Today we are going to continue the talk about chiefs, and I will talk about the Samban' luŋa, and how we beat it. I have told you that all our drumming talks come to end in chieftaincy, and how these talks we are talking are following one another, they all enter into chieftaincy and the Samban' luŋa. The Samban' luŋa is the old talks of the past chiefs who have died. And so the chieftaincy talks are in front, because if chieftaincy has not eaten, the Samban' luŋa will not be beaten. And as we have taken chieftaincy to lead it, now we will take the Samban' luŋa to follow it. That is how it is.
It is in the Samban' luŋa that we drummers beat and sing the old talks of Dagbon, and we praise the chiefs. The times we are beating the Samban' luŋa are two: we beat it when the new moon comes out after the Ramadan fast. If the Ramadan moon dies, and we see the new moon, on that evening we will beat the Samban' luŋa. And again, we beat it during the Chimsi moon, on the evening before the prayers and sacrificing. That is two. And again, if there is something, a chief can call the Samban' luŋa. If somebody is made a chief, he can call the Samban' luŋa, and we drummers will come and beat it. And the days they are going to beat the Samban' luŋa are two: if not Sunday, then Thursday. These are the days they have shown. It's only if a festival month comes to the point, and the moon comes out on a different day that they will beat it on a different day.
In Dagbani, sambani is the area just outside the hall of a compound, and so the meaning of Samban' luŋa is just “outside drumming.” We call it like that because we beat it outside the house of the chief. The drummers will gather and sit facing the chief's house, and when they start it, it is a small drummer who will come out and begin. This drummer will be somebody who is grown, but he is not up to the size of the one who will sing the Samban' luŋa. It's not that he is small. Sometimes he is not someone who is a senior drum chief, but he can be up to my size. Maybe he can be someone who is the last of the drum chiefs, like Palo Wulana at Savelugu or Maachɛndi Wulana at Nanton. After the evening food, he will go to the chief's house and do what we call “sweep outside the chief's house.” It is not that he is going to take a broom to sweep the outside. The way he's going to open the outside with the drum, that is what they take to say that he's going to sweep outside. And so the meaning of sweeping outside the chief's house is to start the Samban' luŋa.
The small drummer will stand outside the chief's house and begin beating. He will start with Dakoli n-nyɛ bia. And every drummer in every town has his own door, and so then he will be praising himself from his beginning by calling his father's and mother's, grandfather's and forefather's names, and how he was trained to be a drummer, and the one who trained him. When he goes to stand outside the chief's house with his drum, it shows that he is sweeping outside the chief's house and preparing it, and as he is standing and beating like that, the other drummers will also come and sit down. Or if the drummer wants, if he starts counting his grandfathers, and he puts Dakoli n-nyɛ bia to follow it, it is the same. But both should come: Dakoli n-nyɛ bia and his grandfathers. And Naa Nyaɣsi's children, too, if he is able to call them, it is also added. That is how our talks are. But it is good that Dakoli n-nyɛ bia should come first, because that is the beginning of everything. And if the small drummer beats and comes to the end of his family, he will stop, and that is how he sweeps outside the chief's house to start the Samban' luŋa.
As for the starting of the Samban' luŋa, it has many names. The time they are starting it, as we call it “sweeping outside the chief's house,” we also say that the small drummer will “go and pound the soup.” The meaning of pounding the soup is that if a woman wants to cook, it is a child who will first go and pound the vegetables in a mortar before the woman herself will come to cook the food. And so the small drummer will pound the soup, and the others will come and cook the food. The small drummer is the first to pound the drum before the elder drummer will receive it, and so they say, “This child should go and pound the vegetables so that the old woman will cook the food.” Have you seen? Didn't I tell you that we drummers are called “women”? Sweeping outside and pounding the soup are not the Samban' luŋa. They look like the Samban' luŋa, and that is all.
And the Samban' luŋa itself also has different names. Luŋ' sariga is another name for the Samban' luŋa. If somebody is going to beat Samban' luŋa, they say is going to beat Luŋ' sariga. Sariga is planting, so the way we go there, we used to say the drummer is going to plant the drum. That is how some older drummers say it. When you meet a drummer and you ask him to tell you what Luŋ' sariga is, if he knows much, he will tell you. But if he has not asked, he may not have heard this name for the Samban' luŋa, and he won't be able to tell you. Everything that is inside Samban' luŋa, that is Luŋ' sariga. There is no difference. The Luŋ' sariga is the Samban' luŋa, and it is we elder drummers who know that.
If the small drummer beats and finishes, at that time, getting to ten or eleven o'clock, the one who is going to beat the Samban' luŋa is there, and he will come out and collect it. How he will start it, he will also start it with Dakoli n-nyɛ bia. That is the one every drummer starts with: “A bachelor is a child, and a married person is the elder.” He will be beating that, and the drummers will be answering, and he will come to a place where he will stop, and he will take all his grandfathers and start to call their names. And when he finishes that, if he wants, he will take the children of Naa Nyaɣsi and call all their names. If it is Yendi, and Namo-Naa is going to beat, he will come and start with his great-grandfathers. He will only beat this on the drum, in the drum language, but he will not sing, and he will continue beating the drum, describing his family until he comes to the end. And then he will get to the chief's family up to the chief himself. And so this is the way he will beat the drum, and he will beat it to talk. After that, they will turn again. But when he starts from the way he is going to take the Samban' luŋa, he is not going to use the drum to talk too much. The way he is going to beat and turn, that is what is going to show the people that they have finished pounding the soup.
Those who are present there, and the people who are at home and putting their ears to the outside, when they get to know that they have finished pounding the soup, and the older drummer has collected it and turned the beating, they will start to come out more. That is the end of pounding the soup, and that time, he wouldn't go far to beat the drum again. That is how it is. When they finish pounding the soup, and the old drummer is coming to collect it, you will hear them beating: zan dan dan, gbiri gbiri! And we drummers take our sense to say it as: Sagal' kani, ʒeri kani; food is not there, soup is not there. And so if there is no food, there is no soup. We haven't heard it from an old drummer, but we use our sense to say it because it is falling with the beating. They will beat it, and that is when he is going to take the chieftaincy to enter into the Samban' luŋa. And so when he finishes, then he is coming to start with the Samban' luŋa. By then he will turn with his drum to the rest, and everyone with a drum will answer with the drum. Those drummers who are beating and answering don't sing. It is only one person who sings, and they follow him. And when they answer, he will also begin to sing with his mouth. He is going to use his mouth to sing, and then beat the drum. He sings the same thing he was beating with the drum, and in his singing he will come to the song he will use to start the Samban' luŋa and praise the present chief. And that will let the chief know which chief the drummer is going to beat to praise him. And that time, all the other drummers will also get to know that, yes, this is the chief our singer is going to begin with. All the drummers following this older drummer, none of them knew the chief he is going to beat. Even the chief didn't know. It is only when the time comes, and the drummer opens his mouth to say it. That will be the time they will know.
How the Samban' luŋa is, it is not that an old drummer or a drum chief has to beat it. If it is Yendi, Namo-Naa can decide not to beat the Samban' luŋa. I told you that Namo-Naa only beats a drum if his heart wants. If you are someone who becomes a chief of drummers and your junior brother or your own child is there, you can let him go and beat it, if only he knows it. And you will sit down, and your heart will be resting. I told you that a chief of drummers like Namo-Naa has many people who follow him and beat the drum, and whenever they are beating somewhere, it shows that Namo-Naa is the one beating the drum. It's not that the old drumming chiefs cannot beat it; they can beat it. All the drumming chiefs can beat the Samban' luŋa. But many times you will see that they will give it to one of their housechildren who has been sitting with them always and who knows much.
Truly, as for the Samban' luŋa, its talks are many. As I have been telling you that wisdom doesn't finish, and drumming doesn't finish, no one can know everything in the Samban' luŋa. Every drummer will learn it only to his extent. As there were many chiefs, no one can know all of them. Every drummer takes the chief he knows much about. You will talk his talks, how he started, what he did before he died, and add his children and grandchildren, and come up to the present chief.
And so inside our drumming, it is just like a child who is going to school. From class one, the child will go to class two, and from class two to class three. If a child has finished middle school, he has not been to secondary school, and he has not been to university. He will only know the things he learned up to middle school, and so his knowledge is not all that much. And so if you are a drummer, you will know what your standard is. If it is that you will start from Naa Luro and take it up to the present, it is because you know that you can do it. If you know that you can take Naa Zaɣli and come up to now, you can start from Naa Zaɣli. If you have caught Naa Gungobli's talks, you can start from Naa Gungobli. If you know Naa Dariʒɛɣu, you will start from there. If you start from Naa Zanjina, you know that you can talk his talks. Or sometimes you know Naa Siɣli, and you can take it from there.
Truly, there are some chiefs who also know chieftaincy, and such a chief will tell a drummer the particular chief he wants the drummer to beat. And if a chief asks a drummer who cannot beat a certain chief, the drummer will tell him, and the chief will say, “All right. Choose the one which will be somehow good for me.” And so there are some chiefs who know how Dagbon was moving in the olden days, and there are some who don't know the old talks, and they don't know how their parents came about. And it is the same thing with the drummers. Some drummers know only some particular chiefs. Someone will know much about a particular chief, but he only know a little bit about the other chiefs. And someone too will know two chiefs, and someone will know three.
And so every drummer has the way he will beat Samban' luŋa and move through the different chiefs. There is someone who will take five Yaa-Naas and beat the Samban' luŋa from eight or nine o'clock in the evening up to daybreak. He has asked old drummers and they have taught him. If they have told him about the grandfather, the father, and about five of the children, he can take those talks and beat till the next day. If it is Naa Zanjina, a drummer who asks about Naa Zanjina and his children can take Naa Zanjina alone and beat till daybreak. As for Naa Zanjina, I think that almost every drummer will know how to beat his talks, because it was Naa Zanjina who opened the eyes of Dagbon. We were sitting down suffering, and Naa Zanjina came and opened our eyes. He brought many things to Dagbon here, and that is why drummers know about him and the works he was doing. Someone who knows much about Naa Zanjina will start around nine o'clock in the night, and when the sun comes out about six o'clock the next morning, he has not even finished with that one chief. It can happen that some people can beat even up to nine the next morning. As for that, it is from his knowledge. Apart from Naa Zanjina, since the starting of Yendi, there is no chief who you can use him alone throughout from the beginning to the next morning. Not any other chief again. There are some chiefs who didn't give birth to many children, and they didn't go to war. You can't use them to beat up to daybreak. When you start them, within some minutes you will finish their talks. You will finish, and you will take another chief. But as for Naa Zanjina, he had many talks. Somebody who knows much can take him up to daybreak.
Let me separate it for you. How drummers used to say that a drummer beat Naa Zanjina up to daybreak, it is not all drummers. Naa Zanjina and Naa Siɣli, they have long talks, because inside them, there are many, many talks. Whether they will reach daybreak follows the one who has asked and who knows. And so if you are going to beat Naa Zanjina, the way you have to beat it is that you will start Naa Zanjina, and talk all the talk that is inside Naa Zanjina's time, and then you come to the present Yaa-Naa. It's not that you have to talk about all the chiefs who are in between and what they did. That is not possible. Maybe if there is time, you can add another chief before coming to the present one. They will say that you have pushed them to enter into Naa Zanjina's Samban' luŋa. There are some drummers, when they are beating Naa Zanjina, and the day is going to break, if they are getting near to finishing Naa Zanjina, they will finish it and take the present chief. And there are also some drummers, when day is breaking, they will finish by mentioning the chiefs, one after the other, up to the present one. That is how the drumming goes.
When you are beating Naa Zanjina and you are coming to the end, you finish it by saying that he has taken his hands and beat the gourds on the ground, and it means he has died. And they said that they should look for Yɔɣtolana, and Naa Siɣli appeared and became Yɔɣtolana. That is how you will start Naa Siɣli. And you take the work he did and talk about the way he fought the war. And you will finish it and say he is not there again, and then you will call his children. You will take it one by one, up to the present chief. And there can be a drummer who knows, and he will start, and it will be more than three hours, and he will still be inside Naa Zanjina. Another drummer will join talks of other chiefs. He will finish Naa Zanjina, and if there is time, he will take Naa Siɣli. As Naa Siɣli is also somebody who went to war, if someone takes Naa Siɣli's work, and he knows it, maybe it will take him two hours or two and a half hours. When he finishes, he will take Naa Bimbiɛɣu. If he finishes Naa Bimbiɛɣu, he will go and fall into Naa Garba. And he will bring it up to the present Yaa-Naa, and day will break. If morning is coming, and the drummer is still inside Naa Siɣli or Naa Bimbiɛɣu, and the time is up and the drummer wants to cut it short, he will finish the chief he has been beating, and he can move through the chiefs, just mentioning this one's name and something small, and then he was no more there. And he will say that they said they should find Yɔɣtolana, and this one came, and he will talk something small again, and come to the next one, to finish at the present chief. This is how some drummers beat it.
