BOOK II THE RETURN AT LAST Chapter I: Early Days in Ghana Part II: Upper East Region

Part II: Upper East Region

Abdul arrived with stiff joints at the Bolgatanga market at 8.30 after an hour’s drive through the savannah region interrupted by the Tongo Hills near the town. Bolgatanga, inhabited by the Gruhi, was a small metropolitan area with plenty of bustling activity. Houses in Bolga were also mainly one storey high and made of concrete and straddled with aluminium roofing sheets. Having seen markets at the coast, in the forest zone, and in the middle section of the country, he thought visiting a northern one would complete the picture of markets in Ghana.

Bolga market which formed part of the historic Trans-Saharan Trade Routes was a hive of activity. Sellers displayed renowned straw hats, baskets, leather goods, metal goods, and traditional clothing. Buyers and tourists milling through the narrow alleys bargained for them. While enjoying the lively atmosphere, Abdul wished he could tell which of the customers chatting with traders from the region about their wares were from Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Taking pictures with the permission of hospitable local women wearing colourful clothing and headgear quite distinct from other regions, Abdul wondered which atmosphere prevailed at the Bolga market when it used to be a terminus on the ancient Trans-Saharan Trade Route. Certainly as gay as this, if not more. But the slave routes later certainly were all melodramatic, especially when the eastern route from Northern Nigeria came through Bawku and converged at Bolga with the Sahelian route from Mali via Burkina Faso. 

Abdul left the sights, the sounds, and the smells of the Bolgatanga Market for Tengzug village 17 kilometers southeast of Bolgatanga in a taxi he had hired for the in and out journey to see the Tongo Hills and visit the Tengzug Shrine. The driver with a heavily-lined forehead and a tuft of curly hair denoting Fulani ancestry, answered all his questions with one or two words and Abdul gave up trying to engage him in a conversation. After driving 5 kilometers south of Bolga on the Bolga-Tamale road to Winkogo, they turned left at a large signboard and followed signs for another 12 kilometers to the visitor center in Tengzug. The Tongo Hill which was visible from Bolgatanga now stood in all its majesty. The climate felt more arid.

Some tourists came there with youngsters they had met at Bolga serving as guides. By now Abdul was feeling confident enough to go alone to places where a local guide was available. But once at Tongo, he found this not a very good choice and later thanked Allah for coming with the driver. Some local boys faced him.

“We’ll show you round,” they said.

“No, thanks,” Abdul said, moving away.

“Hey, this is our village,” a dark elderly boy with a stone hard face growled. “You can’t do whatever you want here.”

“Why?” Abdul asked calmly.

“I said this is our village.”

“Is it out of bounds?”

“Out of bounds?” the boy repeated in a way and stared in confusion about him which showed that he didn’t understand the word.

“Is it forbidden? Shouldn’t one come here?”

“One can come here but not anyhow.”

Abdul began to lose his temper. “What do you want?” he asked calmly.

The boys glanced at each other. “We want to be your guide,” one of them said.

“I told you I don’t need a guide, do you understand that?”

“If you don’t want us to show you around, then pay us something,” the elder boy said.

Abdul tried hard to control his temper, threatening to boil over. “There’s no reason at all to hand you urchins any money, as Tengzug is free to visit. Besides, what have you done to merit payment?”

The boys again looked at each other, confusion on their faces.

The taxi driver, who had been trying to bring them to reason, said something, beginning in an entreating tone which then rose to a menacing one as the boys seemed adamant. The boys peered at each other, shrugged and then sidled away.

“Rogues,” the driver whispered to himself.

Abdul told himself to be extra careful and vigilant. Anyway he was determined to use all the military tactics at his disposal should anybody attack him. He was not here for fun and nobody should make him pour his wrath on them.

The Tengzug area has a unique landscape dominated by dramatic granite rock formations which gives the area an outstanding natural beauty. The rocky terrain consists of wondrous formations of caves and rocks. The guidebook, Abdul remembered, said the formations have over the centuries evolved as the sacred epic center of the Talensis, the ethnic group occupying the area. The traditional buildings were of unique architecture. Some of them were not plastered and others were finished off with a varnish and had decorations applied around door openings. The traditional circular house had no door: the entrance into it was an opening. However Abdul had noted here that the openings had different sizes and shapes from one place to the other. As Abdul was to find out elsewhere in the Northern Regions, some of the men were dressed in their gowns with embroidered skullcaps but some wore the baggy pantaloons typical of the Dagomba people.

Inspecting the place, Abdul found a multitude of tall grass in the savanna. There were also more huge rocks around the area than he could imagine. The caves were not dark extended passages, but sort of rooms where one could stay.

“The popularity of the Tongo Hills and Tengzug Shrine started from the late 1800s,” the guide said, the deep grooves stretching from the edges of his slim nostrils with prominent vibrissae to the corners of his small mouth becoming more pronounced. “We believe that it was during this time that the Tongo Hills eventually became a site of sacred power. Numerous sacred shrines are nestled in the cliffs above the village. But one of the most famous shrines of the region and the paramount one here is the ba’ar Tonna’ab ya’ nee, or simply the shrine of Tonna’ab. Tonna’ab was also a refuge area and a powerful symbol for our people who resisted British colonial expansion into the northern region.”

“Right on!” Abdul shrieked and everybody glanced at him.

“Not surprisingly the Hills were among the last areas in Ghana to come under British rule.”

Abdul cursed under his breath.

“To achieve that the British had to evict the Talensis from the hills in 1911 and four years later banned access to the sacred sites.”

“As if they owned it,” Abdul observed quietly.

“However by the 1920s the colonialists realized they couldn’t destroy the great ancestor shrine Tonna’ab. Before that, our people used them as meeting grounds during times of war and during the Slave Trade, our people hid in them to escape the raiders,” the guide continued and boasted that no one in Tongu was ever captured.

Abdul stared up: he had learnt that for centuries the people in the Tongo Hills who never had a centralized state were preyed on by slave raiders from northern and southern conquest states like the Mossi kingdoms and the Dagbon and the Mamprugu respectively, making them to end up as Akan forest Kingdom slaves. Besides, slave raiders from cavalry states of Dyula empire builders, Babatu and Samori, returned there in the 1880s–90s to pick on its dense population. Was the guide’s assertion a way to avoid the stigma associated with enslaved communities? Abdul was wondering when the guide explained that in modern times the caves served as classrooms. He led Abdul and the driver into one which the people used as classroom and now serve to shield themselves from rain and especially from direct sunlight until around 4 in the afternoon when the sun goes down. “The pupils now have a school building, but this place is still used for kindergarten through second grade.”

“Wow!” Abdul cried and smiled at the driver who nodded.

Abdul found himself clicking away.

“On your return from the shrines we’ll visit the local architecture,” the guide said. “See you soon.”

Abdul clambered up the hill to find a cave which had nothing much dramatic about it. But the beauty of the landscape and of the granite rock formations captivated him and he captured them on his camera. 

“These rocks make strange, ghostly whistling sounds when the harmattan wind blows from the Sahara through the Northern Region during the months of November and December,” a local man said and Abdul wondered if he had noticed his expression of disappointment.

Abdul headed for the Tengzug Shrine nestled within the beautiful Tongo hills behind the tiny village. It is believed that the ancestral shrine houses an oracle that has the power to grant luck and prosperity in personal matters such as marriage, jobs, examination, fertility, child-birth, money and others. Abdul had the mind to ask for luck to find what will make him remain in Ghana. Many Ghanaians and foreigners who had made the journey to Tongo to make requests at the shrines climbed up towards the various shrines. Abdul felt bad for the women knowing that to enter the shrine the visitor must strip down to his or her underwear and be barefoot. But later on it turned out men could simply roll up their long pants and remove their shirts. Women could go in with their braziers on or with a cloth tied above their breasts, leaving the shoulders bare. 

Abdul clambered up the hill to find the shrine full of people who had come from far and near to consult the deity. The men went in first. Like them Abdul had paid the entrance fee at the tourist office which permitted him to seek the deity’s help.When his turn came, Abdul crept into the cave to find three tall men seated on rocks in there, clutching horsetail swishes. The large protruding teeth with a large cleft in the upper one of the man sitting to the right made him look like grimacing. Abdul noticed that the upper half of the left thumb of the man to the left was gone with the nail, leaving a stiff, conspicuous stump; he wore ancient-looking, foggy eyeglasses. The man in the middle, who turned out to be the Chief Priest, held a larger, longer swish in his large, calloused hands. They explained the tradition, including a pledge to make an offer should the needs be granted. Following the driver’s prodding, Abdul promised a white sheep and some drinks and the Chief Priest authorized him to make his request.

“I’ve come to Ghana to stay but I feel restless. Can you give me luck?”

The Chief Priest laughed lightly, revealing large cola-stained teeth with gaps in the upper and lower teeth. “Welcome. No one comes to Tengzug and goes away disappointed,” he assured through the bespectacled interpreter and began to gather his divination tools.

Meanwhile the interpreter explained: “This place is such a site of potent ritual power that satellite shrines emanating from Tonna’ab have been installed in the south as Nana Tongo to serve supplicants there,” he said through his bespectacled colleague who served as interpreter. “The first ‘shadow’—called yiehiyi~g—of the shrine taken south became such a thriving center of ritual healing near Suhum that it attracted people from all over Southern Ghana. That so worried the Gold Coast colonial government that by 1931 it began to take measures to ban Nana Tongo but the famous Gold Coast politician, Dr J. B. Danquah, the man who invited Nkrumah to come and serve as Secretary General to the independence movement, intervened on behalf of Assifu, the Priest.”

“The ancestors welcome you home with both arms wide opened,” the priest said finally. “Peace awaits you here.”

Hearing this for the second time, Abdul was inclined to believe it.

After performing some rituals, the priest prepared a talisman for Abdul.

“Keep it in your pocket at all times. There’s no better thing to draw luck towards you.”

Abdul rose and looked out from the cave. The position offered him unlimited beautiful views of the surrounding countryside and the White Volta River.

Abdul came out invigorated to explore the local architecture and other aspects of the Tallensi culture with other tourists, including preserved evidence of the 18^th and 19^th century slave trade.

“Our architecture makes order out of a chaotic environment,” the guide said. “Through its interconnected spaces, our architectural space creates intimacy which allows people to communicate with one another.”

Abdul looked at the structures designed and placed in such a way as to serve the social needs of the people and nodded.

“The Tallensi house goes beyond a material unit,” the guide continued, taking them about a typical compound. “Its form and use expresses aspects of Tallensi life.” They went along a network of footpaths built around the compound to connect various places. In front of the compound was a shaded area which housed the ancestral shrines. Behind were the groves with cattle kraals and granaries.

Abdul agreed with the guide that the cluster of compounds standing against the hills and groves created a landscape of unique beauty and calm testifying that culture can be married into nature.

“The wise dependence on modular and oval principles in the architectural form is a calculated attempt to blend into the total Tallensi cultural landscape.” 

Abdul noticed that the traditional round house had no windows. And wanted to know why

“When ventilation is needed we push up what we call the roof skin with this,” a

local man explained. Then he inserted a bent wooden piece in the form of a knee under the thatched roof on top of the mud wall opposite and above the entrance opening. Air rushed in in each case. Abdul nodded.

In the case of a flat mud roof the man showed him a clay pot without bottom which he said was inserted into the mud layer during construction of the roof, also opposite or above the entrance opening.

“When it rains, don’t the inside of the houses get wet?” a blonde Danish tourist asked.

“The top of the pot can be covered with a calabash or another pot during rainfall,” he explained. “Meanwhile both openings give us light and vertical ventilation.”  

They climbed up to the flat roof of one of the houses. The guide laughed to see Abdul stepping gingerly on it.

“It’s safe,” he assured with a laugh. “The walls are load-bearing. They fully support the roof beams.”

Abdul saw that the mud layer of the roof was given a fall, so that rain water could easily flow away through spouts, some of which were fashioned from metal sheets and others of wood or just openings left in the wall. On the roof on which they stood, a parapet wall from mud was built around it. Abdul saw solar panels on some roofs and in addition a satellite TV dish on the roof of what he learnt was the Chief’s house. He took pictures of the panoramic views.

“In many areas the roof is used for storage and for sleeping, especially during the hot months at the end of the dry season.”

The guide offered the visitors pito. They drank it from calabashes. It still tasted like sweet beer but here it was stronger and a bit bitter.

The mid-day sun was at its zenith and blazing down like bonfire when Abdul joined a blistering Tata truck to Nalerigu in the Gambarga scarps at 120 kilometers from Bolga to visit the Nalerigu slave defence wall. The seats made for five people had six squeezed into some of them in addition to goods stacked in the aisles. At each stop people dashed for the doors and shoved into the bus while those getting off struggled to do so. Abdul wondered why those getting on couldn’t wait for those getting down to do so and leave space for them. He shrugged and wondered which of them was from the major ethnic groups of Bimoba, Bissa, Buli, Frafra, Kantosi, or Kasem, and which from the other tribes of Bulsa, Grushi, or Kusasi who inhabited the Upper East Region. When the vehicle finally lurched away, each row had six passengers. Also a dozen passengers stood on the front steps and the area around the driver, with about half that number at the back. Abdul was used to fowls cackling on the truck rack but this time a man two rows to the front clutched two poults by the feet tied together with a piece of cloth. The young chickens remained extraordinarily calm. But once in a while they flapped their wings wildly and squawked as if they wanted to wriggle free. The man shushed them while rubbing his palm caressingly down their backs and they went back to roosting in his arms. At Bolga Abdul found people dressed in djellaba and clutching mats hurrying to the main Friday afternoon prayers. And at destination Abdul wormed his way among the passengers to alight, glad as usual to leave the strong odors in the stuffy interior.

From far he saw a brown wall about 50 meters long. At close range Abdul found that what remained of the Nalerigu Defence Wall was made of thick mud. A handful of tourists—the blacks to one side and the whites also banding together—stood around it.

            “The Nalerigu Defence Wall is known here as the Naa Jaringa Wall,” the local guide said. He was a short, proud man, with sprinkles of gray in his dark thick hair. The kind smile came back as he continued: “Naa Jaringa was a powerful Mamprusi Chief who had the idea to build a mighty wall around Nalerigu as a bastion for his subjects against slave raiders.”

Abdul was thrilled to hear this. This meant that although helpless against powerful raiders, African communities sought ways to protect themselves from slave raiders. And he felt like going to hug the wall for saving some Africans from going into the New World where they would have been subjected to forced labor, humiliation, physical abuse, discrimination, cultural attack, exploitation and psychological trauma.

“The wall was built in the 16^th century with honey and milk as some of the building materials and it is now recognized as part of the Northern Slave Route.”

The presence of the defence wall indicated that the ancestors of some people in the Diaspora were taken from here. Sad that their descendants were unaware of it. Abdul looked around him, imagining the inhabitants cowering into the defence wall, conscious of slave raiders lurking around. How could they go about their economic activities under such circumstances? The distant looks in the eyes of the other visitors showed that they had also been moved back into time. Abdul walked to the wall and hugged it. Thank you for saving some of our people from the hell of slavery, he whispered.

“This ancient wall indicates that the Slave Route passed close by on its way from Djenne—in present-day Mali north of Burkina Faso—and Ouagadougou, the capital city of actual Burkina Faso north of Ghana,” the guide announced emotionally as people photographed the scene.

