Chapter I–24:  Drum Chieftaincies

        Today we will talk again, and I will continue what I was talking yesterday.  And today's talk, I think it will have a crooked way of talking, but I will take it and go.  And I will talk on the part of how we drummers eat chieftaincy in Dagbon here, and I will join it to show how a chief of drummers dies and how they bury him.  If somebody like the Palo-Naa dies and they are burying him, and you are there at the graveside, you will know that the dead body is a drummer.  But someone who doesn't know this talk will not know that it is a drummer they are burying.  And so we will follow it and talk about the chiefs of drummers and how they are in Dagbon here.

        I want to tell you that in every group, there must be somebody to lead so that everybody will not be equal, and there will be respect.  And when drummers come together, too, it is good that there are elders or chiefs of the drummers.  As they are there, it is good for us the drummers.  Every one of us who beats the drum knows his standing place.  When the drumming chieftaincy comes to you, you will know that it has come to you.  It isn't that you have made yourself a chief.  This is how we have also put it down.  And these drumming chieftaincies are coming from our great-grandfathers down to us.

        I have told you that the time we drummers started, it was Naa Nyaɣsi who gave birth to our grandfather Bizuŋ, and it was Naa Nyaɣsi's son Naa Zulandi who gave the chieftaincy of Namɔɣu to Bizuŋ to eat.  And so it is inside Naa Nyaɣsi that our drumming started, and it is Bizuŋ's line that comes down to the Namo-Naa.  Bizuŋ also gave birth to many children, and those who eat the chieftaincy of Namɔɣu are the children of Bizuŋ.  And so we say that Bizuŋ is the grandfather of every drummer.  How we drummers came about, Naa Nyaɣsi is our grandfather.  And Bizuŋ is our grandfather.  Bizuŋ gave birth to Lelbaa and Banchiri.  And Lelbaa gave birth to Ashaɣu.  And Ashaɣu is our grandfather.  And Ashaɣu gave birth to Kosaɣim.  And this Kosaɣim, his line comes down to the Palo-Naa, the chief of drummers at Savelugu, and so Ashaɣu's line is all the drummers from Savelugu and Yendi.  And so we show that Bizuŋ gave birth to Ashaɣu, and Ashaɣu gave birth to all drummers.  And all drummers are grandchildren of Bizuŋ, and all drummers are children of Namo-Naa, of Namɔɣu.  This is how it is.

        Namo-Naa is the chief of all the drummers in Yendi, and Namo-Naa is the chief drummer for the Yaa-Naa.  How the Yaa-Naa is standing on the part of chieftaincy in Dagbon here, that is the same way Namo-Naa is standing in the drumming.  And so truly, Namo-Naa is the old person of all the drummers in Dagbon.  We drummers are all grandchildren of Bizuŋ, and Bizuŋ started the line of Namɔɣu.  And as Namo-Naa is the chief of the drummers in Dagbon, you should know that every drummer is a child of Namo-Naa.  Whether Namo-Naa gave birth to you or he didn't give birth to you, that is your father.  Why is it so?  When Naa Nyaɣsi was going around killing the tindanas and putting his followers as chiefs of the towns, we praise him as Naa Nyaɣsi bia, “Naa Nyaɣsi's child.”  As we are calling all these people Naa Nyaɣsi's children, it wasn't always his real children he was putting as chiefs in the towns he collected.  But if we are counting, we count those chiefs as his children.

        And what I am telling you, you should listen well.  I am showing you a talk that is a very deep and hidden talk on the part of us Dagbamba.  Someone who doesn't have patience, if he comes to learn the talks of Dagbon, he will always become confused.  As they have said that Bizuŋ was the first Namo-Naa, I want you to know that even up to Naa Luro's time and even coming, there was no Namo-Naa.  And as they have said that Bizuŋ ate the chieftaincy of Namɔɣu, you will sometimes hear somebody call the name of Namo-Naa Ashaɣu or Namo-Naa Lelbaa.  And what I am telling you and what you should know is that whenever you hear somebody saying that, it doesn't show that Bizuŋ or any of these people was the Namo-Naa.

        Why is it so?  I want to tell you that if a Yaa-Naa's son dies today, if he is not a chief, they will give him some chieftaincy and bury him.  Today, today, they are doing that.  Even if the child is three months old and he dies, they will make him a chief.  That is how it is.  And at that time, if they are going to take that chieftaincy and count the chiefs, they will add that child inside.  And coming to add to that one:  every Yaa-Naa's father is a Yaa-Naa because we show that it is a Yaa-Naa's son who eats the Yendi chieftaincy.  Anyone who comes to be the Yaa-Naa today, then all the Yaa-Naas who have died are his fathers.  And if a Yaa-Naa gives birth to children and another Yaa-Naa who died gave birth to children, as the Yaa-Naa is there, then all of those children are his children.  Have you heard?  That is how it is.

        Truly, Dagbon has got a lot of things, and you cannot learn all of them.  When Naa Nyaɣsi was going around killing the tindanas and putting his followers as chiefs of the towns, do you think that all of them were his real children?  But we drummers call all their names and call them the sons of Naa Nyaɣsi.  Those he was putting in place of the tindanas became his children.  And so Yendi has got a lot of talks, and only we drummers know about it.  And that is why I have been telling you that in our talks, how we call Yendi and the work we do with it, we don't joke with it.  I can tell you that there can be a chief who doesn't bring forth children, and when he dies, we can take the son of his sister to be his son, or we can take the son of his brother to be his son.  If you are a drummer and you get up today and say that that chief had no children, then you are not a drummer.  If I want, I can even tell you that there were some Yaa-Naas who didn't give birth to children, but we drummers cannot say that they have not given birth to children.  If you are a drummer and you say that, then you have disrespected the Yendi chieftaincy.

        And so as Namo-Naa is there, every Namo-Naa calls every Namo-Naa his father.  And even every drummer calls Namo-Naa his father.  And so the Namo-Naas who were actually children of Bizuŋ:  Banchiri, Lelbaa, Ashaɣu, and others are there.  And Bizuŋ's children finished, and it came down to others who are not Bizuŋ's real children.  And so not all Namo-Naas are Bizuŋ's children, but because they were Namo-Naas, then we drummers have made it so.  Haven't I told you that it is the one who takes up your work whom you will call your child?  And so in Dagbon here, when you hear any talk on the part of someone and the children he gave birth to, you have to use your sense and know what is inside it.  And again, if you hear them count Namo-Naas and they come to include Bizuŋ and other drummers he gave birth to, like Banchiri and Lelbaa, it doesn't mean that they were drumming chiefs.  If they are going to count Namo-Naas, they will count their names because if Namo-Naa had been there during their time, such people would have been Namo-Naas.  And so they will show the starting of Namo-Naa and they will take all of them and add them and count, and they will call all of them Namo-Naa.  And so if you hear that Bizuŋ was not a chief, and Banchiri and Lelbaa were not chiefs, you shouldn't be surprised.

        And what I am telling you is very deep and hidden inside the talk I am talking today.  As it is hard before someone will take these old talks and talk, how much more before someone will show all of it?  And those who have taught the ones who have written about this did not agree to talk all of it.  That is why I told you that when you want to know the talks of the olden days, it is difficult.  And so you should not try to see the ears of a snake.  Even if you call the names of many hundreds of drummers and say they are children of Bizuŋ, I can challenge you.  But it is true that they are his children, because if we want, we can say that they are his children.  And if you want, you can take it that they are not his children.  But they want it:  that is why they say that they are his children.  This is the type of talk that is inside this thing.  In our drumming, it is there like that.  And that is one of the secrets of drumming.  And so what we have talked about, you should know that that time was very, very, very long ago.  And all this is why I can tell you that if you try to see the ears of a snake, you will become tired.

        And so our drumming chieftaincy started with Namo-Naa.  But how the chieftaincy of Namɔɣu was, to me, I don't think that drummers were following chiefs like today.  They were chiefs because they were having their own lands, sitting there with their people, and they were holding people in their towns.  As for that Namɔɣu, it is still there, but nobody is there again.  If you go there, you will see the broken down houses, but there are no people.  And so you have to watch.  In the olden days, the way they were eating chieftaincy, and today, is that how they eat it?  How Dagbon started with chieftaincy, there has been some brightening coming inside the chieftaincy.  But Bizuŋ's fathers were chiefs, and the one who showed Bizuŋ how to drum and showed him his grandfathers, he knew what was inside chieftaincy.

        And the reason why I can say that the drummers were not chiefs, inside this talk, it is just that at that time, they were not following chiefs like today.  They were having their own land, living there.  Let me open your eyes.  In the Samban' luŋa, when a drummer sings the story of how Naa Luro went to war, and he won the war, you will hear that after the war, Naa Luro said that they should bring drummers.  And they sent to Kambaŋ' Dunoli for drummers.  Kambaŋa is a praise-name for the Diarilana, and so that is the gate of Diari.  I told you that old Namɔɣu was near there.  And so the drummers were there.  This is what we got up and heard, and we didn't heat the reason why, when Naa Luro was going to the war, the drummers didn't follow him.  And it wasn't until he won the war before he asked for drummers.  But if Yaa-Naa is going to war, whatever happens, Namo-Naa will take his drum and follow him to the war.  Yaa-Naa will not go to war, and Namo-Naa will be sitting down somewhere.  That is the work of Namɔɣu as a drumming chief.  And so if Naa Luro went to war without these people, at the time they were eating Namɔɣu, it shows that they were not chiefs like the way they are chiefs today.  After Naa Nyaɣsi died, there were ten chiefs who ate Yendi before Naa Luro ate it.  But I can tell you that in the whole of Dagbon here, there is nobody you will ask that he should tell you the reason why Naa Luro went to the war without drummers, but it was rather after the war before he asked for drummers.  Maybe you will want to look for somebody to explain it to you, but I can tell you that inside our drumming, nobody has ever asked that question.

        And so you cannot take the talk of Bizuŋ to compare to the way Namo-Naa is.  That time was a time of suffering.  Bizuŋ was the chief of Namɔɣu.  He started the chieftaincy there.  You can't say that those who ate after him were different from him.  He, Bizuŋ:  he came out of Naa Nyaɣsi.  When Naa Nyaɣsi was fighting the war, killing the tindanas, and putting people in the towns, were those people not chiefs?  They were chiefs, and they were not many.  But they were there, and at that time, Bizuŋ was eating Namɔɣu and beating drums for them.  And so if they are counting the children of Naa Nyaɣsi, you will hear them say, “Bizuŋ, chief of Namɔɣu, Naa Nyaɣsi's son.”  But I want you to know that it isn't that Bizuŋ was the Namo-Naa.  The time when Bizuŋ was there and he was giving birth, there was no Namo-Naa.  I told you that Bizuŋ gave birth to Lunʒɛɣu, the name the old people have used to call you.  “Bizuŋ's child Lunʒɛɣu”:  that is how we praise him.  The time Bizuŋ and Lunʒɛɣu were there, there was no chieftaincy that looked like Namo-Naa.  Bizuŋ and Lunʒɛɣu were just there; they were old men, and they were drumming and they were teaching.  And as they were not many, they were also giving birth, and it came to a time when they were many.