And it is not all drummers who will beat the Samban' luŋa up till daybreak. Somebody will take Naa Zanjina and beat, and it will not be up to six o'clock in the morning when he finishes. It is because one drummer's knowledge is greater than another's. The one who has much knowledge will take it to daybreak, and the one without much knowledge will finish before that, say, by four o'clock getting to five o'clock. And all this is because it isn't all drummers who know all the talks of the chiefs. There is someone who has asked and they have taught him, but the knowledge is not there, and there is someone who has not asked. Such a drummer will come and start beating, and he will go half-way and cannot go further. That is his extent. And so someone will take only Naa Zanjina and beat the Samban' luŋa. There is someone who will take Naa Dariʒɛɣu, and someone who will take Naa Tutuɣri. Someone too will take Naa Luro, how he went to war and what he did. Someone can take that to beat the Samban' luŋa. Someone too will take Naa Garba. Naa Garba had a lot of children, and if you start from Naa Garba and beat, you will beat and include his children. I have told you that some drummers have asked to know many children of Naa Garba, and such a drummer will count them all. And so everyone knows to the extent that he knows.
And so when a drummer wants to start with a particular chief, he will take that chief and his father and his grandfather. He is not going to beat the Samban' luŋa of the father and grandfather. He is going to call the father's and grandfather's names, and he will tell how that chief was given birth. And so if he is going to beat Naa Luro, he shows that this chief gave birth to him, but he doesn't go back to bring Naa Luro's father's talks inside. If he does that, it means he is going to beat the father. And so if he is going to beat Naa Luro, he will start with Naa Luro, and he will also show the chief who died and Naa Luro ate. And then he will take it from Naa Luro himself and what he did. And then he will take that chief's children and those who inherited him up to the present. If you take Naa Luro and you don't know his children, then you will only beat it up to the end of Naa Luro before you stop. If you can start with Naa Luro and come out to the present chief, you will do that. And it all comes from the asking. Someone who has asked can beat straightforward and correctly.
And so what I want you to know is that the Samban' luŋa talks follow many paths. Someone will ask and they will teach him, but his heart is not sitting down to learn it. As his heart is not sitting down, when he is going to beat it, he will take one thing and go into another thing, and he will be mixing them like that. Let's say he is going to beat Naa Luro: he will take Naa Luro and come and mix Naa Luro's talk with Naa Zɔmbila. Naa Luro's brother was Naa Zɔmbila, and it was one person who gave birth to them. Naa Zɔlgu gave birth to Naa Luro and Naa Zɔmbila, and if the drummer is going to take Naa Luro and talk Naa Luro's talks, he will talk about Naa Zɔlgu because it was Naa Zɔlgu who gave birth to Naa Luro. And a drummer will get into this and come and mix Naa Luro's talks with Naa Zɔmbila's talks. As his heart is not sitting down, he has mixed them. And it is better, when you are going to beat the Samban' luŋa, you don't mix them. You shouldn't beat Naa Luro and come to be beating Naa Zɔmbila. And so it is through the Samban' luŋa that we get to know the good drummers.
And so when a drummer is boasting that he knows how to sing very well, we ask him, “Can you beat the Samban' luŋa? As you are boasting about your singing, can you beat the Samban' luŋa?” The real Samban' luŋa drummer will tell you that such-and-such a chief was this, and this was what he was doing, and when he was no more there, these were the children he gave birth to, and this is what they also did. If he has asked and he knows it, that is the time we will agree that if he was boasting, it is true. But I can say that the way we drummers are, if somebody asks us if we can beat Samban' luŋa, even if we know that we can beat it, we used to say that we can't beat it. If you haven't gone to beat it before, you will cover yourself like that, but God knows that you can do it. This is the way we hold it to ourselves. But if someone is boasting with his drumming, and he cannot beat the Samban' luŋa, we tell him that he is a market drummer. A drummer in the market will praise anyone he sees, just because he wants his wants his money. What we call market drumming is different from Samban' luŋa. Anywhere there is a gathering, you can praise people. But as for the chief's house, if you are going to take a chief, and you are going to beat up to daybreak, the one who knows will take his time. And if he takes a particular chief, then up to the time day will break, that is the end of his knowledge. And there is somebody who is a drummer, and such a drummer has a place inside drumming, but he cannot beat a drum up to the point that the day will break. And so a drummer who has the knowledge to beat Samban' luŋa, that knowledge is not just the knowledge of hitting the drum, but the knowledge of old talks — the history.
And so it isn't all drummers who know the Samban' luŋa. You use your knowledge to beat it, and there are differences in the ways of drumming: everyone and his limit of knowledge. You can see a drummer who knows the beating of every type of dancing and can beat every drum, but he cannot beat the Samban' luŋa. As I am sitting down, I cannot beat the Samban' luŋa. I can't even try to beat it. I have no appetite for it. And because of that, I have not asked to learn it. And as I have not asked, and as I am not singing again, I can't beat it. But as I am sitting, I know much about it. And so someone can know the Samban' luŋa but will not be able to beat it. And so the Samban' luŋa is only for those who learn it.
As the Samban' luŋa is beaten at the chief's house, someone who can beat the Samban' luŋa has more respect at the chief's house than somebody like me. But his respect is only with the chiefs. If it is with the commoners, he hasn't got more respect than I do. And so in Dagbon here, we drummers are divided. The chief's drummers are there, and we are there. We follow the important people and the rich people and the youngmen and women of the town, and so we are youngmen's drummers. When we go to a gathering, the chief's drummers are there, and they beat for the chief. And we also beat for the commoners. But we are all chief's drummers. Where the chief is going, we also follow the chief. But those who inherit the skins of the drumming chieftaincies, they are the ones who beat the Samban' luŋa. And so if they want to help themselves in their drumming, they will try to learn it. And as they learn it and beat it for the chiefs, they are not at our place: we can follow our youngmen, and the youngmen will take us to the chief's side, and as for that, we will hear the beating of the chief's drummers. But if it is not that, we are already there with our youngmen. It isn't that we don't learn the talks of the Samban' luŋa. We will learn some of them, because if you don't know the chiefs, how are you going to beat your drum and praise somebody? But as I am sitting, I don't want a drumming chieftaincy. I don't want its troubles. Will I learn the Samban' luŋa? And again, learning the Samban' luŋa is very difficult, and if you don't want all its problems, you won't worry yourself to learn it.
And so the Samban' luŋa is there because of the chiefs, and it is the chief's drummers who beat it. All the chiefs of drummers are there because of the Samban' luŋa. Anyone who becomes a chief drummer, if he cannot beat the Samban' luŋa, then at least he will have a child who can beat it. If you are a chief of drummers, you have to have people. If you cannot beat Samban' luŋa and you don't have a child who can beat it, you will never become a chief of drummers. How my brother Mumuni is in Savelugu, the youngmen drummers take him as their elder, and they sit with him in the night to ask him questions about drumming. Their leader, Issa [later Saakpuli Lun-Naa Issa], is the child of Palo Yiwɔɣu-Naa Karim. In all of Dagbon, this Issa is respected as a singer, and Mumuni is teaching him more. And again, I told you that Mumuni has refused many drumming chieftaincies, but how he is in Savelugu, he is standing as the brother of the Palo-Naa who is sitting. If a festival day comes, and it is that Palo-Naa is the one who is going to beat the Samban' luŋa, if he's not strong to beat it, he can call Mumuni and say, "Mumuni, go and sit outside and beat the Samban' luŋa for me." And if the drummers are many, here are his brothers and his children to help. It's not that the Palo-Naa doesn't know how to beat it: Palo-Naa is the chief of the drummers in Savelugu, and he knows how to beat it. But if Palo-Naa cannot go to some place, he can send my brother Mumuni to go there; and so as my brother is sitting, he can beat the Samban' luŋa. If Mumuni does not want to beat it, he will just tell Palo-Naa plainly that his knowledge is not up to sitting to beat Samban' luŋa. Then Palo-Naa will call another one, and he will tell the fellow that your brother so-and-so, or your junior father so-and-so, said that he cannot take my position to beat the Samban' luŋa, and so as it is now, you are the one I'm going to tell to go and sit the outside for me. That is how the Samban' luŋa is.
If the child also wants, and he has the knowledge, then he will go. How he is going to go and sit there, this very Palo-Naa will also come outside the chief's house and sit down. The child who is going to beat it, he too, he has a swearing that he will swear before he will beat it: "I'm going to do the work of my father. And so it is my father who gave me this work. I don't say that I know too much. It is by force that I am going to do it." This is what the child will say and he will beat the drum. It is because some drummers can do bad things. There is a type of medicine we call kabrɛ: tying. They can tie a drummer who is going to beat Samban' luŋa. You the one who is going to beat it, you won't be able to talk. It is inside drumming. If you are not strong, and they tie you this kabrɛ, when you go there, you can't open your mouth. It isn't that you the drummer don't know it, but it is just wickedness. And so to beat Samban' luŋa is hard. That is why the drummers fear it. And so drummers also put medicine inside their body to protect themselves against anyone who will try to do them something bad, and it won't catch them. It is there like that. And the old drummer will also come and be sitting down behind the back of the one the beating the Samban' luŋa, and if anyone who carries any bad thing to do to him, this older drummer will see it.
Inside the Samban' luŋa, there are many talks. There are some of your fellow drummers who won't spare you a free chance like that to do it. Even some good ones, those who want that position, when they see you like that, they won't leave you. That is why they will send an older drummer to be guiding you. And you will be beating and swearing. You don't show to the people that it is you who showed yourself that you know much: "My father called me to come and beat it." As for Samban' luŋa, that is why, if you are a drummer, unless it comes to you before you will go to beat it. You don't go to beg it and beat. It is not inside drumming that somebody will say, “When the time comes, I will go and show that I'm a drummer, and so I will go to the chief's house and beat Samban' luŋa, and they will know that I'm a drummer.” It is not inside our drumming like that. You don't just beat Samban' luŋa because you are a drummer. This is the way it is.
As for the Samban' luŋa, its talks are too much. And the reason why all the talks inside are hard is that as they call it Samban' luŋa — outside drumming — it is actually outside. The way the drummer will come outside the chief's house, everybody will gather there. And where everybody gathers, they want to listen and see whether you are telling the truth or you are telling a lie. Some people come there just because they want to see the drummer being disgraced. And some other people too will come there to see the truth he has. If they come and the truth is not there, has he become shamed or not? That is why its matter is hard. Among our drummers, there are some people, and they know the drumming. It can happen that such a drummer, if he comes to see many people like that, his heart will just tear off. And if his heart tears off, then he can't talk again. But he knew the talk when he was coming. And so all this is what is makes Samban' luŋa hard. It isn't a joke. If you know it, then you have to make sure that your heart is sitting down. And the one whose heart is sitting down, when he is coming to beat the drum, he doesn't want the people to be just few. He wants the people to be plenty. When he sees the people, then his heart will be saying whatever it wants. But it is only one-one people who can stand that. That is why Samban' luŋa is hard. The truth is there, and the lies are there, too. That's why drummers fear it. You have to catch it and know it. It is not something to be joked with.
And so a drummer who is going to beat Samban' luŋa, when it comes to your turn as a first time, you will think about how you went to learn it. The chief you went and asked and learned about, you know all the names of the chief and his children, and you know that when you finish him, the next one to come, you also know him, and you can count them like that, and you know all their children, up to this present Yaa-Naa. And the chief you are going to start with, if he had ever fought a war, you know all of it. Whether he died in the war or he succeeded in the war, you know all. And you will put all into your head. And it will sit in your heart. And so you will know that if you start like that and come up to this present Yaa-Naa, the day will break. And then you the drummer, you will think inside your head that it's only that you haven't gone to the chief's house to do it, but you have belief inside you that if you take it, you will do it. You the drummer will think like that.
Apart from that, drummers have some other ways. The way you will go and learn it, you will let maalams help you with the sitting of the heart: when you will see people, your heart won't spoil. Maalams have something to help you. They will write some of God's names, and they will wash the writing and give it to you to drink. If you come and stand in front of the people, you won't fear. Your heart will be sitting down. When you start to talk what you are coming to talk, the thing will be coming, just like that. Whatever you want, it will be coming. Drummers call it teeli. When it sits inside your heart and you go to stand, even though you have not yet beaten the Samban' luŋa, you know that you have prepared yourself. If you don't prepare yourself, it can happen that you can't beat. This is one of the things that will let a drummer know that when he goes to beat the first time, he can do it. That is how it is.