Abdul pulled out a map of Africa and tried to imagine the distance the slaves covered from Nigeria and Djenne to the coast and couldn’t help shaking his head on realizing that they were marched down for more than 1,500 miles. His chest felt heavy and tears hugged his blood-shot eyes.

The guide next showed them what used to be the slave market. What remained of the tree under which slaves were sold were the gnarled roots on which they squatted. They looked like whitened bones of a giant elephant.

            More tourists started arriving. They were mainly young whites. Abdul needed to get away to Garu near Bawku where he wanted to pray in the ancient Wuriyanga Mosque for Allah in whom he really believe to grant him peace on the eve of his month’s stay in Ghana. He was glad his month’s stay in Ghana coincided with his visit to the Northern Region, the area of his possible ancestry. He rushed back to the side of the road and boarded another truck which headed northeast where the Gambaga scarp appeared like outcrops in the surrounding flatland of the Volta Basin. In the villages along the way conical thatch roofs straddled round houses, but in some places of the region, especially along the Bolgatanga-Bawku road, he found thatch roofs with ridges over rectangular houses. By now the sun had gone down and the temperature was bearable. Abdul no longer needed to drink a lot of bottled mineral water which had turned warm during the day. Soon they came to Garu southeast of Bawku.

The Wuriyanga Mosque was built of sun-dried mud bricks in a typical Sudanese architectural style. It was rectangular on plan and had no buttresses. Its walls with massive mud columns were load bearing with a flat mud roof which consisted of mud on frame works of bush poles surrounded by a parapet. It had only one tower over the Mihrab, which always faces the east towards Mecca as is the case with all mosques; the Haluwa—a small room for meditation—was in the sole tower and could be reached from the roof.

After welcoming them, the old Imam, wearing a beach-sand colored djellaba and a white cotton turban which descended to his nape, and running his small, dried hands through his totally white walrus moustache and a patrician beard which made him look like Father Christmas, said: “This mosque was built by Muslim missionaries about 300 years ago.”

When the United States of America did not yet exist, it was not without pride that the thought flitted through Abdul’s head and he felt his lean chest sticking out.

“The introduction of the camel in the 1^st century AD by the Arab traders facilitated trade between North Africa and the Savannah belt. Almost all the Arab traders were Muslims and they did everything to convert the people of the Sahara to Islam.”

Abdul’s mind zoomed back to Malik Jaber of the Nation of Islam. “Did this include force?” Abdul asked.

“Certainly not,” the Imam replied categorically. “Historically the Sudanic style mosques in the north of Ghana like this one mark the trade routes of the Muslim Djula traders who migrated southwards from Djenne across the savannah towards the gold and kola producing areas in the rainforest zones of southern Ghana.”

Abdul wondered if his people did not sell off the gold and other goods to the Arabs too.

“When the Moroccans invaded Songhai in 1591 and sacked Timbuktu and Gao, battalions of Mande warriors went southwards with traders and conquered the indigenous people in the north-west among whom the Djula had been trading peacefully and established their rule. This gave rise to Islamic states such as Wala, Dagbong, Gonja and Mamprugu. The Sudanic style mosques are however mostly found in the Wala and Gonja states which lay directly on the western routes used by the Mande warriors, Missionaries and traders.”

“Doesn’t this show some amount of conquest in converting the people?” a dark, muscular Jamaican asked.

“Maybe,” the Imam drawled out the word, a downcast look coming into his small, keen eyes and he changed the subject. “The flat mud roofs of the mosques are impervious because they’re constituted of a mixture of well rammed cow-dung and laterite soil. Besides, the roofs are provided with slopes deep enough to drain off rain water fast.”

“This structure is in good shape,” a middle-aged African American woman who looked like someone who has undergone a facelift said. “But doesn’t it call for constant attention?”

“Sure it does,” the Imam said with a proud smile. “To save these unique ancient jewels from disappearing, the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board has put comprehensive maintenance and restoration programs in place.”

Abdul thought what a pity it would be if these mosques standing as testimony to a fine era disappeared.

“Typologically the Islamic architectural style introduced into the country was of two types: Sudanic and Djenne. An example of the former is the Larabanga Mosque at Larabanga. Our mosque is of the Djenne type.”

Allah Akbar, Abdul told himself. He now felt that Islam and not Christianity was the religion of his ancestors and he had no qualms at all to have converted. He fetched water from a receptacle in the mosque for ablution and stepped into the mosque to participate in evening prayers on sheep-skins and woven mats spread on the floor.

Abdul had never felt so fervent. After prayers, he squatted on the mat to meditate. When finally he got up to go, the Imam and his elders approached him and after learning of his mission, invited him to make the village his home. Was this not luck coming his way already, Abdul thought happily and accepted the offer but said he would be stationed in Accra where he might set up an association to help African Americans tourists and especially returnees understand their bitter history. From there he could be visiting them often.

“Then at least spend the night with us,” they pleaded.

Abdul thought. After all night has fallen and there was nothing special to do in Bawku but sleep. Why not do so here where he’s found spiritual revival?

“Okay,” Abdul said.

“Allah Akbar,” they chorused, grinning broadly and caressing their faces with their subha or tasbih-prayer beads with which they use the string of 99 counting beads to recite the attributes of Allah and an elongated terminal bead to recite the ‘beautiful’ name of Allah-clutched in both palms.

Abdul however refused their offer of free accommodation and after haggling paid something symbolic to sleep in a round traditional hut.

Simple meals and filtered water were provided in a communal round eating hall with various geckos and lizards racing the perimeter wall plastered in and outside with a mixture of cow-dung and the juice from the boiled empty dawadawa or West African locust bean tree pods. A host explained that the wall finish was done by women who have developed high artistic skills in that regard. Abdul took shots of the painted incised patterns said to have been applied with flat and pointed pebbles and with the fingers.

“Once again, welcome to our famous village,” an elder said through an interpreter as they sat cross-legged at the village square.

“Thank you,” Abdul whispered, getting tired of the incessant greetings he had been subjected to.

“We’re proud to have an African American Moslem in our midst,” he said to the satisfaction of the group which bared their kola-stained gums in a wider grin when Abdul revealed he was a convert.

“This is your own village,” he assured and Abdul wished it was so. “Feel at home.”

“I’m already,” Abdul replied to hilarious laughter.

As to their request for foreign investors to develop the tourism potentials there, Abdul promised to do something. He also promised to consider it when they invited him to adopt their village.

“From your itinerary you must be tired so we wouldn’t hold you here any longer. What you need is a good night’s rest. May Allah guide us through the night and wake us up tomorrow.”

The interpreter led Abdul home, requesting to be his special friend.

After changing into a bathing suit, Abdul, interested in the local architecture, stared at the conical thatch roof with its four main bush pole rafters and the smaller ones which formed a radial frame stabilized by a number of grass-rope purlins tied together and to the rafters with other fibers. Then he washed down from a bucket set in an open shower after relieving himself in a deep drop toilet. Abdul stayed a while with his hosts trying hard to return their extreme hospitality and couldn’t have been more than glad when they finally released him when he began to yawn. He then retired to sleep on a mattress on a clay bed provided with a shiny nylon mosquito net.

The following day he made a small donation to the mosque. The people waved ecstatically to him as the truck he boarded whined towards Widnaba in the Bawku West district, still in the Upper East Region, along the Burkina Faso border.

As they progressed across the region, the dominant rolling Guinea savannah landscape gradually turned into Sudan savannah grassland, especially towards the far North-Western fringes. Here and there, Abdul saw short, drought resistant trees—especially the shea-butter, the dawadawa, and the giant boabab—which abound as tree cover and are prized for their high commercial and medicinal values—interrupted sporadically by rocky outcrops. The landscape presented beautiful scenery dotted with traditional villages of often rectilinear structures of interconnected cellular spaces built with flat mud roofs that dominate the settlement patterns of the region. Throughout his tour of the area Abdul was also to note species of forest trees along the Black Volta basin and in sacred groves which constitute the pivot of traditional religion in communities less receptive to external beliefs.

Thirty-five kilometers to the north east on the road to Bawku, they came to Tilli from where they turned left and took a dirt road. Fourteen kilometers down the road was Widnaba.

Widnaba was a fascinating Kusasi cultural site that also offered the Red Volta River Valley’s many natural rewards, including it being a migratory corridor for a small population of African Savanna Elephants tracking the tiniest bit of water source.

“Let me welcome you to Kusasi land,” said the guide, a portly man with big wide buttocks making him look like a woman. He wore large dark glasses which eclipsed his eyes. “We the Kusasis are called ‘the people of the earth’ because of our belief that the chief god, Winam, created all animals, plants and people from the earth, and lives with his creations in the atmosphere.”

The tourists stared at each other with amused looks.

“Here the dead are not gone forever. They remain close to their living relatives and their spirits can commune with the chief spirit. As you can imagine ancestral spirits are important in Kusasi traditions, beliefs and families.”

The tourists nodded.

“Before we go to see the relic of the slave trade here, permit me to explain the name of our village,” the guide offered and the visitors focused their attention.

Abdul took out his notebook to jot down notes.

“The name means Chief of the many horses; it is composed of Widi meaning many horses, Na chief, and Ba palace. In oral history a horse is said to have mounted three roan antelopes to produce a thriving herd.” 

The visitors glanced at each other.

“Another legend traces the history of the Widnaba people to Kusanga land in Burkina Faso. It says that at the time of the death of the Chief landlord, the Kusanga clan was overpopulated and therefore overburdened the land. His four children: three sons and a daughter set out on the eldest son’s horse in search of new lands. Interpreting good harvests and the delivery of two baby horses at Zooga as signs of good luck, the youngest brother remained there. The others continued on. In the next land, better harvests and the delivery of three young horses were seen as even better luck. The eldest brother settled there and named the land Widnaba, meaning Horse Chief. The other two siblings went on to found Tilli and Kusanaba.”

Abdul raised his hand and asked, “What about the slave trade?”

“That’s what I’m coming to,” the guide replied. “Another historical background of our region will also be appropriate before the tour,” the guide continued. “The history of the inhabitants of the Upper West Region is marked by two major events. First, the Trans-Saharan Trade which involved the entire area and left heavy influence of Islam, especially in towns where the major trade routes converged. For example, Wa the regional capital, which was instrumental in the trade between the forest zone and North Africa and Arab traders, is dotted with mosques among which are the ancient Sudanese mosques at Nakore and Dondoli. No doubt it is the largest predominantly Islamic city in Ghana. The splendid architecture of the Wa Naa’s Palace also comes from Sudanic influences as well as the unique stone church building in Nandom and the Lobi houses.”

Lobi, that roused a childhood memory in Abdul and he made a mental note to see the Lobi houses.

“The second event is the slave trade which, over an incredible period of 300 years, left dolorous indelible landmarks such as slave caves, rock shelters and mystery foot and fingerprints on trees and rocks in many places.”

Abdul wondered what level the African would have achieved had the Arab influence and the local ingenuity continued unabated.

“For those of you continuing on to Wa, I’d encourage you to look for the memorial of George Ekem Ferguson. He was a Fante from the South who spent years surveying the country and signing treaties with local chiefs on behalf of the British colonialists.”

Some of the listeners grunted.

The guide caught that. “But he would forever be remembered here as one of the African continent’s anti-slave trade campaigners who, for the sake of humanity, paid the supreme price in his effort to stem the slave raids in northern Ghana in the late 1880s. He was killed by Babatu’s men at Wa.”

The visitors sighed and Abdul made a mental note to visit Ferguson’s memorial.

“Raiders used ruthless means to obtain slaves and this demanded all the ingenuity of our people to devise means to evade them.”

The Diaspora people looked at each other and nodded their heads in appreciation.

“You’d find in our region many historical sites linked to the slave trade. Some of them are the Gwollu Slave Defence Wall, the ancient caves at Sankana and Dahili, the slave camps at Pizaga and Dolbizon and the slave market at Kassana where evidence of the 18^th and 19^th century slave trade has been preserved for posterity.”

Abdul again made a mental note to visit, if not each of them, at least as many of them as possible.

The guide now escorted them to a hollow baobab tree, his behind rolling like a fat woman’s. 

“Before I tell you about this particular baobab tree, it’d be interesting to learn something about the baobab in general,” he said and the tourists nodded in agreement. “According to Arabic legend, the devil pulled out the baobab tree and planted it upside down.”

The tourists peeked at the tree, whispered to each other and nodded.

“So the baobab is called the upside-down tree.”

Abdul peered at the tree again and nodded in agreement with that description of the legend.

“This legend probably comes from older African lore which says that after creation, each animal was given a tree to plant and the hyena planted the baobab upside-down.”

The tourists laughed.

The guide nudged his glasses onto his eyes and continued: “The baobab, whose other common names are boab, boaboa, bottle tree, and monkey bread tree, is an important tree in our region,” he continued. “It attains heights of between 5 to 25 m—10 to 80ft—and even 30 m—100ft tall—and up to 7 m—23ft—and exceptionally 11 m—36ft—in trunk diameter.”

Abdul stared at the massive trunk and brushed his gaze up it right up to the gnarled branches.

“It uses its swollen trunk for storing water, which it can do up to 120,000 liters—32,000 US gallons…”

A short, fat man with a sweaty, balding head whistled, long and slow

“Wow!” another visitor marveled.

“Yes,” the guide said. “The baobab stores that much water to survive the long dry season particular to our region.”

The tourists nodded.

“A baobab tree is deciduous and sheds its leaves during the dry season, as you can see.”

Everybody stared up. Only the large boughs of the hollow baobab tree’s branches showed against the ashen sky.

“If you come back during the rainy season you’ll find it covered with leaves.”

Abdul nodded, knowing he would be back.

“This one you are seeing here existed in the days when our ancestors were raided and sold. So this should tell you something about the age of the tree.”

Everybody stared intently at the tree. Abdul reckoned it must be over 300 years old.

“The old people say a baobab can live for many thousands of years, but many botanists don’t agree with them, saying the baobab rarely exceeds 400 years. Isn’t that something?”

Nodding, the tourists smiled back at him.

“Another amazing fact about the baobab is that every part of it is useful.”

“Yeah?” someone said.

The guide nodded vigorously. “The leaf can be used as medicine or as a vegetable which is eaten fresh or ground as dry powder. It is also used in preparing soup.”

Abdul wished he could see the leaf. He made a mental note to look it up in a library.

“The dry pulp of the fruit, without the seeds and fibers, can be eaten straight or mixed into koko—porridge—or fresh milk.”

He made another mental note to taste the dry pulp one day.

“As for the seeds, they can be used in four ways: as a thickener for soups, fermented into a seasoning, roasted to be consumed directly or pounded to extract vegetable oil.”

Abdul’s interest reached a pitch for the baobab tree.

“We also obtain fiber, dye, and fuel from the baobab.”

“Wow!” Abdul cried. “I haven’t seen a tree so useful.”

“It’s not finished yet: the trunks of living baobab are hollowed out for dwellings.”

“Just like this one,” somebody remarked.

“Almost,” the guide said.

“From the bark cloth and rope are made.”

“Amazing tree,” Abdul cried.

The guide nodded. “But there are more amazing trees, like the palm tree of the south which is reputed to have more than a thousand uses. But the most amazing thing about this particular baobab tree is that slaves were held captive in it.”

