A Drummer's Testament

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Chapter I-10:  The Work of Drumming

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Alhaji Ibrahim’s family background and where he learned drumming; his respect as a drummer; an example of Baakobli and market-drumming:  how Alhaji suffered and how he learned patience; the need to learn work well; learning both guŋgɔŋ and luŋa; the difference between those who have traveled to the South and those who only know Dagbon


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Supplementary material

Figures

Images


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Contents outline and links by paragraph

Alhaji Ibrahim's family lines in drumming

Alhaji Ibrahim’s parents

Alhaji Ibrahim’s youth

Senior drummers and drumming in Tamale

Traveling to the South

Patience and learning drumming

Alhaji Ibrahim as a young drummer in Tamale; the story of Baakobli

Differences among Dagbamba drummers; differences between Dagbamba and other drumming

Alhaji Ibrahim’s learnedness and respect

Differences between guŋgɔŋ and luŋa

Differences between drummers in Dagbon and in the South


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Proverbs and sayings

A human being is in two parts, father’s house and mother’s house, and if you like, you can say four parts.  If somebody asks you, you will talk about your father and talk about your mother, those two people, and you will come to talk about the ones who gave birth to them.

Worms:  they usually die together.

A wet fish can be bent, but a dry fish cannot be bent.
Zimmahili n-ni tooi pɔri, ziŋkuŋ ka tooi pɔri.

“He drums and they give him cow’s intestines to chew.”

“He drums and eats cow’s blood.”

“He drums and eats the worst food.”

A person cannot take a plain white thing and know its front and its back.  It is only God who knows it.

It is very difficult to look at bee's wax and know what is inside and what is outside.

If you take a white cloth and look at it, you cannot know the front of the cloth and the back of the cloth, or the right and the left of it.

What they don’t show you, you can never know.

If I say that my eyes are open too much and that people will not cheat me, then I will not get what I want.

If you want something, you should take patience, and you make yourself a fool, and you make yourself deaf, and you make yourself blind.  You will be deaf because when you go to search for wisdom, they will tell you something bad, and you will pretend as if you have not heard it.  And you will see them doing bad things to you, and you will close your eyes and say you have not seen it.  And you will know that they are doing bad things to you, and you will pretend as if you don’t know it.

You should make yourself foolish.  And make yourself deaf, and blind.  And you will know that you can see a lot and know that you can hear well.  And you will say that you don’t see and don’t hear.  If you say that, then we will all gain from one another.  That is the work of wisdom.

If you get wisdom, you should not say that no one will cheat you.

A wise person and a wise person cannot stay together.  It is only a wise person and a foolish person who can stay together.

A hawk has taken a dog's bone.  (Baakobli)

Namɔɣu’s house has strength, plenty.
Namɔɣ’ yili mal’ kpiɔŋ kpam!

Learning is in the heart.

If you want to build a house, you have to make the foundation very strong.

When you want to learn something, you should learn it very well.

When a lion is lying down, if a leopard wants to take some meat, the leopard cannot cross in front of the lion to eat it.

As for dancing and learning how to beat the drum, you don’t sit to learn it only in your town.

It is good if you roam when you want to learn something.

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Dagbani words and other search terms