        And drummers were there like that until they came to start the Lun-Zoo-Naa chieftaincy.  What is the Lun-Zoo-Naa chieftaincy?  As the drummers were giving birth, it came to a time when they were many, and they called them “Lun zoo,” because in our Dagbani we say bɛn galsi or we say bɛ zooya, “they are many,” and so they called Lun zoo, “drummers are many.”  And as the Lun-Zoo-Naa is there, he doesn't eat the chieftaincy of Namo-Naa, because the Lun-Zoo-Naa is his own chief.  This Lun-Zoo-Naa is not a small chief in our drumming.  Didn't you ever hear me say “Lun-Zoo-Naa Mɔɣnyini”?  Haven't I told you that?  It is a praise for Lun-Zoo-Naa.  You know that in our Dagbani, "mɔɣli” is a river, and “yini” means one.  I didn't ask the meaning of the praise, but you should know that Lun-Zoo-Naa has his praises.  As Lun-Zoo-Naa is a drummers' chief, he is following the chief of his town:  where he is, he follows the chief of that town.  And there are only two towns where I have heard that they have Lun-Zoo-Naa:  Gukpeogu has a Lun-Zoo-Naa, and Karaga has a Lun-Zoo-Naa.  I haven't heard that any other town has a Lun-Zoo-Naa, and so it's Gukpeogu and Karaga alone.  And as the Gukpe-Naa is in Tamale here, we have Lun-Zoo-Naa here.  The time you first came, Alhassan Abukari, the one who taught you to beat the drum, he was the Gbɔŋlana of Lun-Zoo-Naa Abukari you have been greeting.

        When I told you about Bizuŋ, I told you that it was Nanton Lun-Naa Iddrisu who told me that when Bizuŋ's mother died, Naa Nyaɣsi gave Bizuŋ to a Guruma man.  And the Guruma man gave Bizuŋ a drum we call giŋgaɣinyɔɣu, and he taught Bizuŋ how to drum.  And Nanton Lun-Naa told you that it was from this Guruma man that Lun-Zoo-Naa started.  And he said that Lun-Zoo-Naa Tisuwa was the Guruma man's son, and Nanton Lun-Naa told you the names of some of the drummers who are Lun-Zoo-Naa in the olden days.  But I also told you that in Palo-Naa's house or in Namo-Naa's house, I haven't heard any talk about a Guruma man.  Do you remember when you asked Namo-Naa Issahaku about that?  It was Namo-Naa himself who told you that he had not heard any talk about a Guruma man inside drumming.  And so I told you that inside these old talks, there is darkness.  And that time, too, I told you that if you want to follow a snake to see its ears, you will be tired.  And so the extent you reach, you have to stand there.  And the knowledge you have, you will know the house where you learned it.  And so the talk of Nanton Lun-Naa, as that is your house, you can stand on it. 

        And if you follow it, in Namo-Naa's house and in Palo-Naa's house, Namo-Naa Issahaku and Palo-Naa Issa both told you that Lun-Zoo-Naa is older than Namo-Naa.  As it is, are they not saying that Lun-Zoo-Naa was there when Bizuŋ started drumming?  Namo-Naa Issahaku told you that it was only Kuɣa drummers who ate Lun-Zoo, and Kuɣa-Naa was an important elder of the Yaa-Naa even from the time Dagbon started.  But today as we are sitting, there is no Lun-Zoo-Naa at Yendi.  Only Karaga and Gukpeogu have Lun-Zoo-Naa.  When we went to Nanton to ask about this talk, Nanton Lun-Naa and Nanton Sampahi-Naa Alidu both told you that Lun-Zoo-Naa and our grandfather Namɔɣu, they don't sit in the same town.  Lun-Zoo-Naa can sit in any town he wants, but if he goes to Yendi to greet the Yaa-Naa, it means that the chieftaincy of Namo-Naa is not there.  And so if you are holding what Nanton Lun-Naa Iddrisu said, and you hear drummers say that Lun-Zoo-Naa is older than Namo-Naa, then in the olden days, when drumming was starting, maybe there was Lun-Zoo-Naa at Yendi.

        But as it is standing now, Namɔɣu is senior to Lun-Zoo.  What Namo-Naa himself told you is the same thing that any drummer will tell you, that a Yaa-Naa's child eats Namɔɣu, but Lun-Zoo is not eaten by a Yaa-Naa's child.  That is why they have given the seniority to Namɔɣu.  In our Dagbon, there is no chieftaincy that Yaa-Naa will give to somebody, and that chieftaincy will be more than the Yaa-Naa's chieftaincy.  If Namo-Naa visits this town, Gukpeogu Lun-Zoo-Naa will be following him, and Karaga Lun-Zoo-Naa will be following him.  All Dagbon drummers will be following him.  In this case, are they not showing that Namo-Naa is senior to Lun-Zoo-Naa?  So that is what is inside our drumming too.  We all, our Yaa-Naa is Namo-Naa.  And our starting too started from Bizuŋ.  So how we are all sitting down as children today, all drummers in Dagbon, they are calling us the children of Bizuŋ.  Because our grandfather was Bizuŋ, and we too, how we are getting up, we are doing the work of Bizuŋ.  It means we have inherited his property.  So how we are, they call us Bizuŋ's children.

        These two drumming chieftaincies, Namo-Naa and Lun-Zoo-Naa, they are the oldest of the drumming chieftaincies in Dagbon.  And as the Namo-Naa is the son of a Yaa-Naa, he doesn't want the Lun-Zoo-Naa chieftaincy.  As Namo-Naa  doesn't want Lun-Zoo-Naa, Lun-Zoo-Naa also doesn't want Namɔɣu.  He is older than Namo-Naa, and why should he go to become Namo-Naa?  I can tell you that if it is about the eldership of drumming, Lun-Zoo-Naa and Namo-Naa are even arguing on the part of age.  The work Namo-Naa is doing, that is the work Lun-Zoo-Naa is also doing.  Namo-Naa calls the Lun-Zoo-Naa “my grandfather Lun-Zoo-Naa,” and Lun-Zoo-Naa calls Namo-Naa “my grandfather Namɔɣu.”  And so Lun-Zoo-Naa is older than Namo-Naa, but truly, I can say that there is nothing Lun-Zoo-Naa does which is as important as what Namo-Naa does.  And what Namo-Naa gets, Lun-Zoo-Naa doesn't get like that.

        And so the drumming chieftaincies that have come down, their starting is far, but the time our drumming started, these chieftaincies were not here.  But whatever happens, I think it has been at least some hundreds of years, and so these drumming chieftaincies are something the chiefs have put down for long, and we also grew up and met them.  And as they are there, there are many differences inside them, and it isn't that every town's drum chief is the same.  Every town has got the extent of the chieftaincy of its drummers.  And so I want to join this talk of our grandfathers to the talk of our drumming chiefs and how they are sitting in the towns, and I am going to talk and separate the differences for you.

        As for our Dagbamba chiefs, the only name for a drumming chieftaincy they know is Lun-Naa, “drum chief.”  Every town's drumming chieftaincies are different, but if you look, most of the towns have got it that Lun-Naa is the chief.  Sampahi-Naa is following.  Taha-Naa is third.  Those three chieftaincies are the names you will be always hearing.  After Taha-Naa, sometimes we have Dolsi-Naa and Yiwɔɣu-Naa.  Some towns have got Dobihi-Naa.  But there are so many differences in the different towns and villages.  Every town has got different drumming chieftaincies.  And so the names of the drumming chiefs, and how big they are, it is from how the town or village started.  As they have different names, they all have their standing places.  There are many people who hear of “Lun-Naa,” and they will say that it means that person is the head of all drummers, because in our Dagbani, “Lun-Naa” is “drum chief.”  And so some people take it that Lun-Naa is senior to other drumming chiefs.  But as for these differences, it is we the drummers who know that inside a drumming chieftaincy, this one is senior, and this one follows, this one follows.

        Listen well.  In Nanton, Maachɛndi is the chief drummer.  He is followed by Lun-Naa.  Sampahi-Naa is next, followed by Taha-Naa, Yiwɔɣu-Naa, Dolsi-Naa, and Dobihi-Naa is the last.  If you want, you can say that Maachɛndi Wulana is the last child of all of them.  The drumming chieftaincies are from Nanton-Naa, but it is Maachɛndi himself who chooses his Wulana, and Maachɛndi Wulana is the Wulana for all those who are holding the drumming chieftaincies.  In Savelugu, Palo-Naa is the senior drum chief.  He is followed by Lun-Naa, Sampahi-Naa, Dolsi-Naa, Taha-Naa, Yiwɔɣu-Naa, Dobihi-Naa, and Palo Wulana is the last.  And it is Palo-Naa who appoints Palo Wulana.  They are all there.  This is how it is.  Have you heard?  I want you to know and I am showing you that as the towns are different, every town has the way one drumming chieftaincy is bigger than another.  Sometimes you will go to a town and see a drumming chieftaincy which is very big, and if you go to another town you will see they take the same drumming chieftaincy to be very small.  In Nanton, Dolsi-Naa is a small drum chief, but in Savelugu, Dolsi-Naa is following Savelugu Sampahi-Naa, and so Savelugu Dolsi-Naa is bigger than Savelugu Taha-Naa.

        And so we have not put it down that drummers must have this chief and that chief.  Do you see Kumbungu?  The chief of Kumbungu is a big chief, but in Kumbungu, the drum chiefs were only four:  they had Lun-Naa, Sampahi-Naa, Taha-Naa, and Yiwɔɣu-Naa.  It is not long now that they have added Dobihi-Naa.  After the death of Kumbun-Naa Alhassan, they added Dobihi-Naa.  But before that, there were only the four chiefs I called.  In Tolon, Lun-Naa is the senior, and they have Sampahi-Naa and Taha-Naa.  And they have another drumming chief they call Shɛlunlana:  it is inside their drumming chieftaincies, but today as we are sitting, I don't know if they have put somebody there or not.  In Gushegu, Darikuɣa-Naa is the leader of the drummers, and they don't have Lun-Naa:  they only know of Darikuɣa-Naa, Sampahi-Naa, Taha-Naa, and Yiwɔɣu-Naa.  In Gukpeogu, Toombihi is the leader of the drummers.  In Karaga, Loɣambalbo is the senior drum chief, and Lun-Naa is following along with the other drumming chiefs.  If it is Mion, the leader of the drummers is called Zabgu.  Lun-Naa is following; Sampahi-Naa is there; Taha-Naa is there.  They are only four:  they don't know Yiwɔɣu-Naa.  That is how they have it in these places.  And so as they show that one chief is bigger than the other, and as the drum chiefs have different names, it doesn't matter.  Number two and number two are the same, and number three and number three are the same.  Palo Lun-Naa at Savelugu is the same as Sampahi-Naa at Kumbungu, because they are both number two.  And so in some towns, Lun-Naa is the senior; in other towns, Lun-Naa is also following somebody.  In Nanton, Lun-Naa is following Maachɛndi.

