (1988). Sexual Complementarity in Traditional Ghanaian society. Canadian Journal of African Studies, 22(3). Mikell, G. (1989). Cocoa and Chaos in Ghana. New York: Paragon House. Mikell, G. (1997). African Feminism: the politics of survival in sub-Saharan Africa. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Murray, C. (1981). Families Divided: the Impact of Migrant Labour in Lesotho. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Okali, C. (1983). Cocoa and kinship in Ghana: The Matrilineal Akan of Ghana. London; Boston: Kegan Paul International. Rattray, R. S. (1956). Ashanti Law and Constitution. Kumasi: Basel Mission Book Depot. Rice, R. M. (1984). Neo-Colonialism and Ghana’s economic decline: A Critical Assessment. Canadian Journal of African Studies, 18(1). Rogaly, B., & Coppard, D. (2003). They Used to Go to Eat, Now They Go to Earn: The Changing Meanings of seasonal Migration from puruliya district in west Bengal, India. Agrarian Change, 3(3). Rouch, J. (1956). Migrations au Ghana (Gold Coast, Enquête 1953-1955). Paris. Schildkrout, E. (1978). People of The Zongo: The Transformation of Ethnic Identities in Ghana. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Skinner, E. (1960). Labour Migration and Its Relationship to Socio-Cultural Change in Mossi society. Africa, 30. Skinner, E. (1965). Labour Migration Among the Mossi of the Upper Volta. In University of California Los Angeles. African Studies Centre & H. Kuper (ed.), Urbanization and migration in West Africa Berkeley: University of California Press. 259

“Were It Not in the Bush, Will A Man Abandon His Wife This Way?”

Stahl, A. B. (2001). Making history in Banda: anthropological visions of Africa’s past. New York: Cambridge University Press. Tengan, A. B. (2000). Space, Bonds and Social Order: Dagara House-based Social System. In S. Hagberg & A. B. Tengan (eds.), Bonds and Boundaries in Northern Ghana and Southern Burkina Faso. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Tengan, A. B. (2006). Mythical Narratives in Ritual: Dagara Black Bagr. Bruxelles; New York: P.I.E.-Peter Lang. Terray, E. (1972). Marxism and “Primitive” Societies; Two studies. New York: Monthly Review Press. Thomas, G. R. (1973). Forced Labour in British West Africa: The Case of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast 1906-1927. Journal of African History, 14(1). Van der Geest, K. (2005). Local perceptions of migration and livelihood in Northwest Ghana: The home community’s perspective. The Hague: Institute of Social Studies. Van Hear, N. (1982). Northern Labour and the Development of Capitalist Agriculture in Ghana. Dissertation. University of Birmingham, Birmingham. van Hear, N. (1984). “By-day Boys and Dariga Men”: Casual Labour versus Agrarian Capital in northern Ghana. Review of African Political Economy, 11 (31). Van Hear, N. (1998). New diasporas: the mass exodus, dispersal and regrouping of migrant communities. Seattle, Wash: University of Washington Press. Whitehead, A. (1981). “I’m Hungry, Mum.” In K. Young, C. Wolkowitz & R. McCullagh (eds.), Of marriage and the market: women’s subordination in international perspective. London: CSE Books. Wilks, I. (1975). Asante in the nineteenth century: the structure and evolution of a political order. London; New York: Cambridge University Press. Wilks, I. (1993). Forests of gold: essays on the Akan and the Kingdom of Asante. Athens: Ohio University Press.

260

Shifting and Contested Relationships Migration, Gender, and Family Economy among the Dagaaba in the Twentieth Century*1 Gariba B. ABDUL-KORAH Department of History & Political Science; The College of Saint Rose

Introduction Since the 1950s scholars have approached labour migration in Ghana as a predominantly male phenomenon, while women, if mentioned at all, have been portrayed as either dependants of men or ‘those left behind’ by men seeking employment and fortune amid the bright lights of cities in southern Ghana (Buijs, 1996; Brukum, 1996; Nabila, 1974). Gender received scant attention as a category of historical analysis in these studies and women continued to be represented as victims rather than active participants in labour migration. But the position of Dagaaba women in migration was not static. It changed overtime as women struggled against a ‘reconfigured patriarchy rooted in both indigenous and colonial ideologies’ (Allman, Geiger and Musis, 2002: 2). This article moves beyond normative explanations of women’s suppression and lack of agency under patriarchy to foreground the ways in which women’s experiences of migration, first as ‘those left behind’, and then as voluntary migrants significantly altered gender relations and women’s positions in Dagaaba communities by the close of the twentieth century. Interviews conducted among 100 returned and contemporary migrants2 (mostly from the Nadowli and Jirapa districts) in the Upper * 1

1

A version of this paper was published in the Journal of Asian and African Studies, Vol. 46:4 (2011) under the title “Now If You Have Only Sons You Are Dead: Migration, Gender and Family Economy in Twentieth-Century Northwestern Ghana.” I realized that the best approach to understanding the impact of migration on gender relations in Dagaaba society was to focus on the experiences of returned migrants. So I randomly selected 60 (30 males and 30 females) returned migrants of various ages

261

Shifting and Contested Relationships

West, Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions of Ghana, illustrate some of the impacts of labour migration on gender and the family economy in Dagaaba society

Migration and Gender: A Historical Perspective Unlike in other parts of Africa, scholarly analysis of the nature, pattern and impact of labour migration on West African societies dates back only to the 1950s mainly because of the lack of a large settler population and therefore ‘the less obvious importance of migration in social change’ (Masser et al., 1974: 4). These studies focused mainly on the problems that migrants were likely to face at their destinations rather than the problems that might have compelled them to leave their homes in the rural areas in the first place3. More recently, scholars have emphasized the ‘internal dynamics’ of West African societies in shaping the migration phenomenon (Cordell, Gregory and Pinché, 1996; Manchuelle, 1997) and the increasing feminization of labour migration in West Africa; (Adepoju, 2004; Argawal et al., 1994). While some of these studies have accentuated the causes of migration, others have focused on women as migrants rather than the impact of migration on the family economy and the shifting and contested gender relations within it. In the northern Ghanaian context, scholars have viewed north-south labour migration as a direct outcome of colonialism, and therefore linked to the forces of capitalism4. Lentz and Erlmann for example, have

