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First published in 1961 by Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.
This edition first published in 2018
by Routledge
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© 1961 International African Institute
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I
Foreword
FIRST met David Tait when he came to University College, London, in
1946, at the age of thirty-four, to read Anthropology in the department
we had just established there. He was one of a group of exceptionally
able students, several of whom have, like himself, since made signal
contributions to the work of the younger generation of anthropologists.
Most of them had also had overseas experience during the war years and
were correspondingly mature in their intellectual and social outlook.
Among them Tait was frequently accorded a moral leadership in student
affairs. For he combined great seriousness of purpose and intellectual
curiosity with a deep but unsentimental affection for his fellow men, which
was shown not only to his fellow students and teachers, but extended also to
the lives of the peoples who were the object of their studies in Social
Anthropology. His seniority in years and his unhurried deliberation in
discussion matched his large frame and gentle, if sometimes quizzical,
expression.
His earlier life had afforded an unusual and in many ways advantageous
preparation for the intensive study of strange societies. He left school early
—without enthusiasm for further academic study at the time—to train as a
textile designer in the north of England. Then, as his wife has since told me,
his interest in art, philosophy and history developed and, in connection with
one of the extra-mural courses he was pursuing, he was awarded a
Gladstone Memorial Prize for an essay on the history of education. He had
been planning to prepare himself for a career in social work, probably as a
probation officer, when war broke out and he joined the Friends Ambulance
Unit with which he worked in the East End of London during the early
years of evacuation and air raids. Later he went with one of the units to
Palestine where, despite a severe handicap of ill health, for which he was
later invalided home, he organized labour and works projects in a camp of
7,000 refugees near Gaza.
Back in England he assisted Miss Eleanor Rathbone, M.P., in her work
for refugees, and after her death served himself for a time as Secretary to
the Parliamentary Committee on Refugees. It was the experience of these colleagues had the greatest affection and admiration. For Tait had not gone
there for a tour or two. He had identified himself closely with what has now
become the University College of Ghana and with the future of the country
it was founded to serve. The College has recognized the importance of his
work and of his contribution to the early years of its own development in
the generous grant that it has made towards the costs of publishing this
collection of his studies on the Konkomba. For its part, the International
African Institute is most grateful to the Publications Board of the College
for responding so readily to a request for a grant to enable it to undertake
this publication. It is also greatly indebted to Dr. Jack Goody, who has
contributed the Introduction to this volume and whose own field researches
among neighbouring peoples have enabled him to bring to the task of
collating and editing the texts of the several studies his intimate knowledge
of the region and its peoples. A full list of David Tait’s publications and a
bibliography of other works on the Konkomba will be found at the end of
this volume. Although, inevitably, it cannot be the polished and definitive
study that Tait would have hoped to have written himself, we believe that
the book will prove valuable to students and scholars as well as a fitting
memorial of the work of a very able and much loved anthropological field
worker. DARYLL FORDE
International African Institute
October 1960List of Illustrations
PLATES
David Tait with two Konkomba elders
I
(a) A compound
(b) Inside a compound
II
(a) In Kakã market
(b) A sacrifice in a compound: Mada sacrifices to his ungwim
III
(a) The young men dance at Kenatshu
(b) A dead woman’s co-wives dance at her funeral
MAPS
The position of the Konkomba in Ghana
Distribution of Konkomba tribes in Dagomba and east of the river Oti
Distribution of Riverain Konkomba
FIGURES
1. Seasonal activities
2. Market space
3. Structural space of Konkomba
4. Marriage prohibitions
5. Relationship between a husband and wife
6.
7. Illustrations of marriages between extended houses9.
10. Births in agnatic and uterine generations
11. Betrothals in agnatic and uterine generations
12. Links between clans
13. Matrilateral kinship terms
14.