Any new drummer, when they tell you that you are coming to beat Samban' luŋa, you will think about it more than one week. Within this one week, then you have to start preparing yourself. If it's your first time, it can make you not to sleep. Every time you go to lie down, you will be thinking. You can be lying down for a whole week without sleeping. You know it already, but you will go inside its talk again and start searching. Old drummers used to talk like that. That is how it is. You don't go anywhere to practice. You will only sit in your house, on your bed, and start thinking about it in your heart.
And it has two ways. There is another way again. The way the young drummer knows it already, maybe he didn't catch it well. He will have an old drummer, and he will go and tell the old drummer, “Such-and-such a chief, I know something about him, but some section of it has gotten lost in my heart.” And the old drummer will ask him, “How far have you learned?” And the young drummer will say, “I have forgotten some of his children.” He will start to sing from where he has learned, and coming, mentioning all the chief's children, and when he reaches the point where it has lost from his heart, the old drummer will join it for him. And so he has come to know it. That is another way to go and ask again. Already he knows it, but he has lost some parts, and now he will see it. When the day breaks, and he goes for the Samban' luŋa, he can beat it. That is how it is.
And so inside drumming, someone who is learning to beat Samban' luŋa, he can beat it, but he won't come out boldly to say he will beat it. If it falls on him, maybe what he is going to beat will not be something that will break the day. If they say he should beat it, maybe at that point he won't agree. He will still be asking old drummers, up to the time the old drummer will say, "What I have taught you, if you sit at the chief's house, it can break the day.” And so he has given him the way. If the one teaching you hasn't given you the way, you can't just get up and say you will go and beat it.
And so it is only some drummers who learn much of the Samban' luŋa. As I have told you how a drummer learns, its talk comes to join the talk of the Samban' luŋa. When you want to learn how to drum from someone, and it is the Samban' luŋa, you will get someone who is an old drummer and who is someone who knows. Even if he is not old, he knows. How we are sitting down and I am talking to you, that is how learning the Samban' luŋa is. If I don't let us sit down so that I will talk to you, will you know? And so you will go to the house of the old drummer, in the night, and you will ask him, “How did we start?” As he is an old man, you will buy shea butter and give to him, and you will tell him he should use it to burn in his lantern. And you will buy cola and give to him. If he takes tobacco, you will be buying tobacco and giving it to him. As he is coming outside to sit in the night, you will be massaging him. You will be pressing his legs, and he will be talking to you. All the knowledge he has got, he will give it to you. It's not everyday you will go there; there are some days you will go, because it is only some particular days when someone will talk Samban' luŋa talks. Sometimes you will learn it for a year. And someone will be learning it for a year and will still not know it. And so there are differences. The one who has a lot of sense, and he is putting his everything into it, getting to one year, if he tries, he can learn it. Some people will take more than a year. Some people will learn it for two or three years, and they are not up to the level of knowing it. And there is someone, if they teach him for two days, and he is not catching it, he will get fed up and run away. And it isn't from one person you will learn it. Maybe you will hear of a drummer who is in Yendi, and you will go there. When you go, you stay in his house. Everyday you will go to his farm with him. If you will be there for two months, everyday he will teach you a little of it. If you will be there for one year, everyday he will be teaching you. And it shows that friendship, some friendships are more than others. That is how they learn the Samban' luŋa, and that is how the Samban' luŋa goes. Everybody learns the Samban' luŋa to his extent. A drummer who is a real drummer can beat up to the morning and even reach about nine o'clock. And it all comes from the learning. And so every drummer who beats Samban' luŋa has the place where he will stand. Someone will beat Naa Siɣli, and someone will beat Naa Bimbiɛɣu, and someone will beat Naa Luro, and someone will beat Naa Zanjina. And the one who can beat all of them, he is also there.
And so the drummer who is going to sing at the Samban' luŋa place, when they finish pounding the soup, he alone will stand up with a drum under his armpit. And he will leave the other drummers behind him and go forward. He will be standing and facing the chief. And he will only be singing, with the drum hanging. Somebody who wants to sing the Samban' luŋa, and he doesn't want to get tired, he has to get a good drummer and put him right behind him. He will find a drummer who knows how to beat it. And so when the singer sings, he won't hit his drum again. As he calls the names of the chiefs, he will leave it for the one behind him, to respond with the drum, zan dan dan. Then the others will also respond, gbiri gbir. We drummers say that they are showing that they are inside, that they are doing the work, and the one beating lundɔɣu will also be beating and reminding the singer. And so as for the singer, he will only sing. The one singing will be watching the one who is starting the beating for the other drummers to respond, and when they finish, then he will continue with the singing. And he will also be singing and throwing his talks to them one after the other, and those who are beating, it also helps them. How the one behind leads the drummers in the response, it helps the one who is singing to be breathing and resting a little bit. If he were going to be to singing and beating the drum at the same time, he would be too tired. It's not that he can't beat it: he can beat it. It is only if it happens that none of the drummers who are there can collect the response for the other drummers, then the singer himself will beat the drum. But as he leaves it for the drummer behind him, it's that he has reduced some of his load. And when they respond and finish, he will also continue. Anyone who does some work like that will always have to think of some ways to get chance to rest and continue. And there is another beating they will beat when he has finished with one chief, and he is going to enter into another chief. And so that is how they beat it, and it helps the one singing to get a chance to breathe. That is how it is. And so how the beating of the Samban' luŋa is, we beat it, and there is one drummer giving the story. And as the drummers are beating, that is how his mouth too will be singing. He will sing to the extent that he knows, and the drumming will be following how he is going to sing it. That is how the Samban' luŋa is.
When they are going to beat the Samban' luŋa, if you go to see the Samban' luŋa, when you reach the chief's house, you will see many, many people gathered round sitting down and standing. All the area outside the chief's house will be full of people; they have all come to hear the Samban' luŋa. When there is a Samban' luŋa, too, you will see a lot of people with tape recorders, putting them in front of the drummer who is singing. They want to know things about Dagbon. It isn't everyone who is allowed to tape; it is only the people the drummer wants. But normally people will be taping, and later on the tape will be helping them to remember the talks, and what they didn't catch with their ears, when they sit down and listen to the tape, the tape will help them catch it.
Dakpɛma Lun-Naa Aliyu, he didn't want anybody to record his Samban' luŋa. Nobody recorded his Samban' luŋa, unless it was someone who would try to hide and tape. Anytime Dakpɛma Lun-Naa was going beat Samban' luŋa, he would get up and go around the whole place. If he saw anybody with a tape recorder, he wouldn't agree. The reason why some people don't agree to anyone recording is that as for the Samban' luŋa, it is not something to play with. You are talking something from old, old, old, old times. When you are talking it and coming, sometimes, all your mind is concentrated on the thing, and sometimes your talking will go out of the line. And so you have made a mistake, before you will come back to join it again. But as for tape recorder, it doesn't wait. People will record it like that, and they will be hearing your fault every time. If they take the recording to some place, somebody who knows what you were talking about will say, “Oh, this drummer, what he said here, it isn't true. He doesn't know it.” But it was only because the thing is difficult, and you were roaming inside the talks, and whatever happens, at least some will lock in your throat. As we are drummers, if our fellow drummer is beating, and he comes to lock up at one point, we will know. But as for us, when we hear something like that, we don't blame. A good drummer, when he hears a tape recorder play like that, he will say, “Yes, I know why he said something like this, because I know the way he used to sing it.” But the people who always go to listen to the Samban' luŋa, they have a way of opening another's anus: “The way this drummer talked here, it isn't correct.” That is why some drummers don't want to see a tape recorder at the Samban' luŋa place. As for the talk that you will start up to daybreak, even if you are looking inside a book, by all means you will come to read some point, and how to mention the words there, it will lock you. How much more if the thing is coming from your heart? You are a human being. Whatever happens, at some point, you will make a mistake, but as for the recorder, it is just going. As for Dakpɛma Lun-Naa Aliyu, any time he was going to beat Samban' luŋa, he would go round and curse people, that he wasn't allowing anyone to bring a tape there, and that anyone who brought a tape, he would leave that fellow to God.
That is why some drummers refuse recording. The Samban' luŋa is like that. If your tongue is going to get tired, then your heart will also get tired. All the thing is in your head. If you take it that everything we say is a load, and you are going to stand to carry it up to daybreak, then you will see its difficulty. There are some maalams who say plainly that we drummers are more learned than them. They say that, as for them, they are always look into paper. But as for us drummers, we don't look into any paper: we just talk. One of our big maalams has been talking like that to his fellow maalams. He tells them that, as for maalams, if maalams don't open the books, they can't talk. But as for drummers, they can sit down and talk olden days talks just now. And he said that the drummers also show people their families: no matter how people gather, when a drummer comes there, he can separate everybody to know where he comes from. But the maalams can't look at a gathering and tell everybody that you are from this house of that house. Because of that, many maalams trust drummers as learned people.
And so when the people gather at the Samban' luŋa, then as for the chief, he will sit outside the door with his elders, and the chief's wives and housechildren will be at the other side of the door from the chief. And there will be an area in front of the chief, and they make some open space there. Opposite the chief and to his right, you will see twenty or thirty or fifty drummers sitting down with their drums, and sometimes even more. Out of those drummers, only one is going to be singing. It is the singing that is considered, not the beating. And what this drummer will do is to be singing and calling the names of the chiefs who are dead, and what they did, and the children the chiefs gave birth to, and what they did. And he will talk of such-and-such a chief, and after he died, such-and-such a chief came, and then his children who came. And he will finish with that chief and start with the next chief and his children. He will talk about all of them. And so he will start with a chief and show how he started, and then he will take it up to the present. If he begins with a chief like Naa Garba or Naa Zanjina, it will be about five o'clock in the morning when he finishes. And so the Samban' luŋa goes from about eight o'clock till daybreak, and afterwards we drummers get up from the chief's house and go back to our houses.
As all these people have gathered for the Samban' luŋa, you should know that it is at the Samban' luŋa place that people show themselves. As the chief's housepeople and his elders are sitting, and everybody is gathered round, they have all come to hear the old talks of the past chiefs. If you are a prince or a princess or a chief, if you come there to sit down, the drummers will stop what they are beating and will praise you with their drums. When you sit down, they will continue with their beating. That is how it is. Anyone who is sitting down, the drummer knows how to praise him. When the drummer praises him, you will see him getting up, and there will be money coming out. The way there is one drummer who is to be singing and the other one behind him is beating and responding, if somebody is coming to sit down, it is the one who is beating who will see the person. You the singer won't see those coming to sit down, but the one beating the drum will see them, and when he beats, you will hear. The one singing will not be able to see everyone in the gathering. It is the one sitting who will be seeing the people, and he will take his drum stick and beat and say that such-and-such a person has arrived. And you the singer will already know his grandfather, and you will take you mouth to point to that side and sing. Then that person will put his hand inside his pocket and bring money to give to you. As the drummer has praised him in the gathering, his body is just shaking to give the money. And so if the drummer is beating a certain chief, and some of those sitting are from that chief, the drummer will be coming with the talk of that chieftaincy and will stop and remove them one by one and praise them inside that chieftaincy. He will do that with the princes, the chief's elders, anyone.
How they have gathered like that, if the drummer sees you and starts to talk your talks, it is sweet to you. Such people know themselves already, and when they are going to Samban' luŋa, they make sure that they load their pocket with money, because if the drummer sees them, he will praise them. All these people who have gathered there, they are all grandchildren of chiefs. If they are beating the Samban' luŋa of Naa Siɣli, his grandchildren are there. If they take Naa Bimbiɛɣu and are beating, his grandchildren are there. Naa Luro's grandchildren are there; Naa Tutuɣri's grandchildren are there. Naa Garba, Naa Zanjina, Naa Gungobli, all their grandchildren are sitting there. And so when the drummers see them, they will praise them, and when they finish praising, they will come and join the Samban' luŋa again. It doesn't matter. In the Samban' luŋa, it is the mouth that is talking, and the beating is following the mouth that has started and is coming. And so it is just as if we are holding a talk and we are talking, and somebody comes to me here; I will be talking to that fellow at the door, and when I finish, we will be talking again. In the olden days they were not doing it much, but this time they do it. They can get into an important talk, and even if a commoner is coming, the drummer can break it and then praise him before he comes back to continue. And so when they stop like that, it isn't anything.
