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A story to stand for the work; Dagbamba folk stories and proverbs on friendship and knowledge; the importance of good character
The story of the man and the dwarf
Parallels to the friendship of John Chernoff and Alhaji Ibrahim
The responsibility of those who teach John
Recollection of John's first training and Alhaji Ibrahim's advice
Namo-Naa's message and advice to John
Drumming and living together will extend the friendship
The seriousness of the lectures about drumming to Dagbamba
The importance of good intentions
The importance of learning in a group
The importance of good character
Conclusion: the fundamental proverbs of drumming
A child has gone out and brought something that you don't know.
It is in your wish that people are going to see your foolishness.
The intention you have in your heart, that is what is going to hold you in this world and in the next world.
In what your heart wishes, your blame is small.
If the basket is not ashamed, then the thief is not ashamed.
A person's intention is within the heart, and whatever intentions you have within your heart are going to be what you achieve.
A lion from London, if he comes to the Northern Region here, he should take himself to be a cat.
Patience gets everything but annoyance will let you go where you don't want to go.[annoyance gets nothing]
If they slaughter a cow, and someone asks you to choose the important two meats in the cow, you should choose the heart and the tongue.
The eyes can sleep, but the heart will not sleep. If a person is sleeping and dreaming, it is the heart that sees. And so the heart is the eyes. And so it is the heart that sees first before the eyes.
An elderly person will never be in the house, and they will spread the corn in the yard and rain will beat it.
The place they love you, that is where you go and start pushing down things.
If you are coming to build a room, and you don't make a good foundation, can you put up the building?
As for salt, you don't need to praise salt, because everybody knows that salt is good.
Seeing is believing.
The one who gives you the medicine for your sickness, has he not bought the sickness?
And I want to tell you that if you want to plan for the morning, you have to start planning in the evening for the next day's morning.
As for a dance that dances all night, you have to dance it coolly.
If you have something big inside the room and you want to carry it outside, you have to go outside and ask somebody to help you carry it.
If you are going to war, and you haven't yet fought the war, they cannot yet give you a name for what you did in the war.
When someone dies, you don't leave the dead person in the house and go to another house to cry.
The thing that is worrying you is what you look after; you don't look into any other matter.
It is better that they throw spears at you than they tell lies about you. (Mamprugulana Tohigu Yeltabli gari kpani)
What is forbidden does not walk; it is waiting.
Without drumming, there would be no respect in Dagbon.
Not everybody can like a person.
If they call you a monkey, you should let your tail be long.
Two wise men cannot sit together, but a wise man and a foolish man can gather.
If you go to look for wisdom, you shouldn't say you hear too much. If you say that, you won't get what you want. And if you say you see too much, you won't get what you want. And you shouldn't say that no one will cheat you. . . . If you want to gain, you should pretend, and you should make yourself deaf and blind, and make yourself a fool, and I will be cheating you. . . . The time you come to know that someone is cheating you, if you say it, that is the time you can no longer get what you want from him.
“Fall here and fall there”: that makes the playing of dogs to be nice. Without “I fall and you fall,” dogs cannot play.
It is proverbs a person takes to do work.
People have been asking of you.
What will let a hyena and a monkey meet? (Savelugu-Naa Shiru, son of Naa Siɣli)
If you have a benefit in something bad, you can find the way to separate the benefit from the bad thing.
When they put a lion among sheep, the lion will become a sheep.
Friendship has no end.
Friendship increases.
Friendship brings family. (Gbulun Jizaa-Naa Abudu)
Friendship is senior to family, and friendship is more than family.
Good thoughts, good thoughts: they do good work.
Drumming is like a lion that is lying down and you have come to hold it. As you are holding the lion, you would not like to let it go. You won't want to let it go because you will be thinking that if you let it go, it will catch you. And as you are holding it, too, you are afraid. You don't know that as you are holding it, truly, that is better than letting it go. And so drumming is like that.
As we have big men's graves in the cemetery, we have small boys' graves.
A single finger cannot lift a stone. But when the fingers group together, they can pick up a stone.
There is benefit in a group.
In Dagbani, we used to say that one person cannot do something that will be nice.
A single person does not see witch-fire.
Eye-seeing is better than ear-hearing.
If you cook food and you give the best part to someone to eat, no matter how he eats it, it will not be sweet for him. Why is it so? He has not cooked it.
Those who have come first are lucky, and those who are behind should think.
If your child goes out and comes back to the house with a friend, then at that point you have to know that you have two children.
Wisdom is in a group.
If you want to do work in front of people, you shouldn't tie your face. You should be laughing and smiling, and you will get them.
You can't take hot water to cook somebody, but you can take cold water and cook somebody very easily.
You can be walking and holding your money, and it will fall into some shit along the road: if you remove it and take water and wash it and make it fine and take it along, and no one is going to know, it doesn't matter.
Someone's bad work has sent away his good work.
Truly, patience is in the heart.
if you are a human being and you get up, you should hold good character.
It is good character that brings people together in a group.
Namɔɣ' yili mali kpiɔŋ, kpam!: the house of the drummers has strength, plenty!
Dakoli n-nyɛ bia, ka paɣalana n-nyɛ kpɛma: a bachelor is a child, and a married man is the elder.
The one who has an elder to hold him will eat; the one without someone will not eat.
If God agrees and the Holy Prophet agrees, God should make the wall to be nice, and our elders will lean against the wall, and we the children will thank God. (Naa Andani Jɛŋgbarga)
An exhausted old man, just leaning against the wall, is better than an old man who dies.