2

3

in the two districts. While the 30 male interviewees indicated that they had migrated to the south at one time or the other to work either in the mines, railways, or harbors, the 30 females said that they had migrated to the south alongside their husbands, and engaged in activities such as pito brewing (8), palm kernel oil (ajungu) processing (16) and petty trading (6). The remaining 40 (20 females and 20 males) were interviewed in various towns in the south. Of the 20 female interviewees, 13 were interviewed in the Brong Ahafo region where they were working as waitresses in drinking-bars, and the rest (7) were interviewed at Obuasi where they were engaged various activities including head portage. Of the twenty (20) males, ten (10) were engaged in farming in the Brong Ahafo region while the remaining ten (10) were engaged in mining at Obuasi at the time of the interview. The literature is vast but see for example, Maser et al., Inter-Regional Migration (1974); J.C. Caldwell, African Rural-Urban Migration: The movement to Ghana’s towns, (Columbia University Press, New York, 1969); E. Berg, ‘The Economics of the migrant labor system’ in Hilda Kuper (ed.), Urbanization and Migration in West Africa, (University of California Press, 1965), pp. 160-185; Gwendolyn Mikell, Coca and chaos in Ghana, (Haward University Press, Washington DC, 1992). See for example, T.E. Hilton, ‘Depopulation and population movement in the upper region of Ghana’, Bulletin of the Ghana Geographical Association, 11:1 (1966); J.M. Hunter, ‘Population pressure in a part of the West African savanna: a study of Nangodi, northern Ghana’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 53

262

Gariba B. Abdul-Korah

traced the origins of an emerging urban labour force in Ghana to developments in the industrial sector after the Second World War and during the immediate post-independence period. To them, the majority of these migrant labourers were drawn from the recently “pacified” Northern Territories of the Gold Coast and the French territories to the north of Ghana (Lentz and Erlmann, 1989). Exploring the challenges that northern Ghanaian migrant women faced in the south as they struggled to ‘balance their husband’s prospects of accumulation and survival in the south with their own personal desires to earn an income of their own,’ Lobnibe recently linked women’s participation in labour migration to structural constraints in Ghana’s political economy beginning in the 1980s (Lobnibe, 2008). While these studies offer useful insights into understanding the migration phenomenon in Ghana and West Africa as a whole, they ignore questions about how indigenous social relations inform and are shaped by the complex and uneven process of capitalist transformation: Who migrated, under what arrangements, and to what ends? Since the 1980s gender has become an important analytical category in African historical studies, with scholars tracing the trajectory of gender and its reconfigurations, from the history and ethnography of masculinities to gender and colonialism (Lindsay, 2003; Allman, Geiger and Musisi, 2002). Other scholars have also explored the lived experiences of women (Cassiman, 2006; Allman and Tashjian, 2002) and the permutations of gender (Padmanabhan, 2002; Greene, 1996) across various Ghanaian societies over time. However, these studies do not focus on the interconnections between gender and migration – how migration shaped and or redefined gender relations within the family economy and vice versa. I move beyond these studies to examine the internal ways in which women’s experiences of migration as independent actors defined and or redefined gender relations in Dagaaba society in the twentieth century.

(1967), pp. 101-114; K.B. Dickson, ‘Background to the problem of economic development in northern Ghana’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 58:4 (1968), pp. 686-696; Roger Thomas, ‘Forced labor in British West Africa: the case of the northern territories of the Gold Coast, 1900-1927’, Journal of African History, 24:1 (1973), pp. 79-103; Nii-K Plange, ‘Underdevelopment in northern Ghana: natural causes or colonial capitalism’, Review of African Political Economy, 15:16 (1979), pp. 1-34; Jacob Songsore, Intraregional and Interregional Labor Migration in Historical Perspectives: The case of northwestern Ghana, Occasional Paper No. 1 (University of Port Harcourt Press, Port Harcourt, 1983); Jacob Songsore and Alosius Denkabe, Challenging Rural Poverty in Northern Ghana: The case of the upper west region (Universitet I Trondheim, Trondheim, 1995).

263

Shifting and Contested Relationships

Locating the Dagaaba in Northern Ghana Located in the northwest corner of Ghana, the Dagaaba occupy three (Nadowli, Jirapa and Lawra-Nandom) out of eight administrative districts of what is now the Upper West Region (UWR) – a region conveniently situated in the larger ecological zone that Keith Hart described as the ‘transition from savannah to forest’ (Hart, 1974). According to the 2000 population census of Ghana, the Dagaaba constitute 56% of the population of the UWR and the Wala and Sissala (their neighbors) constitute 16% and 15% respectively (Ghana Government, 2002). The region is characterized by a single rainfall season which falls between May and October (wet season) with an average total of 100-115 cm of rain per annum (Songsore and Denkabe, 1995). In comparison with the rest of the country, the seasonality of the rainfall limits the ability of farmers for year-round agricultural activity, resulting in poor crop yields and insufficient food production. Despite this limitation, the economic base of the region hinges on agriculture, with over 80% of the population depending on farming for their livelihood (ibid.). Other economic activities include pastoralism, hunting, and trading in village markets, many of which follow a six-day cycle. The social organization of Dagaaba society traditionally involved a communal mode of production in which village communities were relatively autonomous, with the earth-priest (tendaana) acting as a mediator between people and their land (ibid., 72). Men wielded political and religious authority and controlled the most important means of production, land, because of the belief that ‘men established village boundaries in the course of hunting’ (ibid., 74). Within this household, there was and still is a clear division of labour based on age and sex: men, women and children had clearly assigned roles for their contribution to the general up-keep of the household. For example, men were responsible for clearing the land, while women sowed, harvested and stored crops. They were also responsible for cooking and childcare, while children drove birds and animals away from the crops5. The allocation of resources, power, status, rights and duties between men and women was determined by factors such as descent, succession and inheritance, paternity, and economic potential among others. Status and power in society for example, depended on “wealth in people” – the number of people (wives and children) a man had under his control6. 4

5

David Cleveland made a similar observation among the Kusasi of the Upper East Region. See, David A. Cleveland, ‘Migration in West Africa: A savanna village perspective’, Africa, 61:2 (1991), pp. 222-246. Anthropological studies in Africa have revealed that the notion of ‘wealth in people’ was not unique to the Dagaaba. See for example, S. Miers and I. Kopytoff, Slavery in

264

Gariba B. Abdul-Korah

The household economy as in other parts of northern Ghana derived from male-headed units of extended families, often consisting of one or several wives and their children and extended with unmarried or elderly relatives7. This social set-up denied women the right to either own or inherit property8. For example, if a Dagaaba woman wanted to buy a cow, she had to do so through her husband or a male relative and in her son’s name9. The nature of this control, as Brown puts it, ‘bordered on a semimale monopoly over the means of production which in turn precluded most women from even remotely establishing any extensive proprietary title for such farmlands as might be under their care’ (Brown, 1996: 24). Based on the economics of polygyny, male heads and elders used their position and power to extract and exploit the labour of women. Thus, the very structure(s) of Dagaaba society prevented women from having access equal men’s particularly access to land and labour (Songore and Denkabe, 1995). For example, women’s access to farmland depended upon their husbands, whose death or divorce precipitated a loss of that status (Adeetuk, 1991). These structures, which had been in place for generations, not only tied women up with the day-to-day responsibilities of raising children and domestic chores, but also restricted their access to essential productive resources, which in turn undermined the type, level and extent of their participation in economic production (AdayfioSchandorf, 1993). But, as we shall see, the subordinate position of Dagaaba women was not static. It changed and continued to change as they exploited opportunities/strategies that were made available to them by colonial officials and Christian missionaries during the colonial period. It is to these strategies that I now turn.