        I don't think I have to be continuing and adding more, but let me add you salt.  As it is, you see Yendi:  there are many chiefs there.  The Yaa-Naa has got a lot of people, and even all the elders of the Yaa-Naa have got their drumming chiefs.  As for Yendi drum chiefs, if you are not in Yendi, you can't count them.  For example, as Mba Duɣu is there, he is an elder of the Yaa-Naa, and he has got Duɣu Lun-Naa, Duɣu Sampahi-Naa, Duɣu Taha-Naa, and Duɣu Yiwɔɣu-Naa.  These are the drum chiefs of the Duɣu chieftaincy.  Kuɣa-Naa, Balo-Naa, Kumlana, Kpahigu-Naa, Zɔhi-Naa, Mba Malle, Mba Buŋa, Zalankolana:  they are all elders of Yendi, and they have all got their chief drummers like that.  But how Namo-Naa is, all of these chiefs of drummers are following Namo-Naa, and Namo-Naa is holding all of them.  Even if they are all in one house, they follow Namo-Naa.  Mba Duɣu is the best friend of Yaa-Naa:  if the Yaa-Naa is going somewhere, Mba Duɣu will be in front to lead him.  Won't Mba Duɣu have drummers?  Balo-Naa will be there with his drummers.  Kumlana will be there with drummers.  Mba Malle will be there.  If Yaa-Naa goes to any town, at least two or three of them will be accompanying him.  Kuɣa-Naa and Zɔhi-Naa will remain behind to hold Yendi, and they don't usually travel.  But the rest, if the Yaa-Naa is going somewhere and they don't follow him, then it means there is some talk inside it.  And even if they don't go, their drummers will go.  And so all of these chiefs of drummers are in Yendi, but they are all under Namo-Naa.  All of them are Namo-Naa's children.  They are all following the back of Namo-Naa.  That is how Namo-Naa is.

        As all the Yaa-Naa's elders have their drummers, they are the ones who are giving those chieftaincies.  Yaa-Naa's hands are not inside.  As for Yaa-Naa, it is Yaa-Naa who gives Namo-Naa his chieftaincy, and it is also Yaa-Naa who gives the chieftaincy of Yendi Sampahi-Naa.  And so Yendi Sampahi-Naa  is a big chief.  From Yendi Sampahi-Naa to Namɔɣu is not far, but Yendi Sampahi-Naa does not eat Namɔɣu.  And those drummers who eat Namɔɣu don't eat Yendi Sampahi-Naa.  And so Namɔɣu does not have a Sampahi-Naa, and he does not give the Sampahi-Naa chieftaincy in Yendi.  And Namɔɣu does not have Taha-Naa.  But the other chiefs of Namɔɣu — Namɔɣu Yiwɔɣu-Naa and Namɔɣu Wulana — it is Namo-Naa who gives them.  Let me add you salt.  Inside the drumming chieftaincies that Namo-Naa gives, if you follow it, Namɔɣu Yiwɔɣu-Naa should be the smallest.  As Wulana is added, if sending someone comes to Namo-Naa, he is going to send Wulana.  He is going to tell Wulana, “Take my leg, and walk to this place.”  And so it is Wulana who usually stands for Namo-Naa.  And if it is between Wulana and Yiwɔɣu-Naa, then he will say, “Yiwɔɣu-Naa, you and Wulana should go together.”  And so it looks like nobody is senior to Wulana, because all of you are going to call him Mba Wulana, my Father Wulana.  Had it not been that, Yiwɔɣu-Naa would be senior to Wulana.  How we all call Namo-Naa our grandfather, then we have to call Wulana our father Wulana.  In our Dagbani, we say we are giving respect.  If you reduce the Wulana, it is Namo-Naa you are reducing.  And so inside drumming, Wulana is somebody fearful.  He is somebody who has a lot of respect.  And so it is when you go inside the details that you see all the ways of respect.  That is how it is.

        And so in Yendi, the people who are on Namo-Naa's side of the chieftaincy are Namo-Naa, Yendi Sampahi-Naa, Namɔɣu Yiwɔɣu-Naa, Namɔɣu Wulana, Zɔhi Lun-Naa, Zɔhi Sampahi-Naa, Zɔhi Taha-Naa, and Zɔhi Yiwɔɣu-Naa.  These are the people on Namo-Naa's side.  When Namo-Naa is going, it is Yendi Sampahi-Naa who follows.  Even if Namɔɣu himself is not going, it is Yendi Sampahi-Naa who will go.  But if Namo-Naa dies, I have never heard that Yendi Sampahi-Naa comes to eat.  If Namo-Naa dies, the drummer who is strong to eat Namɔɣu is Zɔhi Lun-Naa.  They have eaten twice like that, and I saw it.  This Namo-Naa Issahaku who is sitting, his father was Namo-Naa Mahama.  When Namo-Naa Mahama was eating, Zɔhi Lun-Naa Simaani was eating the chieftaincy of Zɔhi Lun-Naa.  When Namo-Naa Mahama died, Zɔhi Lun-Naa Simaani came and ate Namɔɣu, and they turned Zɔhi Lun-Naa chieftaincy and gave it to this Namo-Naa Issahaku.  And when Namo-Naa Simaani died, this Namo-Naa Issahaku came from Zɔhi Lun-Naa yili and ate Namɔɣu.  And so if we don't see anything, we have seen the way they ate like that two times.  That is why we say that if Zɔhi Lun-Naa is sitting down and Namo-Naa has died, Zɔhi Lun-Naa can eat the chieftaincy.  And so Yendi Sampahi-Naa eats his chieftaincy from the Yaa-Naa, but Yendi Sampahi-Naa does not eat Namɔɣu.  This is how it is.

        This Namo-Naa we have been visiting, his small-small things are too many.  His putting-of-drum-into-his-armpit day is an important day.  Namo-Naa does not beat a drum by heart.  If Yaa-Naa is not walking somewhere, Namo-Naa will not play a drum there.  Even it is not all chiefs whom he will sing and praise.  If a small chief or a prince dies, Namo-Naa will not attend the funeral.  So whenever you see Namo-Naa playing a drum, you should know that that day is an important day, and where Namo-Naa beats the drum is an important place.  He does not beat a drum in the way we are beating drums all the time.  That is how Namo-Naa is.  If they are going to beat the Samban' luŋa at the Yaa-Naa's house, Namo-Naa can even decide not to play the Samban' luŋa.  If his heart wants, he will play, and if his heart doesn't want, he will give it to Namɔɣu-Wulana or some other drummer to play.  How the Samban' luŋa is, it is not that an old person or a drum chief has to play it.  If you become a chief and your junior brother or your own child is there, you can let him go and play it, if only he knows how to play the drum.  At that time your heart will be resting.  Adam Ʒee, the one we last met in Yendi, he was doing Namo-Naa's everything for him.  Adam has recently died, but the other men who were sitting with Namo-Naa in the compound are also those who follow and beat the drum.  And the nearby houses to Namo-Naa's house are the houses of other people who follow him and beat the drum.  Whenever they are playing somewhere, it shows that Namo-Naa is the one playing the drum.  And so where Namo-Naa is sitting with many drummers or thousands of drummers, we don't have any drummer there except Namo-Naa.  Whenever they point at you that you are drummer, you have to point to Namo-Naa.  Because every drummer in Yendi or outside of Yendi gives respect to Namo-Naa in the same way that Dagbamba give respect to the Yaa-Naa.  If we are at a wedding house or a funeral house, and Namo-Naa arrives at that moment, whether his housechild is there playing or not, when we finish and we see our money, we will bring out Namo-Naa's share for him.  So where Namo-Naa is, a drummer has no chief — only Namo-Naa.  And that is the strength of Namo-Naa, and his strength is still more.

        And it is all because every drummer is a child of Namo-Naa.  Because of that, a drummer has no town.  Every town is our town.  When a chief gives you a drum, then you drum and follow that chief.  The chief has a way to make you follow him.  But when a chief does not give you a drum, and you buy your own drum or you have your own drum, then you follow any chief you want.  There is no one who will tell you that you shouldn't drum that drum.  In the olden days, this was what was happening.  But with this present-day government, we don't know.  But our starting was, if a chief buys you a drum, you drum and follow that chief.  And if you buy your own drum, you drum and follow any chief you want.  And so our drumming started with traveling and traveling.  If a chief is there, and his town is nice, you the drummer can just get up and go there.  That is our way of living.

        Why is it so?  Let's say that a drum chieftaincy falls in some town, and the chief has been hearing of you, and he sends his messenger that you should come and drum for him.  If you want, you will lead some drummers and follow his messenger and go.  When you get there and drum, if the chief likes your drumming and he wants to catch you, he will go into the room and bring out a smock or a gown and put it on you.  He has made you a chief of drummers.  That is all.  You will remain there.  That is how the life of the drummers goes.  Today if I am a drummer and I am following the Savelugu chief, if the Savelugu chief gets a chance to eat Yendi, he will eat it.  And I will follow him to Yendi.  As I am in Yendi, a small chieftaincy for a drummer will fall, and I will eat that chieftaincy.  Let's say that it's not up to two days and another chieftaincy falls, maybe it will come to me.  Maybe I become a chief drummer for Zɔhi-Naa.  If Zɔhi-Lun-Naa dies and I eat that chieftaincy, from there to the chieftaincy of Namɔɣu is not far.  If Namo-Naa dies, as the Yaa-Naa likes me, he can give Namɔɣu to me.  And what have I become?  I have become a Namo-Naa.  That is how the drumming chieftaincy is.  And so every drummer is a child of Namo-Naa.

        And so, we drummers don't have towns.  Any town where we know there is food, and we know that the chief likes us, we go there.  Do you see Karaga?  Do you see Savelugu?  As the Karaga drummers and the Savelugu drummers are different, it was a child of a Savelugu Palo-Naa who went and became the chief of drummers at Karaga.  He was Karaga Lun-Naa Baakuri, and he was from the line of Palo-Naa Kosaɣim.  He was not strong on the part of the drumming chieftaincy at Savelugu, but he married a daughter of Naa Ziblim Kulunku.  Naa Kulunku ate Karaga before he ate Yendi, and Naa Kulunku gave birth to Karaga-Naa Mahami.  I don't know how Lun-Naa Baakuri went to Karaga and ate the chieftaincy of Lun-Naa, but I think he was following Naa Kulunku, and that was why Naa Kulunku gave him his daughter to marry.  And so Karaga Lun-Naa Baakuri went to Karaga, and his wife's brother ate Karaga.  That was Karaga-Naa Mahami.  And Karaga Lun-Naa Baakuri remained in Karaga, and he gave birth to Karaga Lun-Naa Blemah.  And so his line left Savelugu and followed the Karaga chiefs.  That is how it is.  And so our drumming started with traveling and traveling.  If you follow the lines of drummers, you will see that we are all children of Namo-Naa, and as we drummers are in different towns, it comes from our way of living.