Even it is those people who will let the drummers praise them. If you are beating the Samban' luŋa and you are inside a certain chief, if his grandchild is there, when you call his grandfather's name, he knows that you have called his grandfather's name. He won't sit down and wait for you to call his own name. He will get up and come and give a gift of money because of his grandfather. He is showing himself. He wants everybody to know that you have called his grandfather's name. Everyone wants to show himself at the chief's house. And everyone in the chief's house, they want to show that they are in the chief's house. And so now, where they beat the Samban' luŋa, there is a lot of money coming out. In the olden days the giving of money was there, but now it is more than that. It is not the chief alone who gives. When the drummer is talking about people's grandfathers and great-grandfathers, they will be giving money to him, and others will be giving money to the chief, and the chief will be returning the money to the drummers again. And the chief already has his own money that he was giving to the drummer. And so there are those who will give to the chief and the chief will give. And there are those the drummer praises and they give. And there are those who bring themselves and give. And the drummers will not see somebody, and the fellow will get up and will be going and saying that he is going to urinate, and at that time the drummers will see him. He is showing himself. This is how it is. And so the Samban' luŋa has got a lot of talk. The time we are going to beat the Samban' luŋa at the chief's house, the princes and princesses, and the chief's elders, and the village chiefs, all of them will come together at the chief's house. It is on that day that everybody will get to know whether he has a way to eat chieftaincy or not. As everybody is sitting down, if someone gets up to urinate or go anywhere, the leader of the Samban' luŋa will use his drum to praise the fellow and sing to tell him who he is. And so on that day, everybody will be boasting.
And everybody who comes, whether a commoner or a chief, he will give money. There is nobody who will not give money at the Samban' luŋa, unless the drummer does not know the praises of that fellow. It is not all whose praises we know, because sometimes you can see somebody and you don't know his house or your don't know the town he comes from. If you know his house, you can know his praises; if you don't know his praises but you know the town he comes from, you can take his chief's praises to praise him. If he wants, he will say, “Truly, I am in that town but I am not of the family of that chief. My family is this.” And at that time you will praise him. And if you don't know somebody's house and you don't know his town, you will be praising people and leave him, and he will also come and show you his praise; and if he shows you, then that is all. This is how it is.
As those who come and sit down will give the drummers a lot of money, in these modern times when there is a lot of money, sometimes a drummer will beat up to daybreak, and when you see the money, fear will catch you. The small drummers who are beating and following don't see the money. Maybe three people will be for the money, and they won't give those who are remaining. Who are they? The one singing is included. The old person who has put him there is added: if it is Yendi, Namo-Naa and Yendi Sampahi-Naa are for the money; if it is Savelugu, Palo-Naa and Palo-Lun-Naa will share the money with the one singing; at Nanton it is the same, and Maachɛndi and Lun-Naa are for the money along with the one singing. This is how it is. Sometimes they will get a lot of money, and none of the drummers who are beating and helping them will ask of it. It can happen that they will give each of the drummers some small money, but if they don't give, it is not a fault. And no one will ask. This is how it is inside our drumming: if they forget of you, you won't take it and quarrel. A day will come and they will give you. This is how it is.
And again, any time a chief says he will let them beat Samban' luŋa, there is some work he will have to do for the drummer. I have told you that the Samban' luŋa has got a lot of dangerous things. As they are talking about the dead chiefs, that is why we don't like talking its talks. I have told you that these dead chiefs we talk about, they are not people who die and remain in the ground. They are roaming. If you are going to talk about them, you will have to give them something. You have to get and animal and remove blood. When they bring out a cow or a sheep to make the sacrifice, they bring it out to the area just in front of the chief, between the chief and the drummers. Before they slaughter the animal, the chief will put his hand on it, and the drummer will also put his hand on it. And when the drummer finishes and he goes home, the chief will send another sheep to the drummer in the house, so that when he reaches home, before he enters his house, he will also slaughter that one. If there are additional animals like fowls, or pigeons, the drummer will slaughter all when he gets home. And so they will kill an animal at the Samban' luŋa place, and you the drummer, when you reach home, you will also kill an animal. And so all this is why drummers are afraid of it.
These dead chiefs, we call them yɔɣsi. If the chief hasn't got the means, and you also can't do what they want, and you go and call their names by heart, they will knock and kill you. And tomorrow, they will be talking about some people, but not you again. That is why drummers are afraid of it. The chiefs themselves fear it. The dead chiefs will knock the chief and the drummer. If not the chief himself, they can knock the chief's wives. If the chief has horses, you will see that the horses will start dying. It has been happening. And so if something happens like that, is it a bad thing or a good thing? The talk you will talk and people will die, is it a good talk? If it comes like that, then the talk has spoiled. Dagbamba say that you don't have to love someone more than yourself. That is why I can tell you that a lot of drummers are there, and they can beat Samban' luŋa, but they are afraid. As for the Samban' luŋa, you don't go to beat it just for life. If it is not by force, you will not go. And Dagbamba say again: if a stone is falling from the sky, everybody will put his hand on his head. It is because you don't know the actual person the stone is coming to fall on. That is why when a drummer is coming to beat Samban' luŋa, the drummer puts his hand on the head, and the chief also puts his hand on the head.
How I have told you that a drummer will not show which Yaa-Naa he is going to beat until they are just outside the chief's house, that is for the drummers who are not going to beat one of these bad or dangerous chiefs. But any drummer who has it in his mind that he is going to beat a bad chief, he doesn't know whether the chief will be able to stand it. And when the drummer is going to beat such a Samban' luŋa, he will send a message to tell the chief the names of the chiefs he is going to beat, and he will show the chief the work that is inside it. And this work is following the particular chiefs the drummer is going to beat. If the chief has no means, he will send back to tell the drummer that he should forget about that idea. If not that, it can happen that the time the drummer will come outside the chief's house, and he starts, if the chief hears it and he knows that he has no means, he will call the drummer, “My grandfather, go back small. What you are talking about, I have no means.” Then the drummer will bring a chief whose weight is somehow light, and he will bring that talk and do the work. And it has another way: the chief can tell the drummer which chief he wants the drummer to beat. And again, you the drummer can take your own sense to know which one you can choose, and there will be no trouble. And so the drummer who is going to sing the song about the bad chiefs, he himself is already afraid of the talks, but he was thinking that the chief can carry everything that is involved. If he starts singing, the chief can just come out plainly and stop him, that he cannot do what it needs. As he has begged the drummer like that, the drummer will go back and find a chief who is not hard.
Because of what such-and-such a chief got up and did before he died, sometimes they will beat the Samban' luŋa of a certain chief, and when it is daybreak, the chief will get a white gown and say the drummer should protect himself from cold, and add a white hat, and a calabash with some money in it, and he will give all this to the drummer; and again, the chief will slaughter a white sheep, a white hen, and a white dove. If the one leading the drumming is very good in drumming, the chief will give the gown and the other things and add money, and the chief will get a cow and let them slaughter the cow before they start. At that time, they will cook food with the meat, and later in the night, they will bring out the food, and all the drummers will eat. They will bring out bowls and bowls of food, and every drummer will get his food. Those eating will eat, and those who don't want to eat won't eat: it doesn't matter. This is what the chief will do at the Samban' luŋa place. And truly, if it is that the drummer is going to talk about a chief who went to war, the chief who has the means will slaughter a white cow for the drummer. It wasn't all the chiefs who went to war, but if it is that the drummer gets up and says he is going to beat the Samban' luŋa of such-and-such a chief who went to war, the chief will have to do the work it wants. If it was a chief who didn't go to war, then they may only slaughter the sheep, but if it is Yendi, whatever happens, the Yaa-Naa will slaughter a cow. The dead chiefs the drummer will talk about want blood to come out, and that is why the chief will slaughter the animals.
And so the work that the Samban' luŋa wants, if a drummer talks about a past chief and the chief does not do the work it wants, and because the drummer too has not got the means to do its work, then blood will come out between the drummer and the chief. Whatever happens, the dead people, what they want and have not been given, they will knock and kill the drummer. And if not the drummer, they will knock and kill the chief himself. Whatever happens, either the drummer will fall sick or the chief will fall sick. A drummer can beat the Samban' luŋa, and if the chief does not do its work, the drummer will not last for ten days. This is how the Samban' luŋa is. The one you tell the talks of the Samban' luŋa to, if he is not able to do what he is supposed to do, it will come back to that fellow; and if it doesn't come to the one you told, it will come back to you the one who told the person.
And here is an example: I have told you that they don't use Naa Nyaɣsi to beat the Samban' luŋa; a drummer has never done it. Drummers know it, but they don't beat it. They don't beat it even for the chiefs. They can learn it from an elder drummer, but they don't beat it at the Samban' luŋa. And so you should know that when the drummer starts beating, if he is calling the children whom Naa Nyaɣsi gave birth to, it isn't that he is beating Naa Nyaɣsi's talks; he is only counting their names. That is why I have been telling you that the talk of how our Dagbamba chieftaincy started has got a lot of forbidden things, and there is no drummer who will want to talk about it openly. If a drummer says he will talk it, he is only going to tell lies. He will tell only part, because if he tells everything, it is not good. The drummer will get trouble, and you the one he has told will get trouble. And so normally when they beat the Samban' luŋa, they will start it with somebody from the time of Naa Luro and coming. And such talks also have got their work.
And so it can happen that a drummer will go to beat the Samban' luŋa, and the chief will say he hasn't got the time for it. It's not that he hasn't got the time: he hasn't got the means to do all the work that the drummer is going to show him. But sometimes it can happen that the chief has no means but he has people. He has his “outside children.” These outside children are his friends who are not chiefs, but they are in that town and they all like one another. Or maybe the chief is strong, and his outside children are also strong in addition. They can tell the chief that as for the Samban' luŋa, if it is a cow, the part of the cow is their problem: they will provide the cow for the chief. If there are villages and the villagers like the chief, one of the villages will send to the chief and tell him, “As they are going to beat the Samban' luŋa for you, if you don't have any strong animal, then we are ready to get the animal for you.” It is because they like the chief. If they promise him like that, he will agree. But as for that, it is not common, unless a village that is close to the town where the chief is. If not that, the villagers that are far away won't even be coming. And so sometimes there are people who will contribute to help the chief to do the work the Samban' luŋa wants. And sometimes the chief will not be able to make all the sacrifices that the drummer will tell him to do before he will beat to a certain extent. That is why sometimes a chief will ask a drummer to beat the Samban' luŋa, and the drummer will ask him, “Should I beat all or I shouldn't beat all?” If the chief is not strong, he will tell the drummer that the drummer should beat to the extent of the chief himself and his own chieftaincy. A chief who has no means will tell the drummer to beat only the extent that he the chief can stand.
And so the Samban' luŋa is following all this. Let's say the chief says the drummer should beat Naa Luro, there is some drumming we call Baŋgumaŋa. We don't beat this Baŋgumaŋa without blood coming out. You yourself know it: as you are a drummer, when you learned to beat this Baŋgumaŋa, you also killed a sheep for it. If they are going to beat this Baŋgumaŋa in the Samban' luŋa, sometimes they will kill a cow for it. This talk, how it is, they fear to talk about it, and the reason why they fear it is because if you talk it and give it to someone, and that person doesn't do the sacrifices, it won't be good. And the chiefs we beat Baŋgumaŋa for are two: we beat Baŋgumaŋa for Naa Luro, and we beat it again for Naa Siɣli. These two chiefs fought wars against the Gonjas. And so if they are going to beat Naa Luro, they will start Naa Luro's talk before they bring out the animal. And the point where he fought a war, it is at that time they will slaughter a cow or a sheep. Maybe it will be about two, three, or four o'clock in the morning. When they slaughter the cow or the sheep, women will cook. The drummers will finish beating Naa Luro's Baŋgumaŋa before the women will bring out the food and the drummers will eat. And then they will start again.
You know, when we sit for the Samban' luŋa, we look at the olden days' talks, and so it is something like reading. We read from the old talks and when we come to the place where the war was fought, and we come to talk about the time Baŋgumaŋa was first beaten, then we have to beat Baŋgumaŋa. That is why I told you that when we come to beat the Samban' luŋa, a chief who is strong will slaughter a cow, and a chief who is not strong will slaughter at least a sheep, because on the day of the war people died, and there was blood. If we beat the Samban' luŋa and come to the point where blood was coming out from the war, whatever happens, the chief has to let blood come out, too. I can tell you that.
And so if the leader of the Samban' luŋa sings up to Naa Luro's time, at that time the drummers will beat Baŋgumaŋa. This Baŋgumaŋa shows that the time Naa Luro fought and killed the Gonja chief, it was on that day that Baŋgumaŋa was first beaten. Naa Luro called a drummer to come and say talks and they would hear, and it was because it is good if you do a great work, you call somebody who will come and talk to you, and your bones will cool. And because of that, they looked to find a singer, and they came to call our grandfather Lunlana Lunʒɛɣu. And so if they beat and sing up to the time of Naa Luro, then they will sing about how Baŋgumaŋa was first beaten, and they will beat Baŋgumaŋa. When they start beating the Baŋgumaŋa, the women in the chief's house — the chief's wives and sisters — they all tie baskets and carry them on their heads. And the small children in the chief's house will put bells on their necks and will be making noise. And the young men and old men in the chief's house will hold bows and arrows. And they will be dancing Baŋgumaŋa. The meaning of tying and carrying the baskets is that when war is coming, people will pack things and carry them, and when they dance, they will be carrying the baskets and dancing, and they will be running outside the house while the Baŋgumaŋa is being beaten. Everybody will be happy. They will be blowing flutes and whistles, and the guns will be shooting, “Kpa!! Kpaa!! Kpaa!!” And that Baŋgumaŋa is Naa Luro's Baŋgumaŋa. As for the way they dance Baŋgumaŋa, you should not let it surprise you, because truly, it is for war.