The tourists groaned and Abdul shook his head.

On the guide’s insistence, the visitors entered the tree. Abdul stared at the inside of the huge tree and imagined what went through the head of the slave held captive here. A fair-skinned black American woman with thin taut lips peered slowly around the inside of the tree, sighed and held a handkerchief to her delicate eyes. A beefy, heavily sweating white man who appeared to be her husband patted her consolingly on the back. Abdul stepped out of the baobab feeling as if he had come out of the land of the dead.

            The last group was stepping out of the tree when the Paramount Chief of Sakote who was passing by came over to greet them. He was a tall, proud man with a kind, fatherly smile. Like all chiefs in this area he was dressed in a large rich gown with embroidered skullcap and traveling with his retinue of dancers and singers. The visitors solicited photographic sessions with him and he agreed heartily.

            “Who knows,” he said in his smooth, authoritative voice before strutting away with majestic grace, “you may be a distant relative. In any way we’re prepared to receive and give land to any of you who wishes to make this place his home.”

            “Thanks a lot His Highness,” a tight little fellow replied on behalf of the Diaspora people. “We’ll give it a good thought.”

While the tourists were going over the few walking trails along the crest of hills to the North with a good look-out picnic hut into Burkina Fasso on the ridge, the local people came towards them.

“Toma Toma,” they said.

“You answer Naaba,” the guide said.

“Naaba,” the visitors chorused.

The locals burst into tickled laughter. More of them came along and greeted the group in the same way. They encouraged the visitors to learn a few words of their dialect as they scrambled up the hills shaking with horse laughter. Soon Abdul and his group came to a picnic hut under construction.

“Our chief, the Naab of Widnaba, and his neighbour, the Chief of Tilly, are doing everything to make this picnic hut project a success. Then you people can spend the night here.”

            “We think that’ll be a good idea,” Abdul said, giving the rest station built in the typical architectural style of the Kusasis and around a beautiful shade tree just at the foot of the hills a look. The final station will consist of two double rooms, a screened summer hut, a toilet, and shower facilities, the guide said.

Abdul took pictures of pottery, baskets, and crafts made by the community members for later purchase and turned north towards Paga.

A border town, Paga is the main port of entry between Ghana and Burkina Faso. Situated at 40 kilometers and a 45-minute drive from Bolga, it is famous as the home of friendly crocodiles. Abdul went to the new tourist office very close to the border, about 30 meters from the Ghana immigration post, and bought a ticket for three attractions in and around Paga: the Chief’s Pool, the Pinkworo Slave Camp and the Zenga Pool. Then he asked and was directed three kilometres west of Paga and arrived in the suburban village of Paga Nania.

Being the main site on the Upper East slave route, Abdul had gone to visit the Paga Nania slave transit camp and relics of the slave trade found in this village. Ready to begin the tour were three white tourists wearing northern Ghana dresses with plaited hair and earrings, a black Diaspora couple from London clutching bouquets of flowers, and two southern Ghanaian-looking young adults who were smaller than everybody else.

“Paga Nania was founded by a brave hunter and farmer,” the very tall, very thin guide with a lean face said. “It evolved into a flourishing trading center attracting Hausa, Mossi and Zambrama traders. When human beings became the dominant item traded from the 16^th century, Nania served as the first stopover and auction market for captives taken in Mossi lands and its surrounding areas. Slaves bought in Nania were sent by intermediaries for resale in the Salaga market.”

Abdul sighed. Although the black man caressed his wife’s workwoman’s hand to soothe her, this did not in the least change the hard lines of her drawn face and the sadness in the dark eyes.

“Paga offers perhaps the most vivid insight into the lives of captives on the hundreds of miles of march to the South. Let’s now go to see the slave camp near the sacred crocodile pond which provides evidence of the harsh realities of the captives. The slave camp has relics that really tell the story of the slave trade.”

The visitors, especially the Diaspora ones, filed off with leaded steps and wore long gloomy looks all the way to the rocks with views of the scintillating ponds. More tourists joined them. Abdul found the almost one square kilometre Paga Slave Camp such a beautiful sight but the story surrounding it was soon to strip it of any appeal and send him into easy painful tears. At the first stop the guide waved to water welling up from a spring in the rocks.

“That was where the slaves drank from,” he said.

Abdul stared for a long time at the spouting water. He felt thankful for it quenching the thirst of the weary captives but shivered knowing that it didn’t bring solace to them.

The guide next escorted them to parts of the rocks where troughs were dug in them.

“The raiders fed the captives on the ground so the captives scraped out those holes which served as drinking troughs and eating bowls.”

The black woman began to whimper while her husband gently padded her wide back. She leaned on her husband’s wrestler’s body with a broad, heavy shoulder, a thick neck, a barrel chest and a firm stomach. The tourists and the locals fell deeply silent.

“How were they able to dig holes in the rock with their bare hands?” Abdul asked.

“Many many years of scooping made it possible. The indents were also caused by grinding stones the slaves used to ground cereals for food.”

Abdul nodded and shut his eyes hard in pain.

Now they came to scrapings on the rocks at another part of the site where a group of local men welcomed them.

“Here the captives beat on the rocks with stones to accompany songs they sang to keep up their spirits which the raiders sought to break in this harsh environment.”

“Is this what happened to us?” Abdul heard the woman whine to her husband who still tried to bring her succor while he remembered the guidebook called the resulting music ‘rock music’ and he felt for the slave pining to go back home to familiar sights and sounds and loved ones.

“Ironically, the heartless slave raiders were said to have relished this as music and entertainment.”

“Heartless really!” the woman said in a choking voice. “Real heartless that was!”

“Yeah! Yeah!” her husband agreed in his guttural voice. Other Diaspora Africans murmured their assent.

The whites whispered to each other and nodded. The girl among them appeared close to tears. The locals were silent as statues, the expression on the girl’s pretty face being especially bland. The way they held each other tight one would think they were more interested in each other than in the tour.

The group of local men played a few of the songs of the captives for the visitors. Head down, most of the tourists wrung their fingers; the chests of others heaved and a few wiped tears from the corners of their eyes. This was the first time Abdul really realized the power of music. Although he didn’t understand the lyrics and the rhythm was strange to his ears, his heart, body and soul got gripped by it.

The guide waited for the emotion to die down, then pointed to sections of the rock. “The markings you see are also said to have resulted from the slapping of hands and the stamping of feet by the agonized slaves.”

A tall, willowy man sighed, hard. An old lady with a thin, aristocratic, wrinkled face showing black and Indian ancestry hummed a spiritual. Her two elderly daughters hemming her in patted her slightly bent back and whispered into her delicate ears.

The tourists were next shown slabs of rocks that served as auction blocks and graves, a cross section of pots and pans, slave drums, eating bowls, and the punishment rock used for disciplining erring slaves.

The tourists crouched to have a closer view of and touch the objects associated with their ancestors. The deliberately slow and the delicate way they went about it showed how much they revered these articles shedding light upon their past. While some kneeled down to pray at the objects, others hugged them as their bodies shook with pain and their heads bobbed left and right in disbelief. The whites and the locals seemed out of place. The old lady laid a flower on a grave and all joined in observing a minute’s silence in memory of the slaves buried here.

“Now let’s see the market where the slaves were sold,” the guide finally said in a choked voice.

Some people had to be torn off, wailing and howling and the group tramped towards the market situated in a rocky area referred to as Pinkworo, which means Rocks of Fear. The guide led them to the watch post for the raiders. This was a location with about three very large rocks.

“This rocky outcrop was used as an observation post by the raiders.”

“Cursed be them and their generations forever,” the Londoner swore.

“You right, brother, you right,” a lanky man with a thick shiny beard sang.

The others murmured various curses.

“Did the raiders use the observation post to get more slaves?” Abdul asked.

“No, it gave the raiders a good perspective from which to protect their interests. They therefore used the outcrop to watch out for locals who could come to rescue their kidnapped family members, and also for rival raiders ready to pounce on the booty of other raiders.”

“Did people really try to rescue their kidnapped ones?” one of the white tourists asked.

“Sure,” the guide affirmed. “Not many accepted to part so easily with their loved ones.”

“Did they succeed?” Abdul asked

“Err, I don’t really know.”

Some of the Diaspora tourists sighed. Others nodded.

“Weren’t the operations to rescue the captives dangerous as the relatives could also be taken captive by the raiders or by the other raiders who come to storm the slaves of their counterparts?” the Diaspora man asked.

“Very much. The raiders were known to be horribe people.” The guide made a wry face. “This area was subject to attacks from three different ethnic groups. One came from present day Mali, another from actual Burkina Faso, and the last from an area off to the east of now Ghana.”

After nearly one hour, the group came to the final spot where stubborn captives were punished by beating and even often killed to serve as a deterrent for the others. Many kneeled here and prayed for the souls of the departed captives. The London woman planted her bouquet of flower between rocks and the group observed another minute’s silence. Then they ended the tour with a visit to a nearby slave village complete with its slave graveyard, rock feeding troughs and drumming stones.

The Black woman pulled her husband away from Paga. The other members of the group sidled towards the crocodile ponds. As Abdul debated whether to go there or not, he found his mind bombarded with disturbing questions. Which Africans took captives from the Mossi areas? Was it the drive for money or spite for others which made them do so? Who auctioned the captives? Who were the intermediaries who bought them for resale in the Salaga Slave Market? Who kept them at the slave market? Who sold them to southern slave traders? Who drove them to the coast? And who sold them to the Europeans at the coast? Certainly Africans, the answer unhesitant came to Abdul. Oh Lord, how we’ve been unkind to each other! Abdul’s eyes misted. He dropped his head into his handkerchief and silently wept into it.

Abdul felt a consoling hand on his back.

He looked up to see a lean, sinewy, intellectual-looking African American man with a receding forehead and a grizzly beard smiling at him. Nodding, the man patted his back.

“Hi, I’m Professor Roland Little doing research here to determine if and how the collective memory of slavery was kept in Ghana’s Upper East Region.”

They shook hands warmly.

“Abdul’s my name. I’m exploring the possibilities of staying in Ghana. Your work sounds interesting. Been here for long?”

“One and a half weeks, with half more to go.”

“I’ve spent twice that time in Ghana exactly today. How do you find this place?”

“Highly emotional,” the Professor said. “I’m going to suggest to the Ghana Tourist Board that it be developed into a center of pilgrimage where we could always come to meditate upon slavery.”

“Maybe a part of the Panafest.”

“Why not.” Professor Little sounded tickled.

At Professor Little’s prodding, they ambled into the shade of a scrawny neem tree and sat on a rock under it.

“I’ve been working in the villages of Chiana, Katiu, Nakong, Kayoro and Paga and the Pikworo Slave Camp to see if the memory of enslaved Africans has been kept.”

“And, has it?” Abdul asked, more out of curiosity than a question.

“Yes, although in the beginning several people were reluctant to talk about it due to the painful aspect of slavery itself, and I guess, because of African involvement in it.”

 “Somebody gave me the first argument before,” Abdul said excitedly.   

Professor Little nodded. “Since not much scholarly work has been done on the history of slave trade here coupled with the desire not to speak of it, it isn’t surprising that knowledge of this history is not commonplace here and in the rest of Ghana.”

“How come an event of such magnitude could be so totally ignored?” Abdul sounded horrified.

 “Slavery here isn’t totally ignored,” the Professor countered.  “The historian B. G. Der has done extensive research into it here in northern Ghana and published his findings in the book The Slave Trade in Northern Ghana.”

“Yeah?”

The Professor nodded.

Abdul noted down the title to look for the book.

“Der tracked slavery in Northern Ghana before 1732 and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He talked about domestic slavery, how the concept of slave changed dramatically with the coming of the Trans-Atlantic slavery, the raiders, and the effect of slave raiding on the local people.”

“Was domestic slavery extensive?”

The Professor shook his head. “Not as extensive as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Before the eighteenth century slavery was not common here. And even then the slave was not a chattel, a property and a person in perpetual bondage as it happened in the New World. The slave in the Africa context was not subjected to mental and physical trauma and they could become a part of the community in which they served.”

“But I think a slave was always a slave and mistreated, wasn’t it?”

“Mmm,” Professor little said thoughtfully, “not really. Northern Ghanaian society put domestic slaves in different categories: domestic servants called akua; pawns known as awowa; war captives referred to as domum; people who committed heinous crimes named akyere; and donkos who were real slaves.”

“Maybe I understand domestic slave servants, and especially war captives and criminals becoming slaves in the then local context as that happened elsewhere in the world, but what’s all this about pawns and real slaves?”

“Pawns were people sent to work temporarily for monetary compensation in known families. A donko however was close to slaves as we know them today, and was of foreign extraction.”

“How did people become slaves?”

“Contrary to Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, slaves in Northern Ghana were rarely purchased. A person could become a slave through inheritance and become known as gbandiru.”

“What?” Abdul howled. “Slave through inheritance?”

“For instance, a man could inherit the wife and children of his dead relative.”

“Oh, I see.”

“These people now belong to him and are his gbandi bome.”

Furrows appeared on Abdul’s gleaming forehead. “Well I can’t pronounce that,” he confessed and they laughed.

“A person could also work as domestic servant for a creditor to pay off a debt. The Sisala called them yomo.”

A grin split Abdul’s face. “Yomo is easy to say,” he said and they laughed again.

“A domestic slave could also be acquired through the playing of games.”

“You’re joking.” Abdul sounded horrified.

“Not at all,” eyes narrowed, the Professor said, shaking his head. “This game was called gbang and was played in marketplaces and homes.”

Abdul continued to shake his head.

“People play games by staking their cowries and if need be their cattle, sheep, goats, and poultry; riches then whose numbers determined one’s social standing.”

Abdul nodded.

“People who lost those items could continue to play by staking their wives and children.”

“Nonsense!” Abdul sneered.

“This happened when they became angry,” the Professor said.

“If they were really angry why didn’t they stake themselves?” Abdul sneered.

“Know that men played these games. And in those days, and even now in many places here, wives and children are thought of as personal properties of husbands and fathers.”

No doubt people were able to sell others so easily, Abdul surmised.

“If the player lost his ultimate bet, then relatives he staked became the winner’s domestic slaves. The Dagara and Dagomba especially acquired such slaves they called gbangaa.”

Abdul nodded, understanding clearly why slaves abounded in African communities. The rulers and merchants simply had to tap into pre-existing methods of domestic and trans-Sahara slave trade and well-developed networks of enslavement to supply European demand for slaves.The Europeans did not even have to sow their dastardly seed in the fertile field. The harvest was already there and they simply had to reap it.

“A slave servant among the Tallensi was da-abre or da-aba for several of them.” 

“Don’t you think the keeping of domestic slaves created conditions which aided the acquisition of slaves during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade?”

“Exactly,” Professor Little said. “The Triangular Slave Trade solicited slaves from northern Ghana during the mid-eighteenth century. This was done through slave raiding. Until then, the slaves that were exported to the New World came from the coastal states and the inland states around Ashanti.”

“How come this sudden change to chattel slavery?”

“Slave raiding in northern Ghana came about because of endemic inter-state wars, kidnapping, but especially it was the payment of tribute to victorious powerful states that drew the North into the worldwide network of slavery.”

Abdul sighed.