15. Affinal kinship terms
l6. Plan of a compound
GENEALOGIES AND HAMLET PLANS
I. The Benangmam of Kitiak
II. The Bekumbwam of Saboba
III. The Benalog of Nalogni
IV. The Bwakwintib of Bwakwin
V. The extended house of DongwiTables
I Marriages arranged by tribe
II Marriages arranged by distance
III Population of three districts
IV Numbers of lineage members, living and dead
V Composition of households in three clans
VI Wives of household heads
VII Marriages of men of three clans showing first marriages and
remarriages of women alive and dead
VIII Relation of first husband to second in widow inheritance
IX Percentage of relationships of first husband to second in widow
inheritance
X Disparity of age between husband and wife: all marriages
XI Disparity of age between husband and wife: first marriages only of
the wives
XII Disparity of age between husband and wife: remarried widows only
XIII Marriage frequencies of men by age set
XIV Range of marriages by age set
XV All marriages and betrothals of men of one major lineage by age set
of men
XVI Households grouped by age set of the head
XVII Composition of households on a common basis of ten households per
age set
XVIII Kin of household head: cumulative totals
XIX Kin of household head: percentages of total
XX Average of marriages by age set
Graphs
I Marriages of men by age set reduced to ten men per set
II Mothers of compound heads in households by age set of the headsIII Range of actual marriages against the mean
IV Showing all marriages and all betrothals for the men of Kotodo by
age set on a common basis of ten men per set
V Mean size of household against the range by age set of the heads
VI Means of family, extended house, and minor lineage kin in
households by age set of the heads
VII Cumulative totals of family, extended house, minor lineage, and total
kin in households by age set of the heads
VIII Cumulative totals of family, extended house, and minor lineage kin
shown as percentage of total household by age set of the heads
IX Minor lineage kin in households by age set of the heads
X Wives, sons, and daughters of compound heads by age set of the
heads
XI Younger brothers and their wives in households by age set of the
heads
XII Sons and daughters of younger brothers and elder brothers in
households by age set of the headsT
Introduction
HE aim of this bóok is to make available in one volume David Tait’s
writings on the Konkomba, published and unpublished. This means
that two of his most interesting articles ‘An Analytical Commentary
oh the Social Structure of the Dogon’ and ‘History and Social
Organisation’, as well as his entertaining ‘Food in the Northern Territories’,
have been omitted from this selection.
The first part of the book consists of the doctoral dissertation on the
political system which he submitted to the University of London in
September, 1952. This was briefly summarized in an article ‘The Political
System of Konkomba’ published in Africa the following year and not
reprinted here. Much of the third and some of the fourth chapters appeared
posthumously in his contribution to Tribes Without Rulers (1958), a book
which he planned and edited together with Dr. J. Middleton. I have here
used the text of the thesis, but I am most grateful to Messrs Routledge and
Kegan Paul for their permission to include two passages from that article
(Tribes Without Rulers, p. 186, lines 10–15 and p.189, line 40 to p.190, line
6). The remainder of this volume consists of published papers on various
aspects of Konkomba life, but mainly on the domestic organization and the
religious system. I am indebted to the editors of Africa, the Bulletin de
l’Institut français d’Afrique Noire, Man, The Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute, African Studies and Universitas for permission to
reprint these articles.
The first ethnographic survey of Northern Ghana was carried out by R.
S. Rattray and published in 1932 as Tribes of the Ashanti Hinterland. A few
years later Meyer Fortes began his fieldwork on the Tallensi, the first
intensive study by an anthropologist of any of the peoples of this region.
After the Second World War, David Tait was appointed to a lectureship at
the new University College of the Gold Coast and started work in the
important chiefdom of Dagomba. However at this time the Government of
the Gold Coast were more interested in research among the non-centralized
peoples on their borders, the ‘Lobi’ in the west and the Konkomba in the
east. I myself had applied to the Colonial Social Science Research Councilfor a grant to work among the Lobi, but the Administration preferred to
have a study done on the eastern side. David Tait had already been greatly
attracted by the Konkomba, some of whom live under the jurisdiction of the
Dagomba, and he had thought of doing fieldwork among them at some time
in the future. Hearing of the possibility that I might be asked to go to the
Konkomba, he suggested that he alter his timetable and first turn his
attention there, a plan which was thoroughly agreeable both to the
Administration and especially to myself, who was now free to undertake the
research I had planned.
I mention this matter in order to explain the sequence of David Tait’s
periods in the field, which were as follows :
April, 1950–January, 1952. From April until about August of 1950 he
worked in Dagomba, for the remainder of the period with the Konkomba.
Easter vacation, 1953. One month in Dagomba and Konkomba with J.
D. Fage and A. Spicer recording languages and traditions.
During the academic year 1952–53 he is thought to have made a further
visit to the Konkomba and also to have worked on the descent groupings of
the Gã (Accra region).
Christmas vacation, 1953. He made an expedition around the perimeter
of the Oti plain to study special aspects of some of the larger Basare and
Konkomba clans.