        The drumming chieftaincies follow two things.  They follow the family doors and they follow the chiefs.  If you are at the door of a drumming chieftaincy, that is, if your family has been holding the drumming chieftaincy of the town, you can also eat it.  And again, if it is not that, if a chief who likes you eats chieftaincy in a town, he can take you to his town and make you the chief of drummers there.  If a chief is installed and he goes to sit in a town, today, just because he likes you as his best drummer, he can take you there, and if a drumming chieftaincy falls, the chief can give you that chieftaincy.  And so I'll take it and talk first on the part of the chiefs and how drummers follow them to towns.

        And here is an example.  The Dakpɛma is a big chief in this Tamale.  He is the one who is holding the market.  Have you seen the Dakpɛma Lun-Naa?  He has no family in this town.  His town is Yendi.  He is the grandson of Namo-Naa.  It was Namo-Naa Sheni who gave birth to his grandfather Kpatinga Lun-Naa, and it was Kpatinga Lun-Naa who gave birth to Zugu Lun-Naa Mumuni.  This Zugu Lun-Naa Mumuni gave birth to this Dakpɛma Lun-Naa.  And so he has no family in this town:  all of them are at Yendi.  There is no drummer who is his relative in this town.  But as the Dakpɛma liked him, he called him and made him Lun-Naa.  Those who have a way to eat the Dakpɛma Lun-Naa chieftaincy on the part of their line are also in this town, and they are beating drums.  But the Dakpɛma doesn't want them, and they too don't like this Dakpɛma.  And that is the reason why Dakpɛma went and brought this drummer and made him Lun-Naa.

        And have you seen Dakpɛma Taha-Naa?  His name is Bababila.  His town is Karaga.  He has nobody in this town.  Even if you look into him, he and I have the same great-grandfather, Palo-Naa Kosaɣim.  I have told you that Palo-Naa Kosaɣim's line gave birth to Karaga Lun-Naa Baakuri, and this Baakuri gave birth to Karaga Lun-Naa Blemah.  This Blemah gave birth to Karaga Lun-Naa Nayina, and this Nayina gave birth to Karaga Lun-Naa Sheni.  It was this Lun-Naa Sheni who gave birth to this Bababila, and they have now taken him to give him this Dakpɛma Taha-Naa chieftaincy.  That is how it is.

        If the chief brings a drummer from another town to eat chieftaincy like that, it can bring talks, but the talks do not go far.  The talks only come when the chief brings out the new drummer to eat the chieftaincy.  The other drummers of the town will not be happy with it.  But if they try to follow it and they ask him how it is that they have been sitting and he has come to be the chief, this new drummer will just reply to them and ask them a question, and the question will cut all the talk.  He will ask them:  are they not strangers in this town, too?  And he will tell each of them that it was during so-and-so's chieftaincy that his father or grandfather or great-grandfather was brought to this town as a drummer.  And so it is because their grandfathers have also come there that they are drummers in this town.  And he will tell them that what brought their fathers here is the same thing that brought him, too.  That is how he will make it simple and short.  As every drummer is a child of Namo-Naa, every town is their town.

        And so with the drumming chieftaincy, some want it, and it catches others, and others get the chieftaincy because they follow it.  Let's say that Kissmal is the son of the Yendi chief, or the Tolon chief, or the Savelugu chief, and I am a drummer.  Every day, I always go to greet him.  When it is time for the Damba, I will go out and play, and he will come out and dance.  When I play for him and he dances and is given money, he will give some of the money to me.  The next day, when I go to greet him, he will say, “Oh, yesterday how you beat the drum, you helped me a lot.  Get ten shillings,” or “Get two cedis.”  If his father is not there again, or if his father is there but he is given a chieftaincy in some town, whether the town has drummers or not, he will look for me and take me to that town.  If a chief drummer in that town dies, the chief has a right to give the chieftaincy to me.  That is how drumming goes.  And that is one way that a drummer can come to eat a drumming chieftaincy.

        And if it is that the drumming chieftaincy is going to follow this family door and that family door, it also has its way.  As the Lun-Naa is there, the one following him is the Sampahi-Naa, and the one following the Sampahi-Naa is the Taha-Naa.  And so if the Sampahi-Naa chieftaincy falls, it is Taha-Naa who will come and eat it.  And it can happen that the son of Sampahi-Naa will go and eat the Taha-Naa chieftaincy.  And at the same time, Yiwɔɣu-Naa and Dolsi-Naa are there.  If it is following the way, Yiwɔɣu-Naa is after Taha-Naa, but Yiwɔɣu-Naa and Dolsi-Naa are all one:  neither of them is bigger than the other.  No one will come from Yiwɔɣu-Naa to eat the Dolsi-Naa chieftaincy, and Dolsi-Naa will not go and eat the Yiwɔɣu-Naa chieftaincy.  And so if a chief doesn't want talks, if Sampahi-Naa dies and Taha-Naa goes to eat the Sampahi-Naa chieftaincy, the chief can take Yiwɔɣu-Naa and let him go and become Taha-Naa, and the son of Sampahi-Naa will eat Yiwɔɣu-Naa.

        And so if a chief drummer dies, those who are following him will all move forward, forward, and the eldest son of the chief who died will go and eat the last one.  And sometimes, a quarrel will come into it.  A quarrel like what?  Let's say that Lun-Naa dies.  Sampahi-Naa wants it.  And Taha-Naa also wants it.  Maybe Taha-Naa is older than Sampahi-Naa, not on the part of his chieftaincy but on the part of his age.  Sampahi-Naa is the right person for it, but Taha-Naa says he will not agree.  If the chief looks into it and sees that it will bring trouble, he will tell the two of them, “You should all keep quiet, and I will separate the quarrel.”  If the son of Lun-Naa is fit to eat his father's chieftaincy, the chief will let him eat it.  Fit like what?  He can hold the number of women his father was holding, and he has people behind him, and he can sing very well so that the chief will like it.  He can do what his father was doing, and so the chief will tell the other two that they should go back, and the son will come and take his father's place.  That is all.  It's finished.

        And so how the drumming chieftaincies move, someone will die and the next one will come.  Or someone will move from his chieftaincy to eat another one, and someone will come to take over.  They don't remove a chief of drummers.  We have never heard it.  It is only since this present Yaa-Naa Yakubu has come:  he started removing drummers from their chieftaincies.  As he was also removing chiefs, and it was not following our custom, the drumming chiefs too did not agree.  Your chief is sitting, and they have brought someone to sit in his place:  can you take your drum and praise that fellow?  And so as Yakubu has come to eat Yendi and spoiled chieftaincy in Dagbon, he has spoiled all the chieftaincies in Dagbon.  What you have never seen and you've never heard, if you come to see it, will you believe it?  That is why we say that his way of living is not on the way of Dagbon.  Any question you want to ask about custom, and the name of Yakubu is inside, then you have to leave it.  When we are dealing with custom, the talks of Yakubu and his father Andani are not inside.  If you want the truth, don't put their talks inside custom.  The one who wants lies is the one who will talk it.  Inside our custom from the olden days up to now, removing chiefs, or removing drumming chiefs, it wasn't in Dagbon at all.

        And so when the Andani people started removing chiefs, they came to remove drumming chiefs and other elders, and it looks as if all the custom is going to die off.  Even Namo-Naa Issahaku, they removed him.  They went and brought a drummer from Sang to be Namɔɣu for Yakubu, and that drummer cannot even talk well or beat a drum well.  It is a big shame for Yakubu.  Namo-Naa Issahaku will not go to Yakubu's house to beat a drum.  And the drummer they brought cannot beat.  The way Namo-Naa Issahaku can talk when beating a drum, there is nobody from any part of Dagbon who can stand in that position.

        I told you that any Namo-Naa must go to Yɔɣu, to the place where the Dagbamba were sitting when they first came here.  When Naa Nyaɣsi came out and was going around and killing the tindanas and putting his children in the towns, the place the Dagbamba were staying was near Diari.  And our drumming chieftaincy started with Bizuŋ.  He was a son of Naa Nyaɣsi, and Naa Zulandi gave him Namɔɣu.  Didn't I tell you that?  As for that Namɔɣu, I haven't been there.  There and Yɔɣu are at one side.  The time Bizuŋ was sitting, the drumming was not all that wide.  At that time, too, the chieftaincy was not wide.  Those who have been to Yɔɣu have said that if you go to Yɔɣu, the hoe Naa Nyaɣsi was using to farm is still there.  I have been hearing people saying that if you go there and want to see it, if someone from that town is sitting there, you will tell him, “My landlord, let's talk a walk.”  That person will know that you want to see the sign of Naa Nyaɣsi.  If you try to say plainly that you want to see the thing, even if he takes you there, you won't see it.  And so you will only say, “My landlord, let's take a walk.”  He will know where he will take you.  If you have a chance, we can go there, and you can see for yourself.  And so for any Namo-Naa, there is some custom there.  Any Namo-Naa who eats, and it is true that the custom has caught him, he goes there.  The time when they gave Namɔɣu to Namo-Naa Issahaku, they took him there.  He came and passed Nanton and slept, and I was there in Nanton.  Namo-Naa beat Samban' luŋa for Nanton-Naa Alaasambila, the one who died.  The next day he passed to Diari, and he went to Namɔɣu.  Any Namo-Naa who eats, and it is true that the custom has caught him, he goes there.  If you don't eat Namɔɣu in the right way, you cannot go there.  And so this drummer Yakubu appointed, he is afraid to go there because he didn't eat in the way of custom.

        And so how chieftaincy was in the olden days, if a chief died, chiefs would gather and lie down to perform the funeral.  The one who was lucky, Yaa-Naa would give chieftaincy to him, and he would get it.  And our side, the drummers, in every town where there were drummers, if the Lun-Naa died, they would perform the funeral.  And among the drummers, how they searched for the chieftaincy, they would go and greet the chief.  The one he would choose among them to give the chieftaincy to, he would give to him.  And then you would all make one mouth and follow him.  It wasn't there that they could remove him.  It was only when he died, and you performed the funeral, and you would gather and greet the chief, and the chief would tell you who should be at his position.  You could be many, and the chief would choose.  The position is only one, but more than one person has gathered to look for it.  Whomever the chief chooses, then all of you have to follow.  And now, here is the case, the chief is dead, and the new chief will come and say he doesn't like the drum chief, and so he will remove him.  And the chief who died and the new one is coming to eat, he is the one who gave that chieftaincy to that drummer, and the drummers of the town made one mouth to follow him.  And now a new chief is removing that drummer to bring his own drummer there.  And so the you the drummer who was removed, will you come to the chief's palace again?  As Yakubu removed chiefs who are not dead, and the drumming chiefs in the towns also are not dead, then the chiefs Yakubu gave chieftaincy to, when they reached their towns, they were saying they didn't want the Lun-Naa, and they would bring their own Lun-Naa.  And so you have to separate the talk of custom from the talk of what Yakubu has been doing.  In this Yakubu's time, they spoiled everything.