Apart from Baŋgumaŋa, there is not any other dance that is danced when they are beating the Samban' luŋa. If they want to beat a different dance, it will only be if they have finished the Samban' luŋa. The time we went to Savelugu to hear the Samban' luŋa there, they were singing Naa Zanjina, and they came to the point when Naa Zanjina and the Dagbamba chiefs went to the Mamprusi land, and the Mamprusi chief came out, they were beating to show the way the Mamprusi chief came out and was walking. That music is not a dance; it is only something like the Mamprusi chief's Gingaani. They can beat that in the Samban' luŋa, but it is not a dance.
The meaning of Baŋgumaŋa is Bɛm bɔ ma, bɛ pam bɔ ma jɛ: “They will search for me, but they will not see me.” They are talking of Naa Luro, because the time trouble came, he was able to save Dagbon. And again, they are talking of those who have died in the war. And the reason why they are carrying the baskets is because they carried the baskets to the war, and they fought and won, and so the baskets didn't remain there. And as they were happy, it was good for the drummers to beat and they would dance, and they would carry the baskets and show, and they would carry their arrows and spears and their war-things. That is why all these things come out when they dance Baŋgumaŋa. You have gone to a war and you won the war, and your things have not remained there. That is the meaning of Baŋgumaŋa. After they finish the Baŋgumaŋa, they will eat, and then they come back to start it from where they left it, and they continue the Samban' luŋa, and they come up to the present. The time we saw them beat Naa Luro at Tolon, you yourself saw the animal that Tolon-Naa let them kill. And when it was daybreak, the drummer who beat it, they gave him a white gown, a white hat, and other things.
And a chief who hears the talk of Naa Luro, truly, if the chief did not know what is inside chieftaincy, he will get to know. How they have beaten and come to his grandfather Naa Luro, the chief will know that his grandfather Naa Luro did great work. And it is this drummer who has let the chief know that, because the drummer talked the old talks. And as the drummer has showed the chief that his grandfather did something great, the chief and all those who have gathered will get to know it, and they and the chief will know how a chief is also standing in our Dagbon. Even if the chief knew the talk of Naa Luro, he will get to know more about it.
As for Naa Luro, you will often hear them sing about Naa Luro at the Samban' luŋa. Why is it so? Naa Luro gave birth to four children who ate Yendi. Naa Luro gave birth to Naa Tutuɣri, and he also gave birth to Naa Zaɣli, and Naa Zokuli and Naa Gungobli. And again, if we are going to sing about Naa Zanjina, it is Naa Luro who gave birth to Naa Zanjina, because Naa Luro gave birth to Naa Tutuɣri who gave birth to Naa Zanjina. It is those chiefs who have been to war, their talks are very long and very important. As for the other chiefs, when you are talking their talk, their talks are not plenty. If a chief has gone to war, and he has given birth to many children, the drummer will talk about the way he went to the war, and how he fought the war, up to the time he finished the war, and then he will start with the children. That is why those chiefs, their talks are long. The chiefs who haven't gone to war, they also have talks, but their talks are not plenty like the ones who have been to war. If it is a chief who didn't go to war, they will only talk about the way he ate the chieftaincy, and the children he gave birth to, and the chieftaincies they also ate. The drummer will call all of their names, and when he is finished, the new one will come. That is how it is.
And if the chief wants to know more of the old talks about how Dagbon started, maybe he will ask them to beat Naa Zɔlgu. If it is a chief like Naa Zɔlgu, he didn't fight a war, but he gave birth to five Yaa-Naas. And inside drumming, too, he has talks, but his talks are not up to Naa Luro's talks. If a drummer knows him, he can beat him. That is how it is. Naa Zɔlgu's time is far, and they are going to mention some very old chiefs. As for them, they are far back getting close to those who started Dagbon. They are afraid of those old talks, and because of that, the chief will slaughter a cow. Whether the chief fought a war or not, they will slaughter a cow. They will stop and eat the food, and they will be coming down to Naa Luro. And so if they take Naa Zɔlgu and finish, then they come to Naa Zoŋ. That was the zuu. Then they come to Niŋmitrooni, and from there to Naa Dimani, and from there to Naa Yenzoo. And then it comes to Naa Zoŋ's son, Naa Dariʒɛɣu, because he ate before Naa Luro. That is how it comes. It follows the chieftaincy like that. We cannot jump from one to the other.
And so that is different from the way they will call Naa Zɔlgu's name if they are going to beat Naa Luro. As I have told you that the way drummers take it is that you start from the chief you are going to beat, then if you are gong to beat Naa Luro, you will start with his father who gave birth to him. That is Naa Zɔlgu. And so if you hear a drummer mention Naa Zɔlgu, it is not the same as a drummer beating Naa Zɔlgu. Old drummers say that the one you are going to beat and talk about, he is the one you take, and you will only call his father's name, the one who gave birth to him, but you won't talk his talks. And when they beat Naa Luro himself and finish, and they say he is dead, they will say that he gave birth to such-and-such children. And the chieftaincies all the children ate, and those who ate Yendi, in addition to him, they will call all of their names. That is how they beat it before they come to the next one.
And the chief who doesn't want that one and he says that they should beat him Naa Zaɣli, maybe he knows that his own grandfather is inside the talks. And they will beat it. The drummer will start it with Naa Luro, because Naa Zaɣli was Naa Luro's son, but he won't talk about Naa Luro's war and they won't beat his Baŋgumaŋa. And he is just going to show that Naa Luro was the father of Naa Zaɣli. He will start with that and then come to show how Naa Luro got married to Naa Zaɣli's mother.
Somebody who wants again will say that they should beat Naa Siɣli for him. This Naa Siɣli, we call him Andani, Andani the first, and so he is Naa Andan' Siɣli. As he has Baŋgumaŋa, too, it was that Baŋgumaŋa started only during Naa Luro's time, and Naa Luro was Naa Siɣli's grandfather. And Naa Siɣli collected his grandfather's work and finished it. And when they beat and come to that point, they will beat Naa Siɣli's Baŋgumaŋa. And so if they are going to beat Naa Siɣli, they will start from Naa Zaɣli because Naa Zaɣli was Naa Siɣli's father, and they will show that Naa Luro gave birth to Naa Zaɣli. And they will take it and be coming. The way drummers talk about it, after Naa Zaɣli died, then Naa Zokuli collected. And when Naa Zokuli was not there, Naa Gungobli collected. And when Naa Gungobli died, Naa Zanjina collected. And it was Naa Zanjina who ate, and after he died, Naa Siɣli collected. And so if the drummer wants, he will just say that Naa Zanjina died and Naa Siɣli collected, and that is Naa Zaɣli's son. And then he will enter into the talks of Naa Siɣli. And so he won't jump over any of the chiefs, he won't enter into their talks before he comes to Naa Siɣli. And so Naa Siɣli too has got Baŋgumaŋa, and we sometimes call him Naa Siɣli Baŋgumaŋa. On the part of Yendi, only he and Naa Luro have Baŋgumaŋa. Coming to Naa Siɣli Baŋgumaŋa's time, they will slaughter a cow or a sheep. And the chief will get to know that Naa Siɣli's father was Naa Zaɣli, and his grandfather was Naa Luro, and he will get to know Naa Siɣli's mother's name and how Naa Siɣli's father got his mother. And a chief who lets them beat this one will get to know more about his grandfathers and how they started.
Somebody might say he wants Naa Zokuli. And this Naa Zokuli, his father was Naa Luro. They will beat it for him. Somebody might say they should beat Naa Gungobli, and his father was also Naa Luro. They will beat it for him. And if the chief says he wants Naa Gungobli, they will start with Naa Luro and come up to Naa Gungobli. And Naa Gungobli's child didn't eat the chieftaincy of Yendi. And Naa Zokuli too, none of his children became the Yaa-Naa. And so if they beat all this for a chief, the chief will get to know that it is true that a chief can give birth to children and the children won't get to eat their father's chieftaincy. And if they are beating Naa Gungobli, they will show that it was only one of his children who ate chieftaincy. His children didn't eat any chieftaincy apart from Mion. Mionlana Mahamudu was the son of Naa Gungobli. And the chief will get to know that Naa Gungobli's child came to eat only Mion.
Somebody too might say they should beat Naa Tutuɣri for him. Naa Tutuɣri's father was Naa Luro. They will beat Naa Tutuɣri for him. And Naa Tutuɣri's son was Naa Zanjina, and they will come and beat Naa Zanjina. And again, if the chief asks for Naa Zanjina, they will start it with Naa Tutuɣri. And Naa Zanjina also fought a war, and he didn't finish the war before he died. He got up and many people followed him, and he was fighting the war before he happened to die at a town called Agbandi; it's near to Yendi. And it was Naa Siɣli who came and collected the chieftaincy. And so if the chief asks for Naa Zanjina, and they start with Naa Tutuɣri, they will show that Naa Zanjina was not Naa Tutuɣri's first-born son. Naa Tutuɣri's first-born son was Yelizolilana Gurumancheɣu. He was there and Naa Zanjina ate the chieftaincy. And Naa Zanjina's senior brother again was Sunson-Naa Timaani; he was there when Naa Zanjina ate Yendi. And so if they beat Naa Zanjina, before they come to the end, the day will break. And this chief who asked the drummer to beat Naa Zanjina, he will get to know that Naa Zanjina's senior brother was sitting down while he ate the chieftaincy. And so the chief will know that a senior son can be sitting down and a junior son will come. Naa Zanjina's father's children were many, and many of them were older than Naa Zanjina. And Naa Zanjina became the chief and left them. And all this is just plain and straightforward inside the Samban' luŋa. And so if they tell this old talk for the chief to hear, the chief will know that as for chieftaincy, it is luck. If you are an elder person and you are looking for chieftaincy, and a small boy or a junior person is also struggling with you to get that chieftaincy, if it happens that the small boy gets it and leaves you, then you will think back on the Samban' luŋa you heard from the drummers, that Naa Zanjina ate the chieftaincy and left his brothers. And by then you will forget about everything, and your heart will cool down, and you will be patient in your heart. You will know that it is God who gives.
And apart from that, if that chief didn't know, he will get to know that Naa Zanjina did a lot of work in Dagbon. During the time before Naa Zanjina, Dagbon was in darkness, and it was when Naa Zanjina came to eat Yendi that Dagbon's eyes were opening. As for Naa Zanjina, we drummers gave him a name that he lit a lantern and opened the eyes of Dagbon. That is a name of Naa Zanjina. What Dagbamba didn't know, he brought it. We didn't know how to perform funerals. We only knew that we would sit down and cook a certain type of food, and in seven days, that was all. And it was Naa Zanjina who taught us how to pray when someone dies. It was Naa Zanjina who brought maalams, and all the things having to do with Islam, it was Naa Zanjina who brought them. It was Naa Zanjina again who brought weavers and taught the Dagbamba how to wear clothes. It was Naa Zanjina again who brought sandals for lepers to be wearing on their feet, and who brought walking sticks for blind people. Truly, if you are going to talk about anything on the part of our customs in Dagbon here, you are only going to stand on the footprints of Naa Zanjina. And so we say that Naa Zanjina was the lantern of the Dagbamba. And if the chief didn't know how all these things came about, he will get to know that it was his grandfather who brought all of them for us. And so his grandfather did a great work in Dagbon.
Naa Zanjina gave birth to Naa Garba. And Naa Garba's talk is difficult, and no one would like to start with him and end with him in the Samban' luŋa. They usually come inside him and pass and come out. But if they beat and talk about Naa Garba, they will get to know that Naa Garba was not the first child of Naa Zanjina. Naa Zanjina's first son was Naa Jinli, and we call him Naa Bimbiɛɣu. And when Naa Zanjina died, it wasn't his first son Naa Bimbiɛɣu who ate Yendi. When Naa Zanjina died, it was Naa Siɣli who collected the chieftaincy. If you take Naa Siɣli to follow Naa Zanjina, that is how it should be. And if Naa Siɣli dies, Naa Bimbiɛɣu is to come. If you finish Naa Siɣli's talks, and you don't take Naa Bimbiɛɣu, and you go and take Naa Garba, that means that you have lost your way. We don't accept it in drumming. What is bad inside drumming: this chief has died, and this is the one following, but when you finish the chief who died, you don't bring the next one and go inside, but you take the one who is not next, to come and talk about him. That is the bad thing. The way we are talking and showing Yendi: Naa Luro is not there; his first son Naa Tutuɣri came. You don't go from Naa Luro to take Naa Zaɣli. That spoils the talk. You have to beat it the way the custom says they followed one another. You can't jump over anyone. If you mention their names one after the other, and you call their names of only two of their children, and talk about it, you don't have any blame. Then we say, “That is the level of his knowledge.” If a drummer talks, and it doesn't go far, as for that, it doesn't spoil the talk. That is the extent of his knowledge. The bad thing inside drumming is if you jump over somebody. That is how it is.
