Chiefs, Priests, and Praise-Singers: History, Politics, and Land Ownership in Northern Ghana

4. Chiefs and Tindanas: Making Nam

Chiefs and tindanas Making Nam 4 The data are scanty, the rituals not exactly the same, but the correspondences among rituals undergone by chiefs in Nanun, Mamprugu, Dagbon , and even Taleland are so close that we must assume a common origin and therefore reconsider the history of Dagbon. So far from being the product of alien intrusion, the kingdoms, like the stateless societies , could be regarded as separate developments on different lines from a common cultural base; the stateless, or “egalitarian,” societies are those that “refused” to develop hierarchies from the same base.1 That argument is advanced for Southeast Asia by J. C. Scott, following E. R. Leach, but it was also put forward by Luc de Heusch with respect to the Kuba and Lele peoples of Kasai, in Central Africa. One of these two peoples of similar language and culture, the Kuba, developed a fully fledged “divine kingship,” supposedly founded by conquest. The Lele, on the other hand, “neutralized a nascent structure of subordination” by inserting a kingship , similar to the other in many ways, into a system of exchange marriage that resulted in an “egalitarian” social structure. The comparison, as De Heusch says, poses concretely the problem of transition from kinship to kingship, “du clan à l’Etat.”2 Although Central African kingships are distant from northern Ghana in space and culture, certain parallels are highly suggestive. A chief becomes such by “enskinment.” In Dagbani the act is n’legi na, “to make someone a chief”; nam le bu, “enskinment, making nam.” In simple versions, for minor skins, the candidate wears a gown, ideally of undyed homespun cotton, which will one day be his shroud, and a tall white cap. He is ceremonially lowered three times onto a cowskin, said to be a sign of wealth. Afterwards the chief is paraded amid rejoicing, preferably on a horse, even though he may not own one or ever mount one again. The installation of major chiefs is considerably more elaborate; it 110 CHIEFS, PRIESTS, AND PRAISE-SINGERS may take place in stages, last for more than a week, and require the participation of ritual experts and tindanas. In addition, certain chiefs are inducted into their domains with additional ceremonies in which the principal theme is that the chief is dependent upon the authorization of the local tindanas. The form of the induction is that of a rite of passage, a shedding of one identity in order to assume another. It takes place at night, requires passage through a series of villages, bathing, medicines, a change of clothes, and a period of seclusion, and it is directed by shrine keepers and officials, who refer to the chief as their escaped slave. Despite his enskinment as na, it is only after undergoing this rite that the chief achieves recognition as such. A similar sequence has been observed in the kingdoms of Nanun and Mamprugu, and there are even suggestions of it among Talensi, who are well known for not having a “kingdom.” To have in mind a model of chieftaincy and even to undergo a ritual may not mean much, however, unless appropriate political resources are at hand. Who is and who is not a “chief” ultimately depends not on rituals or definitions but on the distribution of political resources. Making Nam In Dagbon the most elaborate and powerful rituals of enskinment take place at Yendi in the Katin’du, the section of the royal palace allocated to the third of the Ya Na’s wives, Katini, who vacates it for the event. Only some of the highest chiefs, those who have reached their “limit,” beginning with the Ya Na himself, are enskinned in the Katin’du; they include most, but not all, of the Original Elders, the Yogu Kpamba: Kuga Na, Bagale Na, Gushie’Na, Gulkpe’Na, Sunson Na, Yelzoli Lana, and Gundo Na.3 The enskinment of a new Ya Na begins with the burial and then the funeral of his predecessor, followed by the installation of a regent, the gboŋlana, lit. “owner of the skin,” normally the king’s oldest son.4 Much of the protracted dispute between the Abudu and Andani gates of the royal family after 2002 turned on the principle that the proper performance of these rites was essential to qualify the children of a Ya Na as potential future kings. The regency is a period of intense political activity on the part of the candidates and their supporters. “Traditionally,” or in principle, a new...