6

7

8

Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives, (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1977); Claude Meillassoux, Maidens, Meal and Money (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1981); Jane Guyer, ‘Wealth in people and self-realization in Equatorial Africa’, Man, 28:2 (1993), pp. 243-265. Interview with Raphael Eledi (74 years) on 15 January 2002, Charia (farmer at Charia). For a similar view, see C.K. Brown, ‘Gender roles and household allocation of resources and decision-making in Ghana’ in Elizabeth Ardayfio-Shandorf (ed.), The Changing family in Ghana, (University of Ghana Press, Accra, 1996), pp. 21-41. Property as used in this context refers to land, houses, cattle, sheep and goats. It does not include household utensils such as cooking pots and bowls. For a detailed discussion on inheritance among the LoDagaa, see, Jack Goody, Death, Property and the Ancestors: A study of the mortuary customs of the LoDagaa of West Africa, (Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1962). Interview with Kojo Dong (80 years) on 10 January 2002, Kaleo (farmer and head of the Imuola clan of Kaleo). He explained that even though women are beginning to own property such as cows, goats, sheep and pigs today, it was not so in the past because ‘our culture does not allow that,’ he added.

265

Shifting and Contested Relationships

Colonial Migration and Gender Relations The imposition of colonial rule and the establishment of a capitalist economy in the Gold Coast in the early twentieth century did not only lead to the incorporation of the then Northern Territories and its people into the colonial economy, but it also opened up the area for missionary activities, and Dagawie (Dagaaba land) was no exception. As a result of their incorporation, Dagaaba (men) were required to contribute labour resources to further colonial pursuits in the mining and plantations industries, as well as other sectors of the economy located primarily in Ghana’s southern and coastal regions (Cleveland, 1991; Songsore, 1983; Nii-Plang, 1979; Thomas, 1973). Towards this end, the colonial state recruited the first batch of twenty-six (26) Dagaaba men for the mines at Tarkwa in 1907, marking the beginning of a process that has continued to this day (Lentz, 2006; Songsore and Denkabe, 1995). This process of labour recruitment coupled with missionary activities and the provision of western education (part of the colonial package) brought significant changes within the structure of the household at many levels, in its composition, and the gender and generational relations within it. As in other parts of Africa, the colonial state’s introduction of a cash economy and the encouragement of male labour migration (young, unmarried males to the total exclusion of females) from northern to southern Ghana created both intergenerational and cross-gender conflicts in Dagaaba society. Dagaaba men who migrated to the south in search of wage labour during this period (1907-57) left their wives behind mainly because the pattern of migration was seasonal and shortterm – six months or less (Abdul-Korah, 2008, 2004; Songsore, 1983). There is also evidence that in West Africa, women were generally discouraged from migration because of gender ideology; they were denied access equally to men in terms of employment opportunities in the city (Koening, 2005). A young woman in the city without a job or husband, as Grier observed ‘was likely to be branded a prostitute and treated as such’ (Grier, 1992: 322). Thus, throughout the colonial period women’s participation in migration was not only limited but also linked to male movements. As some of my returned female migrant interviewees (those who migrated during this period) reported, we did so because of our husbands; to support our husbands and possibly to raise a family. However, a few others, mostly young and unmarried women (at the time) went to the south under the pretext of visiting relatives and ended up marrying Dagaaba already working there (Abdul-Korah, 2004). Marriage therefore provided a conduit through which Dagaaba women migrated to southern Ghana during the colonial period. Unlike colonial labour policies, which were gender specific and discriminated against women, missionary activities in the area were more 266

Gariba B. Abdul-Korah

favourable to the plight of women. Catholic missionaries found their way into the then Northwest Province in the 1930s and from the very beginning, they set out to suppress indigenous institutions and customary practices such as polygyny, forced marriages, bride-price payments and other practices that were considered heathen and contrary to Christian beliefs (Behrends, 2002). The suppression or complete eradication of some these ‘institutions of oppression,’ even though temporarily, significantly empowered women, especially during the early colonial period through the 1940s. Thus, contrary to what Ife Amadiume had observed among the Ibo10, the introduction of Christianity into the Northwestern Province did not have such a negative impact on Dagaaba women. For example, McCoy, one of the early missionaries in the area notes in his personal memoir that ‘the woman was essentially a housekeeper’ (McCoy, 1988: 153). She lacked freedom and did not even have the right to choose her own marriage partner: ‘all decisions and bargaining went on behind her back, usually between the clan leader and a gobetween (ditina) representing the would-be groom’s family’ (ibid., 154). To the missionaries then, Dagaaba women were ‘an oppressed social category without rights in society, and in vital need of their protection,’ which they were ready to provide (Behrends, 2002: 236). The missionaries preached against and or condemned the practice of forced marriage(s), bride-price payment, and also provided a sanctuary at the mission station for girls who were being forced to marry against their will until their problem was resolved11. Even though none of my female interviewees reported taking refuge in any such camps personally, some said that they had heard about the camps and others (older women) said they knew other women who had sought refuge in one of those camps. In addition, to convey their idea of what a Christian wife should be to their converts, the missionaries translated parts of the bible into the local language, which was read out during wedding ceremonies (Behrends, 2002). They also encouraged catholic nuns to provide formal education for girls in the area, which ‘introduced a completely new perspective of independence and self-sufficiency to [Dagaaba] wom9

10

Ameduime observed among the Ibo of Nigeria that the introduction of Christianity condemned the goddess religion and, within a short time of its introduction, shattered ‘the focal symbols of women’s self-esteem,’ leaving them divided in their families, their patrilinages and the town by the different Christian denominations to which they belonged. See Ife Ameduime, Male Daughters and Female Husbands: Gender and sex in an African society, (Zed Books Press, London, New Jersey, NJ, 1987), p. 123. The missionaries also provided a sanctuary for women accused of witchcraft at the mission station. Evidence of these sanctuaries can still found in all the Parishes in the Wa Diocese – UWR.

267

Shifting and Contested Relationships

en’12. Thus, if some Dagaaba women today enjoy the right to avoid arranged marriages by choosing their own partners, and are equipped with educational skills that enable them to compete favourably with men for jobs in both the private and public sectors, missionaries certainly played a role. Missionaries also brought pressure to bear on the British Colonial administration to promulgate a law throughout the Northwestern Province in the late 1930s forbidding forced marriages, and coupled with their own desire ‘to provide coercive sanctions to protect conjugal unions against the interference of rivals, so as to protect the interest of migrant labourers’ whose labour resources were badly needed in the south they introduced the law (Hawkins, 2002: 122-123). The enforcement of this law elevated the status of women in Dagaaba society by giving them the opportunity to choose their own husbands and to mediate their problems in the courts of law. According to Hawkins, most of the cases that were brought before the courts involved former husbands or members of their families seeking to regain wives who had escaped from marriages made against their will, or men who were seeking to reclaim their bride-price payment or their children from their run-away wives (ibid.). For example, Hawkins described the case of a Dagaaba woman who appeared in court in the 1940s to appeal a ruling against her by two Native Authority courts: Angmin [appellant] had been betrothed as a child to a man with whom she had had five children over fifteen years. Her husband had died the previous year, and since then his nephew, who was also his heir, had been putting pressure on her to take another husband so that the conjugal payments of his late uncle would be returned to him by her new husband (Hawkins, 2002: 166).