Naa Bimbiɛɣu was Naa Zanjina's first son, and the one following him was Nanton-Naa Musa, and the one following Nanton-Naa Musa was the chief of Korli, Kori-Naa Ali, and it was Naa Garba who followed Kori-Naa Ali. And at that point, the chief will know that none of Naa Bimbiɛɣu's sons ate Yendi. And as they have called Naa Bimbiɛɣu's name, they will show all the talks of how Naa Bimbiɛɣu came and ate the chieftaincy. When Naa Bimbiɛɣu died, Nanton-Naa Musa was following him, and he didn't take over, and Kori-Naa Ali was next, and he didn't take over. It was with one woman Naa Zanjina gave birth to Nanton-Naa Musa, Kori-Naa Ali, and three daughters who ate chieftaincy of princesses — Gundo-Naa Namkuliba, Yiwɔɣu Aminara, and Wolimbanilana Azima — and then came to give birth to Naa Garba. They were all one mother, one father. They were three women and three man among their mother's children. Gundo-Naa Namkuliba was senior to Nanton-Naa Musa and senior to Kori-Naa Ali, and Naa Garba was junior to all of them. They were all sitting down and Naa Garba came and ate the chieftaincy. It was Nanton-Naa Musa who said that he wouldn't leave Nanton to eat Yendi, and so we say that Nanton-Naa Musa was a paramount chief because his junior brother Naa Garba was eating Yendi. Kori-Naa Ali too, we also say he was a paramount chief because his junior brother was the Yaa-Naa. Anything they wanted to do, they did it. During that time, it was Nanton-Naa Musa's children who were eating Banvim, eating Tugu, eating Sagnerigu, eating Voggo, eating Lamashegu, eating Kpano. He took all these villages to be under him. If he were not senior to the paramount chief, he couldn't have done that. And so if they beat Naa Garba in the Samban' luŋa, they talk about all these people. Everybody will get to know that Naa Garba's senior brother was Nanton-Naa Musa, and they will get to know about how the chiefs are standing in Dagbon. That is why some drummers know it. If they didn't beat it, would anybody know it?
And so the reason why they are beating the Samban' luŋa is because they want to show the chiefs how chieftaincy is. They will show the chiefs who their grandfathers were, and how they married, and what they did, and how their fathers were given birth, and who their mothers were. They will get to know all this. And again, the drummer will also tell the chief that his father's senior brother was so-and-so, and his father's junior brother was so-and-so. There is no one the drummer won't talk about; he won't leave anyone out. As he is beating and he starts calling their names, he will call the names of all of them. And the chief who hears all this will get to know more about his family, and he will get to know that his family was good and not bad. The way the drummer will talk, he is going to talk something good about the grandfather or the father. And those who are sitting there listening, if they didn't know anything about the chief, they will get to know. It will be sweet for the chief. It is the Samban' luŋa that will show a chief how he started.
And so all this is the reason why we are beating the Samban' luŋa. And it's not the chief alone who will hear its talks. All those who are princes and they haven't eaten any chieftaincy, it is inside the Samban' luŋa that they will come to learn much about chieftaincy, and what their grandfathers did and how they collected their chieftaincies. And all those who are commoners and their fathers are not chiefs, as for them, it is the same thing. All of them, their grandfathers were Yaa-Naas. In Dagbon, if they call somebody and say, “This man is a Dagbana,” then he will have some family with the Yaa-Naa. Everybody in Dagbon here who opens his mouth and speaks Dagbani, he is a grandchild of a Yaa-Naa. They are all one. That is how it is. And so all Dagbamba are grandchildren of a Yaa-Naa. It's just that their fires died on the way, in the olden days, and now they have become commoners. And so if you are a Dagbana and you come to listen to the talks in the Samban' luŋa, you will get to know that from the beginning you were having a family relationship with the chieftaincy, but as time went on it happened that your family line's fire died and your door to chieftaincy was no more there, and you have no way to eat chieftaincy again. But if you listen to the Samban' luŋa, you will get to know more about your grandfathers and what work they did. Today, as I am sitting down, I am a drummer. And as I am sitting, I have grandfathers who were paramount chiefs. On my father's side, my grandfather was Naa Garba, and on my mother's side, my grandfather was Naa Siɣli. If not because of the Samban' luŋa, I wouldn't have known that, or if not because I am a drummer, I wouldn't have known it.
And so anyone, even a typical Dagbana, if you follow him very well and get into the details of his family, you will find that at one time his grandfather was the paramount chief. And any typical Dagbana who goes to listen to the Samban' luŋa will get to know that there is relationship between his family and the paramount chief. Let's say that as I am sitting here, I am not a Muslim but rather a typical Dagbana, and I give birth to a child. He wouldn't become a drummer. And he wouldn't become a maalam. He wouldn't become a butcher or a barber or a blacksmith. He will just be a typical Dagbana. That is how he is. But if he follows his family into details, by all means he will get to know that he has some relationship to the Muslims or to at least one of these groups. You see the Kambonsi, the soldiers of Dagbon. Many of them are Konkombas. And many of them are princes, too, because their grandmothers at one time married Yaa-Naas. As we Dagbamba are sitting here, we are mixed. And it is just what I have been telling you: if you yourself come and marry a Dagbana woman, and that woman also gives birth to a girl, and that child later grows up and marries a chief or a prince, won't her children have grandfathers on the side of the Yaa-Naas? Even those people we call black Dagbamba, they are the same people as the Tampolensis and Kantonsis. They don't enter into us: we call them black Dagbamba but they are not Dagbamba; they are under the Mamprusis. But if you follow them very well, you will get to know that they are also grandchildren of a Yaa-Naa. It's just that their fire died on the way.
I have already told you that some people's fire died long ago. Take for example that I am the son of a Yaa-Naa and I don't eat Yendi, and I happen not to get any small chieftaincy to eat. And I don't learn anything and I am not a maalam. And I just say, “I don't know any work, and I don't want to eat any chieftaincy. I only want to be called a prince.” And I give birth to my children and I die. And none of my children eat any chieftaincy. My children are going to remain like that, and none of my brothers' children are going to take them to be princes or anything. And my children will be growing up and giving birth to children. What have they become? They have become commoners, and we will call them Dagbamba. And in this case, it was I who killed their fire because I didn't eat any chieftaincy. If I had got a chieftaincy to eat, they would also have got a chance to eat. That is how Dagbon is. And so any Dagbana who goes to hear the Samban' luŋa will get to know something about his family.
And again, if they are beating the Samban' luŋa, those women who don't know anything about themselves will come out and listen. If these women come and the drummers happen to beat Naa Luro, there is a lot of talk about women inside. It was Naa Luro's wife who abused him and made him go out for war. And when he went and fought the war and won, it was his daughter who said they should beat Baŋgumaŋa for him, and so she was the one who started this Baŋgumaŋa. If women should come out and listen to this, they will get to know that from the olden days, their heads were strong, and they were proud. And so there are old talks on the part of women, too. And these are some of the benefits of the Samban' luŋa.
And so how it is, there are many ways a drummer can come and pass inside the Samban' luŋa. And as those who beat and sing follow different ways inside it, it is there that we get to see the extent of someone's knowledge, and how his sense is. And so as a drummer is singing the Samban' luŋa, he is looking for the road he is going to pass and his talks will fall nicely. If you are going to beat the drum, you want the ways that you can pass into it, and it will last and it will sweet everybody. What a drummer talks, that is the level of his knowledge. It can happen that a drummer is passing through a chief to come to another one, and he cuts it short. If he comes to enter into some chiefs, and he doesn't want to talk about them, that is his knowledge. That is why I am telling you that if a drummer doesn't learn Samban' luŋa very well, he can't beat it. That is why I say that our drumming is hard. There are some drummers who only know a chief's father's house. That is all. But they are drummers. The one who asks plenty, he will know the mother's side of the chief. He will know where a chief got such a woman and gave birth to such a child. When you go inside, you will talk all the necessary things before you come out, and then you bring the next one's name. But there can be a drummer who knows a talk deeply, and he won't beat it into details. And so if you want, you can beat it into details. If you don't want, you won't beat it. Whatever way you want, you can beat it.
Let me give you an example. Do you see the talk of Naa Garba? The talk of Naa Garba, as they have been beating it in the Samban' luŋa and Bandamda, there is some talk inside on the part of Naa Garba's mother. I told you that Naa Garba had three sisters and two brothers from the same mother and same father. The three women first and then the three men, their mother was Laamihi. She gave birth to all six of them with Naa Zanjina. How I have talked about Nanton-Naa Musa and Kori-Naa Ali, I told you that they are the senior brothers of Naa Garba. Their talk is inside Naa Garba. It is there, but it is not common to all drummers. I saw my brother Mumuni beat it at Nanton, and I even recorded him. He beat it inside Bandamda. This Bandamda is a different type of beating, but it looks something like the Samban' luŋa because they sing old talks about the past chiefs. Bandamda, too, they beat it in front of the chief's house during Ramadan, and people will gather to listen, just like at the Samban' luŋa. When they are going to beat it like that, if you are singing about Naa Garba, then you can go inside and talk all. It isn't all Dagbon drum children who can beat that. But when you are going to talk about Nanton-Naa Musa and Kori-Naa Ali, it is actually Naa Garba you are going to beat.
You will start it calling Naa Garba so that people will know you are beating Naa Garba. And then you say, “Somebody and his mother's children's children.” Nanton-Naa Musa was giving birth to his children. Kori-Naa Ali too was giving birth to his children. Was it not Naa Garba who was junior to them? The way you will count Nanton-Naa Musa's children, you will also call Kori-Naa Ali's children: somebody and his mother's children's children. You will call all of them to the extent you know, and then you finish, and you come to the time they gave birth to Naa Garba. And then you fall into Naa Garba, and you go straight. He took Yɔɣtolana, and he came and started giving birth to his own children. And so only a drummer who knows very well can beat this one. There are not many drummers who can do it. But if a drummer doesn't know how to take that path inside Naa Garba, there is nothing wrong.
And so if you call Naa Garba, then you mention their names so that people will know what it inside the talk. And you the drummer who knows well, if you are going to count all of Nanton-Naa Musa's children and count all of Kori-Naa Ali's children, then when you reach that place, you don't have to go into details. From Nanton-Naa Musa and Kori-Naa Ali and the children, then if you want, you come back to Naa Garba again. At that time you will see that among those sitting, nobody will be fed up, because Naa Garba's children are many. As you have added the brothers and their children, it has gone forward a little, and the people sitting down have heard it well. It will be sweet to them. And so you the drummer want to find ways to make the sitting nice. Inside the Samban' luŋa, if you are singing, you don't have to waste too much time. But if you go into it too much, there is nothing wrong. If you go inside a little, or you go inside much, it is not a worry. Inside our drumming, we used to say that those who know very well can go inside and come out within a short time. But if they don't go inside too much too, then there is no fault. When you go inside and come out, then you go to what you are still looking for to go forward.
And so you see Nanton-Naa Musa, Kori-Naa Ali, and Naa Garba: they have traditional god names that are given to them. Nanton-Naa Musa: the name is Buɣutandi. And Kori-Naa Ali: his name too is Buɣusaɣli. And Garba: his name is Bukari, but his traditional name is Buɣudabli. All these names started when their father had their mother and was giving birth. The first three children the mother give birth to were all women. And their mother Laamihi didn't accept it. She was the daughter of Naa Zokuli, and Naa Zokuli gave her to Naa Zanjina. And so she was from the same chieftaincy side. And Laamihi said she didn't want to marry and give birth only to women who would carry the kuŋmani, and not give birth to children who can dig the grave. Do you know kuŋmani? That is the calabash I told you about that women carry at the funeral of a chief. And so she went to ask the help of the buɣli, the god, to give birth to men.
This Laamihi was taken to the buɣli at Galiwe. That god is called Kpala. And they told the tindana there that she has been giving birth to only women, and the tindana should help her so that she will give birth to boys. And when she went home, and she slept with the chief, and she conceived a boy. The first boy she delivered was Nanton-Naa Musa. When he was born, they named him Buɣutandi. Tandi is the mixed sand they use to make a building, and so the name means that he is the foundation from the god, and at his outdooring he was also given the name Musa. And Laamihi said again she wanted a boy, and she was taken back to the Galiwe buɣli. And the next child she brought forth was Kori-Naa Ali, and his name from the god was Buɣusaɣli, that the god is sufficient. And she said again that she still needed to give birth to men, so that when she dies and their father dies, they will have people who can dig the grave and bury their father or their mother. And she went again to the god, and when she slept with the chief, she gave birth to a boy, and his name was Buɣudabli, the god's slave, and at the outdooring they named him Bukari, and that is Naa Garba. And so this buɣli at Galiwe helped Laamihi to give birth to these three men. And every Yaa-Naa, when he eats his chieftaincy, he goes to Galiwe to sacrifice to the god there. How they sing this story in the Samban' luŋa, if they want they will go into even more details about all of it.