Easter vacation, 1954. In Dagomba.
Christmas vacation, 1954. Among the Wala, the inhabitants of a small
Mossi-speaking state in the north-west of Ghana.
April–October, 1955. In Dagomba, which he again visited for very short
periods during the following Christmas and Easter vacations.
I have not found it an easy task to edit the uncompleted work of a fellow
anthropologist. On the one hand, I desired to print as much as possible of
his material and to place his thesis before the reader exactly as it was
written. Several reasons caused me to modify this attitude and to introduce
some small changes. Every anthropologist, as he becomes more
experienced, improves upon his first analysis of the fieldwork data, and
David Tait was no exception; even during the few years he was publishing
he made changes of this sort, and doubtless would have made others too.
While I cannot specify the latter, I can attempt to make consistent, either in
the text or by footnote, the earlier and the later formulations. In the second
place, we do not work as isolated individuals but as members of anacademic community, and, as in all societies, communication is only made
possible by the adoption of common forms. I have therefore made some
changes to conform with the usage of other writers. For example, although
David Tait had previously written of the local shrine in a district as a Land
Shrine, I have substituted the phrase Earth Shrine which has been used by
Fortes and myself for a very similar phenomenon. It seems to me of great
importance to draw attention to the common features of societies, otherwise
ethnographic reports will become more and more difficult to read, not
because of increasing depth of analysis but merely because of variations in
terminology.
My third reason for introducing minor changes has been an attempt to
make understanding easier. I found parts of Chapter 6, ‘The Lineage over
Time’, difficult to follow, and I have tried to clarify this by employing
distinctions of my own between fission, partial and definitive, and
segmentation. It seems confusing to use the term segmentation, as some
have done,1 both for a process of change within a lineage system as well as
for that regular process, which characterizes any merging series, whereby
sub-groups distinguish themselves, or stand opposed, in certain contexts of
action, and are identified in other situations when confronted with groups of
greater inclusiveness, of a higher order of segmentation. I have discussed
these definitions in earlier publications; but I believe I there obscured the
issue by accepting a distinction between fission and segmentation, which
spoke of the first as a process and the second as a state.2
One other change that I have made has been in the term used for the
main ritual officiant among the Konkomba, the otindaa. In his survey of
Northern Ghana, Rattray translated the Nankanse equivalent ten’dana as
Chief-Priest or Priest-King, though he gives as the literal translation ‘owner
of the land’. This he regards as similar to the Ashanti asasewura, the title
sometimes given to Akan chiefs in respect of certain of their ritual
functions.3 Fortes in his analysis of the Tallensi spoke of virtually the same
ritual officer as the Custodian of the Earth shrine. In my own accounts of
the LoDagaa I have followed Fortes’ usage; for the phrase provides a good
translation of the term te gaansob, sob meaning ‘owner’ or preferably
custodian, te gaan being the name of the Earth shrine. Among the
LoDagaa te gaan also refers to the land associated with a particular Earth
shrine, which’ forms an area of ritual jurisdiction I have called a parish. An
equally acceptable translation might therefore be ‘owner (custodian) of theacademic community, and, as in all societies, communication is only made
possible by the adoption of common forms. I have therefore made some
changes to conform with the usage of other writers. For example, although
David Tait had previously written of the local shrine in a district as a Land
Shrine, I have substituted the phrase Earth Shrine which has been used by
Fortes and myself for a very similar phenomenon. It seems to me of great
importance to draw attention to the common features of societies, otherwise
ethnographic reports will become more and more difficult to read, not
because of increasing depth of analysis but merely because of variations in
terminology.