“When the Gonja were expelled by the Dagomba (actually the Dagbon state) to Wa, Ashanti began to raid the kingdom over as many as 50 years. Around 1732, the Ashanti army conquered Gonjaland and demanded tribute in the form of slaves.”

Ashanti lost grandeur in Abdul’s estime.

“To pay this annual levy of one hundred and twenty slaves, the Gonja carried out slave raids, even as far as into actual Burkina Faso.”

Abdul groaned.

“Before settling on their own in Southern Gurunsi in the 1860s, the Zaberma or Jerma raided this region for slaves for the king of Dagomba for whom they served as mercenaries. The king of Dagomba sent the slaves as tribute to Ashanti.”

Abdul sighed.

“We can affirm that slaves captured in Southern Gurunsi were sent to Kumasi as a certain Father Nicolas confirmed their presence from research carried out by the United States among the first wave of freed slaves in Liberia. From 1744 Ashanti exercised a strong influence in Dagbon. This continued until 1874 when the Ashantis were defeated by the British in the Anglo-Ashanti war of 1873-1874.”

“I read about this war when I was in Kumasi,” Abdul said bightly. “It was the third Anglo-Ashanti war.” But he didn’t want to talk about it since he felt ambivalent about the Britsh victory. While it ended the dastardly practice of people being sent as slaves to nourish the slave trade, it also brought an African tribe under colonial oppresion.

“Every year the Dagomba too had to pay a heavy slave tribute,” the Profesor continued and Abdul winced. “Dagomba caravans carried out raids in order to supply the slaves.”

Abdul moaned now.

“The Dagomba were invited by a Kpong ruler called Tacankura to carry out common slave raids. But it was the Chiefs of Karaga and Kumbungu (now Savelugu) who started raiding the Gurunsi for captives to be sent as tribute to Kumasi.”

Abdul sighed again.

“But Muhamman, or Mahama, the Chief of Karaga, died while campaigning in the Gurunsi country.”

“Serves him right!” Abdul muttered through clenched teeth and they laughed.

“He was succeeded by Adama, a son of Ya-Na Yakubu.” The Professor looked up. “Adama continued the slave-raids.”

Abdul slugged his left palm.

“Not only to satisfy Ashanti but also for his own kingdom. People brought Adama expensive royal items such as harnesses, gowns, trousers, burnooses, swords, spears; and also horses from the Zabarma, Hausa, and Mossi countries. Adama bought them on credit and paid back after making war. This made him a great king in Dagomba. But when Ya-Na Abdullahi, who became Dagomba ruler probably in 1862, could not continue supplying the slaves, the Ashanti representatives in his capital Yendi threatened to destroy it.”

Abdul’s mind zoomed back to the Asantehene’s palace and its grandeur paled further in the light of this revelation.   

“Fighting with the Dagombas finally obliged the Gonja people to migrate west. The Dagomba people in turn also began raiding for slaves to redeem their debts to the Ashanti who had vanquished them throughout the eighteenth century. By now there were slave markets at Kataba, Salaga, Yendi, Gambaga, and Walewale.”

Abdul soughed.

“The paying of the tribute made slave raiding to be intensified in the Northern Region during the mid to late 1800s. The Gonja, Dagomba—or Dagbon—Kpembe, Mamprusi, and Wala were the main slave raiders of areas with non-centralized powers from where their armed men easily carried off men, women, and children to pay the tribute and the rest to be sold at slave markets.”

Abdul sighed hard.

“For the slavery of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, the capture zones preferred by the centralized political powers depended on the type of their socio-political organisation: ethnic groups with village level socio-political organisation were the favorite capture zones. According to the axis of trade and the terminus, the captives—mainly the Gurunsi, Lobi, Dargari, Sana and Bwaba established in the zone going from the South-West to the South-East. Through various sources such as oral tradition and archives, we know that many societies in Northern Ghana and Burkina Faso were subjected to the slave trade depending on their socio-political organisation, trading activities and Islam.”

“How that?” dark clouds appeared on Abdul’s face.

“The egalitarian societies dominated by a class of nobles and the Muslim communities among which one found the merchants possessed the greatest number of slaves. This is because the nobility of the inegalitarian societies had the horses for carrying out raids and the merchants offered exotic products such as salt, fabrics for slaves when cowries were in short supply. These slaves were sent either down to Ashantiland or towards the Maghrib via Djenne and Timbuktu.”

 “Did southern tribes engage in slave raiding too?”

“Powerful individuals in Ashanti probably did. What is certain is that the slaves brought to Ashanti served to pay the Northern tribute to the Ashanti Court. Even after the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, slaves continued to be sent to Ashanti where they were used as labourers and domestic servants. The later raids which were honoring the tribute were carried out by Zabarma raiders under their leaders Alfa Hano, Gazari, Babatu, and then Samori Toure.”

Abdul was surprised that his studies of African history in America did not reveal the dark side of Samori Toure. He was sure this formed part of the silence history imposed on African involvement in slavery. “May those raiders and their descendants be cursed forever,” Abdul said and added: “Your revelation about their activity will surprise many because what we are taught is that the abolition of the slave trade brought an end to the evil practice.”

“Not really. The abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade rekindled the Trans-Saharan thanks to the revival of Islam in West Africa and to the resurgence of trade between this region and the Maghreb. This mainly concerned areas south of the Sahara, such as Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, and to some extent, Northern Ghana.”

“Islamic Arabs also gravely sinned against us then,” Abdul remarked.

 “Sure,” Professor Little answered. “As I was saying, people came to Karaga for trading as well as to participate in war. It was in this circumstance that Hamma, a Zabarma man arrived there with his son, a young man named Isaka. When the time of war came, he asked for a horse which the King of Karaga gave him because the Zabarma loved war.”

“But no one saw them displaying this love when the colonialists came,” Abdul remarked.

That set Professor Little grinning. “Unfortunately,” he agreed. “A group of Zabarma came from south-eastern Niamey in present-day Niger to Dagomba in the second half of the 19^th century, precisely in 1860, to sell horses during the reign of Ya-Na Abdullahi. Since the group didn’t receive ready payment, they stayed in the country. Then a Zabarma malam, Alfa Hano, arrived there and they appointed him their leader. Before arriving in Karaga, Alfa Hano and Gazari (another Zabarma leader) had stayed for some time in Salaga (Gonja) where Alfa Hano had devoted himself to religious studies. The Zabarma worked as Muslim missionaries—malams—and traders but soon took part as mercenaries in slave-raids into the Gurunsi country.”

“What kind of missionaries were those?” Abdul sneered.

Professor Little sniggered. “Success spurred them on to move to Grunshiland as raiders for local chiefs.”

“Disappointing, these chiefs,” Abdul said. “During colonialism also they allied themselves with the colonialists, the enemies of their people.”

Professor Little nodded. “That was what happened: the raid was led by Adama, the Chief of Karaga. Soon the Zabarmas made themselves independent of the Dagombas, established themselves in the Gurunsi country, and carried on raids on their own. Yet, after finally settling in north-west Ghana, they continued to send some tribute to Karaga, including captives, cattle and cowries.”

“Sad,” Abdul said.

“The main slave markets in northern Ghana up to Burkina Faso, for the different types of slavery, were as follows: Ouarkoye, in Bwaba country; Kary, in Bwaba country; Laro, in Dagara country; Fitigné, in Pougouli country; Dori, in Peul country; and Sati, in Southern Gurunsi.”

 Abdul sighed.

 “When around 1870 Alfa Hano died, Alfa Gazari became his successor and in some ten years he laid the military and organizational basis which consolidated their position in north-west Ghana. The growing Zabarma ‘state’ rapidly worsened relations with the Dagombas, who, considering the Zabarma as their subjects, did not appreciate their growing power and wanted to bring them back under Ya-Na Abdullahi’s control and thus stop their raids. This was attempted in the Dagomba expedition headed by Na Andani, the Dagomba Chief of Savelugu which took place in Gurunsi a few months after Alfa Hano’s death. After initial defeats, the Zabarmas retreated to Sati where they established Muslim allies with Musa, a local Sisala Chief. Spiritually reinforced by a certain Alhaji Muhammad, the Zabarmas and the inhabitants of Sati set out against the Dagombas, putting them to flight and killing thousands of them.”

“Weren’t the Sisala also victims of raids?” Abdul asked.

“Interesting question,” Professor Little said. “Gazari now became the leader of the Zabarma who established a camp at Kassana, near Tumu. Still with the help of Musa they raided Sisala and Builsa villages.”

Professor Little stared at Abdul who shook his head in disbelief.

“The Zabarma sold their captives at Kassana or Salaga, a thriving slave market of Northern Ghana. North Africa, via Djenne and Timbuktu, was another preferred market.”

Abdul sighed.

 “After the Dagombas were defeated, Na Andani had to retreat and was believed to have returned to Dagomba around 1874. In a campaign against the Kipirsi, Alfa Gazari got seriously wounded at Goru (near present-day Reo) and died, between 1884 and 1885.”

Abdul clapped. “That’s what happens to one who lives by the sword.”

Professor Little nodded. “After succession disputes and several months, Baba-ato (popularly known as Babatu), the famous Muslim slave trader, who was born in Niger, succeeded Alfa Gazari, and he not only soon became an unchallenged leader of the Zabarma people in Gurunsi but also a hawk. He is still remembered today in the Upper East and Upper West Regions as a ruthless slave raider.”

Abdul began to tremble on hearing Babatu’s name. “A devil incarnate,” he said and now felt his fingers curling into fists and the nails biting into his palms.

“Babatu,” Professor Little began, his eyes narrowing into discs, “and his notorious slave raids in Northern Ghana are often mentioned in oral history of the Upper West and Upper East Regions.”

“Imagine what could be known about slavery if oral traditions had kept all knowledge of it intact.”

Professor Little nodded. “It was under Babatu’s direction that Zabarma slave raids reached their zenith. Babatu even killed Musa when they had a dispute at an established slave camp at Sati.”

Abdul nodded in appreciation. “Who lives by the sword…”

“… really dies by the sword,” Professor Little finished with a proud smile. “Babatu spread his raids not only to Dagara and Wala areas in the Upper West but also to the Kasena, Frafra and Tellensi towns of the Upper East Region.”

Abdul chewed his lips harder.

“At the beginning of his rule Babatu carried out a policy of overambitious military expansion which resulted in a revolt of hitherto loyal Gurunsi chiefs and brought a second Dagomba invasion. Babatu summoned his Sisala chiefs of Dolbizan to reaffirm their loyalty to him. They refused. Then hostilities broke out between Babatu and Dolbizan. The Sisala demanded assistance from Na Mahama of Savelugu, one of the most powerful divisional rulers of Dagomba. After nine months’ preparations, and probably in 1887, the Dagomba made a hasty march into the Sisala country and won a few victories. Then Na Mahama was heavily defeated when he collided with the Zabarma outside Dolbizan. Some 400 men were slain on the battle-field and the Savelugu state drum was captured. Na Mahama took refuge in the walled town of Dolbizan but having seen that the Sisala defected with Dolbizan in large numbers, he himself retreated to his camping place in Basiasan where he lost his life.”

“Another devil less,” Abdul said spitefully.

“After that, a Zabarma embassy was sent to Yendi. They were received with great esteem and an oath of perpetual peace was sworn between the Dagombas and the Zabarmas. However the relations between the Dagomba and the Zabarma ended with ‘the coming of the Christians’. But it was the mutiny of the Gurunsi captains under Amariya leadership, the presence of a large contingent of Samorian troops under Sarantieni Mori, Samori Toure’s favourite son, and the arrival of British and French forces in Gurunsi that brought Babatu’s career to an end.”

            “A further devil less,” Abdul sighed again. 

            “In October 1897, Babatu returned with a few hundred Zabarma horsemen to an old friend in Dagomba. They built houses and lived peacefully there engaging in farming for sustenance. It was in Yendi that Babatu and many other Zabarma leaders died. Until then those Zabarma caused untold pain and deep humiliation to northern tribes, suffering and shame the victimized sought to forget by refusing to talk about slavery.”

Soughing, Abdul nodded with meaning.

“Despite that, the people used various means to keep the collective memory of slavery burning.”

Abdul reached for his notebook.

“I found out by interviewing people living in villages where slaves were taken and by visiting a Pikworo slave camp to find out the history of their village regarding slavery, what they knew about slave raiders and their methods of raiding, the type of defense the villagers put up against raids, knowledge of captured people, and the methods of keeping a collective memory of slavery.”

“Did people talk freely?”

“I can’t really say so,” the Professor drawled. “Since they didn’t without coaxing.”

“Why?”

“As I said earlier, many people, especially those whose ancestors were captured into slavery, feel ashamed about it.”

“Those people must be told that they’re not the ones to hang down their heads in shame. It’s their attitude which makes it possible for the descendants of the dastardly, ignominious act to stick out their chests and hold high their heads.”

Professor Little laughed a little. “You’re right,” he said. “But that’s, as they say, easier said than done. As victims of a traumatic history and what they feel to be a degrading past, and because they’re still seen as backward, these descendants of slaves are locked into logic difficult to break.”

Abdul shrugged, anger squeezing at his heart.

“Maybe a way Northern Ghanaians survived the psychological wound of the slave raids was to suppress the painful memory of it. They had to forget so as to rebuild their shattered lives and move on to a new identity.”

Abdul shrugged.

“However they informed me the first factor which aided slave raiding was the dispersed nature of rural villages.”

            Abdul’s eyes lit up. “I remember a documentary on the Serengeti Park where a hungry lion stood powerless at a distance ogling a buffalo herd,” Abdul said. “But as soon as a buffalo got isolated, the lion instantly pounced on it.”

“That’s a powerful image,” Professor Little admitted, baring all his powerful teeth. “United we stand, divided we fall. That’s a factor which made the tribes of Northern Ghana to be easily subjected to intense raiding by the notorious Zabarma raiders, especially during the latter half of the 19th century.”

 Abdul’s fingers curled into fists again and he wished he didn’t meet any Zabarma. He was sure he couldn’t bear their presence.

“But to me the main factor was the existence of ethnic rivalries and hostilities.”

“Yeah?”

Professor Little nodded. “You can do anything to your enemy.”

The furrows still hugged Abdul’s forehead.

“Especially in those days of inward looking tribes.”

Abdul nodded. “What was the usual mode of acquisition of slaves?” he asked.

“The principal one was raiding. It was largely practised by the Moose, Fulani, Touareg, Zaberma, some marabouts under the cover of Jihad (Mamadoukarantao, Moctarkarantao, Moussa Kadjo, Ali, Kari de Boussé) and the Fulani principalities of Barani and of Dokui.”

“How did those vile people carry out the raids?” he asked in a hoarse voice and cleared his throat.

“In a variety of ways,” Professor Little said. “Using horses and European firearms, they’d usually raid one area, then another, and then come back to the previously raided villages.”

Abdul sighed with pain. No respite for the raided, he thought painfully. “How could people go about their activities under such conditions?”

“The historian Benedict Der said that slave raiding brought insecurity to Northern Ghana. People were afraid to travel between villages as they could be abducted at any time.

The trade also retarded development as lack of peace did not allow people to develop local skills or go about their tasks; also many skilled people were captured in raids and sold as slaves. For example, to avoid being taken into slavery, some tribes, like the Damgbe Shai in the south, abandoned their fertile lands and sought refuge on mountains.”