        And so as for a drumming chieftaincy, if it is according to custom, it is only if a chief drummer dies that another drummer will eat.  They don't remove a drumming chief.  As I am showing you how the drumming chieftaincies move, in our custom, truly, there are two ways.  If a chieftaincy falls, if the chief likes a drummer, he can give him the chieftaincy.  And the chieftaincy is also moving from each drummer's door to the chieftaincy.  If it is to be following the way of our custom, and it is moving from door to door, there are many things which they do when a drum chief dies and they are going to make a new chief.  And so to follow it, I will talk about how chief drummer dies and they bury him, and how they get a new chief.  And I'll start the talk on the part of Yendi.

        Namo-Naa is the chief of all the drummers in Dagbon, and as for Namo-Naa, his everything looks like the Yaa-Naa.  We say that Yaa-Naa and Namo-Naa are like a calabash that has broken apart.  The room where Namo-Naa is made a chief is the same room where the Yaa-Naa is made a chief.  And so if Namo-Naa dies, and truly when any drummer dies, if only it is a drummer who has grown, when the grave is dug and they are going to bury him, they will bury him with a drum.  If they don't do it, it is only that they didn't want it.  The way they bury Namo-Naa is different from other drumming chiefs, but as for the drum, it is standing that for anybody who was eating a drum chieftaincy, they will get a drum, and they will remove all the strings and the skins and leave only the carved form.  And they will get a drum stick, and break it, and add it to the drum.  And they will get a small skin and put it inside the drum.  The time they go into the grave, they will put the dead man's head on the drum.  When it is Namo-Naa, they will cover the drum with a leopard skin.  If it is Namo-Naa who dies, they will get a lion skin, a leopard skin, and a hyena skin, and they will put these skins inside the grave for the dead body to be lying on, and they will get a small pillow and add.  Only Namo-Naa lies on those kinds of skins when he dies.  Apart from Namo-Naa, there is no drummer in Dagbon who sits on those skins, and if you cannot sit on something, how can you die and be buried on it?  And so no drummer can compare himself to Namo-Naa:  he is the Yaa-Naa of all the drummers.  When they put Namo-Naa in the grave, they will put his head on the drum, and put his legs on the pillow.  I have told you that in our tradition, we show that a chief does not die.  And as for the way a chief dies and they bury him, I have already told you something about that.  How they dress a chief, that is the same way they will also dress Namo-Naa.  They will dress the dead body with the sandals we call salimata, with the white hat with ears, with the white gown and the trousers.  They will dress the dead body with all this.  And when they are going to take him to bury him, they will raise him up, and some people will be holding him up, and others will be holding his legs, and they will make him walk, and he will walk to the grave.  And drummers will be beating until they get to the grave.  And when they get there, they will put him inside the grave lying on the skins and the drum and the pillow.  Then they get sticks and fix them inside the grave before they will push the dirt into the grave.  And this is how they bury a chief of drummers.

        And so this walking to the grave is what they do to Namo-Naa.  And the big chiefs of drummers, they also do that to them.  If the chief of a town is a big chief, then you should know that the chief drummer of that town is also big, and how they bury the chief, that is the same way they bury the chief of drummers.  And so on the part of walking to the grave, when the Savelugu Palo-Naa dies, they do that to him.  In Gushegu, Darikuɣa-Naa is the chief of drummers:  they do that to him.  In Karaga, Loɣambalbo is the chief of the drummers:  they do the same to him.  In Yelizoli, Zablɔŋ is the chief of drummers:  when he dies, they do the same.  This is our tradition in drumming for our big chiefs.

        If Namo-Naa dies, after his funeral is performed, drummers don't search for his chieftaincy.  It is the elders of the Namo-Naa who will sit together and consult, and they will go together to see the Yaa-Naa and say, “This is the person who will stand in front of us.”  And the elders of the chief will gather, and Namo-Naa's elders will say, “This is the person we want to be waking the chief.”  And by that time, if they will all agree, they will agree.  The one who will be made the chief of Namɔɣu, when it's night, they will take him to the room where the Yaa-Naa was made a chief, and they will make him sit down.  They will put a gown on him, and a hat.  And there is a long walking stick with medicine inside it.  The walking stick is standing for our great-grandfathers.  They will give it to him, and he will use it to be walking, and so that walking stick is his chieftaincy.  When he is coming out, the timpana, the two drums which we got from the Ashantis, these timpana will be beating.  And you will hear guns shooting.  And drums will sound.  And they will say that they have given the chieftaincy of Namɔɣu to such-and-such a person.  And at that time, we drummers have got a father again.  That is how the Namɔɣu chieftaincy is going.

        If it is another town, the drummers will follow their doors to eat the chieftaincy.  Follow their doors like what?  If your father or your grandfather has eaten that chieftaincy, then you also have a way to eat it.  It is in your family line, and so you also have a door to enter that chieftaincy.  And apart from that, a chief can come and eat, and a drummer will follow him.  At that time, they have opened a new door there.  In Savelugu, the doors are two.  The door of Palo-Naa Nantɔɣma is different from ours.  If Palo falls, our side and their side, we will struggle to get it.  They too will claim that their father's house has fallen.  It was Savelugu-Naa Boforo who brought them there, and they came and met our people there.  Our line, the line of Palo-Naa Dariʒɛɣu and Palo-Naa Kosaɣim, it was Savelugu-Naa Mahami who brought it.  Savelugu-Naa Mahami was Naa Garba's first-born.  It was Palo-Naa who told me that that was when the Palo chieftaincy started.  I think I have already talked to you about it.  Savelugu is an old town, and the Savelugulana is a big chief, but when they brought Palo-Naa to Savelugu, I don't know whether there were drummers in Savelugu or not.  That is how it is.  Today, in Savelugu, those who are from our line in the Palo and are not following the chieftaincy, we are more than fifty.  Apart from that, it's not all the drummers in Savelugu who are from the house of Palo.  Inside our drumming, if a chief was from somewhere and came to eat Savelugu, sometimes he would bring some drummers from that other town.

        And so I will take it and talk on the part of Savelugu.  If it is Savelugu, Palo-Naa is the chief of all the drummers.  If the Palo-Naa dies, the drummers will come together.  If it is that the Lun-Naa is from the same door as the dead Palo-Naa, they will say it is good the Lun-Naa inherits such a place.  If the Lun-Naa is not of the same door with the Palo-Naa, but Sampahi-Naa is of the same door, then Sampahi-Naa will be given the chieftaincy.  If it is Taha-Naa who is of the same door, then Taha-Naa will be given the chieftaincy.  The drum chieftaincies I have counted in Savelugu are many, up to eight, and if none of them but Dobihi-Naa are in the line of Palo-Naa, then Dobihi-Naa will be given the chieftaincy.  And what I am saying, if you look into it, it is not always that it happens like that.  I have told you that sometimes it separates.  But if it is following the way, then it is from door to door.

        If they get the one who is going to eat the drumming chieftaincy, then they will take him and go to the chief and say, “This is the person we want you to put as our head.  He is the one we are bringing to be waking you from sleep.”  And the chief will greet them and say, “All that you have said, I have heard it.  And I have agreed.”  And the chief will say, “May God bless him.”  And the chief will tell the elders.  If it is left with two or three days to perform the funeral, the chief will give cola to an elder send to the drummer he is giving the Palo-Naa chieftaincy.  In Dagbon here, if you want to give chieftaincy to somebody, you will give the fellow cola.  Even if someone gets the chieftaincy cola but does not get a chieftaincy gown, or if he has not yet worn the gown but he dies, we still call him a chief because he has been given the chieftaincy cola.  And so the chief will get cola to give to the one they showed the chief that they want him to be the Palo-Naa.  And he will get what we call takubsi, about two cedis or some small money, and give it to the chief's messenger.  And If he does that, the chief will know that the cola he has given the fellow has made his heart white.

        When the final funeral of the dead Palo-Naa is performed, the next day they will give thanks to God.  In the evening, the drummers will take their drums and go to the chief's house.  They don't get all that near to the chief's house; they will be a few yards away.  The chief and his elders will be inside.  And the dead Palo-Naa's first-born son, the Gbɔŋlana, his regent, is there.  He wears a hat we call buɣu which is made from tree bark.  He has been sitting in the place of his dead father's hat from the time his father died.  He will kneel down and sound his drum.  And those who are following him will also respond.  At that time, it looks as if it is the Samban' luŋa.  The way the Samban' luŋa counts and praises the names of chiefs, this one too is in praise of chiefs.  And the Gbɔŋlana will be beating and singing, and what he will be saying is this:  “As our father is dead, we have no father.  Our only fathers are the chief and the one who has been given the drumming chieftaincy.  And as we are outside, and you the chief are in the room, if we get anything bad, we are going to bring it inside to you.  And if we get anything good, we are going to bring it inside to you.”  As they get on their knees like that, we say that, “Gbɔŋlana has come to greet.”  They have performed his father's funeral.

        The time the chief will be coming out, the elders will also come out and tell them that the chief is coming out.  And the chief will get an elder who will come outside and kneel in front of the Gbɔŋlana and tell him to stop.  Some of the drummers will go and stand, and when the chief comes out, they will beat Gingaani.  “I am giving you those who are funeral children.” You will be there, kneeling with some other drummers, and those who went to stand to beat Gingaani for the chief, after the chief has come out, they will come and add themselves to the Gbɔŋlana.  And the one who is holding the Gbɔŋlana's drum is there.  This drum of Gbɔŋlana is the drum the Gbɔŋlana's father used to beat when he was alive.  They will bring it for him, and he will put it under his armpit.  And that time, he will start drumming talks.  He will start with Dakoli n-nyɛ bia, and he will count his grandfathers for a short time.  And any Yaa-Naa he wants, he will start from that Yaa-Naa and be greeting the chief.  And you the drummers will be walking on your knees little by little, up to the time you will get near to the chief.  All the elders of the drummers are all coming to sit there.  Those who are the young ones, if they are standing up, there is no trouble.  And the Gbɔŋlana will be praising the chief.  He will praise the chief, and he will turn it to Gingaani, and praise the chief again.  When he praises the chief a bit like that, then they will stop beating, and they will come and sit under the shed.  Then the elder of the chief's house will get up and stand and say, “Chief is greeting such-and-such a drummer and his back.  How is the funeral?  How are your strangers?  How is your suffering?  And chief is greeting Pakpɔŋ and her back.”  That is the eldest daughter.  They will greet all the greetings.  And if an old drummer is leading them, he the one the chief will call first to come and collect cola.  He will come and squat down, and the chief will give him cola.  And chief will say he is calling the small Gbɔŋlana, and the Gbɔŋlana will come and squat down.  And the chief will say again he is calling Pakpɔŋ, and Pakpɔŋ too will come and collect her cola.  If there are other towns' chief drummers, all of them, they will call them to collect cola.  And they will greet all of them and finish.