From the court transcript, her late husband’s nephew had refused to provide for her and her children as custom required, and had also taken a suspected suitor to court to ‘force him to present conjugal payments because of an act constituting marriage’ (ibid.). The District Commissioner, who acted as the local representative of the Gold Coast Colony’s Supreme Court overturned the ruling of the two Native Authority Courts arguing that the appellant was forced to enter into a union against her will (ibid.). Evidently, this and the other cases supports the argument that, colonial apparatus empowered Dagaaba women because the two Native Authority Courts, composed of traditional chiefs and elders, had 11

Two Catholic women’s orders, the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMM) and the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa (MSOLA) responded to the call of the missionaries and arrived in the area in 1939 and 1952 respectively. See, Behrends, ‘Pogimiga’, p. 238.

268

Gariba B. Abdul-Korah

ruled against her and more importantly, she would not have had a say about her plight under the ‘traditional’ system let alone make an appeal. Besides, it emphasizes women’s agency in seizing the opportunities that opened up as a result of the early chaos of colonial rule. It also highlights Dagaaba women’s agency and autonomy simply because they were the fundamental cause(s) of most litigation, and as Hawkins puts it, ‘without such agency and autonomy disputes between males would have been severely curtailed’ (Hawkins, 2002: 166). Thus, as far as the institution of marriage and the relationship between men and women within it were concerned, colonial officials and missionaries in particular created avenues through which women negotiated or manoeuvred to assert some degree of power and agency. In other words, they helped to provide leverage to Dagaaba women in their struggle to liberate themselves from patriarchal control and male domination, thus elevating their status, and by extension, altering gender relations. Interestingly, even though Islam had made its way into northwestern Ghana much earlier than Christianity, the Dagaaba did not convert to Islam in large numbers and to this day, the Wala who are predominantly Muslim still refer to all others including ‘their unconverted Wala compatriots as Dagaaba, a term which in this context virtually takes the meaning of pagan’ (Wilks, 1989: 16). As I have argued, the position of Dagaaba women in migration and in society was not static. It changed over time and generation and as we shall see, Dagaaba women, especially teenage girls, did not only become active participants in migration during the postcolonial period, but also assumed roles/responsibilities that were traditionally associated with male migrants.

Post-Colonial Migration and Gender Relations During the immediate postcolonial period through the 1980s, the pattern of migration changed from seasonal and short-term moves to long-term or even permanent stays. Like their predecessors who married before they migrated, these men also left their wives behind, but, unlike them, they had their spouses join them as soon as they got a job (AbdulKorah, 2004). Thus, for much of the colonial and early postindependence period, marriage continued to provide the conduit through which Dagaaba women visited the south. After the 1980s the pattern of Dagaaba migration shifted yet again. Dagaaba women began to migrate to the south by themselves, independent of male influence or agency to find jobs as their male counterparts did, and continued to do (AbdulKorah, 2007). These shifts, I argue, were due largely to environmental and socio-economic dynamics internal to Dagaaba society, which changed over time. For example, in the past, young girls ‘could “steal” a little of the harvest on their way from the field,’ which they used to 269

Shifting and Contested Relationships

either begin or support their own income-generating activities that guaranteed them some degree of financial independence (Ouedraogo, 1995). But due to ecological changes in the region resulting in poor crop yield, such strategies were no longer available13. However, this is not to suggest that the colonial project did not play a role in shaping these shifts and by extension, the nature of gender relations in Dagaaba society. As the number of young men and teenage girls in particular who migrated to the south especially in the 1980s to work for cash income increased, conflicts centered on old relations of dominance, dependency and the desire for autonomy from elders came to the fore in Dagaaba society14. For example, nearly 60% of all male interviewees used the term, zor (to run way) to describe their migration to the south – they did not inform their parents before they left. By their testimony, these young men did not only ‘run away’ to the south but even more important, they were often reluctant to consign their earnings to their fathers because of lack of trust. As in Asante, where Mikell observed that with the influx of cash into the economy money or material wealth became the sole indicators of status and power, Dagaaba migrants viewed hard earned cash as a key indicator of status (Mikell, 1991). An interviewee said that ‘I don’t send money home because the people back home are not trustworthy. When you send money home to your father to keep for you, he will spend it and when you go home to ask, it becomes a fight.’15 Another remarked that the people at home think that it is easy to get money here in the south so ‘when you send them money to do something for you they simply spend on it other things and when you go home, you have nothing to rely on.’16 Stories like these were repeated by young male migrants in the south and might be a good explanation of why fathers were and still are reluctant to let their sons migrate to the south.

12

13

14

15

For a detailed discussion on environmental degradation in the UWR, see Kwasi, Nsiah-Gyabaah, Environmental Degradation and Desertification in Ghana: A study of the Upper-West region (Avebury Publishers, Aldershot, 1994). Statistical data on Dagaaba migration trends is scanty. However, Songsore and Denkabe suggests that in 1948, 11,725 Dagaaba males were enumerated away from home and in 1960, 24,860 men were enumerated away from home. See Songsore and Denkabe, Challenging Rural Poverty, p. 28. For more current statistics of Dagaaba countered away for home, see Abdul-Korah, ‘Where Is Not Home?’ p. 79; see also Ghana Statistical Service, 2000 Population and Housing Census: Summary Report of Final Results (Ghana Statistical Service, Accra, 2002). Interview with Saaka Yahaya (28 years) on 15 July 2006, Obuasi (senior secondary school (SSS) graduate and miner at Obuasi). Interview with Issah Danba (26 years) on 15 July, 2006, Obuasi (junior secondary school (JSS) graduate and miner at Obuasi).