“Did the raiders capture everybody in a raided area?”

“No,” the Professor said. “They took only the able-bodied. Ruthless raiders, they also seized sheep, cattle, goats, poultry, and gathered other foodstuffs for their caravan of raiders and followers.”

“S---!” Abdul sighed.

“Another method for obtaining slaves was through purchase or barter,” Professor Little said and Abdul’s eyebrows jacked up. “This form is explained in part by the way each ethnic group considered itself and the others.”

“A sort of ethnocentrism?”

“Exactly! Some ethnic groups believed themselves and their life ways superior to the others; the other was the savage. So the ethnic group drunk with the ideology of domination produced by the nobility did not hesitate to use their military logistic to buttress this opinion.”

“Then they took the slaves to Kassana and Salaga as you said.”

The Professor nodded. “Sati, Yagaba, and Daboya were also their preferred markets.”

“What were the mediums of exchange?”

“They took millet, salt, and horses from Yarse and Mande slave traders. Gunpowder, guns, kola, and horses were also commonly accepted in exchange for slaves.”

Abdul shook his head.

“These were prized items at that time.”

“Still they were not worth any human person.”

“Of course not,” the Professor agreed. “Soon Babatu faced a challenge from the French who pushed him southeast of Tamale to Yendi where he remained and died.”

Abdul did not know whether to clap or cry at the French defeat of Babatu since he suspected they did not do away with Babatu for the good of the Africans but to expand their colonial designs. “I’m sure the French would interpret their action as a logical extension of the abolition of slavery.”

“Sure,” Professor Little said, “but it wasn’t really that.” He shook his head firmly. “For example, in Dori, a town in actual Burkina Faso where the Neo-Trans-Saharan Slave Trade was very active, the colonial authorities displayed an ambiguous and ambivalent attitude towards slavery.”

“How that?” Abdul sounded angry and resigned.

“They had to treat the Tuareg tactfully because of their cut-and-dried position on slavery.”

“They didn’t want to see it disappear.”

Professor Little nodded. “The Fulani and the Tuareg considered slavery as something vital to them.”

“What’s that nonsense?” Abdul fumed.

“The same way Southern Whites in America believed agriculture without slaves was impossible, the Tuareg would rather die than live without a slave. To them the abolition of slavery would have repercussions on their social lives.”

“Fair enough if they want to live a life of ease,” Abdul almost shouted. “But let them live on each other.”

“It was still the problem of forcing the other perceived as inferior to be a vassal. It was the same mentality which made Southerners in the United States to depend on African slave labor. When the French colonial administration tried to break this yoke on black Africans, it led to the Tuareg revolt of 1915-1916. Fearing that forcing the Tuareg to do away with their slaves may damage their colonial interests, the French turned a blind eye to the institution, arguing they did not want to interfere with local customs.”

“Hypocrites and descendants of hypocrites!” Abdul cried. “Was that Tuareg custom more important than their sovereignty they’d already hogged?”

“That was one of the contradictions of colonialism. However the Christian church demonstrated that it was on the side of the poor and the oppressed.”

Abdul stared at the professor.

Professor Little nodded. “The White Fathers, who had arrived in Burkina Faso in 1900, got to Ouagadougou a year later and helped the colonial authority made up of soldiers to fight slavery and the slave trade.”

“May they find peace in heaven forever.”

“Amen!” Professor Little answered jocularly and they laughed. “The soldiers sent the captives they took from slave traders to the mission house. The 16 freed boys and 15 girls they began with in 1902 grew to 28 and 24 respectively the year after …”

“Wow!”

Professor Little nodded, smiling. “…so the mission founded a free village called Saint Eugène which is now Quartier Saint Léon, adjacent to the Ouagadougou Catholic cathedral.”

“Wow!” Abdul cried again and gave Professor Little a high five. He should go and see it one day.

“With financial backing from French anti-slavery campaigners the Priests could have done better but the traders were afraid to come forward and ‘sell’ their slaves to the missionaries for fear of being accused of slavery by the colonial administration.”

“S---,” Abdul said under his breath.

“The children were converted to Christianity, baptised, and given Christian first names.”

Abdul felt proud receiving this as extra proof that his people weren’t Christian when taken away.

“The most renowned among these first Burkinabe Catholic Christians was Diban Alfred Ki-Zerbo, the father of the famous historian Professor Joseph Ki-Zerbo.”

 “I read his works in America,” Abdul said brightly.

 “A fine mind,” Professor Little said. “He published his father’s story in the book Alfred Diban. Premier chrétien de Haute-Volta. In the book Professor Ki-Zerbo relates the odyssey of his father captured in a farm in Sana country, and marched up to the edge of the Sahara to be sold on a slave market in Timbuktu used by Arab traders. What’s interesting in the account is the determination of the captive to escape to liberty.”

“Which captive easily accepted his situation?”

“That’s it!” Professor Little agreed. “However a meeting with the White Fathers at Ségou in 1901 changed Ki-Zerbo’s life.”

Abdul sighed.

“He was set free and of course became one of the staunchest followers of the missionaries who sent him to Ouagadougou in 1903.”

Abdul nodded in appreciation. “It’s disgusting how our people became easy ducks for others,” he wailed.

“What made them victims of the slave trade was their non centralized polical organisation. As such they didn’t have an organized military force to defend their territories and people.”

“The same weakness favored colonialism,” Abdul remarked resignedly.

Professor Little nodded. “So through sporadic attacks and raids, slave raiders easily captured the populations of areas with segmentary political organisation to be their domestic servants or to be sold as slaves who were then taken to North Africa and the Arab Peninsula. The Dogon, San, Bobo, Bwaba, Marka, Gurunsi, and Lobi-Dagari suffered the Neo-Trans-Saharan Slave Trade most. But the worst happened with the coming of Muslim jihadist marabouts like Mamadoukarantao, Moctarkarantao, Moussa Kadjo, Ali, and Kari of Boussé.”

Abdul sighed. All have sinned, he thought painfully.

“Their proselytizing wars produced many captives for the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade.”

“S---!” Abdul sighed with pain.

“Coming back to the story of Babatu, after his death, unfortunately another leader called Samori succeeded him and his son, Sarantieni Mori, continued their raids into areas of Northern Ghana.”

“S---!” Abdul swore again, his voice laden with more pain. 

“However, they met the resistance of Britain and France, two nations who saw the end of Zabarma raids as crucial to their efforts to colonize now Ghana and Burkina Faso.”

“So our people left one evil to go into another?”

The Professor nodded sadly. “In 1897 Zabarma slave trade and raids came to an end.  The British pushed Samori and his troops from Western Gonja and the Upper West Region.  Then they partitioned the middle Volta basin with France and Germany. As you were saying, as the Northern Region was spared Mossi and Hausa slave raiding, they fell under British, French, and German colonialism, an equally unpleasant experience for Africans, even if less horrific.”

            “What had we done wrong to jump from one hell to another?” Abdul asked.

            “Nothing, I think,” the Professor said. “We were simply victims of the vile side of human nature. I guess this is what made God to give as one of the Ten Commandments: ‘Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s property.’”

Abdul nodded.

“I’ve learnt sad and proud stories of slavery here.”

            “Yeah?” Abdul said.

            Professor Little nodded. “A man here in Paga told me his interesting story of slavery passed down to him by his family’s oral history.”

Abdul straightened on the rock which, despite being rubbed smooth by numerous buttocks, was beginning to bite into his anyway.

“In Kunu, a famous village in present-day Burkina Faso they came from, raiders tried unsuccessfully to capture slaves from there.”

            “How come?” Abdul asked proudly.

            “There lived a powerful fetish priest. During wars on Kunu he’d swallow all the enemies arrows shot at them.”

            “What?” Abdul sat straight. 

“Yeah,” the Professor said proudly. “The fetish priest had the power to swallow flying arrows. When the war began his head swelled into the size of a hillock and the mouth became a hole into which the arrows fell.”

The creases appeared on Abdul’s forehead again. “Then what?” he asked anxiously.

“When the enemy spent all their arms, the Kunu warriors fetched the arrows which they used to defeat the opposing side.”

“Wow!” Abdul sighed, his eyes wide and a proud smile on his medium-sized lips.

A grave look came on Professor Little’s pear-shaped face. “Slave raiders got traitors from Kunu who revealed the fetish priest’s secret powers.”

“One’s enemies are never far away.”

“Yes, this is what Bob Marley meant when he sang: ‘only your best friend knows your secrets; and only he can reveal it.”

“What secret of the priest did the traitors reveal?” Abdul asked eagerly, thinking of Solomon and Delilah.

“A black powder he drank before going to war,” Professor Little said. “So the spies stole that and when the raiders came the priest was powerless.”

“S---!” Abdul cursed.

“The raiders destroyed his hut and his fetishes, cut him into pieces and raided the village of its prime members—young men and women who were strong, healthy, beautiful, and skilled.” 

Abdul punched his forehead. By leaving behind the old, raiders surely reduced virility and development in African societies.

“The storyteller’s grandfather was one of the captives the raiders took away. They tied their hands behind their backs and linked them together with ropes to keep them in batches to prevent anybody from escaping.”

“Did some captives manage to escape?” Abdul asked while thinking how unjust it would be for anybody in the Diaspora to accuse the storyteller or his descendant as an African whose ancestors sold them.

“Sure. The raiders marched their Kunu captives across Tumu towards Bulinga. Along the way the storyteller’s grandfather slipped away.”

Abdul clapped proudly wishing the same had happened to his ancestor.

“The runaway captive confessed that while a captive he was treated worse than a stubborn animal. The treatment was so degrading and so unpleasant that he chose not to remember them or recount them to anyone.” 

Abdul nodded knowingly. This further proved that Africans knowingly refused to talk about certain bitter things to expunge them from memory.

“He stayed in Northern Ghana until the slave trade ended soon after. Then he went back home to Kunu in the early 1900s.”

“What a happy reunion!” Abdul said with a wide grin.

“Not exactly,” the Professor said and Abdul’s smile vanished to be replaced by popping eyes.

“He couldn’t adjust to Kunu because he had been away for too long.”

Abdul sighed, remembering his own difficulties in adjusting to Ghanaian society.

“So he returned to live in Paga.”

“Oh I see.”

“And that’s how the storyteller happened to be here.”

“So not only the descendants of the departed captives are smarting at the evil effects of slavery?”

“Not at all; and that was an eye opener to me,” Professor Little said. “There’re settlements in Northern Ghana with a large population of former slaves who escaped or were freed when slavery ended.”

Lucky were they, Abdul thought.

“Stories of escapees from slavery are numerous in the north,” the Professor said. “As soon as the raiders relaxed their vigilance a little bit, captives profited to disappear. There’re cases of people absconding to freedom when the drivers went into the bush to relieve themselves, fell asleep, or slunk to the riverside to drink. Some fugitives either returned to their villages or if the villages were too far away, their descendants traced their lineage back to their ancestral villages.”

“Oh, just like we’re doing.”

“Sure; and there’re people still searching, and for some, with no hope of ever finding their villages or families.”

Abdul stared at Professor Little. “Why?”

“The majority of slaves were sold throughout Ghana, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the New World. Due to such scattering of slaves, people have little knowledge of where their enslaved relatives were taken from.”

Abdul swore never to accuse Africans of selling them since there were many like him suffering from slavery. He may be accusing not only the wrong person but offending one still smarting from the effects of slavery.

“Such painful past make people wish to forget them however northern tribes devised ways for remembering slavery.”

“What are they?”

“Apart from the relics and the historic sites linked to slavery, oral history using storytelling, names, songs, dance, and spiritual practices keep the memory of slavery alive. People I talked to knew about slavery because their elders told them stories linked to the trade.”

“How was this done?”

“People were told these stories throughout their lives, especially at family storytelling times or at full moon under the central baobab tree at the village square for the entire village, when circumstances demanded that people be informed of their family’s or the village’s history.”

“I can’t imagine how names could remind one about slavery.” 

“African names often have meanings.”

Abdul nodded.

“Some names have connotations linked to the slave trade. Some translated as: Bought person; You’ve undergone hardships; and The raiders have failed.”

“Did the bearers reveal these names to you?”

“Some of them; but mainly other people did. Out of shame many people refused to give me the meaning of their names because of the stigma linked to having been enslaved.”

How could he, an African American, know that they weren’t the only ones suffering from slavery? Abdul wondered again. He must find out more. “And the songs?”

“Songs not only accompany storytelling in Africa, but they can also tell the stories. Songs linked to the slave raids are often sung at festivals and are accompanied by reenactments of raids and battles against the slave raiders.”

“I witnessed something like that in the Brong Ahafo Region. It was moving.”

“Exactly! Sometimes one can’t help shedding tears.”

“I did down there.”

“I’m not surprised,” Professor Little said, wiping his moist eyes with the back of his hand. “I’ve had songs tape-recorded and if you’re interested I can send them to you as soon as they’re translated.”

“Why not?”

Professor nodded with glee and they exchanged addresses. “I’ve been told that such songs mention courageous chiefs who led the people to defeat raiders and taunt such raiders to come back if they were courageous enough.”

“That’s interesting,” Abdul said. “But how can dance tell the story of slavery?”

“War dances do that.”

“War dances?”

“Yeah. During the funeral of an elderly citizen a person posing as a slave raider may ride a horse through the crowd with the intention of taking a captive but without being able to take a single person. While doing so, the assistance chants taunting songs to which war dances are performed. Similar dances could be performed at an old man’s funeral to signify that he was going to become an ancestor to ward off slave raids and other misfortunes from their descendants.”

“Having heard the Kunu story I can understand the use of spiritual practices to prevent raids.”

“The use of spiritual powers to ward off raiders was particularly pronounced in Kayoro in the Upper East Region. This involved sacrifices to gods and libations to deities.”

Abdul now thought he couldn’t entirely be against animism.

“The people of Kayoro made sacrifices to their gods, to a particular tree growth, Tangom, which works together with a local river, Kukula.  When slave raiding began in the Upper East Region, the people sacrificed guinea fowls to the gods, consulted the river by the tree growth to which they pronounced the names of the raiders. When the raiders came to Kayoro and the villagers were able to ward them off, they of course attributed the victory to the ancestral power.”

“Why not.”

“There’s an interesting incident about the spiritual powers of the Kukula River, something similar to the passage of the Red Sea by the Israelites fleeing from Egypt under Moses detailed in the Old Testament Book of Exodus at Chapter 14.”

“Yeah?” Abdul bent forward and stared into Professor Little’s pear-shaped face.

Professor Little nodded. “Raiders had left their base in Siti, crossed the Kukula River, and taken slaves from Kayoro. On their way back the river dried up to allow the slaves to go across but when the raiders followed the river got swollen and drowned them.”

Abdul’s eyes folded into their lids. “Wasn’t that story based on the Bible’s?”

“Not at all.”

“Wow!” Abdul cried while Professor Little grinned proudly, nodding all the time.

“The pouring of libation on deities is also a special way of asking for ancestral protection in traditional religion. This worked in Nakong where there’s a special practice for pouring libations. This practice enabled them avoid the misfortune of slave raids.”

“Totally?” Abdul asked anxiously, wondering if the coming of Islam had not made his people to lose special spiritual powers that they had developed.