        And the one they are going to give the chieftaincy to, everybody already knows him.  When they have finished the greeting, the elder will say, that the Lun-Naa chieftaincy or the Palo chieftaincy, chief is giving it to such-and-such a person.  And the other towns' chief drummers who are present, they will follow the new Palo-Naa into the house.  And the chief will give a gown, and they will put the gown on the new Palo-Naa.  And they will tie a turban on his head.  When they put the gown on him, the chief will tell him, “I have given some bad people to you, and I have given some good people to you.  If you don't have bad people, you won't have good people.  And so as I've given you bad people, I've added you good people.  And you should use your foolishness and your wisdom and look after them, and take your blindness and eye-open and hold them well.  As you are not seeing, it's not because of anything; but you will see something bad and say you've not seen, and you will see something good and know it is good.  And so I want you to look after the children and always bring them to wake me from sleep.  And if you yourself cannot come, you should get a child of yours who will be coming to wake me from sleep.”  The drummer who has eaten the chieftaincy will wear the gown and then he will come out.  If he wants, he will come out and greet the chief again, but it is not necessary that he should greet.  And if he wants, the new Palo-Naa will get a drum and start beating.  In his beating he will call the other drummers, and they will answer.  And he will start praising the chief.  If the Palo-Naa was eating a chieftaincy before eating the Palo, for example, if he came from Lun-Naa to Palo, then they will find somebody to place at the Lun-Naa side.  And the drummers will continue beating and praising the chief.

        And they will say they should remove the buɣu hat from the Gbɔŋlana.  The buɣu shows he is holding his father's chieftaincy.  He can't be wearing it and someone will come to eat the chieftaincy.  That is the custom.  If the buɣu is not removed, it means the chieftaincy is not released.  And the Gbɔŋlana will say he will not remove it, and they will shout on him, “Gbɔŋlana, remove the buɣu!”  And the Gbɔŋlana will ask:  what has he seen before he will remove it.  If there is a chieftaincy they are giving him, it would show that they have taken that chieftaincy to remove him from the gbɔŋ, that is, the regency skin.  If there is no chieftaincy, he will refuse to remove the hat.  Then the one who will eat his father's chieftaincy will ask him to remove it, and he will tell him, “When we go home, I have given you a woman.”  At that time, the Gbɔŋlana's heart will be white, and he will remove the buɣu.  Then he will put his hand into his own pocket and bring out his own hat and wear it.  And so the one who is eating his father's chieftaincy is the one who will give the Gbɔŋlana a wife.  He will send to call the woman, and he will show her to the Gbɔŋlana, “I am taking this my daughter to remove the gbɔŋ from you.”  That is its way.  It is not only this Palo chieftaincy I'm talking about; it is every chieftaincy.  As the Gbɔŋlana has not got his father's place to sit, and they give him a wife to take the place of the hat which has been removed from his head.  That is how they remove him from the skin.  And as the dead chief's son is no longer the regent, and as the chief has given the Palo-Naa chieftaincy out, when the new chief gives him a wife, it shows that he has tied down the relationship, and he has connected the family.  And the Gbɔŋlana will thank Palo-Naa, and the chief will also reply.  This is how they do it.  And that is the way of the drummers.

        In the olden days, according to our custom, people were not buying the drumming chieftaincies.  But nowadays, the way that chiefs are buying their chieftaincies, many of the drum chiefs are also buying their chieftaincies.  But formerly, the way the chiefs were also holding their chieftaincy, in the way of custom, they were afraid of eating a drummer's money.  How can you the drummer go to a chief and buy a drummers' chieftaincy?  It was not there like that.  It is only that the chief's heart wants you.  We have been hearing our fathers and our grandfathers talking, and they told us that in the olden days, a drummer was a woman.  For example, let's say that a drummer is in a town:  he is a good drummer, and he can sing.  And a chief is in a different town, and if a drumming chieftaincy has fallen, and the chief wants that drummer, he will send for the drummer.  When the drummer comes, if he comes on a Sunday, say, then early the next morning, Monday, he will go to beat drums and wake the chief.  If he finishes playing and goes home, when he comes back to greet the chief, the chief will give him a gown.  And the chief will say, “This is what I am giving you to be waking me from sleep.”  And so at times a drummer can travel to the town of a chief, and if the chief has is a drum chieftaincy to give, the chief will just catch him and give him a gown, with the trousers and everything.  The chief will catch him and give him chieftaincy, and that very day, the chief will give him a house, and a horse, and someone to be looking after the horse, and a woman.  As for our grandfathers' time, we heard that this is what they were doing.  The food of the drummer and the wife and all the people in the drummer's house, the chief is going to be taking all of it on his own shoulders.  And so you the drummer, have you got anything to pay inside?  In the olden days, this is what they were doing.  That is why drummers were not buying chieftaincy.  And so when the custom was there, chiefs were afraid to eat drummers' money.  It wasn't there like that.  This talk, our fathers talked like that and we heard.  That was what was happening in the olden days, but nowadays, if you want to get a drumming chieftaincy and you don't have money, it is the chief who will not agree.  That is how our modern chieftaincy is.  But in the olden days, according to our custom, they were not buying the drummer's chieftaincy.

        And if I haven't seen anything, I have seen my brother Mumuni.  I have told you that many chiefs wanted to give Mumuni a drumming chieftaincy.  Mumuni refused all of them.  And I told you that Mumuni is very good in drumming.  If he takes a drum and praises anyone, that person will be interested in Mumuni, and if it is a chief or a prince, then he will search for Mumuni to be his drum chief.  And so it is not because of anything but that.  And Mumuni's only reason for refusing is that he is holding very strongly to the Muslim religion, and he doesn't want anything to interfere with his praying.  You know that if you are wearing the gown of a chief drummer, if the chief is going to some place, then you are following.  If the chief is taking you and roaming, maybe you won't have time for prayers.  And so Mumuni doesn't want chieftaincy to be holding him like that.

        It was at Voggo that they gave birth to Mumuni and me.  Zule-Naa is the chief of drummers in Voggo.  When Vo-Naa Andani died, during the time his zuu Moro was sitting as Gbɔŋlana, Zule-Naa also died.  We and our grandfather Namɔɣu went to perform the funeral, and Namo-Naa and the drummers gathered to talk about whose name they should send to the chief's house that this person would be good to be Zule-Naa, and Namo-Naa said they should choose Mumuni, that he should stay there in Voggo.  And Mumuni said they should remove his name, and Mumuni recommended Sayibu, the one who is eating Zule-Naa now.  The other chiefs asked Mumuni personally, and Mumuni refused.  Nanton-Naa Sule, when he was eating Gushie, he called Mumuni, and Mumuni refused.  Lamashegu-Naa Dawuni called him.  The Lamashegu chief was an educated person.  When Mumuni was at Nanton, this Dawuni was a court clerk at Nanton, and he was staying with Nanton Wulana.  And Dawuni sent Nanton Wulana to ask Mumuni to take him to Lamashegu.  And he told Mumuni that he had found out from soothsayers that it was only Mumuni who should lead him to his hall in his home town.  Mumuni told him that he didn't want it.  Pigu-Naa Abilaai called Mumuni to be his Lun-Naa, and Mumuni refused.  When Mumuni went to Savelugu and stayed there, Savelugu-Naa Abilaai [Abdulai II], who befriended you when you first came, he assembled people and called Mumuni to talk about chieftaincy, and Mumuni refused.

        As Mumuni is sitting down now, this Nanton-Naa Alhassan who died — Nanton-Naa Alaasambila — it was his sister they gave to Mumuni as a wife.  Truly, Nanton-Naa Alaasambila was one of our great chiefs in Dagbon.  At that time Nanton-Naa was eating Zugu, and he had not yet reached Nanton.  That Zugu is just near to Kumbungu.  The one who gave Mumuni the woman told him, “This girl I have given to you, her brother is Zugulana.”  So at that time Nanton-Naa was eating the chieftaincy at Zugu, and the time he was at Zugu, Mumuni was at Nanton.  And Zugulana was sending people to Nanton-Naa that he wanted Mumuni for chieftaincy.  The Sampahi-Naa at Zugu went to Kumbungu, so the place was vacant.  And this Zugulana Alhassan sent three times to Nanton, and that Mumuni should come and stay with him as Zugu Sampahi-Naa.  And Mumuni refused.  And it happened that Mumuni traveled to Zugu, and the reason that made him go there was from his wife.  It was an aunt of Zugulana who gave the woman to Mumuni; this aunt was at Aboso, and it was at Aboso that Mumuni went and married the woman.  And the aunt told Mumuni, “If you take your wife home, you should take her to Zugu and greet Zugulana, because Zugulana's father's brother is your wife's father.  And so even though you are getting your woman from me here in Aboso, I am telling you that her everything is at Zugu.”  And so it was by force for Mumuni to go to Zugu.

        The time Zugulana was calling Mumuni there, as he was calling Mumuni to give him chieftaincy, Mumuni had refused to go.  But when he brought his wife from Aboso to Dagbon, he had to go and greet Zugulana.  When Mumuni reached Dagbon, he prepared himself, and he took one of our brothers to accompany him and his wife to Zugu.  There were no lorries, so they walked from Nanton to Zugu.  They reached Zugu on a Thursday, and when they arrived there, they went to be staying at Zugu Lun-Naa's house.  And the chief told Zugu Lun-Naa that the way Mumuni had came, tomorrow he is going to give Mumuni chieftaincy, because already he has been sending messages that Mumuni should come, and Mumuni always refused to come.  So the way Mumuni came himself, then that very tomorrow, Friday, Zugulana was planning to give him the chieftaincy.  And the day Mumuni arrived at Zugu, that same day Zugulana sent to Kumbungu and asked for a very big white gown.  And he told Zugu Lun-Naa that one of his daughters was in a certain house in Zugu, and her name was Shetu, and that tomorrow, when he gave Mumuni the gown to wear, he would also add that woman and give her to Mumuni.  And Lun-Naa also said, “Ah, but already, he has already married your sister.”  And the chief said, “As for that, it is not forbidden.  So tomorrow, if he agrees with my chieftaincy, I will give him a woman to add.”  Zugulana and Lun-Naa made one mouth on this.  They didn't talk this for Mumuni to hear.  Mumuni didn't know anything.  That very day he arrived there, what did he know?  He only knew that he was taking Zugulana's sister to go and greet him.