270

Gariba B. Abdul-Korah

Like the young men who saw migration to the south as a way not only to escape parental control but also to acquire wealth and by extension, enhance their status and power in society, Dagaaba women especially, teenage girls began to migrate to the south independently (without male agency) to find work. In fact, available evidence suggests that today, females in the Upper West region are beginning to outnumber males in terms of intra and inter-regional mobility (Abdul-Korah, 2007). This trend can be explained by a number of factors, but especially, the impact of the World Bank/IMF Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) that were adopted by government in the early 1980s. As a result of these programs the Mining sector which had in the past served as the sole employer of Dagaaba males, is not only placing restrictions on hiring, but also cutting down the number of current employees. As such, males have very few options in the south today since the majority of them are usually reluctant to engage in the types of jobs such as bartending and head portage (kayayoo) that girls willingly engaged and engage in. The stories that my female interviewees in the south shared with me were significantly different from those of their male counterparts. All the twenty young women who were interviewed in the south said that apart from going back home regularly for festivities such as Christmas and Easter they also send money and gifts home to their parents. For example, Felicia Jebuni said, ‘I am not married and I have no children so when I am able to feed myself and buy my most essential needs, I send whatever is left to my mother.’17 Another stated, ‘I don’t make much money here but I try to squeeze so that I can help my parents back home. Anytime I find a reliable person going to the village, I try to send something to my mother,’18 she added. Several others admitted that even though they had not sent money home to their parents yet, they were concerned about their welfare, and when they make enough money they will surely support them. Evidently, these stories contrast sharply with those of their male counterparts who were usually reluctant to send money to their parents and did not also return home on a regular basis. It comes as no surprise that most parents are now convinced that unlike in the past; it is no longer safe to have only sons. For example, an interviewee (a returned migrant) said:

16

17

Interview with Felicia Jebuni (19 years) on 16 July 2006, Obuasi (JSS graduate and kayayoo at Obuasi). Interview with Grace Suntaah (18 years) on 16 July 2006, Obuasi (JSS graduate and kayayoo at Obuasi).

271

Shifting and Contested Relationships

In the past, if your wife gave birth to a son, you rejoiced and even killed a guinea-fowl or an animal. But now, if you have only sons, you are dead. The boys would run away to ‘Kumasi’ [the south] and you will not hear from them. But for the girls, you always hear from them. They never forget their parents so they send money and things back home19.

Though this view might not be representative of all Dagaaba men, it reinforces the argument that Dagaaba girls of present are not only confronting the obstacles to their development and autonomy in the past by migrating south to work for wages, but are also taking over roles and responsibilities that were previously thought to be exclusively male. As in many other African societies, parents believed that it was the responsibility of sons to take care of them in their old age. Hence, having boys and training them to be successful in life was seen as an investment. But things have changed and that is no longer the case. Thus, unlike during the colonial period, when women were either ‘left behind’ or their migration closely linked to male movements, things have changed and Dagaaba women have taken up the challenge – by confronting the social obstacles (indigenous ideologies about female migration) to their advancement in the past. Changes in women’s value/status in the family within the context of shifting migration and remittance patterns were also reflected in the custom of bride-price payments. In response to the lukewarm attitude of male migrants towards remittances and more importantly to gain access to the cash economy, Dagaaba elders insisted that bride-price payment should be made in cash instead of the customary cowry shells20. They also continued to inflate the payment – making it appear as an economic venture21. This desperate attempt by elders to re-establish or regain 18

19

20

Interview with Marcel Korbieh (73 years) on 20 February 2002, Jirapa (farmer at Jirapa). Sean Hawkins notes that for a greater part of the colonial period, ‘cowries maintained boundaries between the internal sphere of social relations, where they acted as a medium of circulation and an index of participation, and the external domain of economic relations, where cash acted as a medium of exchange and means of exclusion. This situation began to change in the 1960s, when the cowry economy came under increasing pressure from the cash economy due to the shortage of cowries and the rising wages of migrant laborers. For details see, Sean, Hawkins, Writing and Colonialism in Northern Ghana: The encounter between the LoDagaa and “the world on paper” (University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2002), pp. 218-219. It is important to note that bride-price payments are not fixed – they vary from village to village and between clans. But in the Kaleo area (Nadowli District), the standard bride-price before the disappearance of cowry shells in 1960s was twentyseven (27,000) thousand cowries for a girl who was marrying for the very first time and thirty (30,000) for all subsequent marriages. These figures were translated into pesewas in the 1970s and later into cedis by 1980s. In 2001-02, I found out that the payment ranged from between a hundred (¢100,000) thousand and one hundred and

272

Gariba B. Abdul-Korah

power, status, and respect from migrant young men, in particular, exacerbated the already existing gender tensions in Dagaaba society. Customarily, it was believed that the bride-price that is paid for a girl should not exceed what was paid for her mother. However, since that was no longer the case, young men argued that women were now property and that they ‘bought’ their wives, because to them, the payment had deviated from its customary significance or purpose, and had become an economic venture. But as agents of change rather than victims, Dagaaba women refused to see themselves as property. Women (especially widows and divorcees) have responded by capitalizing on some aspects of custom – the circumstances or conditions under which the bride-price was returned – to resist this patriarchal control and to attain degrees of autonomy and independence. According to Dagaaba custom, bride-price payment was returned to an exhusband’s family or lineage only when a divorced wife remarried legally22. As a result, divorced women often simply refused to remarry so that they could enjoy their independence and autonomy or, in their own words, “punish men” (ex-husbands). For example, an interviewee disclosed that she had lived with her husband for five years at Obuasi (in the south) and they had a child. Her husband lost his job in the late 1980s and they returned home to the village and got divorced two years later. Thereafter, she lived in Wa (UWR) and travelled to Obuasi almost every month to trade. She said that even though she had a boy friend and had indeed met several other men whom she would have considered marrying, she did not plan to remarry in the near future because she wanted to punish her former husband. She added that: Besides, what’s there in this marriage business apart from tying yourself up like a goat? Look at me now, I can go anywhere I like and no ‘dog’ can cough. So why do I have to worry myself? If it is children, I can have as many as I want with other men but I don’t want to do that because that would still benefit my former husband. That apart, I also don’t want my

21

fifty (¢150,000) thousand cedis. In 2006 when I asked the same question, an interviewee told me that ‘Ummh! These days everybody decides how much to charge when his daughter is getting married. Fathers don’t even consult the extended family anymore,’ he added. Among the Dagaaba, marriage is considered legal when all rites of courtship are performed and the bride-price paid. Interview with Kojo Dong (80 years) on 10 January 2002, Kaleo (farmer and head of the Imuola clan of Kaleo). See also, Kpienbaya, Dagaaba Traditional Marriage and Family Life, (Catholic Press, Wa, 1987).

273

Shifting and Contested Relationships

children to have problems growing up because people will call them sensenbiihii (bastards)23.

She continued that ‘men always think that when they pay the brideprice for a woman, the woman becomes an animal and they can treat her the way they want; but that should not be the case. They do not know that our eyes are opened too.’24 And 90% of the women interviewed shared similar views about the increasing bride-price payments. Ironically however, women who divorced and did not remarry legally were usually still regarded as members of their ex-husbands lineage, and should any misfortune (sickness or death) befall them, the ex-husband was still responsible and had to bear the cost. Along the same lines, any children born to the woman also belonged to the ex-husband’s lineage. Thus, apart from the increasing cost of the bride-price and the inability of many young men to pay, most (80%) of the men interviewed expressed concerns about this particular aspect of the payment, and like the women, they favoured reform or even complete abolition of the practice. For example, Duneenuba said that: I think that the time has come to rethink the usefulness of some of these customs. You see, many of us are finding it difficult to get married these days because of the bride-price. In the past, father’s paid it for their sons. Now, they are not willing to do it and we have to do it ourselves – something many of us cannot afford. So when you think about some of these social problems …prostitution, teenage pregnancies, AIDS and many more, I think it is worth reforming or even getting rid of some of these age-old customs all together. Besides, who wants to be suffering with children that are actually not yours?25

What is interesting about this interviewee’s response is that while several others of his age merely complained about the high cost and their inability to pay, he was able to link the practice to broader social problems such as HIV/AIDS in the area. As is evident from these reflections, all interviewees still accepted the payment of the bride price as the cornerstone or rock upon which marriage rested, but they increasingly challenged the amount involved. Another way in which migration impacted gender relations in Dagaaba society was that when migrants returned home, most of them had difficulties coping with the demands of society. Because migrants were unable to accumulate enough savings in the south, most of them 22

23 24

Interview with Akua Bornaah (28 years) on 9 January 2002, Wa (JSS graduate and trader at Wa). Ibid. Interview with Charles Duneenubu, (35 years) on 18 December 2001, Ombo (teacher and university student at Ombo).

