A Drummer's Testament

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Chapter II-7:  How Princes Get Chieftaincy and Go to Hold a Town

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The life of princes; relationship of the first-born son to the second-born son; how the hierarchy shifts to accommodate princes; conflict between princes and junior fathers; the chief's elders:  Kamo-Naa, Wulana, Lun-Naa, Magaaʒia, etc.; how a new chief lives with his elders and townspeople; how the townspeople and elders greet the chief on Mondays and Fridays


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Contents outline and links by paragraph

Introduction

Example:  princes of Savelugu

When the siblings do not trust one another

Chieftaincy not guaranteed:  the one God likes

How princes' and commoners' lines enter one another; modern need for money

How a new chief arrives in a town and meets elders

Chiefs and tindanas

The work of the elders

Respect and chieftaincy

Protocols of greetings

Mondays and Fridays greetings to a chief

How the villagers greet the chief on Mondays and Fridays

Terms of address in chiefs' greetings

Conclusion


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Proverbs and Sayings

A first-born son is always praying that his father will die early, because if his father dies early, he will grow.

As for fresh milk, some is better than the other, but there is no difference in its whiteness.

Inside our families, if you don't have the same mother with someone, you will do bad to one another.

If the bush is grown plenty, it should not joke with fire.

How the princes move, its talk does not die,

Not all the children of a chief can become a chief, and the one who gets chieftaincy is the one God likes.

A person cannot show our Dagbamba chieftaincy because its talks are so many.

It is only the one God has given chieftaincy who becomes a chief.

As we are all sitting in Dagbon here, there is no one whose grandfather was never a chief.

Anyone who speaks Dagbani is a chief's son.

If you light a fire from somewhere to go and do something somewhere else, and on the way the fire dies.  And when the fire dies on the way, that is it.

They were following, “This chieftaincy has come to the door of this man.”

“My owner, the Yaa-Naa, the one who is for me and has control over me, he said that I should come and look after you.  And he said I should hold you, and you will also hold me.  And so these my eyes, they are open, but they don't see.  And these my ears are deaf.  And these my legs are crippled.  My eyes are you people; my ears are you people; my legs are you people.  If my mouth opens and says something, you will have to do it.”

“As the chief has said we should hold him and he will also hold us, we don't have the way to hold him.  And so it is God who will hold the chief, and the chief will hold us.  And so God will make the chief well, and the chief will make the commoner well.”

The tindana is for something that is in the ground, and it's hidden, and the tindana is a child of the town.

A chief is a stranger in the town.

Every town has its gods, and they have different ways.

These gods, they have one name — gods — but they are not the same.

Things look like each other, but they are not the same.

Everywhere has its own way.

“This town's gods, I don't know our gods, and I don't know what I have eaten.  And so I want to beg you, and you will give me good sleep.”

If Lun-Naa is not there,  the chief will be walking, and no one will know he's a chief.  At that time, his chieftaincy is not there.

If a chief eats chieftaincy and he wants to be given respect and be liked by the people of the town, he has to give the chieftaincy he is eating to the people of the town.

And so chieftaincy is in the bone of a human being.

If a chief doesn't respect himself, no one will respect him.

These are the chiefs we call “I have not yet collected chieftaincy.”

The elder who talks is the one who knows how to talk.

The one whose mouth is alive, he is the one who will talk.

If you are going to talk something, and you don't talk well, sometimes your talk will not do the work you want it to do.

“A lion's child, a lion's child.  The owner of the trees and the grass.  The owner of the sky and the ground.  The child of the lion.  You are for the flour and you are for the food and you are for the soup.”

“Because of the good benefits of God for creating a chief, this is how your junior father has sent people to come and see how you are sleeping these days.”

“Your grandfather has sent people to come and see how you are sleeping these days.  And he has sent this number of guinea fowls for you to cook your soup to be nice and for you to be eating.  And he has sent yams too for you to be giving to the children to be roasting.”

And so we Dagbamba, it is on our heads like that:  any time you are going to the chief, you have to carry something.

It is the respect that they give one another that will let them have one mouth so that they will live together well.

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Dagbani words and other search terms