A Drummer's Testament
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Why Dagbamba value children; role of children in the family; Dagbamba resistance to family planning; how children help their parents
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Supplementary material
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Contents outline and links by paragraph
Introduction
- 1. talk of children connected to talk of family
- 2. talk of children connected to householding and eldership
- 3. the scope of the topic
Having many children benefits the parents
- 4. more benefit from many children; at least some will help the family
- 5. children help in farming or buying food
- 6. family planning kills the family
Raising many children
- 7. have to care for all of them; don't know which will be good
- 8. buying clothes; both husband and wife help
How children help the family
- 9. as older ones grow up, they will help with farming and feeding the younger ones
- 10. children can help in the market or trading
- 11. children who farm or trade can help the father get wives for them
- 12. example: how Alhassan helped when he married his wife
The character of children
- 13. a good child respects himself
- 14. a child's character is from God
Training children
- 15. train children with work: farming and trading
- 16. mothers train daughters to respect husbands and in-laws
- 17. a child or grandchild will take up custom work, like drumming or butchering
More types of benefits of children
- 18. respect; someone with many children gets respect like a chief or a wealthy person
- 19. children help parent perform festivals
- 20. children can build a house for parents to live in
- 21. children can dig a well for the family
- 22. unexpected good works that children do for their parents: car, horse, cows, pilgrimage
Differences
- 23. some girls only help mother and not father; some help both
- 24. boys do more to help the parents
Other benefits
- 25. God helps and protects the world because of the innocence of children
- 26. children bring luck: good luck and bad luck
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Proverbs and Sayings
The sweetness of marriage is a child.
One person does not have a wife.
God will make a chief well, and a chief will make a commoner well.
It is God Who makes a person useless, and it is God Who makes a person good.
A useless child becomes a useless old man.
If somebody's wife cooks food and gives you and you eat, you will not be totally satisfied.
If you are a boy and you are not cool, whatever happens, by the time they get a wife for you, you will become cool.
Maalams say that if not because of small children and the animals in the bush, God would not have given us, the people on earth, rainwater to drink.
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Dagbani words and other search terms
- Musical terms
- Samban' lunga (Samban' luŋa)
- Names and people
- Alhassan (Ibrahim)
- Abdulai (Ibrahim)
- Ibrahim (Alhaji Ibrahim)
- Alhaji Adam (Mangulanga)
- Dr. Busia (Kofi Busia)
- Miscellaneous terms
- cedi, cedis
- chieftaincy
- maalam, maalams
- messaged
- pesewa, pesewas
- Towns and places
- Ejura
- Lamashegu
- Dagbon
- Cultural groups
- Dagbamba
- Dagbana