My third reason for introducing minor changes has been an attempt to
make understanding easier. I found parts of Chapter 6, ‘The Lineage over
Time’, difficult to follow, and I have tried to clarify this by employing
distinctions of my own between fission, partial and definitive, and
segmentation. It seems confusing to use the term segmentation, as some
have done,1 both for a process of change within a lineage system as well as
for that regular process, which characterizes any merging series, whereby
sub-groups distinguish themselves, or stand opposed, in certain contexts of
action, and are identified in other situations when confronted with groups of
greater inclusiveness, of a higher order of segmentation. I have discussed
these definitions in earlier publications; but I believe I there obscured the
issue by accepting a distinction between fission and segmentation, which
spoke of the first as a process and the second as a state.2
One other change that I have made has been in the term used for the
main ritual officiant among the Konkomba, the otindaa. In his survey of
Northern Ghana, Rattray translated the Nankanse equivalent ten’dana as
Chief-Priest or Priest-King, though he gives as the literal translation ‘owner
of the land’. This he regards as similar to the Ashanti asasewura, the title
sometimes given to Akan chiefs in respect of certain of their ritual
functions.3 Fortes in his analysis of the Tallensi spoke of virtually the same
ritual officer as the Custodian of the Earth shrine. In my own accounts of
the LoDagaa I have followed Fortes’ usage; for the phrase provides a good
translation of the term te gaansob, sob meaning ‘owner’ or preferably
custodian, te gaan being the name of the Earth shrine. Among the
LoDagaa te gaan also refers to the land associated with a particular Earth
shrine, which’ forms an area of ritual jurisdiction I have called a parish. An
equally acceptable translation might therefore be ‘owner (custodian) of theparish (local Earth)’. Following Fortes I use Earth with an initial capital to
indicate that here it is primarily the mystical aspects of the earth or land
which are referred to.
In his previous papers on the Konkomba, Dr. Tait referred to the Earth
shrine as the Land shrine and the Custodian of the Earth shrine as the
Owner of the Land. I want to make the point that despite the differences in
usage, the offices called by these various names are strictly comparable. It
seems advisable therefore to retain one term, so that the task of the student
of West African social systems is not rendered more difficult than need be.
With this in mind I have substituted the phrase ‘Earth shrine’ for ‘Land
shrine’. Perhaps inconsistently, I have not replaced Owner of the Land by
Custodian of the Earth shrine but by Owner of the Earth. This I have done
because I did not want to depart too radically from David Tait’s previous
usage, as it might have led some readers to think that two different offices
were being spoken of. Secondly, the phrase which Fortes and I have
employed is certainly rather cumbrous for continual usage, and thirdly, the
Konkomba word, like the Nankanse and Ashanti cognates but unlike the
LoDagaa, does not contain any specific reference to the shrine but only to
the Earth. ‘Owner of the Earth’ is better than ‘Owner of the Land’ for it
emphasizes that the office is essentially a religious one. ‘Earth priest’, or the
‘Master of the Earth’ of French ethnographers, would in some ways have
been still more appropriate, for they avoid the possible error of suggesting
that the office has anything to do with the ownership of the land in the usual
sense of the phrase. On the other hand, Rattray’s ‘Chief-Priest’ or ‘Priest-
King’ seem to me unacceptable in that they imply another sort of political
functionary; indeed these terms clearly represent a momentary glimpse of
the Golden Bough in the orchard bush of the West African savannah.
There is a final point which requires an editorial comment. The reader
will notice that in his first paper to refer to the subject of witchcraft and
sorcery, ‘The Role of the Diviner’, here reprinted as Chapter XII, Dr. Tait
speaks of the Konkomba osuo as a witch. Subsequently, in his article called
‘Konkomba Sorcery’, he translates the word as sorcerer. The point is that
the Konkomba, like the nearby Gonja, refer to the practitioners of what
Professor Evans-Pritchard, and the Azande, distinguish as the techniques of
witchcraft and sorcery by one and the same word. Hence both are possible.
I believe that Dr. Tait changed his terminology because he felt that
Professor Evans-Pritchard had laid great stress on the hereditary nature ofAzande witchcraft, whereas among the Konkomba transvection, like the use
of harmful medicines, is learned. I have left the different usages as I found
them, and I merely draw attention to what might otherwise appear to be an
inconsistency.
Orthography
In his doctoral thesis, Tait employed the Roman alphabet to transcribe
Konkomba sounds, adding that the letter ‘j’ should be given the value of the
‘y’ in the English ‘you’ and ‘z’ that of ‘ge’ in the French ‘rouge’.
Subsequently, in his published work, he employed the simple phonetic
alphabet recommended by the International African Institute. This means
that certain tribal names are differently transliterated in the later sections. I
have not attempted to rationalize this situation; to introduce the phonetic
spellings into the earlier section would mean that the names on the maps
would be partly in one alphabet, partly in another. I am clearly unable to
reduce all the Konkomba words to the phonetic script; and although I could
have made the reverse change from phonetic to Roman script, I have
thought it advisable to leave the more accurate forms unchanged.