274

Gariba B. Abdul-Korah

returned home with little or no money to support themselves in the rural areas. Unable to cope with the expectations of Dagaaba society26, the men in particular, did not only shift their responsibilities as bread winners to their wives, but frequently turned to alcohol to medicate their anxieties. In his study on alcohol (akepteshie)27 and HIV/AIDS in the Upper West region for example, Luginaah observed that persistent economic hardships coupled with changing social norms and values have ‘weakened the material base of traditional male authority’ in the region and that most men are reduced to mere figure heads of households; they are unable to fulfil their male roles and responsibilities as breadwinners, and to ‘relieve them [selves] of their distress and worries’ they resort to alcohol (Luginaah, 2008; Luginaah and Crescentia, 2003). Similarly, an interviewee said that: We drink in order to relieve ourselves from our numerous problems. Here at home [north] things are more difficult than in the south because we no longer have jobs. And without a job, where will you get money? So you walk around with a lot of questions in your mind – how to feed your family, how to pay school fees or how to take a sick child to the hospital. You see, all these things make you worried. And the best way to get over your worries is to drink. If you get a ‘quarter’ (a pint) of akepteshie for example, you will forget all your problems and be able to sleep. That’s why we all drink. What can you do?28

But drinking to get over worries and be able to sleep can hardly resolve the impending family problems of putting food on the table. Rather, it demonstrates the frustration of men who, unlike their counterparts who did not migrate at all, saw their material poverty and inability to fulfil their responsibilities ‘not as a lack but loss of previous conditions’ (Ferguson, 1999). As Ashton observed among the Basuto ‘[migrants] live a life divided between their rural homes and the urban areas and floating between the two, they miss the full benefits of both’ (Ashston, 1952 in Colin, 1981: 16). Though Ashton made this observation in the southern African (Basuto) context, it is still very relevant to the case of returned Dagaaba migrants because their behaviour or attitude was and still is a major source of gender conflict in society. As I argued 25

26

27

As in many African societies, the Dagaaba believed that people migrate for greener pastures – to better themselves. So they (non-migrants) expect migrants to return home richer than they left. In other words, they expect migrants not only dress well, buy a bicycle or motorbike, but also to be able to build modern houses. For details, see Abdul-Korah, ‘Ka Biε Ba Yor’, (2008). Akpeteshie is an alcoholic beverage (gin) distilled locally from fermented palm wine or sugar cane juice mostly in southern Ghana. Interview with Dominic Kuuri (50 years) on 15 February 2002, Wa (ex-miner and farmer at Wa).

275

Shifting and Contested Relationships

elsewhere, this probably explains why some migrants refused to return home to the north when they either lost their jobs or retired, preferring instead to relocate in other parts of the south, especially, in the Brong Ahafo region where farming/job opportunities were more abundant29. Moreover, when these men returned home with their wives, more often than not, there was always a shift in economic power relations between them. Because women engaged in income generating activities such as pito brewing and petty trading, they tended to have more money. But because of the drinking habits of the majority of their men, the women usually were reluctant to consign their earnings to their husbands. For example, a female interviewee said that, ‘if you give money to your husband, he will use it to go and drink “kill me quick” [akepteshie], get drunk and come and beat you on top.’30 She added that: In the past, when you brewed pito, you could count on your husband to bring his friends to drink all the pito and you were assured of getting something [money]. Today, the men no longer patronize our pito, they all prefer to go and drink “kill me quick” [akepteshie] and you will be lucky if they leave you in peace when they get home. It’s always a quarrel or a fight31.

Other female interviewees described how the increasing consumption of akpeteshie has transformed men in the area from the hardworking men that they married to quarrelsome and irresponsible men. As men (mostly returned migrants) continued to shift their family responsibilities to women by resorting to alcohol to medicate their problems, the moral fabric that held marriages together became threatened (Luginaah, 2008). In addition, their refusal to patronize the most important income generating activity (pito brewing) of women in the area served not only as a major source of conflict, but also had serious implications for women’s access to cash and their ability to provide for their families.

Conclusion This article has examined Dagaaba women’s experiences of migration first as ‘those left behind’ by men and later as independent voluntary migrants to Ghana’s south in search of wage labour and the ways in which those experiences altered gender relations in their society in the twentieth century. I have argued that even though indigenous social structures privileged men over women, Dagaaba women were active agents in shaping the history of their communities and that gender 28 29

30

For a more detailed discussion, see, Abdul-Korah, ‘Where Is Not Home? (2007). Interview with Madam Rose (48 years) on 15 February 2002, Wa (house-wife at Wa). Ibid.

276

Gariba B. Abdul-Korah

relations in Dagaaba society were not static. By migrating to the south independent of male agency, women not only challenged indigenous ideologies about female migration but also proved that they were agents of change rather than victims of migration. As Jean-Bernard Ouedraogo observed among Dagara female labour migrants in Bobo-Dioulasso, ‘[t]rapped within this double marginalization, the politically and economically dominated women, particularly the younger ones, find their status as “outsiders” more and more unbearable and, by emigrating, reject it’ (Ouedraogo, 1998: 308). And when they did, they took on roles and responsibilities that were previously considered exclusively male – they were more concerned about the welfare of the people back home than their male counterparts. It comes as no surprise that an interviewee said that, ‘now if you have only sons, you are dead.’ Though Dagaaba men (elders) wielded power over juniors and women through their control of resources under indigenous social structures, labour migration in the colonial and postcolonial periods reversed this power dynamic by putting cash in the hands of junior men who refused to consign it (their hard-earned income) to their fathers. To regain control by gaining access to the cash that young men now controlled, elders decided to inflate bride-price payments, which generated further conflict. As in all human societies, marriage was (and still remains) an important institution in Dagaaba society because it assures one’s family group better chances of survival and whatever prestige that might be derived from having children (Kpienbaya, 1987). However, the bedrock of this institution – the payment of the bride-price – became a subject of debate among the Dagaaba. While some (elders) stressed the symbolic functions of the payment and saw it as a kind of “security” for the couple and their children, others, especially young men thought that it was an economic venture and some women viewed it as enslavement of the girl, which adversely affected her struggle for emancipation. These differences in opinion stemmed from the intergenerational and crossgender conflicts between elderly men on the one hand, and junior men and women on the other over power and control of resources. Colonial officials and missionaries in particular, brought some relief to women by challenging some customary practices and providing girls with formal education but failed to suppress bride-price payments, the significance and content of which continues to be a subject of debate among the Dagaaba to this day.