“I don’t think so because it’s a taboo here to speak informally of slavery; it’s done during formal sacrifices. This means the people of Nankong also suffered slavery.”

Then who was spared?

 “Historical sites linked to slavery also help the people to remember the raids. Slave camps and markets play such a role. Others are less known. For example, the people of Chiana would never forget a battlefield called Viba near to them.”

Abdul gave his full attention to the Professor.

“It was led by Babatu.”

“The fiend!”

“At Viba he asked his female captives to prepare food for him and his caravan of raiders using seeds from the dawadawa trees nearby.”

“A golden occasion to poison him.”

“If the captives had poison with them.”

“As I was saying, Babatu made his request. Then, when a battle ensued between the people of Chiana and Babatu’s band, the captives profited to run away, scattering the seeds in their flight. These seeds eventually grew, serving as a constant reminder of that battle.”

“Opportunity for these women to go back home,” Abdul said happily.

            “Not that easy,” Professor Little said. “Raiders often marched their captives over scattered routes away from their native villages, something equivalent to being driven off blindfolded in tortuous directions. This so confused the captured that should they escape they couldn’t find their way back to their villages.”

Abdul punched his palm. “How heartless these raiders were!” he cried. “Wasn’t it their activities which today have left the Northern Region relatively underdeveloped?”

“Sure. The slave trade had multiple effects on northern Ghanaian societies. Many Northern Region communities have still not recovered from the reeling, long-term effects of the extraction of large numbers of captives from them. On the economic side, the insecurity engendered by raiding disrupted local arts, and agricultural and commercial practices; on the social level, raiding and the slave trade depopulated certain areas whose abducted children went to people the Sahelian regions and the New World; politically, the coming of slavery hardened ethnocentrism by making each ethnic group to turn in on itself and thus creating a situation which didn’t favor the construction of large political groupings. As in the time of slavery, this state of affairs made it easy for Europeans to colonize Africa. Other effects of slavery were devastation, insecurity, loss of life and property, the people living in constant fear and tribalism whereby some see others as people with congenital defects. Tribal markings and certain types of architecture, still practiced today, especially among the Gurunsi and the Bobo of Burkina Faso, came as cultural consequences of the slave trade.” 

“Really?”

“Tribal markings, which some people derogatorily call traditional passport, became commonplace to serve of course to identify a clansman but also to render people undesirable for capture by slave raiders.”

“Oh!” Abdul said, regretting for having been taken aback by the scarifications many people in the north had over their faces.

“Intricate northern architecture also served to resist the slave trade. The complex and intricate architecture of the houses of Northern Ghana served as a means of protecting local communities from the attack of slave raiders. May nothing even close to the slave trade and slavery ever happen to humanity again.”

“Amen!” Abdul said and they laughed. “You’ve shed a lot of light on many aspects of slavery in Northern Ghana,” he added.

“Every information I get here make me feel like gradually approaching light at the end of a tunnel. There’s more to recount but I think you’d want to continue your tour now, so I wouldn’t keep you here any longer.”

“Thanks a lot, Professor,” Abdul said sincerely, stretching to his feet which felt a bit under cramp. “I feel like having walked through the history of Upper East slavery.”

The Professor bared all his powerful teeth. “That’s exactly the feeling I have here everyday.”

“Now I can go see the crocodile ponds.”

“Look for Achana,” the Professor suggested. “He’s the best guide. Fortunately he’s not attending a wake today. There are many funerals here you know, mainly on Saturdays. I guess the high mortality is due to malaria, poor sanitation, and malnutrition, problems worsened by the high level of poverty. You’d find Achana at one of the two main ponds, the Zenga pool, of which he is the caretaker. The Chief’s pool is at the northern end of the village, on the highway to the border, opposite the Zenga pool.”

Professor Little and Abdul shook hands warmly for a long time and Abdul left for the Zenga Pool. He had earlier excluded the ponds from his itinerary but having learnt about African spiritual powers, he thought the ponds with friendly crocodiles, as one of the effects of spiritual powers, was worth seeing.

Passing by fortress-like mud huts highly decorated with attractive black and white geometrical patterns characteristic of this region, he soon arrived there.

“We’ll take you to the ponds and call out the crocodiles,” some local boys accosted Abdul near the Zenga pond in the center of the village and said.

            “No, thanks, Abdul said, his mind zooming uncomfortably back to Zengzug. “I’m looking for Achana.”

            A boy wriggled forward. “I’m Achana,” he said lamely.

            Abdul tittered, shaking his head. “He’s said to be a man.”

            The boys looked at each other and pointed to a man around the Zenga pool. Abdul handed them a tip and they scampered away, shrieking wildly.

Abdul arrived at the Zenga Crocodile Pond site to find an unpretentious miniature lake scintillating in the afternoon sun. Tall weeds surrounded the edges and clumps of them were scattered throughout the lake, especially towards the soggy edges. Tourists hung around Achana, the dark, shrivelled, grey-haired caretaker in his early forties who was explaining something to them. When the oppourtunity offered itself and Abdul whispered in Abdul’s ears that the Professor had recommended him he burst into a grin, showing two missing, jutting upper front teeth. Abdul felt Achana’s calloused palms like horny scales when they shook hands.

Abdul paid the fee too for the interpretation and for the fowl which the caretakers use to entice the crocodiles out of the water.

Asking him to feel at home, Achana turned his attention to the group. “As I was saying, this pond has diminished considerably in size because of the exceptional dry season this year which will be followed by the harmattan soon. When the rains come in March, the ponds will explode in size right there and even beyond.” He indicated an area which could more than quadruple the size of the lake.

Abdul thought it would be easier to see the crocodiles now than at that season.

“Paga is very popular among local and foreign tourists for its sacred pond which is a sanctuary for no less sacred crocodiles.”

Abdul looked over at the Chief’s pool where a crocodile stood on its front legs.

“The crocodiles are totems for us the Kassena people who reside in Paga and the surrounding communities. The Paga crocodile ponds have an interesting story surrounding them.”

The tourists gave Achana their full attention.

“There are many versions about the founding of Paga. This is the one my parents gave me. More than 600 years ago, a man called Naveh went on a hunting expedition and ended up trapped in a deep dark hole.”

Some of the tourists sighed.

“Hours spent in the hole almost left Naveh starved. When he thought he was going to die a crocodile crawled out of one of the chambers beside him.”

A few more tourists sighed.

Achana shook his head. “The crocodile did not devour Naveh but led him out through one of the tunnels.”

The tourists clapped, smiling at each other.

“Indebted to the crocodile, Naveh left his village with it in search of a new place to settle. He found a suitable place and settled there with the crocodile.”

The listeners laughed.

“He became very rich and attributed his fortune to the crocodile.”

The audience guffawed now.

“Naveh ended up believing that his soul lay within the crocodile and that belief is still held by us the descendants of Naveh up to this day.”

The tourists nodded at each other.

“Another story goes that a hunter being pursued by a lion arrived at the bank of a pond. Seeing a crocodile in it he made a bargain with it that should it help him across to safety he and his descendants would never kill a crocodile to eat. The crocodile agreed and ferried him across the pond and he escaped from the lion. The hunter established his house and later a village which is now Paga.”

“To me this sounds like a story told to kindergarten pupils,” a Ghanaian visitor said and the tourists burst into laughter. Achana bared the cavity in his teeth.

“An alternative story about the origin of our village is similar to the first one. It says that the founder of Paga, Naveh, came from Leo in present Burkina Faso. He left his village when his dog was killed by his parents for sacrifice.”

“Oh!” someone sighed.

“Angry, Naveh wandered away from home and lost his way. Soon he ran out of water. In his search for water to quench his thirst, he found a crocodile which led him to a water hole now known as Katogo. Naveh decided to make that spot his home and decreed that his descendants would never eat crocodile meat again. This story is said to have come from “Legends of Northern Ghana” compiled by D. John-Parsons and published by Longman, Green and Company Limited, a book of original legends taken from the storytelling tradition in Ghana.”

“So, which is the correct story?” an old white lady tourist with white hair tied in a bum over her head asked.

“Mine of course,” Achana said and his listeners burst into hilarious laughter. “What is certain is that any time a crocodile is about to die, it swims out of the pond and crawls to town to die.”

“Really?” a lady’s voice said in a British accent and as she stared about her Abdul noted her restless deep-set blue eyes hover like a hawk’s.

Achana nodded vigorously. “We would then organize a funeral for the dead crocodile, with many sympathizers crying and mourning it as if it were a human being.”

People tittered again.

“According to legend, the souls of the former royal family dwelt inside these crocodiles. So each royal person has a corresponding crocodile representing their souls and we believe that whenever a Crocodile dies, a royal person would also die.”

“Oh what an omen!” a heavyset lady cried and cocked her thick eyebrow.

“Has it happened before?” a man with the shape of a rugby football player asked.

“Sure,” Achana said without hesitation. “Some crocodiles died on the same day that some important personalities in the community departed this world.”

An old British-looking lady with a dewlap, blue eyes, and a small curved nose shook her head and Abdul wondered if it was in disbelief or awe of the revelation.

“The crocodiles here are not harmful. People collect water and do their wash very close to them. And you can touch them, hold their snouts, and sit on them without fear of being harmed.”

The tourists stared at each other and some shook their heads. The British woman smiled conspiratorially at her husband, a small fellow, and blushed slightly.

Achana smiled proudly. “Now, to what has brought you here,” he said. “The calling of the crocodiles.”

The old British lady raised her shrivelled hand with blue veins.

“Yes, madam,” Achana said.

“We don’t want our chicken to be eaten by the croc,” she piped.

Achana’s stony-looking glabella got furrowed in confusion.

“Isn’t there a way to use the fowl to entice the croc out without the bird ending up in the reptile’s stomach?” the lady’s husband asked in his gruff voice.

“Okay, we’d pull the tied chicken out of the water before the crocodile snatches it.”

The lady smiled, showing a nice set of teeth however discoloured by food particles. “Since the chicken wouldn’t be eaten, can we get back half of the price?”

The crowd sighed but the lady insisted.

“No.” Achana’s face turned hard.

“But I think that’s fair.”

Achana shook his head.

“Then I would take back our chicken.”

“Okay, half price,” Achana said dejectedly. “I’d use yours last.”

Brandishing a fowl at the edge of the pond, Achana whistled. The chicken squawked and fluttered wildly. In a flash the water rustled and a long, pointed, ugly, V-shaped snout bounded out of it and snatched the fowl with its muscular jaws and dived to consume it. Some tourists turned away their faces. Some feathers dangled on the water and the British lady shook her head slowly in her palms. Achana repeated the gesture and the water now frothed with crocodiles which snatched the chickens one at a time. When they were well fed, the caretaker, whistling and dangling the British woman’s chicken, enticed out one single crocodile which politely slid out of the water and waddled toward the group a few steps. Gasping, many sidled backwards. At the edge of the water it paused before turning sideways and dropped its belly heavily to the ground. Then another crocodile crawled up behind the first one, leaving its powerful tail partly submerged in the water.

Achana pointed to the first crocodile, a five-meter long, lighter olive brown one which sat silently breathing with his jaws widely ajar. “It’s 89 years old,” he said.

“Are you sure?” a young white tourist with a dusty knapsack strapped to his back asked.

Achana smiled. “My grandfather saw it being delivered.”

The group laughed.

“Now, who’ll be the first person to sit on it for a good camera pose?” he asked, smiling and looking around.

Lots of hands shot up. The British lady ogled her husband with a face red as fresh butchered meat.

“Mmm,” Achana said, his grin broadening, “not timid at all. Ladies first. Please come.” He waved to a young white lady tourist with a long blond braided hair who smirked and turned red.

Moving gingerly towards Achana and the beast, the lady blushed some more. More stiffly she lifted her leg over the reptile’s scaly back and squatted on it. 

The onlookers clapped and glued cameras to their eyes. More ladies rushed to pose on the beast’s back. Others rather held the tail for poses.

“Now, the most intrepid to hold the reptile’s snout,” Achana said.

People hesitated.

A local boy came forward and held down the crocodile’s snout and the tourists clapped ecstatically while he grinned at them through yellow teeth and stared around with muddy, blood-shot eyes.

“You see, the crocodile has a powerful jaw to clamp over its prey but the muscle to lift it is weak. So once a crocodile’s snout is shut, you can hold it clamped forever.”

“Wouldn’t the crocodile react otherwise?” Abdul asked.

“Don’t try it in the wild. The animal will use its powerful tail to swipe at its aggressor,” the caretaker said. “But here not.”

Assured, Abdul handed his camera to a Black American lady tourist whose sunglasses covered her eyes, marched forward and held the crocodile’s snout. Applause rang out and cameras clicked.

            After all the pictures had been taken, Achana waved everyone back. Then he flung the scrawny chicken into the air. In a flash the crocodile snatched it in its jaws which snapped with a thunderous boom. Some tourists again turned their eyes away from the mangled chicken in the crocodile’s jaws.

            “My chicken,” the British lady wailed.

            Achana threw his strong arms over his head and moaned: “Oh, I forgot!”

            “The rest of my money then.” The lady stretched her hand while her husband caressed her shoulders.

            “I’m sorry, madam,” Achana apologised, bared his cavity in a grin and all burst into laughter.

When the tourists filed away to visit the other ponds, the British lady shaking her head in disbelief, Achana approached Abdul. “Where are you staying?”

“I thought I’d see the Lobi houses and then book accommodation in Wa.”

“Going to Wa could be inconvenient,” Achana said. “Why don’t you let me take you to Sirigu on my motorbike? Then you can come back here and sleep in my house.”

Abdul accepted heartily and after depositing his knapsack in the entrance hut of Achana’s compound, Achana showed him round his family’s living complex. Abdul did not find the granary where the basic food items harvested from the farm are stored as striking as those in the other northeastern parts of the country. While over there the granaries were built from mud on a foundation with a system of ventilation and walls tapering off towards the opening at the top which is covered with a woven thatch lid, here the threshed corn was stored in large baskets inside a store and the groundnuts in small baskets, smeared all over with mud and covered with thatch and placed on wooden platforms inside the compound yard. However, he admired the meeting place where the extended family would come together to discuss any issue that affected them. There were both indoor and outdoor kitchens. There was also a number of different structures altogether.

“Quite elaborate,” Abdul said.

Tickled, Achana offered more information: “The construction of heavy buttresses to reinforce wall corners and walls came to this area—especially along the present Lawra-Wa-Bole-Bamboi road which formed part of the historic north-south trade route—with the building of mosques when North African and Sahelian traders and migrants introduced Islam into West Africa and into our region here from the 16th century.”

After talking for a while Abdul paid Achana the small homestay fee, and they were on the way towards the Lobi village.

The smells and the sounds of the night enveloped them as they rode on the dirt road grooved by the last rains and tires. Abdul found the bumpy, dusty bike ride fun and told Achana so.

“The ride is more fun in the rainy season when the dry rivers get swollen and we have to wade though them. At places we’d even have to carry the bike.”

Although he agreed it would be fun, Abdul couldn’t imagine himself carrying that bike, even if it was only to help Achana. “I think I prefer the dry season.”

“Maybe it’s good for the boat ride we’re to make soon,” Achana said. “Then the current isn’t so bad. But on the negative side we can’t see any hippos now.”

Surely the boat ride was smooth and there were no hippos to be seen.