And a drummer can sing Naa Garba and leave that talk out. If you don't say it, they won't say that you don't know Naa Garba. And all this is just from the knowledge. You can compare it somebody who can call the words in the Holy Qur'an. Inside drumming, too, we say that it's a story you are reading from a book. It is not something that is written down, but in drumming, we call it luŋ' saba — drum writings. It is drumming stories. And so it isn't all drummers who can just go inside like that, and if you don't go into details about them, it doesn't mean that you don't know it. You can know it but there is a way that you can beat Naa Garba alone and leave them, and there is nothing wrong. And so you can go either way. You can say that Naa Garba was given birth, and these are his brothers, and they have also been given birth. You can talk something about them, before going to Naa Garba. That is also the way they beat.
It isn't all Yaa-Naa's children's details they beat like that. They are one father, one mother, and this talk is inside. You see this Naa Garba, and Kori-Naa and Nanton Naa Musa: they are all one. In the villages, not all the people know it. If a drummer doesn't talk about it, the people who watch, already they don't know it. You will bring it before they will hear of it. But if you beat it at Nanton, they are Nanton-Naa Musa's people. If you are beating it like that, and it is Nanton, if you are a drummer who knows very well, and you go inside deeply, as for the people at Nanton, it will sweet them. Why is it so? Everyone in Nanton is the grandchild of Nanton-Naa Musa. You see how the whole of Nanton is: that is Nanton Naa Musa's family. If you go deep inside, people will enjoy it. They will want to hear everything about him. The way I saw my brother Mumuni beat it at Nanton, if he is going to beat it at Nanton, everything Nanton-Naa Musa and Kori-Naa Ali did before Naa Garba, if he doesn't talk it, the people of Nanton will not be interested in his beating. He has to talk about everything inside very well. Some of them might have known the story already, but still they want to hear it from him. Everybody will want to hear all of it. They will be sitting down. They won't go anywhere. And so Mumuni went inside deeply to talk about everything these two people did before Naa Garba. And he didn't leave out their mother and what she did to give birth to them. He talked about all of it. The people there have interest in it.
But if he would go to a different town to beat it, it would depend on the people there and how they are related to that side. That would show the extent he would beat. And so if you are going to beat Naa Garba's Samban' luŋa at Nanton, the people there will want you to go inside into details for them to hear. And there are other villages or towns too, if you are beating it, there are some people there who are related to these chiefs, and they will also want you to go inside. But if it is someplace like Karaga, many of the people there may not be related to that line Some of them will be interested in those details of the story, and some of them won't be interested. And so if you go to another town where it is not their line, you will only go inside small. There is a limit you will beat, just part of the way, and then you will come out. You will go inside just about three steps, then you will come out again. It will be all right for them. Then the thing will go smoothly. And so you the drummer, depending where you are going to beat these old talks, if you know the people there, you will know the extent of going into the details before you come out again to move forward with the Samban' luŋa. Then the whole thing will be nice.
And so inside Samban' luŋa, it is not standing that you have to talk every talk to the same extent. It is not by force. This is the way you should separate this talk. If you are going to beat it at Savelugu, or Karaga, if you go there, it doesn't matter that you are in a different town. You can beat it the way you want. If you beat it into details, it will rather give small drummers some mind to come and ask you more about it. A small drummer will think that one day, if he is going to beat Naa Garba, then he will also want to go into details. And so if you go into details, people will like it. And if you don't beat it, it doesn't matter. But whether you beat the details or you don't beat the details, the people who are at the Samban' luŋa are not involved. We have never gone to anywhere to beat the drum like that, and later we will hear in the town that what we beat, they didn't like it.
What we know is that when we choose a particular chief to beat, the chief we are going to beat it for can easily stop us to tell us that his strength is not up to that. But as for you the drummer, when you come out and start beating, you choose the way you are going to beat it. Anyone who is standing to watch, if it is sweet for him, or it is not sweet for him, if he doesn't like it, he can go home. Those who have come won't be standing there to give instructions that we should beat what they like. If the chief doesn't tell you to leave a chief, you continue your work. It is not inside our Samban' luŋa in Dagbon that you the drummer are going to beat Samban' luŋa, and you want to know the taste of the people. It is not inside like that. What you want is what you talk. Whether you go inside a talk deeply or you just go in short and come out, it is up to you the drummer.
And so all this talk is inside the Samban' luŋa, and it is we drummers who know it and beat it. Every drummer will learn it to the extent he can learn. And truly, I can say that we the drummers of Dagbon, we have tried. No one is writing this down. We get all of it with our ears and in our hearts. And how it is and how I see it with my eyes, if I look at everything, there are differences, and I see that everyone holds what he got up and met. And still, the Samban' luŋa is one. And as it is one, it is different. You will hear some things in the Samban' luŋa, and you will be confused. And when you follow it, you will see that it is in the calling of names that things separate inside the Samban' luŋa. And again, it comes from the way a drummer will take a talk and follow it. If he takes a different road to pass, many he won't count or include some part, but if you later come to hear someone enter that part that was not included, you shouldn't think it is a lie.
I am going to give you an example. Do you remember the question you asked me about Naa Bimbiɛɣu? Inside the Samban' luŋa, sometimes you will hear them sing about how they collected the chieftaincy things from these women and came to give them to the elders to hold. As I was telling you that if they beat Naa Garba or Naa Zanjina or Naa Bimbiɛɣu, they will beat and come to the part of how Naa Bimbiɛɣu got his chieftaincy. When Naa Zanjina died, it was Naa Bimbiɛɣu who was his Gbɔŋlana. Naa Bimbiɛɣu was sitting as Naa Zanjina's regent when Naa Siɣli came and ate the chieftaincy. And when Naa Siɣli died, Naa Bimbiɛɣu was also a prince of a Yaa-Naa. Naa Bimbiɛɣu's real name was Jinli, and the meaning of this name Bimbiɛɣu is something bad or something ugly. Naa Bimbiɛɣu was very, very ugly. It wasn't because of anything. When he was a child, he was attacked by yaws: it's a sickness which leaves some ugly marks. And so he was ugly.
And what you will hear in the Samban' luŋa is that when Naa Siɣli died, at that time it was the Yaa-Naa's sisters who were holding all the different dresses of the Yendi chieftaincy. And these princesses said, “Ah! He is ugly! Let's put the chieftaincy dress on him and see whether he will look handsome if he becomes a chief and he wears it.” And Naa Bimbiɛɣu was one day walking in the compound and his aunts told him that he should come. And they were beating with him, and saying “Bimbiɛɣu: ugly thing, ugly thing.” And they said, “You ugly man, come and let us put you in this dress and see whether if your time comes and you eat the paramount chieftaincy, you will look handsome.” And so these women were joking like that, and they took the dress and put it on Naa Bimbiɛɣu. And as soon as they put the dress on Naa Bimbiɛɣu, he was turning himself in the compound, and then he ran and took it outside the house. And you know, he wasn't supposed to take it outside; if he comes out from the house like that, it means he is the chief because they have put the chieftaincy dress on him. This chieftaincy dress, if they put it on a Gurunsi man, he will become the chief. Even if they put it on a dog or a horse, he will become the chief. How much more if they put it on a prince?
And so when they put the dress on Naa Bimbiɛɣu, he just ran out from the house. And the drummers say that the moment he came out, Akarima was sitting and my grandfather Namɔɣu was also sitting. And it was Akarima who saw him and knocked the timpana. And at that time, my grandfather Namo-Naa also came and cried. And he called Naa Bimbiɛɣu's name, and he said, “An ugly thing has come to the open and will not go and hide again.” And my grandfather Namo-Naa called another name, “Water from honey, no one will spit it out.” It was my grandfather Namɔɣu who called these names for him. Do you see the meaning? If an ugly thing has come out to the open, will it hide again? And again, you don't use honey-water to wash your mouth. As honey is sweet, do you think you can use honey-water to wash your mouth and spit it out again? Whatever happens, you will swallow it. You won't spit it away. And so Namo-Naa was singing that as Naa Bimbiɛɣu put on the chieftaincy dress, it was sweet to him. And so a Yaa-Naa's child will never wear the chieftaincy gown and remove it again. And Namo-Naa praised him again and called another name, “No matter how big a water yam is, it can never conquer a monkey.” If a monkey gets hold of a big water yam, the water yam is not too big for the monkey to eat: he will finish it. And so the meaning is that no matter how small a Yaa-Naa's child is, if he gets the Yendi chieftaincy, he will hold it. The chieftaincy of Yendi is never too heavy for a Yaa-Naa's child. And so Namo-Naa was showing that the dress they had put on Naa Bimbiɛɣu was fit for him, and they couldn't remove it again. And at that time he became a chief. And these were the names my grandfather called for Naa Bimbiɛɣu. And so it was his ugliness that they took to call him Naa Bimbiɛɣu. But his real name was Jinli, and he called himself “Fire made at the edge of a river; it was made by somebody who has medicine.” That was the name he called himself for the drummers. All these are Jinli's names. And so if they beat the Samban' luŋa and talk about this, then any chief or anyone who gets to hear it will know that this was how Naa Bimbiɛɣu ate his chieftaincy.
You asked me a question about this talk. How can they talk about Naa Bimbiɛɣu and come to talk about Akarima? These drums, the timpana, are outside the chief's house, and Akarima is the one who beats the timpana if something happens and they are going to announce it or if they want to gather people. We got the timpana from the Ashantis, and it was Naa Garba whose talk enters the Ashantis. And the time the timpana and the Akarima came to Dagbon here, it was the time of Naa Ziblim Bandamda. Naa Bimbiɛɣu died before Naa Garba came and ate the chieftaincy. And when Naa Garba died, it was Naa Saa Ziblim who came and ate. And it was Naa Ziblim Bandamda who came and ate Yendi when Naa Saa died. And that was the time when Akarima started in Dagbon here. And so as they are drumming and they show that Naa Bimbiɛɣu put on the dress, they say that he came outside and Akarima was the first person to see him, and Akarima fetched and sounded the timpana. And by that time, there wasn't any Akarima. And so how can they talk about it? It's not because of anything. I have told you that in the olden days, we Dagbamba used to beat a drum called dalgu that resembles the timpana. And they took that type of drum to call a name for Naa Daturli as Naa Dalgu. The dal' ŋmɛra, the one who beat the dalgu, in the olden days the work he was doing resembles the work of Akarima. If something happened, he would announce it. And now Akarima is standing in his place, and they use that name to call that person. And when they are talking about it, they won't separate the talk to explain how the timpana came to Dagbon here, but they will rather join the name of Akarima to the one who beat the dalgu. They only show things as examples, and in the talk of Naa Bimbiɛɣu, nobody has ever asked about where they got Akarima at that time. I haven't heard it. And so they talk about Akarima because it falls and fits inside the talk they are talking. It is not a fault.
And again, sometimes if you hear them beat the Samban' luŋa of Naa Luro, they will come to talk about how Naa Luro killed the Gonja chief, Kaluɣsi Dajia. Someone will talk and say that Naa Luro used a cutlass to cut off his head. And someone will say that Naa Luro shot him with two arrows. And someone will talk and say that Naa Luro chased Kaluɣsi Dajia, and Kaluɣsi Dajia climbed a tree, and Naa Luro took a spear to kill him, and the spear entered Kaluɣsi Dajia's anus and passed out his head. I have even heard people say that in the olden days, if there was a war, if they wanted to kill somebody and cut off his head, if the fellow was a chief, they would put the spear in the anus and through the head, and then they cut off the head. And it would show that if the spear is by the neck, and they use an axe or a cutlass to cut off the head, it means they have cut off the war. And what would be left would be the spear, and the spear was standing for the one who was cutting the head off the dead body. And this talk on the part of the spear, you will hear Naa Siɣli's Samban luŋa about Naa Siɣli's war with the Gonjas, and this talk will be inside on the part of how Naa Siɣli killed the Gonja chief Kumpatia. I also know it like that.