277

Shifting and Contested Relationships

References Abdul-Korah, G. (2004). Migration, Ethnicity and Uneven-development in Ghana: The Case of the Upper West region in the Twentieth Century University of Minnesota, Minnesota. Abdul-Korah, G. (2006). Where Is not Home: Dagaaba Migrants in the Brong Ahafo Region, 1980 to the Present. African Affairs, 1 06(422). Abdul-Korah, G. (2008). ‘Ka Biε Ba Yor: Labour Migration among the Dagaaba of the Upper West Region of Ghana, 1936-1957. Nordic Journal of African Studies, 17(1). Adeetuk, A. (1991). Land Tenure and Food Production in Northern Ghana, 1900-1985, unpublished, University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin. Adepoju, A. (2003). Migration in West Africa. Development, 46(3). Agarwal, S. (1994). Bearing the Weight: The Kayayoo, Ghana’s Working Girl Child’, Paper presented. Paper presented at the UNICEF Conference on the Girl Child, Delhi. Allman, J. (1989). Gender and Social Change in Colonial Asante: Reflections on ‘Spinsters’ ‘Concubines’, and ‘Wicked Women. Paper presented at the 32nd Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Atlanta. Allman, J. M., Geiger, S., & Musisi, N. (2002). Women in African Colonial Histories. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Allman, J. M., & Tashjian, V. B. (2000). I will not eat stone: a women’s history of colonial Asante. Portsmouth, NH; Oxford; Cape Town: Heinemann; J. Currey; D. Philip. Amadiume, I. (1987). Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society. London; Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Zed Books. Ardayfio-Schandorf, E. (1993, 14th-18th December 1992). Household Headship and Female Earning in Ghana. Paper presented at the Family and Development in Ghana: International Training and Research Workshop, University of Ghana Legon: Accra. Ashton, E. H. (1952). The Basuto. London, New York: Oxford University Press. Behrends, A. (2002). ‘Pogmiga’: The ‘Proper Dagara Woman’: An Encounter between Christian Thought and Dagara Concepts. Journal of Religion in Africa, 32 (2). Berg, E. (1965). The Economics of the Migrant Labour System. In H. Kuper (ed.), Urbanization and migration in West Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press. Brown, C. K. (1996). Gender Roles and Household Allocation of Resources and Decision-making in Ghana. In E. Ardayfio-Schandorf & University of Ghana (eds.), The Changing family in Ghana. Accra: Ghana Universities Press. Brukum, N. J. K. (1996). Northern Territories of the Gold Coast under British Colonial Rule, 1897-1956: A Study of Political Change. University of Toronto, Toronto.

278

Gariba B. Abdul-Korah

Caldwell, J. C. (1969). African rural-urban migration: the movement to Ghana’s towns. Canberra, London: Australian National University Press. Cassiman, A. (2006). Stirring Life: Women’s Paths and Places among the Kasena of Northern Ghana. Stockholm: Gotab. Cleveland, D. A. (1991). Migration in West Africa: A Savannah Village Perspective. Africa, 61(2). Cordell, D. D., Gregory, J. W., & Piché, V. (1996). Hoe and Wage: A Social History of a Circular Migration System in West Africa. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. Dickson, K. B. (1968). Background to the Problem of Economic Development in Northern Ghana. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 58(4). Ferguson, J. (1999). Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copper belt. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ghana, G. (2002). Ghana 2000 Population and Housing Census (Summary Report of Final Results). Accra: Ghana Statistical Service. Goody, J. (1962). Death, property and the ancestors; a study of the mortuary customs of the LoDagaa of West Africa. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Greene, S. E. (1996). Gender, Ethnicity, and Social Change on the Upper Slave Coast: A History of the Anlo-Ewe. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Grier, B. (1992). Pawns, Porters, and Petty Traders: Women in the Transition to Cash Crop Agriculture in Colonial Ghana. Signs, 17(2). Guyer, J. (1993). ‘Wealth in People and Self-realization in Equatorial Africa’, Man, (new series), 28(2). Hart, K. (1974). Migration and the Opportunity Structure. In S. Amin & International African Institute (eds.), Modern Migrations in Western Africa: Studies Presented and Discussed at the Eleventh International African Seminar, Dakar, April 1972. London; New York: Oxford University Press. Hawkins, S. (2002). “The woman in Question”: Marriage and Identity in the Colonial Courts of Northern Ghana, 1907-1954. In J. M. Allman, S. Geiger & N. Musisi (eds.), Women in African Colonial Histories. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hawkins, S. (2002). Writing and colonialism in northern Ghana: the encounter between the LoDagaa and “the World on Paper”. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. Hilton, T. E. (1966). Depopulation and Population Movement in the Upper Region of Ghana. Bulletin of the Ghana Geographical Association, 11(1). Hunter, J.M. (1967). Population Pressure in a part of the West African Savannah: A Study of Nangodi, Northern Ghana. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 53. Koenig, D. (2005). Multilocality and Social Stratification in Kita, Mali. In L. Trager (ed.), Migration and Economy: Global and Local Dynamics. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. 279

Shifting and Contested Relationships

Kpiebaya, G. (1987). Dagaaba Traditional Marriage and Family Life. Wa: Wa Catholic Press. Lentz, C. (2006). Ethnicity and the Making of History in Northern Ghana. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Lentz, C., & Veit, E. (1989). A working Class in Formation? Economic Crisis and Strategies of Survival Among Dagara Mine Workers in Ghana. Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines, 113(29). Lindsay, L. A., & Miescher, S. (2003). Men and masculinities in modern Africa. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Lobnibe, I. (2008). Between Aspirations and Realities: Northern Ghanaian Migrant Women and the Dilemma of Household (Re)production in Southern Ghana. Africa Today, 55(2). Luginaah, I. (2008). Local Gin (akpeteshie) and HIV/AIDS in the Upper West Region of Ghana: The Need for Preventive Health Policy. Health and Place, 14(4). Luginaah, I., & Dakubo, C. (2003). Consumption and Impacts of Local Brewed Alcohol (akpeteshie) in the Upper West Region of Ghana: A Public Health Tragedy. Social Science and Medicine, 57. Manchuelle, F. (1997). Willing Migrants: Soninke labour diasporas, 1848-1960. Athens; London: Ohio University Press; J. Currey Publishers. Masser, I., Gould, W. T. S., & Goddard, A. D. (1975). Inter-regional migration in tropical Africa. London: Institute of British Geographers. McCoy, R. F., Dionne, R., & Dewart, J. C. (1988). Great things Happen: A Personal Memoir. Montreal: Society of Missionaries of Africa. Meillassoux, C. (1981). Maidens, Meal, and Money: Capitalism and the Domestic Community. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Miers, S., & Kopytoff, I. (1977). Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Mikell, G. (1989). Cocoa and Chaos in Ghana. New York: Paragon House. Nabila, J. S. (1974). The Migration of the Frafra of Northern Ghana: A Case Study of Cyclical Labour Migration in West Africa. Michigan State University East Lansing, Michigan. Nsiah-Gyabaah, K. (1994). Environmental Degradation and Desertification in Ghana: A Study of the Upper West Region. Aldershot; Brookfield, USA: Avebury. Ouedraogo, J.-B. (1995). The Girls of Nyovuuru: Dagara Female Labour Migration to Bobo-Dioulasso, In J. Baker & A. T. Aina (eds.), The Migration Experience in Africa. Sweden: Nodiska Afrikainstitutet. Padmanabhan, M. A. (2002). Trying to Grow – Gender Relations and Agricultural Innovations in Northern Ghana. Hamburg, London: LIT VERLAG. Plange, N.-K. (1979). Underdevelopment in Northern Ghana: Natural Causes or Colonial Capitalism? Review of African Political Economy, 15(16).