Motoring through the Lobi Community, wooden poles along the main streets, some with red flags and others with white ones fluttering on them caught Abdul’s eyes and he wanted to know what they signified.

“They represent the marriages that have been contracted in the community,” Achana explained.

“Yeah?” Abdul sounded intrigued.

“Yeah,” Achana said. “Marrying here is an act of bravery, especially if one is able to marry someone else’s wife.”

“Tell me!” Abdul cried.

“It’s part of the Lobi custom. A man who marries another man’s wife mounts a pole with a red flag on top and the one who marries a young girl raises a white flag on his pole.”

“It must be quite confusing here.”

Achana shook his head vigorously. “Both deeds represent acts of victory. Apart from their unique marriage tradition, Lobi women usually have the lower and upper lips punched to create an opening, which, they say, makes them look more attractive to their husbands.”

A memory fluttered in Abdul like a butterfly over nectar. He remembered the National Geographic images from his childhood which used to make him wrinkle his nose at those ‘savages.’ And here he was going to see them in person! How small this world is!

As they approached the village, the beautifully painted traditional homesteads loomed into view.

“It’s a centuries-old tradition,” Achana said. “You’ll see everything as we’ll interact with the people to learn their history and traditions.”

 They were received in the village by the guide, a man with eyes so deep-set and so screwed up that he seemed to be squinting across a great expanse. “Lobi is one of the places where slave raiders captured most of their victims during the time of the slave trade,” he said, twitching his face which deepened the impression of squinting. 

“How come the raiders captured people so easily?” Abdul wanted to hear straight from a local person.

“Those fiends were more organized and better armed than the autochthonous peoples. The savannah area has for long been occupied by loosely organized segmentary, stateless groups like the Lobi. The less organized societies never had the military ability or the federating element of a state to counter outside attacks, so they easily fell to raiders.”

Abdul nodded.

“But the devils were not always successful. When raiders once came here, the people were said to have crossed a river that divided the town from Tukpon Island where they sought refuge.”

The detailed answer made something to flutter in Abdul’s heart, and his eyes widened a bit.

“The same phenomenon is true of colonialism. Europeans first successfully entered this region in the latter part of the 18^th century. By 1876 they had explored the south and it was not until the 1890s that the French army entered the Volta basin. The British were also exploring the region and competition resulted between the two European powers. The French had also clashed with the notorious slave raider, Samori, whom they drove from the north, leaving his destiny in the hands of the British.”

“Not strange as the colonial conquest was made, in part, under the guise of the fight against slavery in the interior of Africa.”

“Their first encounter however resulted in the defeat of the British, giving Samori a field day to carry out slave raiding east of the Black Volta, which, up to that time had been relatively spared the raids of Samori and his men.”

“Everywhere one hears of this Samori,” Abdul griped.

“He’s not loved here,” the guide spat out the words, clamping his thin lips tight and waving across his broad face with chapped-edged fingertips. “Let’s forget about that devil and begin the tour.”

            Abdul paid the full entrance and half of the compound fees for him and Achana and they went round the village inspecting the painted Lobi Sudanic style houses, while Abdul stole looks at the women with the weird holes on their lips.

“Nowadays fewer Lobi women wear the ceremonial clay lip plugs in their lips,” Achana remarked.

That sounded good to Abdul.

Later on Abdul and Achana chose a compound to visit and Abdul paid the remaining compound fee and a private guide wearing a faded, tattered smock proudly led them through the rectangular entrance opening of the house covered with thick mats woven from grass to explain the fortress-style architecture.

“The first thing you may have noticed on coming in here is the smooth floor finish,” the guide said in a drawl rendered tolerable only by his lilt and Abdul stamped his right foot on the hardwearing surface. “Everybody plays their parts during the building of a house because all the people here are skilled in house construction. Nobody engages skilled or specialized craftsmen to build their houses. The members of the family can do the work themselves. The laying and the finishing of the floor is the last task in the construction of a Lobi house. It is the preserve of the women of the compound builder’s family. As you will see, they lay the floor not only in the rooms but also in the compound yard outside the houses up to the walls around the inner yard of the compound where we place the granaries and where sheep, goats, cows, and poultry such as chicken and guinea fowl spend the night.”

Abdul nodded on glancing around.

“To do this, cow-dung is soaked in water for about three days. On the day the floor is to be laid, fine sand is collected from the riverside and mixed with mud or laterite. After the ground is swept and wetted, the cow-dung solution is then sprinkled over the mixture of mud or laterite with sand and laid straight on the ground. Singing, a group of women beat the floor with wooden implements or flat stones in unison for hours—usually two to three—until the floor becomes smooth and hardwearing.”

Abdul scraped his feet on the floor. It felt hard and smooth.

“Everyday, and for two weeks, an extract obtained from the boiled empty pods or the bark of the Dawadawa is sprinkled onto the finished floor which becomes harder, waterproof, and takes on a pleasant, rustic, reddish appearance.”

Abdul peeked at the floor and nodded in agreement.

“The outside floor is given a fall for water to drain off it easily to the outside of the compound, usually through an opening at the base of a bathroom wall.” The guide showed them such a hole.

 Abdul found the guide highly knowledgeable and the building techniques of the people fascinating. He felt bad to have found these people savage in his childhood. Donna was right: they were just different from Americans.

“Contrary to certain parts of the Northeast, here the buildings are more or less rectangular structures topped mainly with flat mud roofs which are supported by posts, beams, and rafters.”

Abdul peered at the Lobi-house with its covered internal courtyard; the walls were laid out rectilinear to enclose interconnecting cellular spaces.

“We erect the walls in layers with wet mud balls or sun-dried mud bricks having an average thickness of 400 millimeters.”

The guide showed them a house wall built with mud balls where the separate layers showed clearly since successive layers overlapped the previous ones. Then he led them through a mat-covered rectangular opening into a room of almost 3 meters in width. The walls were plastered and finished smoothly. They climbed up the flat roof. The walls jutted out in about 280 mm high parapets beyond the roof surface. The flat mud roof rested on these walls with its beams and rafters bedded into the mud of the wall. Most of the other compounds had flat mud roofs too. Achana whispered to Abdul that the few conical thatch roofs in some compounds were alien to the region.

The guide led them to see their cylindrical granaries. Everywhere the Lobi families received them with broad smiles and hugs.

“Everybody knows you here,” a tickled Abdul said to Achana.

Achana shook his head vigorously. “Of course I sometimes lead tourists here but I’m as much a stranger here as you.”

“These people must be very friendly,” Abdul remarked seriously.

“Sure, they naturally are,” Achana agreed. “Like all northern Ghanaians.”

“What about the southerners?”

“They’re also Ghanaian. Hospitality is in our blood; we’re born with it.”

“But don’t you think northern Ghanaians are more hospitable than their southern counterparts?”

 “I think so. But then rural northern folks are more hospitable than the urban ones.”

“Why?” 

About cocked his head to one side and thought a while. “I think it comes from the urban culture where everyone’s for himself and nobody’s for the other. The western influence too. We love people!”

“Yeah I noticed that,” Abdul said, wondering who had the guts to call the Western world civilized. “In America people are taught to smile.”

“Why?” Achana sounded scandalized.

“They aren’t naturally friendly, I guess.”

Achana grinned, shaking his head; whispered a sort of excuse to the guide and they again turned their attention to the granaries. They were built over a square base tapering off towards the top.

“We build them with a mixture of mud, cow-dung, and straw obtained from crushing dried guinea corn or millet stalks.”

“Nothing is lost here,” Abdul said to Achana who nodded vigorously.

“And everything comes from nature,” he added and Achana nodded again.

A sort of a thatch hat was used to cover the neck of the granary around which a roof was built.

“Threshed grain is stored and taken out from the top,” the guide said.

Abdul nodded.

“The granaries which are located outside the external compound walls are incorporated into the house when new rooms are added to it.”

They climbed up the granary.

“You see the divider walls,” the guide said as they looked down the granary and Abdul nodded. “They also serve to reinforce the granary.” They climbed down. “As for the unthreshed corn, we store them in square mud silos built near the farm and covered with thatch roofs.”
            Abdul found ever-present signs of the animist beliefs of the Lobis. The most interesting was the royal python, a sacred animal that occupied a portion of each home. He learnt also that the Lobi cling to many of their old traditions, including hunting with bows and arrows for hares and gazelles.

Abdul gave the guide a good tip. He felt his hand dwarfed by the guide’s large one in a vice-like grip when they shook hands; then he and Achana continued to the village of Sirigu, a community of the small-scale eco-tourism project, the Sirigu Women’s Organization for Pottery and Arts, or SWOPA, founded in 1997 to increase income and development and to perpetuate the Lobi traditional artistic skills, especially the intricate house decorations.

SWOPA was housed in an intricately painted structure typical of the Lobi people. Another guide led them on a tour of traditional homes belonging to SWOPA. His muscular body made him look stiff, frozen even, especially when he walked.

They stood under a flat mud roof which the guide said was supported by a bush pole substructure of posts and beams and in others by beams and rafters from the Shea butter tree bedded into the mud wall. The posts had forked ends at the top and carried the beams. There were also arrangements of smaller poles as rafters and closely laid small split poles. A layer of thick well kneaded mud was put on top of this. A finish of what the guide said was a mixture of mud, cow-dung, sand and the residue from Shea butter during extraction was applied to the mud layer and brushed with the liquid obtained from boiling the Locust Bean tree pods.

“That pot without bottom inserted into the roof in places lets in light and in kitchens sucks out smoke,” the guide continued and Abdul nodded with meaning. “It can be covered with a calabash or bowl during rain.” Abdul nodded again.

The guide led them outside. “You see those spouts thrust into the small parapet wall surrounding the roof?” he asked and the visitors nodded. “They drain off rainwater from the mud roofs.”

Abdul again nodded with understanding.

After the guide had explained the famous symbolic wall decorations of amazing geometric patterns symbolizing legends and fables of the region, Abdul and Achana toured the gallery of traditional arts and pottery where he found a huge assortment of pottery, baskets and paintings on sale. Women at the Centre and artists at work explained all about the symbolism and the history of the geometric patterns. Abdul bought a few small items and a set of nicely painted plates that he later offered Achana’s wife, despite her and Achan’s protests. A guide led them to see the solar-powered affordable rooms in the guesthouse decorated in the traditional style reflected throughout the SWOPA grounds. The guide said the best way to experience Sirigu was through one of the “Be Part of the Art” workshops in which visitors can learn to make pottery, basketry, or wall designs. But Achana said they didn’t have the time for it.

As the guide led them towards the Lobi market, Abdul told Achana that elsewhere, instead of surface decoration, he had seen cowrie-shells or broken china and even whole plates embedded into the mud above the entrance opening to the round house or the entire openings.

Achana nodded. “In Dagombaland the decoration shows the house owner’s wealth. The Konkombas use another method of finishing a wall by grinding shells collected from the banks of the river Oti which passes through their area. They mix the lime with cow-dung to obtain a sort of a limewash which not only hardens the surface of the walls, but also makes it impervious to rain and gives the houses their characteristic white, rather concrete-like appearance. Among the Nankansis, women polish the painted surface of the wall with flat granite or pebble stones, until the wall appears as if painted with glossy oil paint.”

They soon arrived at the market.

“Our community still recognizes cowries as a legal tender,” the guide said as people exchanged goods for cowries.

“Don’t they find it cumbersome?” Abdul asked.

The guide shook his head. “On the contrary the number of cowries a person possesses is indicative of how rich he or she is.”

“Do they use it in everyday life?”

The guide nodded. “Our people use cowries to pay dowry and funeral contributions, and to purchase drugs, foodstuffs and any other commodity.”

“How do you judge the value of a cowry?”

“Ten cowries are equivalent to a thousand cedis.” About 10 cents.

“That’s not much,” Abdul remarked.

The guide shrugged. “Also we still practice the barter trade system here. On market days someone can come and exchange his yams for salt for example. This is normal and commonplace.”

Going back to Paga, both the twilight through which the weak headlight of Achana’s motorcycle cut a triangular tunnel and what he had just witnessed at Sirigu made Abdul feel as if he was coming out of a distant past. “Travel and see,” Achana had said. The effect had not worn off him when they arrived in Paga in pitch dark and Abdul’s eyes widened to see crocodiles crossing streets and walking through the village looking for food.

“Isn’t that dangerous, especially for a hungry croc?” Abdul asked as Achana stopped for a crocodile to crawl into a compound.

“If it were you wouldn’t have seen anybody here,” Achana answered through a guttural laugh. “Or any crocodiles for that matter.”

After the crocodile wriggled away, Achana continued home, Abdul wishing there would not be any crocodiles there.

They settled on low stools in Achana’s entrance cabin; the yard bustled with life. Achana’s wife brought them water in a calabash and served Abdul first, while in a crouching position. “Visitors are special here,” Achana explained. After washing their hands Achana brought pito as appetizer and shared it with Abdul while his youngest children stole looks at them from corners of walls. Abdul waved them over but they disappeared in giggles and then came back. They seemed to be enjoying the game when Achana gave them a burning look and they disappeared for good. Achana grumbled that kids had nothing to do where adults congregated. Then his wife brought steaming plates of tuo safi.

Abdul took a tentative bite. The food tickled his palate. He ate heartily.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if all of your heart is in your wife’s hands,” he joked on finishing his plate.

“Why?” Achana asked, in the manner of the one who has not understood, some alarm in his muddy eyes.

“She’s a wonderful cook,” Abdul explained

Achana sighed like one who has finally understood.

“An English proverb says that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

“That may be true; but really it’s through the woman’s …” Achana pointed to his genital area and guffawed. Then he shouted something, gesturing wildly.

His broadly smiling wife rushed in more food, set it before Abdul and genuflected.

“For me?” Abdul asked, a horrified tone in his voice.

Achana nodded vigorously.

“My God, I’m bursting.” He stretched and caressed his distended stomach.

“But you did appreciate the food.”

“Sure, and I meant it; but I can’t take anymore.”

Achana stared out towards the kitchen. “This is special cooking, like for a great feast or something. I’ll finish it myself and tell my wife you did, otherwise she’ll be highly upset.”

“I’m grateful to you because I wouldn’t want her to be disappointed,” Abdul said while Achana began to guzzle the TZ.

“Elsewhere like Bawku it’s a sign of hospitality to serve visitors food. And it’s an offence for a guest to leave even a morsel of food in a bowl: that means they didn’t enjoy the meal.”

“Supposing you have to visit many homes in a stretch?”

“You must finish the food at each home.”

Abdul puffed, feeling the idea bring aches to his bulging stomach. He asked politely to relieve himself. The long-drop toilet he finds exotic appeared daunting in the night. When finally he gingerly crouched down on it, Abdul was surprised to find nothing come out of his bowels. The feeling might have come from eating too much. Satisfied that there was no pressure on his bowels, Abdul went back to Achana. When Achana gestured to him if he was okay, Abdul nodded. When Abdul revealed his fear of the drop-toilet, Achana said he could have him taken to the bush if he had known. “Naturally air-conditioned,” he said with a chortle.

When Achana finished eating, he shouted to his wife who rushed in to clear the table. She appeared tickled to see an empty bowl. Achana winked at Abdul who winked back.

“The traditional village here appears interesting,” Abdul said when they sat down to relax over a gourd of pito.