As for when they sing it like that, there is no fault inside. It is because of war. When you are going, any weapon you will get, you will take it. When you hear that they killed somebody in the war, there is no need to know that what kind of weapon they used to kill him. Bows, guns, spears, big sticks, axes, stones, something they can use to kill somebody: there is no difference. All are inside war. Its name is just “He died in the war.” And so I want to tell you and you will hear it well. The question you asked, inside our drumming we don't go inside like that. When they say somebody has fallen in the war, whether they used an axe to kill him or a spear, they have killed him. If you want to know that it is spear or cutlass or axe, as for that, we drummers don't take time to know it. We don't ask about that. When you cut off the head, then you beat Baŋgumaŋa. That's all. But the chief who didn't go to fight any war, they don't beat Baŋgumaŋa for him. Naa Siɣli and his grandfather, Naa Luro: they have Baŋgumaŋa. That is how it should be because the chief they did it. And when you beat a chief who did not go to war, you don't say he went to war. If you say he went to war, you have added a talk that was not there. If you beating like that, are you a liar or what? I have also been telling you that adding something that has never happened before, as for that, we call it a lie. What is the meaning of “something that has not happened?” That is why, when I am talking, if I don't say, “It is my father who talked to me,” then I will say, “My grandfather talked to me.” That is the meaning. A chief has eaten, and everyone knows it was this chief who ate. If a drummer adds a talk by saying that a different chief ate that place, everyone will know. And so that is what drumming doesn't want.
And so when you look at the Samban' luŋa, you will see that there are differences. And how every drummer will talk about our customs in Dagbon here, there are differences, too. But it isn't any fault. It's nothing. It only comes from how he learned it. And so such differences, we don't challenge over the differences like that. Everyone has the way he has asked. And so when someone happens to talk, you don't have to challenge. And your own, too, he wouldn't challenge with you. If his talk is more than yours, you can collect his and add it to yours. Dagbamba have a proverb: every child knows his home town's chief. I have been telling you that a drummer knows his town's talks. A drummer from another town will know his own town. Some of the differences are coming because everyone doesn't learn it from the same person. As for the chiefs they are going to beat, their names don't change. And the work they did, some of them did more than others, and it is not all drummers who know all these works. The drummer who knows all, when he comes, and he will talk plenty. Another drummer will talk about it another day, and he won't talk up to that point. It is the same chief too. That is how some of the differences are coming. Everyone and where he has asked and stopped. If you hear a drummer who is not able to talk to the extent another drummer talked, that is what he asked and he is standing. You don't have to say that he doesn't know.
If it had been that the time our grandfather Bizuŋ was there, and the time he died, if they had called all the drummers of Dagbon that they should come together and talk, and they said they would write everything about drumming down and put it into a book form, then we wouldn't have been having any different traditions or ways of beating drums. But by then, we also didn't know writing. And so if I am going to talk to you about the olden days in Dagbon here, you might ask, “You were not there. How did you get to know all this?” I will only tell you that an old person does not die. As I have said that, I want you to know that in Dagbon here, someone who hears is an old person. In Dagbon here, when a child gets up, he asks his father, “What was your father's name? What was your father's father's name? What work was he doing?” The father will tell him, and if the child has sense, he will know it. And he was not there. When this child becomes an old person, and the old person who taught him is not there, the child will still know it.
And so I'm going to talk to you about our drumming and compare it to the way of the Muslims. When the Holy Prophet Muhammad died, if it wasn't for Abubakari and Umar and Osmanu and Ali, the Islamic religion would also have come down in the same way as our drumming. When the Prophet was alive, the Holy Qur'an was not one whole thing. The time the Prophet was there, he had a lot of friends apart from the four I have counted, and the Prophet was giving them verses of the Holy Qur'an. And they were all having different verses and reading them. And the prophets who came before the Prophet Muhammad, their verses were also there. And these four came together and sat down, and they said that everything the Holy Prophet gave them in the Holy Qur'an and all the verses of all the prophets, they all had differences. And they said they would sit and put them together instead of having them separately. And even before the time of the Holy Prophet there wasn't any paper. When the prophets were coming into this world, they were bringing their verses and writing them on the skins of animals and sometimes on the barks of trees. And some of them were writing on flat stones. And different people were holding some of them and reading. And other people were learning the verses and holding them in their hearts.
And so when the Holy Prophet Muhammad died, it was his elders and followers who said that since the Prophet Muhammad was the last of the prophets, they should take all the verses and bring them together and put the Holy Qur'an into a book form. As the Prophet's followers were holding some of the verses in their hearts, and in different forms, and even some of them were writing their verses on the walls of their sleeping places, these elders looked and saw that if they didn't come together and put these verses into one form, then in a time to come, those who were following them wouldn't know all these verses. And if those people following them come, they also wouldn't know how all these verses came about. And there would be separate traditions of understanding the Holy Qur'an. And the Prophet's elders came together and got paper, and they brought all their verses and wrote them down, and they put it in a book form. And after they died, those people following them came and met the Holy Qur'an in one form. If not because of them, then Islam would have come down in the same way as our drumming. If not because of these followers of the Prophet who brought this talk and brought everything the Prophet told them into one form, then truly, there would have been a lot of confusion in Islam among all the Muslims. How they would have mixed things, it would have been more than what we drummers have.
And so you can compare this to us drummers. It was that our elders didn't come together and bring everything into one form, but rather everyone was living at his own place with what he learned. And they said that there shouldn't be any refusing. If our elders had brought everything together, if they had brought everybody who was drumming from his town or village to put our drumming into one form, then we would have been following one thing throughout, like the Muslims. But because they didn't do that, we have tried our best. And even the Muslims have got one book, but they have different traditions. And so I can tell you that the maalams themselves have been telling us drummers that we are very, very sensible and wise. These maalams say that if they want to preach without looking into the Holy Qur'an and seeing what is written there, they wouldn't be able to say anything. And so they say we have tried a lot to be talking about the past the way we do.
And so on our part, what we have been talking and saying about the past, it isn't that it is not there. It is there, but it follows different forms. Everyone has the extent of his knowledge, and everyone has the place where he learns. And that is what has let our talks become different. You will see a drummer, and what he is talking about, he heard it from his fathers and grandfathers. And you will be talking the same talk, but there will be some small differences inside your talk as compared to the drummer who also talked it. And maybe you also heard your talk from your own father. And so there was only one point our grandfathers put down about it, and they said that there shouldn't be any refusing. As the Samban' luŋa follows different forms, it doesn't mean that it is lies. If it were lies, it wouldn't be standing as our tradition. And so if you hear something from your father and I also hear something from my father, and we happen to talk, you shouldn't refuse mine and I shouldn't refuse yours. It is one talk and one tradition. It's just that Dagbon has got a lot of things, and one person cannot learn all of them.
And so to us drummers, on the part of our tradition and how we have been talking about our old talks, it isn't that our tradition is not one. It is one, but it was that the people who came before didn't put it together. Everybody learns the talk he can learn at his place. What you learn, if you go and say it to another person, he might not know it, or he might know it but not in the same way you know it. Maybe what you will say to him will open his eyes, and at that time you will become an old person to him. Somebody can listen to what one of the past chiefs said, and he will hear it from three different people. He will get to understand the talks of that particular chief to be three different types. And someone will happen to hear only one talk of that chief. And so if someone who has heard three different talks about that chief is talking, and you are there holding your one talk, you don't have to say that he is telling a lie. Maybe as he has three talks and you come to add your one talk to his, it will make four. You have only a single one that you say you heard about that chief, and he didn't hear it. Sometimes the one talk you have heard will push down all his three. If it happens like that, you don't have to tell him that he is telling lies, and he also won't say you are telling lies. It's only that he will bring his three and you will bring your one, and you and he will add yours together to make four. At that time, we will have four talks about that chief.
And so our drumming is one tradition. Let me give you an example. Inside Islam, if they are going to read the Holy Qur'an, they will start with the first page before they will bring any verse. There is something they will say before they will come to any verse: Osibilai, bisimilai, ahraman, ahrahim. It is just the same thing as in our drumming. We beat Namɔɣ' yili mali kpiɔŋ kpam: “The house of Namɔɣu has strength, plenty!” There is no drummer, if he is a Dagbana, who will put a drum under his armpit to beat and will not beat this one first. If this drumming were to be many different ones, we would have said that our talks have many different types. And every Muslim, if he is going to say anything, he will only say “the Holy Prophet Muhammad.” And that is also like us again. Any drummer, if he is going to say anything, he will only say “My grandfather Bizuŋ” or “My grandfather Namɔɣu.” Apart from these two people, there is no one to start with in drumming. It was Bizuŋ who gave birth to the line of Namɔɣu, and so the one joins the other, and there is no separation. And you can compare this to the Muslims. We don't have any book, but in our beating, we have only one beginning. We drummers came from the bone of Naa Nyaɣsi, and our grandfather Bizuŋ used to talk to the brothers and uncles and sons and grandsons of Naa Nyaɣsi, and they were showing him how Naa Nyaɣsi lived. And so our tradition is one. Everyone will hold what he can hold, and it isn't any matter. We have tried our best, and I think in my heart that we have also done well to remember all this. That is how it is.
As I have told you that what they have written down about our drumming, and they have put it into the schoolbooks, it is not following the way, as for their case, it is different. In the schoolbooks, what they talk about the olden days talk in the drumming, it is not correct. And again, it is not in the Samban' luŋa. Nobody will sing Naa Nyaɣsi in the Samban' luŋa. How much less will somebody sing Naa Gbewaa or Naa Shitɔbu? I told you that these people don't have names, and they don't have their Samban' luŋa either. What is inside the Samban' luŋa is there for everyone to hear. But the talks in the schoolbooks are not inside the Samban' luŋa. I want to tell you, and you should listen very well, and you should believe it: what they have written in the books is not correct, but someone who is reading it in a book form will always think that it is true. But those who wrote the books, they were not getting the truth. Those Dagbamba who taught them knew the talks, but they didn't agree to talk it to them. They thought that what they had learned from their fathers and grandfathers and elders, they shouldn't show it to people who were not Dagbamba so that those people would know the hidden things of Dagbon and take them to their place. And so when they talked these talks, they mixed lies inside. Some them are true, and some them are lies. And that is how it is. All those people who came here before you and tried to do your work, if you look at their work, you will see a lot of lies inside. It's not their fault. What they were told, that is what they took to write in their books. And those who talked to them, it's not their fault. Their eyes were not open, and they were afraid. How I am talking to you today, during their time, they couldn't talk like that.
It's now that we know that all this is nothing. It can't show anything. Rather, it will open the eyes of those who will be coming and following us. I have been talking to you about that. All that I'm telling you, if you go to ask somebody like me, and he's a drummer, maybe he wouldn't talk about the whole thing. Maybe he knows everything, but he wouldn't want to talk. Even if you collect the whole Tamale and give it to him, he won't agree. It's just that his eye-opening, or how he understands things, is different. He wouldn't understand that if he talks about it, in a time to come, it will help. In our Dagbon here, it will help. As I am sitting, I know that if I do this talking, it is going to help us in our problems here. But those whose understanding is hard, if you ask them to talk it, they will say that you want them to reveal our secrets. Maybe if you take this recording and give it to somebody to hear, or this recording is playing and somebody is listening, or you put it in a book and somebody gets to know of it, he will listen very carefully to everything up to the end: and the only thing which will come out of his mouth will be, “Look at that Dagbana who opened our secrets to this white man and collected money.” And somebody like me, I understand somebody like that. And again, I know that our talk is nothing like revealing secrets. The talks I am giving you, someone who knows the way of the Dagbamba will know that I am bringing out everything from my stomach.
And so it is good, if somebody opens his stomach for you, you too will also open your stomach for him. My heart is white: that is why I am talking to you. If I don't show you well, it won't be sweet. I am talking these talks because I trust you and what we are doing. That is why I want to give you the true thing so that you will catch it and put it down very well. If I don't show you the truth, I am afraid that if you take it and you are going to trust it, when it comes out, it won't be correct. The talk I am giving you is good, and it is because of you and the work we are doing: it is good for us to repair these talks and bring out the true talks and put them down. And so I want to talk to you so that you will listen carefully and hear it well, and you will be thinking about what I am talking so that it will enter your heart. The one who knows the quality of the material, even if the material is very dirty, he will still buy the material. That is why I am showing you this.
Truly, had it not been for us drummers, Dagbamba custom would have died off a long time ago. The chiefs themselves, they don't know the way they are. Whether your father or grandfather ate Yendi, or not, you wouldn't know. We used to talk to them, and they get to know that in the olden days, this is how they started and these are the places they were. We are talking it from our heads and not from inside a book. If we had been writing down our talks, we would have known more things about Dagbon, and Dagbon would also know more about where it is standing. As it is not something that is written down, if we didn't know it inside our heads, then by now in Dagbon, everyone would be living on his own without knowing anything. We wouldn't know our beginning. We drummers, we say that because of us, Dagbon is standing. We are the paper of Dagbon. If somebody wants to know something about Dagbon, and if you want to learn more about Dagbon from the beginning, then you have to see a drummer.
And so tomorrow, if God agrees and we sit, we will continue our talks, and I will talk to you about Naa Luro, and I will show you how the Samban' luŋa is moving.