280

Gariba B. Abdul-Korah

Songsore, J. (1983). Intraregional and Interregional Labour Migrations in Historical perspective: the case of north-western Ghana. Port Harcourt: University of Port Harcourt, Faculty of Social Sciences. Songsore, J., Denkabe, A., & Universitetet i Trondheim. Senter for miljø og utvikling. (1995). Challenging rural poverty in Northern Ghana: the case of the Upper-West Region. Dragvoll: University of Trondheim. Thomas, G. R. (1973). Forced Labour in British West Africa: The Case of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast 1906-1927. Journal of African History, 14(1). Van Hear, N. (1982). Northern Labour and the Development of Capitalist Agriculture in Ghana. University of Birmingham, Birmingham. Wilks, I. (1989). Wa and the Wala: Islam and Polity in northwestern Ghana. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Zachariah, K. C., & Centre for Development Studies (Trivandrum India). (1994). Demographic transition in Kerala in the 1980s. Trivandrum: Centre for Development Studies: Gujarat Institute of Development Research, Ahmedabad. Zachariah, K. C., Condé, J., World Bank, & Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. (1981). Migration in West Africa: Demographic Aspects. New York: Oxford University Press.

281

“GODS, HUMANS AND RELIGIONS” While most traditional world religions seem to face a fundamental identity and cultural crisis, signs are indicating that there is a universal need for new spiritual demands and revival, new awakenings of religious practices and feelings. What are the facts beyond these movements? Is there a new human religiosity in the making? This series brings together witnesses, thinkers, believers and nonbelievers, historians, scientists of religion, theologians, psychologists, sociologists, philosophers and general writers, from different cultures and languages, to offer a broader perspective on one of the key issues of our new world civilisation in the making. Series Editor: Gabriel FRAGNIÈRE, Former Rector of the College of Europe (Bruges), President of the Europe of Cultures Forum

Published Books No.20– Alexis B. TENGAN (ed.), Christianity and Cultural History in Northern Ghana. A Portrait of Cardinal Peter Poreku Dery (1918-2008), 2013, ISBN 978-2-87574-114-1 No.19– Rik PINXTEN, The Creation of God, 2010, ISBN 978-90-5201-644-3 No.18– Christiane TIMMERMAN, Johan LEMAN, Hannelore ROOS & Barbara SEGAERT (eds.), In-Between Spaces. Christian and Muslim Minorities in Transition in Europe and the Middle East, 2009, ISBN 978-90-5201-565-1 No.17– Hans GEYBELS, Sara MELS & Michel WALRAVE (eds.), Faith and Media. Analysis of Faith and Media: Representation and Communication, 2009, ISBN 978-90-5201-534-7 No.16– André GERRITS, The Myth of Jewish Communism. A Historical Interpretation, 2009, ISBN 978-90-5201-465-4 o N 15– Semih VANER, Daniel HERADSTVEIT & Ali KAZANCIGIL (dir.), Sécularisation et démocratisation dans les sociétés musulmanes, 2008, ISBN 978-905201-451-7 No.14– Dinorah B. MÉNDEZ, Evangelicals in Mexico. Their Hymnody and Its Theology, 2008, ISBN 978-90-5201-433-3 No 13– Édouard Flory KABONGO, Le rite zaïrois. Son impact sur l’inculturation du catholicisme en Afrique, 2008, ISBN 978-90-5201-385-5

No 12– Astrid DE HONTHEIM, Chasseurs de diable et collecteurs d’art. Tentatives de conversion des Asmat par les missionnaires pionniers protestants et catholiques, 2008, ISBN 978-90-5201-380-0 No 11– Alice DERMIENCE, La « Question féminine » et l’Église catholique. Approches biblique, historique et théologique, 2008, ISBN 978-90-5201378-7 No.10– Christiane TIMMERMAN, Dirk HUTSEBAUT, Sara MELS, Walter NONNEMAN & Walter VAN HERCK (eds.), Faith-based Radicalism. Christianity, Islam and Judaism between Constructive Activism and Destructive Fanaticism, 2007, ISBN 978-90-5201-050-2 No.9– Pauline CÔTÉ & T. Jeremy GUNN (eds.), La nouvelle question religieuse. Régulation ou ingérence de l’État ? / The New Religious Question. State Regulation or State Interference?, 2006, ISBN 978-90-5201-034-2 No.8– Wilhelm DUPRÉ, Experience and Religion. Configurations and Perspectives, 2005, ISBN 978-90-5201-279-7 No.7– Adam POSSAMAI, Religion and Popular Culture. A Hyper-Real Testament, 2005 (2nd printing 2007), ISBN 978-90-5201-272-8 N° 6– Gabriel FRAGNIÈRE, La religion et le pouvoir. La chrétienté, l’Occident et la démocratie, 2005 (2nd printing 2006), ISBN 978-90-5201-268-1 No.5– Christiane TIMMERMAN & Barbara SEGAERT (eds.), How to Conquer the Barriers to Intercultural Dialogue. Christianity, Islam and Judaism, 2005 (3rd printing 2007), ISBN 978-90-5201-373-2 N° 4– Elizabeth CHALIER-VISUVALINGAM, Bhairava: terreur et protection. Mythes, rites et fêtes à Bénarès et à Katmandou, 2003, ISBN 978-90-5201-173-8 No.3– John Bosco EKANEM, Clashing Cultures. Annang Not(with)standing Christianity – An Ethnography, 2002, ISBN 978-90-5201-983-3 No.2– Peter Chidi OKUMA, Towards an African Theology. The Igbo Context in Nigeria, 2002, ISBN 978-90-5201-975-8 No.1– Karel DOBBELAERE, Secularization: An Analysis at Three Levels, 2002 (2nd printing 2004), ISBN 978-90-5201-985-7

Peter Lang – The website Discover the general website of the Peter Lang publishing group: www.peterlang.com