“Sure,” replied Achana. “That’s why I can’t imagine myself living anywhere else, especially in cities. Some city dwellers sneer at us village dwellers whose compounds are built with huts of mud and straw. Contrary to their areas where people live in hot single rooms, we love the small, round or square buildings connected to each other by low walls. Our mud huts have the advantage of regulating the temperature inside: when it’s hot outside, the temperature inside is cooler and vice versa.”

“Yeah?”

Achana nodded.

“Why do people resort to cement blocks then?”

“Modernity. They want to be seen as civilised.”

Abdul winced.

“Also while space is limited in city homes, we have plenty of space around the cabins for cooking and other daily activities.”

“So modernity has been a setback for the African in some cases?”

“Certainly,” Achana affirmed. “For example, the extended family life is dead in the cities. While here it’s not common to find as little as two people in a compound, as many as twenty is pretty sure.”

“How many people live in your compound?”

Achana cocked his head to one side and with a distant look in his muddied eyes and dried lips moving, reckoned. “Ten, including me and my two wives,” he said. “That’s reasonable, isn’t it?”

Abdul didn’t want to hurt Achana by saying no neither did he want to encourage him by saying yes. So he dodged the question and asked: “Where’s your other wife?”

“She’s gone to visit her sick mother. She becomes a natural lodger of that compound.”

“So you have seven children.”

“Not exactly,” Achana said with a laugh. “I have two distant relatives living with me. The extended family system I told you about. In the same way three of my kids are living with relatives in Techiman in the Brong Ahafo Region…”

Abdul nodded. “I was there.”

“… and in Tema learning trades and going to school.”

“I’ve been to Tema too.”

A look of admiration came on Achana’s face. “You know all of Ghana already while we the Ghanaians know only where we live. So, in all I have eight children, with two dead and a lot more to come.” Achana laughed hard.

Abdul could no longer avoid the issue. “Eight, is that not too many already?”

“Inasmuch as Allah gives me the virility and my wives the fertility, why shouldn’t we continue to have children?”

“I’m worried about taking adequate care of them,” Abdul said amicably.

Achana thought for a while. “You’re right, my brother,” he acquiesced. “Life is very hard now. The problem is you can’t be married without entertaining yourself a little.” He winked at Abdul.

“Why don’t you practice family planning?”

“No, no, no,” Achana refused outright. “It’s not for serious people. You know something about the Old Testament?”

Abdul nodded.

“God asked us to multiply and fill the earth. Only—excuse me to say—the Western world has been stealing resources from Africa too much, making it impossible for us to take good care of ourselves and our children and our relatives.”

“People don’t have a lot of children in the West.”

“They don’t like human beings. They prefer to have a child and a dog and a cat and what else that they dote on like human beings. What’s that nonsense?” A look of disgust came on Abdul’s face. “If they stop the stealing of Africa they’ve been doing since the time of our ancestors…” Achana clicked his fingers behind his back. “…then we’ll be okay here, even with a hundred children each. Neither Africa nor Ghana is poor but impoverished.”

Abdul changed the subject. “Do some people practice the matrilineal system here like the Ashantis?”

Achana shook his head vigorously. “We’re patrilineal, so a man, his wife or wives, their daughters and sons—single and married—typically inhabit a compound with their wives and children.”

“Several generations under one roof, with a lot of wives?”

“Traditionally men can take as many wives as they wish, but people rather obey the Islamic rule of a maximum of four wives: ‘Marry women of your choice, two, or three, or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, Al-Qur’an 4:3,’” Achana quoted proudly and added: “You know that, don’t you?”

Abdul nodded quietly.

“But you won’t find many people with more than two.”

Abdul nodded. “How are living quarters organized in the compound?”  

“In all compounds the front cabin serves as entrance to the complex.”

“Where we’re sitting.”

Achana nodded. “This entrance cabin is for receiving visitors and for some family meetings.”

“Just like the sitting room in our homes.”

Achana nodded. “Unfortunately most Africans living in cities don’t have such things; their single rooms serve for everything, so they receive visitors outside, what is considered inhospitable here; a sacrilege even,” Achana spat out the word as if it was the dirtiest thing which ever came out of his mouth.

“I see.”

“Women live in round huts, which they share with their children who are below twelve years of age.”

“No matter their number?”

“The huts are large enough. But from the age of twelve, a man will live in his own square cabin in the compound.”

“That sounds exciting.”

Achana grinned. “I remember how proud and grown-up I felt when I had my own cabin about thirty years back. When one gets married the couple live together in the husband’s cabin until they have children, then the wife receives her own lodging.”

“Since people have more than one wife, how do they play their roles?”

“If there is more than one wife, each cooks for the man for a determined period, here two days in a row. Then the other takes over, and so on.”

“Doesn’t that create problems of jealousy?”

“Too much,” Achana confirmed and scratched his head. “Supposing you didn’t enjoy a woman’s cooking for some reason but when the other’s turn came, you ate heartily, the first wouldn’t be happy.”

“Then what happens?”

“Insinuations, bickering, back-biting…”

“How do you handle that?”

Achana stared sharply at Abdul and smiled. “A man must be firm if he doesn’t want his house to become a cold war ground and go to ruin.”

“Wouldn’t having one wife solve the problem?”

Achana laughed. “You should hear those our book-long city relatives who are monogamous complain about the problems they have with their wives. They finally try to solve the matter by having girlfriends or mistresses which comes to the old polygamous system.” Achana laughed hard.

“I guess marriage is not easy,” Abdul remarked.

“Excuse me,” Achana said softly, “aren’t you married?”

“Not yet,” Abdul said.

“Maybe you haven’t lost much. When I was young an uncle who liked pito too much used to say that those who are not married are in a hurry to do so and those who are, are in a greater hurry to come out of it.” Achana laughed hard. “I didn’t understand him when he used to say never get married until I did.”

“You seem to have regrets.”

“Which person in this necessary evil doesn’t? When your turn comes you’ll know. So, as I said, the wives cook in turns. The one cooking at a particular time shares the husband’s cabin and bed.” Achana winked at Abdul who smiled.

“I guess some cabins are not for sleeping in,” Abdul said.

“Sure. The open space in the middle of the compound serves as a kitchen. The mother of the family does the cooking. Often, when her daughter- or daughters-in-law become mothers, they take over the cooking. We keep our provision in another cabinet which is also used for cooking when it rains. Our animals sleep in huts between cabins in the compound. There are unroofed cabins which serve as bathroom and urinal. Now we have drop toilets but our ancestors thought it of bad taste to integrate the toilet into the living quarters. So people relieved themselves in the bush.”

“Naturally air-conditioned toilet,” Abdul mimicked Achana.

“Yeah,” he said in a tickled manner,” and good for agriculture too.”

“Is everybody is a farmer here?”

Achana nodded. “Yes. We cultivate mainly yam—which are like large potatoes—corn, cassava, rice, peanuts, beans, and some vegetables too. And we raise chickens, guinea fowl, goats, sheep and cows.”

“That sounds self-reliant.”

“Yes, we produce for our own consumption but when there’s a good harvest or when we need money we sell some of the items at the market.”

“It seems tasks are shared according to sex, with the women doing the hardest work.”

Achana wrinkled his nose. “Women fetch water which is harassing during the dry season when they have to walk for kilometers to find it. Men build and repair huts. Women again cook and take care of the children. The spouses have their own income and financial responsibilities. Men take care of main expenses such as housing, school fees, and hospital bills and provide the main ingredient such as yam, corn, cassava or peanuts for meals while the women have to buy the ingredients for soup on the days she cooks. Extra income, usually earned at the market selling shea-butter or other products they make, is spent on clothing for themselves and their children.  The children also assist their parents in most activities from the age of 4 or 5.”

“Is that not child labor?”

Achana winced. “I’ve been hearing that nonsense; they shouldn’t bring it here. If my children can’t help with the family’s activities, who will?”

“Children should be at school, not on farms or on work sites.”

“Children should attend school but they must also learn to help the parents do their work. What kind of education for our children are they bringing up?” he fumed.

“Can we talk about food?” Abdul tried to douse the fire.

Achana nodded. “Breakfast is usually the leftovers of the previous day’s dinner which is warmed and eaten. Or koko, which is porridge prepared that morning of fermented corn or millet to which sugar and pepper are added. Lunch and dinner is typically tuo zafi or TZ accompanied with soup made of dried okra, peanut or a spinach-like vegetable.”

“Everyday the same thing for breakfast, lunch, and supper?”

“Yes,” Achana said quietly. “But rice and beans are sometimes taken between meals; also fruits or other snacks.”

“Is enough meat consumed?”

“You want to know everything,” Achana chided amiably and tittered. Shrugging, he said: “We slaughter animals for meals on national holidays, during celebrations, or when we have special visitors, like today” He laughed.

“Foreigners usually see Africans as people who lack organization.”

“Nonsense,” Achana refuted hotly. “Even here in our village there’s organization and management. Why do they think that they know everything and we nothing?”

“Racism, is what we call it,” Abdul explained.

“Let’s forget that and talk about here. Each village is ruled by a chief aided by a council of elders, a Tindaana and a Kamana.”

“It’s a pity the chiefs let us down during slavery and colonialism,” Abdul observed.

“Those two wounds in the history of Africans made mockery of chiefs who unfortunately did not have the decorum to insist on their moral authority and stand by their oath to the people. Today our chief is in charge of the general management of the village. For example, he decides land management, convenes the meetings of the council of elders to discuss village affairs.”

“Is the Council’s decision binding on him?”

“He has the power to accept or refuse their decisions but he rarely has the occasion to do the latter. Another duty of the chief is to receive visitors to the village who are required to call on him not only to announce their presence but also to reveal the purpose of their visit.”

“I’m an outlaw then.”

Achana shook his head. “These days visits to the Paga Pio’s Palace are nothing more than mere courtesy calls. You may visit the palace just to see it but it isn’t very necessary.”

“You seem not to like the chief too much.”

“There’s a small misunderstanding between us,” Achana confessed. “But nothing to go to war about.”

“Does it have to do with the pools?” Abdul winked at Achana. “Competition, maybe.”

“I said it isn’t a life and death matter,” Achana said in a way indicating he didn’t want to discuss the matter.

 “Tell me about the council of elders then.”

“The council of elders consists of a number of men…”

“No woman?” abdul sounded surprised.

“No,” Achana said firmly. “Even only males of certain families can be members of the council of elders. Each councilor has a specific status and function: chairman, judge, guard, or something else. A task is conferred on a person depending on his personal characteristics and qualities. Seating position during meetings in the chief’s hall also depends on a councilor’s status. They serve as parliamentarians and help the chief and the Tindaana to carry out their responsibilities. Each council member is responsible for a piece of land.”

“What’s the Tindaana?”

Achana laughed at Abdul’s pronunciation of the word. “Tindaana,” he corrected. “He takes care of all spiritual matters concerning the land belonging to the village.”

“Sort of a priest.”

Achana nodded. “He appeases the land spirits by performing rituals; he also ensures that taboos are adhered to. By keeping the people in harmony with the spirits, the Tindaana gets us sufficient rain for a good harvest, peace, fertility, and the well-being of people and animals of the village.”

“Do you believe in such things?”

Achana nodded.

“But you’re Moslem.”

“To avoid observing certain precepts of Islam, that uncle of mine who used to advise against marriage used to say that he was Moslem but not Arab.” Achana laughed a little.

“He sounds like a great joke.”

Achana nodded. “But I wouldn’t go that far. Suffice it to say that our people accepted Islam but did not abandon their animistic beliefs, at least not totally.”

Abdul nodded. He knew this about areas of Africa which had accepted Christianity.

“Do the two go smoothly together?”

“Mmm,” Achana wondered before answering: “Well, it’s like mixing the African way of life and the European. For each circumstance, you choose the one which suits you or which matches the occasion.”

“I see.”

“Being in communication with the spirits, the Tindaana receives revelations about village matters.”

“Really?”

Achana nodded.  “The other time the spirits advised a sacrifice to do away with mysterious deaths in the community. As in such a case which concerns the whole village, each compound contributed to the sacrifice. And since then the mystery deaths have ceased.”

“Tell me!”

Achana nodded proudly.

Abdul made a mental note to try such powers when he had the opportunity and felt guilty when the Wuriyanga mosque at Garu flitted through his head and he shrugged. 

“When the village is connected to a female sacred forest, the Tindaana is a woman and she is called tindanpagba.”

“Which means that women are not ignored altogether?”

 Achana shook his head. “And even such villages have no chiefs because the female land spirits won’t accept male leadership.”

“Tell me!” Abdul sounded tickled.

Achana nodded several times. “When people attempted to install a chief in such villages, the candidates met with a sudden and mysterious death soon after.”

“You don’t mean it!” Abdul cried slowly.

Achana nodded several times again. “Don’t play with such things.”

“Does the Kamona have similar powers?”

“He is the general, the chief of warriors, who leads the village in war against other tribes.”

Abdul wondered if such people led raids for slaves but did not feel like asking Achana about it.

“He is also the mediator in conflicts between inhabitants of the village.”

They talked for a while more and Abdul began to yawn.

“Oh, you fell sleepy,” Achana said apologetically. “It’s stuffy in the rooms. We’ll sleep on the roof.”

Abdul nodded vigorously.

In a bound Achana was on his feet, hauled in two thin single-place mattresses in both armpits and lugged them to the flat roof of his mud house.

“May Allah wake us up tomorrow,” Achana said and put down his head.

Abdul also lay on his and stared at the stars twinkling in the clear sky. He never suspected how fresh and how much the wind could blow on the roof. Abdul stared in Achana’s direction when he soon started snoring. Slowly Abdul sank into oblivion too and soon lost consciousness of the world.

He woke up to the sunrise sounds of the village: the Muezzin singing the azan from a minaret of mud calling the people to the first Salat of five prayers required a day; feet hurrying to the mosque; people greeting each other in litanies; chirping birds; fire crackling in Achana’s wife’s kitchen; pestles rhythmically thrusting into mortars to grind food; and women calling out to children. Soon the village was wide awake and Abdul couldn’t distinguish the individual sounds anymore.

After eating an early breakfast of a delicious vegetable stew and rice, Abdul prepared to travel slightly southwest of Paga and 70 kilometers north of Wa the regional capital to visit the Gwollu Slave Defence Wall not far from Tumu. After this other poignant reminder of the ancient slave routes that passed through the area, he will continue southwest to trace the memorial of the colonial agent G. E. Ferguson, come further down and turn east to Bulinga, and then continue to Sankana and Ullo.

On the routes, although activities were at a low key, Abdul was not surprised not to find the usual Sunday scenes in the South here.

Achana accompanied him to the side of the road and vigorously flagged down a loaded bus. They shook hands firmly, the passengers ogling Achana while he reminded Abdul not to fail to come back to Paga. Showing his entire cavity which appeared to Abdul like the entrance of a cave, Achana waved vigorously as the tro-tro lurched off for the Upper West Region located in the northwestern corner of the country, home mainly of the Wala, Dagaba and Sisala. The guidebook had described Gwollu, as the hometown of one of Ghana’s former Presidents, Dr Hilla Limann, and one of the places where everybody interested in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade must visit since part of its defence wall against slave raiding was still standing. If he had time, Abdul thought, he would visit the grave of Dr Limann said to be located right in the middle of the palace.