        And Mumuni's wife from Aboso, her uncle was Zangbalin Lun-Naa.  And Mumuni told Zugu Lun-Naa that after greeting Zugulana, he would pass to Zangbalin and greet his wife's uncle.  And when it was daybreak, Mumuni told Lun-Naa, “Let's go to the chief, and I will greet him and pass to Zangbalin.”  And Lun-Naa took him, and Mumuni went to the chief's house and made Punyiɣsili, and they went inside to greet the chief.  When they reached inside the sitting hall, they only saw the chief's house children sitting there.  And Lun-Naa asked “Where's chief?”  And they went inside and told the chief, and he sent a message back that Lun-Naa should take Mumuni back home, and that they should wait a little time and come.  And Mumuni didn't know that the chief was getting prepared, and that all Zugu was going to gather inside his hall.  Lun-Naa took Mumuni back home, and it wasn't long when the chief sent a messenger to Lun-Naa again that now he can come to visit him.  Zugulana and Lun-Naa already knew about this because they had planned it.  And so Mumuni and our brother got up again and followed behind Zugu Lun-Naa.  When they reached the hall, the whole hall was occupied with people.  Zugulana came in and sat down, and they greeted.  And they said, “Chief is greeting Mumuni Lumbila.”  And Mumuni responded.  And Zugulana he said Mumuni should come for cola, and Mumuni went and received the cola greetings.  And Zugulana told his elder, Zugu Wulana, that he should tell Zugu Lun-Naa that the way Mumuni had come today, he would not allow him to go back to Nanton.  And he said that Dagbamba people used to give a proverb.  If you are going to pour water into a gourd, and rain has fallen on it already, then you don't have to put water inside again.

        And he said that you were going to search for a woman in her house, and the woman didn't want to come near you:  the day the woman will enter your house, you don't have to let the woman go.  And so Wulana should tell Lun-Naa that how Mumuni was sitting inside the hall today, he has given Mumuni Zugu Sampahi-Naa.  And that they should go inside and bring the gown.  And they went inside and brought the big gown.  They came and squatted in front of the chief, and Wulana told Zugu Lun-Naa, “Chief says he has given Zugu Sampahi-Naa to you to be given to Mumuni Lumbila.”  And Wulana said, “Mumuni, you should get up and come.  You should come and squat down and wear the gown.”  At that time, Mumuni's heart broke, and then quickly his heart cooled down again.  Then he told them plainly that he didn't want it.  If Mumuni had accepted the gown, that would have meant he had accepted the chieftaincy.  And Mumuni said that his only reason for coming there was bringing his sister to come and greet him.  And he said, “The time you chief were sending to Lun-Naa, begging for me, when I was coming, I didn't tell Lun-Naa that I was coming to eat chieftaincy.  I told Lun-Naa that I was only bringing your sister to come and greet you.  And so as for that chieftaincy, I don't want it.”  Then they were holding the gown standing.  And the whole hall was quiet.  Mumuni refused it.  And Zugulana didn't say anything.  He sent the gown back.  And all the people were sitting there.  And so the only thing Zugulana gave him was one pound, the red paper pound, that Mumuni should use it to drink porridge on the way.  Chief gave the money to Lun-Naa to give it to him.  Then they came out, and Lun-Naa opened the secret and told Mumuni, “Since you arrived yesterday, they called me and told me about it.  And chief showed me one of the daughters, and said that if you wear the gown, he will add you the daughter.”

        And at that time, Mumuni left Zugu.  When they got there, because his wife was raised in the South, she didn't know walking, and so how they had walked to Zugu, when they arrived, her legs got swollen, and she couldn't stand up.  Because of that, they didn't go to Zangbalin again.  From Zugu to Kumbungu is not far, about two miles, but she couldn't walk, and they had to struggle and take her to Kumbungu, and that day was a Kumbungu market day, and a Tamale lorry came.  So they put her in the Tamale lorry and they came and greeted me, and Mumuni told me all that had happened.  And the next day, they took a lorry to Nanton.

        And so you see that the chieftaincy gown, Mumuni wasn't going to buy it.  He only took the chief's sister there, and the chief was going to catch his daughter again and give him.  And the woman, too:  did Mumuni look for the woman?  If Mumuni had accepted the chieftaincy, the chief would have given him a house.  If Mumuni were to be somebody who rides a horse, the chief would have bought a horse for him, and added the woman.  And Mumuni refused it.  And so in the olden days, that is how drummers were.  If a chief wanted a drummer for chieftaincy, you the drummer wouldn't buy anything from him.  That was how our grandfathers were doing.  Mumuni wasn't going to suffer anything eat the chieftaincy at Zugu.  Even after that, that chief called Mumuni again that he should come and collect chieftaincy cola, and Mumuni said that still he didn't want it.  Mumuni said, “Since I said I don't want it, I don't want you to marry me and I will be in a different town.  If I am your wife, I should be where you are.”  Mumuni was at Nanton up to the time Zugulana came and ate Nanton.  The chief came and ate Nanton before Mumuni also went to Savelugu.  And so Mumuni is somebody who would have been wearing a chieftaincy gown, but truly, in his heart, he didn't want it.

        And so drum chieftaincies, we weren't buying them.  If they finish the funeral of a drummer, then you the drummers will gather and go and inform the chief, “Now that you have finished the funeral of our chief, this is the one whom we are looking at this face to be our next chief.”  If you tell the chief like that, he will say, “Ah, since you people are looking at his face, then I too, I want him.  And if the chief has a particular drummer he likes, then when we the drummers go there, he will tell us, “This is my Lun-Naa.”  And it doesn't matter.  That is all.  At that time, in the way of custom, the drummers are going to give something small to the chief, as a greeting or respect.  If something is inside custom, if someone gives you something, then you will also show respect that you like what the person has given you.  And so you will give back something small.  That is it.  At that time, even, it was just because of the elders.  The chief himself did not want to collect money, but he would take that small thing and share it to the elders.  And so if somebody says that formerly we drummers were buying chieftaincy, that was the way it was moving.  We only wanted the blessings of the chieftaincy.  Today it is not there like that.  That one, you cannot compare it to the big money they are now using to buy chieftaincies in Dagbon.

        As for buying chieftaincy, it wasn't there, and it is not in the custom.  It has come because now there is a lot of money, and people want to be ahead of others.  The way elderly people talked to us, in the olden days when chieftaincy fell, every side has got its senior person, and everybody from that side will be at the back of that person.  At another side, people will group at the back of their senior person.  I'm talking about chieftaincy of the towns.  If it is a chieftaincy that the Yaa-Naa gives, the groups and their leader will go and talk, and the Yaa-Naa will be looking at them.  When they finish the funeral, the Yaa-Naa will choose and give the town to one person.  And they will all group again to follow him.  Some time ago, that was how they were doing it, and there was no talk.

        But in these modern times, if you are going to look for these chieftaincies, and you know that you can do it, you have to pay money to somebody as the price of the chieftaincy.  Why are they buying chieftaincy today?  Instead of making one mouth behind a senior brother or senior father in a family, and then following that person to help them get chieftaincy in the future, the princes fight among themselves.  As there is money today, they use the money to show that one is bigger than the other.  Today if chieftaincy falls, there may be about five people from the same father looking for that chieftaincy.  Somebody with one father and one mother:  is it not one side?   And on another side, they too will be about five, and they will also come.  Will there be argument or not?  And so at that time, the chief's house elders will go into it.  Maybe the chief has not told any of them that this is the amount he is going to collect.  One of them will be quick and go to the chief and tell the chief that he can pay such-and-such an amount for that chieftaincy.  Another one will come and say, “As for me, I can pay like this for the chieftaincy.”  How it is:  if you have something and you haven't priced the thing, and then someone who wants it comes and mentions an amount to you, and then someone who is also looking for that thing hears about it, and the next day he also comes to say he is going to add more money to the one who came yesterday.  This is the reason why in this modern time, they buy the chieftaincy with big money.  And so if you are a prince and you have been staying all the time with the Yaa-Naa, you have been staying with him just because if there are some vacancies in some village for a chief, you are going to be chief.  If you have been giving him presents, and others have not been giving him presents, then the moment a chieftaincy falls, you will go to him and give some amount.  If the Yaa-Naa likes you, then he will accept the amount.

        And so as the chiefs are paying prices for their chieftaincies, the same thing holds for the drummers.  We drummers in the north, at present this is also what is happening.  There can be a chief of a town, and there are drummers in the town.  If Sampahi-Naa or Taha-Naa or any chief drummer dies, if the chief has not got a drummer who is close to him, then when the Sampahi-Naa or the Taha-Naa dies, the chief is to send to tell all the drummers that the chieftaincy of Taha-Naa or Sampahi-Naa has fallen, but he the chief must sell it to them.  If it is sold at fifty pounds, any drummer who feels can pay it.  If the chief says one hundred pounds or one thousand pounds or forty pounds, or ten or five or anything, if you are able to pay for it then you can take it.  That is how they will get the Taha-Naa or Sampahi-Naa.  In all these towns and villages, it can come like that.  All these places I have mentioned, they are the same.  If even the Yaa-Naa has got a particular drummer whom he likes, and a drum chieftaincy falls in Savelugu, then the Yaa-Naa can call the chief in Savelugu and make his friend a chief drummer of Savelugu.

        I can say that in the olden days, we are not paying anything for the Taha-Naa chieftaincy.  Even at present some people are not paying for the Taha-Naa, but some others are paying.  The reason why I said that some of them are not paying is because sometimes chief will have a particular drummer he likes.  How I am now, I am a drummer:  there may be a prince, and I have been moving with him.  By the time this prince is given a chieftaincy, he can take me as a friend to the same chief who has given him his chieftaincy, and he will say to the big chief that he wants me to be the head of the drummers, and then, the prince has to buy a smock and the hat and the slippers for me.  At that time, I will be his Taha-Naa or Sampahi-Naa or Lun-Naa.

        Maybe in the town or village where that prince is going, there are already elder people who are ahead of me.  If I am not afraid and I don't give a damn about all of them, those who are ahead of me, even if I know that they have got medicine too, and I don't mind whether I am dead or not, if I have got money, I can overcome them.  And if the chief who has called me as his Sampahi-Naa or Taha-Naa, if he also wants me, then I can do it.  And the reason why I say that you don't mind whether you are dead or not is because if you can overcome those in front of you, then you can overcome them and go past them, but once you have been made a chief of drumming, they can easily kill you.  Those who have lived long in their chieftaincies, they are also medicine men.  They all have medicine, and it is medicine they will take to kill you.  And so there are some people who don't mind.  They don't mind to become a chief of drummers and die.

        If I were made a chief, as we are sitting together, just to have some chieftaincy, some of those who are behind me, that is, those who will come after me if I die, then when we are making our prayers, these people will be giving money and praying, “God should let me get to my father's place; God should let me get to my father's place.”  When they are praying like that, if I am the one sitting in the chieftaincy, it is I they are saying the prayers about, because I am the one holding the father's house.  And so they are praying that I should die.  And even they will be praying like that while I am not dead.  Are they praying against me or not?  If you pray to God, God will hear you.  As for such prayers, even in the olden days, it was there like that.  Everybody is praying to get his father's place to stand.  You the one eating now, it is not you alone whose father's place you are sitting.  The rest of the children will be praying:  may God give them their father's place.  And the person who is praying for that, if you don't move, he can't get there.  If it is daybreak, and you are not there, and he comes to stand there, then those at his back will also be praying like that.  Our Dagbamba people take it to say a proverb, “If you bend down to look at somebody's anus, then the way you bend, somebody too is looking at your back.”  That is how it is.  You are praying that this man should move, and you will go to his place; somebody is at your back praying that when you get there, you should also move.  That kind of prayers have kept long.  As for drummers, you already know their name.  We are called women.  And so there is rivalry inside, and it is not a fault.

