A Drummer's Testament

drummers <Home page>

Chapter III-14:  How Children Live When They Are Young

<PDF file>

How children live with their parents; eating; friends and peer groups; games and dances of children; how children are trained; formal education:  Arabic and English schools; vocational training



<top of page>

Supplementary material

Images

Audio files

Use the audio player to stream a selection at higher quality.
For those with limited bandwidth or older browsers, click on the named link to play the selection at adequate quality in a separate tab or window.


<top of page>

Gumbɛ drumming (Tamale 1981)

Gumbe  (3:39)

Simpa recordings

Young Boys Simpa  (Tamale 1971)

Part 1  (47:52):  song breaks at 7:34 / 16.:32 / 21:20 / 31:55 / 37:43 / 42:56

Part 2 (24:01):  song breaks at 3:44 / 14:02 / 18:14

E.K.'s Simpa  (Tamale 1971)

Part 1 (21:44):  song breaks at 7:32 / 10:25 / 18:07

Part 2 (47:30):  song breaks at 8:19 / 16:43 / 22:13 / 25:53 / 33:42 / 40:05

Part 3 (20:45):  song breaks at 10:30 / 18:29 / 19:40

Bombay Simpa  (Tamale 1971)

Part 1 (16:14):  song breaks at 3:04 / 8:32

Part 2 (26:08):  song breaks at 3:01 / 6:12 / 9:49 / 13:47 / 21:54

Part 3 (48:25):  song breaks at 8:07 / 16:52 / 27:39 / 34:38

Part 4 (47:51):  song breaks at 8:35 / 19:08 / 25:30 / 32:50 / 38:03

Alibela  (Tamale 1971)

Part 1 (27:33):  song breaks at 9:58 / 16:50 / 20:25 / 23:05

Part 2 (47:42):  song breaks at 5:15 / 10.:39 / 15:43 / 20:55 / 25:46 / 31:22 / 35:32 / 40:49

Part 3 (47:49):  song breaks at 7:27 / 14:29 / 19:08 / 30:06 / 35:19 / 39:08 / 43:37


<top of page>

Contents outline and links by paragraph

What the parents teach a child

How children eat

How children mingle and play

Kpara ni Jansi, or Atikatika

Dances children dance

Games children play

School



<top of page>

Proverbs and Sayings

They show a child everything, but on the part of food, they don't show a child much.

When a fish is dry, you cannot bend it.

If a child is young and you beat him and he becomes hardened, then you cannot keep him again.

You cannot force a child, because a child is not a sheep that you will tie.

You will hold a child with the tongue, and you will hold him with the eyes.

The name of the child is:  “It is there.”

How children live, where there is no eating, you won't see them there.

A child plays in the house where he always eats and is satisfied.

When you see children gathered, playing, if you look inside the children, you will see the one who is the leader among them.  If you watch and look, you will come to see that they eat in his house.

Good children don't want to eat alone.

“Good thoughts, good thoughts:  they do good works.”

If a child roams, he will learn how to live.

When children gather, old people look at them,

Inside the playing of the children, the children have talks.

How a child starts is how he ends.

Where children are gathered, whatever happens, when they are going to disperse, if there is no quarrel there, then you must know that some bad thing is lying there.

How children live:  “Come let us fight; come let us play.”

You shouldn't enter into the quarrels of children.  If you enter their talks, you will come to stand alone.

Every child is everybody's child.

A child's fighting does not go far.

A talk that has never happened and you do it, you will see some talk that has never happened.

When a wolf cries and a goat is lost, who has caught it?

What is forbidden, no one has ever seen it.

What is forbidden does not walk.  It is only watching you will watch.

Trouble does not come because of nothing, and if trouble wants to come, it goes to attach itself to something.

Just like the way that no one will remain in this world:  every talk has got its meaning.

Baboons and monkeys:  they look like one another.

It's not all dances I go to stand and look, because a dance you are not supposed to see, you don't go to look at it.

It is proverbs which a person takes to do work.

If you want to see our Dagbon way of life, you watch the children, because it is the children who start it.

Children bring good things into a town.

It is where people are many that a person gets sense, and it is where there are many people that there is foolishness.

It is in the schools that the children learn to live with one another.


<top of page>

Dagbani words and other search terms