        And so as for me, I don't want it.  I would not even like to be a chief of drummers.  Chieftaincy is in the bone.  For example, as I am in the house now, I am a chief.  I have got something to be eating all the time.  So why do I want to be a chief?  What do I want to do again?  Just to hear the word, “Naa!”?  As for me and my brother Mumuni, we don't want chieftaincy at all.  That is our life.  I told you that chieftaincy is in the bone.  If  the chief likes you, and if you have chieftaincy in your bones, you will eat the chieftaincy.  But if you are eating chieftaincy and people don't like you, then there will be a time when you will want to run away and leave the chieftaincy.  Those who eat it and those who want its talks.  If it is a gown, as for me, if I want a gown, can't I buy a gown?  Some of those who are eating drummer's chieftaincy in Dagbon have paid money for their gowns.  Some of them have added cows.  But I told you that when they are performing a funeral and slaughter a cow, they give the cow's head to the drummers.  How can I take a whole cow and sell it and use the money to buy a cow's head?  And so even if they give me a drummer's chieftaincy for free, I don't want it.  What God gives me is what I want.  And so even if I am to be appointed as a chief and I am not paying, but they rather will be paying me thousands of pounds, I will not agree.  And if it comes to a time when they call me to appoint me as a chief, and I refuse, there is nothing wrong, and they cannot say anything.  After all, I am someone who can go to ask for the chieftaincy, but I don't want it.  That is how it is.

        And so we drummers, as we are sitting, we also have our chiefs.  It isn't all drummers who become chiefs.  I told you that I myself, as I am sitting, I don't want to be a chief.  I am a chief drummer's child, but I don't want to be a chief.  If a chieftaincy comes to meet me, I have got younger brothers; if they want, I can give the chieftaincy to one of them.  Why don't I want a drumming chieftaincy?  It's not because of anything.  A drumming chieftaincy has got worries.  If you have no child or no strong brother with you, you cannot be a chief of drummers.  It might come to a day when a chief will send to call you to come and play a drum and follow him somewhere, and you have no time, and you don't have your child to send.  But you are a chief of drummers.  What will happen?  You will get talks.  And so a drumming chieftaincy is hard:  it only follows those who have many children or brothers.  As Namo-Naa is a chief of drummers, he has got his Wulana and those who are under him, and whenever Namo-Naa is not going to the chief's house, these are the people who go.  Namɔɣu Yiwɔɣu-Naa is there; Yendi Sampahi-Naa is there, too.  Namo-Naa has all of them.  If Namo-Naa is supposed to go to someplace and he has no time, he sends to call one of them.  Yiwɔɣu-Naa is the smallest of all of them, and when any of the others has no time, he will have to go.  The drumming chieftaincy has got a lot of worries, and so I don't want it.

        And so if you see someone being a chief of drummers, it means he has many people behind him.  I can tell you that there are some drummers who are chiefs of drummers, and they cannot change the rhythm of the drum.  And there are some who cannot sing.  Such a person, maybe he is very old, and he hasn't got strength again.  And such a drummer, as he is a chief but he cannot sing, it shows that he has a son or a grandson who can sing.  If he cannot sing, and he hasn't got anyone who can sing, he will not be given the chieftaincy.  When you see someone given a drum chieftaincy, then you should know that he has someone behind him, and he can tell that fellow to do some work for him, and the fellow will do it.  If you are a chief drummer, in our custom, you have a way to get a child of yours or a grandchild of yours to be singing for you, and he will be standing for you in the work.  As we have been going to Nanton, haven't you seen how Nanton Lun-Naa is old?  I can tell you that if it is on the part of knowledge, I don't think that someone can challenge Nanton Lun-Naa.  And the time he was not old like that, he could beat a drum and sing very well.  But now he is very old, and Maachɛndi too is very old.  And so if it is something that comes on the part of drumming and singing, or it is the Samban' luŋa, it is Nanton Sampahi-Naa Alidu who will do all of it.  As you have been seeing him and greeting him, you know that he has the strength to do all the work of Maachɛndi and Nanton Lun-Naa.  And that is how it is on the part of the drumming chiefs.

        And so as I am sitting, I am not a chief of drummers, but I have respect more than many drummers who are chiefs.  And as my brother Mumuni is at Savelugu, he is not a chief drummer.  In Savelugu the drummers are divided.  Those who followed Savelugu-Naa Abilaai, the one who died, and his Gbɔŋlana, they are on the Abudu side.  And those who follow the one who is now eating Savelugu, they are on the Andani side.  And those who are on the Andani side, it's not that I don't like them, but I can say that in Savelugu the Abudu house drummers are more than the Andani house drummers.  And Mumuni is their leader.  I can say that all the young drummers of Savelugu who are in the Abudu house, they are following Mumuni.  Every night, when he is lying down or sitting outside his house, they come to sit by him, and they will be asking him questions in the drumming.  At Savelugu, they have Nachimba Lun-Naa, young men's drum chief.  Those who drum for the men and women of the town, their leader is called Issa.  He is a tailor, and they call him Issa Tailor.  His father was Palo Yiwɔɣu-Naa Karim.  There is not any small drummer in Savelugu who can beat a drum more than Issa.  He also sings and knows the old talks very well.  Anywhere you go, people know him.  People used to send and come and take him to other towns.  Every night, he sits by Mumuni.  At times, Mumuni will sit with him up to eleven o'clock in the night before he will go home.  Is that not some of the blessings?  You the one people love, you are a chief.  You, John, as you are sitting now, you are a chief to us.  We like you, and all the people we know, they also like you.  Inside our watching, whether the person is a woman or a man, or an elderly person or a child, when he sees you, he likes you.  And so chieftaincy is in the bone.

        And this is how it also is with me.  The drumming we are drumming, it is for those who want drummers for wedding houses and funeral houses.  Sometimes if the funeral houses or the wedding houses are many, I will divide and group all the drummers who are following me, and they will not be enough, and I will send and call some drummers from a village near here called Kanvili.  If there are too many houses sending cola for drummers, I will send and call drummers from Choggo, Banvim, Sagnerigu, Lamashegu.  There are chieftaincies in all those places.  But the drummers will come, and they will never say I have no way to call them, because they know how I am standing.  At times those who are holding the chieftaincy of Lun-Naa from these towns will come with their young men, and they will follow me.  They know that I am up to the age of calling them.  Alhassan Kpɛma and the drummers from Kumbungu, they are Kumbungu Lun-Naa's housepeople, but they will come and I will share them.  Even Savelugu, if I am calling drummers from Savelugu, I will send a messenger to Mumuni that he should bring drummers.  Why do I send to Mumuni and not to Palo-Naa?  As for these types of gatherings, Palo-Naa doesn't have a part to play; his hands are not inside.  In Tamale here, we have drum chiefs.  There is Toombihi:  he is the leader of Gukpe-Naa's drummers.  Dakpɛma is also there, and he has his Lun-Naa.  But any Sunday, if you go to Toombihi's house, you won't see him gathering drummers; at Dakpɛma Lun-Naa's house, it is the same.  But if you come to my house, you will see drummers gathering there.  As Lun-Zoo-Naa is sitting in this town, if somebody sends cola to him, he will just send the cola to me.

        And so in Tamale here, we don't have Nachimba Lun-Naa.  I have told you that it was Alhaji Adam Mangulana's father, Alhassan Lumbila, who came and sat in this town when this town did not have drummers.  At that time the British had moved the Gukpeogu chieftaincy to Tamale, but Gukpe-Naa's drummers had not yet come here.  Alhassan Lumbila was Tolon Lun-Naa Mushee's first-born son.  They called him Alhassan Lumbila from his starting up to the time he died.  Tolon-Naa wanted Alhassan Lumbila to be his Lun-Naa, but Alhassan Lumbila refused, and he said he would stay in Tamale.  One of his junior brothers ate the chieftaincy.  And Alhassan Lumbila gave birth to Mangulana.  When Tolon-Naa Yakubu was alive, his Lun-Naa died, and when we went to perform the funeral, Tolon-Naa said he would give the drumming chieftaincy to Mangulana.  And Mangulana refused and said that Tolon-Naa should give it to Tolon Yiwɔɣu-Naa, and Tolon-Naa agreed.  And so Mangulana too didn't want chieftaincy.  That is his character.  After Alhassan·Lumbila died, Mangulana was leading the drummers in Tamale here, and he left it for my brother Sheni, and Sheni too left it for me.  But it's not that Mangulana told the drummers to follow Sheni.  The way we the Tamale youngmen's drummers are sitting in this town, we don't have chieftaincy inside us.  It is just respect.  You won't gather anybody to tell him, “Follow this person.”  It is respect, and good character.  Your character will let the people come around you.  The way you are is what will gather people around you.  Dagbamba used to say a proverb that, “You can't catch a live bee and put it into a hole.”  A human being is also like that.

        And so I cannot call myself a young men's chief drummer, but I am doing the work of a Lun-Naa.  All the drummers who are in Tamale here and they are in the Abudu house, I am their leader.  Anyone who wants drummers in Tamale here will send the cola to me.  There are drumming chiefs in Tamale, but someone who wants drummers doesn't send the cola to the drumming chiefs who are in this town.  And those who are following me and beating drums, they are all standing at my back.  And if there are many weddings or funerals, I will call them and divide and group them to go to the different houses.  Every Sunday, if there are weddings, you will see drummers outside my door.  They will occupy all the benches, and some people will be hanging by the walls.  They will be waiting for me to group them, “You, you, and you:  go to this place.  You, you, and you:  go to that place.”  If they go and drum and come back, they bring all the money and give it to me.  I am the one who will share the money.  I will sit down and check it, and I will share it without any mistake.  All the elders who are in their houses and couldn't come, I will remember them and send their share to them.  As it is, have I not got respect?  Is that not chieftaincy?  And so chieftaincy is in the bone.  As I am sitting, my grandfathers were chiefs, and I am from the bone of the chiefs.  And so as I am holding the drummers of Tamale, I am not a chief, but I am someone who is fit to hold them.  And that is how it is.

        And so to be a chief of drummers, you have to be someone who can hold people.  As I am living in Tamale here, I am not a chief of drummers in Tamale, but whenever something comes and they need drummers, they always call me.  And it shows that I am holding a drummers' chieftaincy, because those who are the chiefs of drummers have trusted me and given me authority.  Something about drumming will come and their hearts will be happy that I can do it.  If someone should come and ask for drummers to go someplace and play, I can come out from my house and get drummers for that fellow.  I am holding all the drummers who are staying by me because I have respect in the drumming and at the same time I know much about drumming.  I am not a chief, but I am a person who has been chosen to be like a chief.  Old drummers and young drummers in Tamale here, those who are following me, whenever they want to do something, they have to come to my house and see me.  They never go somewhere to beat the drums if I don't know about it.  If I don't go, then I must know the reason why they are there.  And so to be in a position like this in drumming, they have to know that you are a good person in drumming.  That is how a chief of drummers is.