Oral Traditions as Embodiments of Knowledge: The Case of the Kasena of North Eastern Ghana ( by Asangba Reginald Taluah) (original) (raw)
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Oral Traditions as Embodiments of Knowledge: The Case of the Kasena of North Eastern Ghana
International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies, 2015
Before the advent of the European, every existing African community had its own means of education. Like the Kasena, the worldview of most communities is inextricably woven into the fibre of their oral traditions. Kasena oral traditions express beliefs, values, ideas and other socio-cultural negotiations that depict their philosophy of life. Quite apart from the novelty of technique of Kasena oral traditions, they serve as road guides to their endeavours and offer a better understanding of the spiritual and mundane worlds. Oral traditions embody the sense of time, place and identity of the Kasena in this multicultural world. The ways and manner to practice good hygiene and conserve the environment are embodied in proverbs, whereas the code of conduct and several other social negotiations are carried in folktales and puzzles. However, in the wake of globalization and its attendants such as Christianity, formal education and rural-urban migration amongst a host of other factors, the role and purpose of Kasena oral traditions have taken a down turn. This article therefore seeks to bring to the fore the significant role of Kasena oral traditions in transmitting and maintaining indigenous knowledge. It further examines the negative toll globalization has on Kasena oral traditions.
The Failure of Oral Tradition: A Case of African Beliefs and Customs
2018
In this publication, Verkijika explores the role of oral tradition in the evolution of Africa, it's merits and demerits, and how such information could be useful towards forging a better future for Africa. He also uses this theory to clarify a few Traditional African customs and beliefs who's misinterpretations had been a root cause for several debates about the philosophy of the true traditional African man.
YET TO PUBLISHED, 2022
This book is inspired by the living experiences of a man born into a typical traditional community that witnessed his community transforming into a new world where traditions and culture were the order of the day. He happens to be born into a traditional home where the father was the chief and he being the first son (Ahenkan, Kakra because he is a twin) had a lot of responsibilities bestowed on him by tradition. Samples of the functions that he assisted
The last quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed the outward and inordinate expression of European's quest for territorial occupation of Africa in order to massively control and brutally exploit African resources for their benefits. To achieve their selfish economic and political interests, the rapacious colonizers deliberately distorted and grossly misinterpreted African historical accounts. History was used as a tool to becloud realities and make Africans to look docile and timid. Africa was regarded by European historians and historical writers as a continent whose history only began with European intervention in Africa. Whenever they write about Africa, derogative words and statements emanating from their imaginations which have no respect for African past overhaul their writings about African continent. Hence, evidences available and utilized by African scholars have shown that the use of oral traditions have contributed immensely to the reconstruction and value of African historiography. This study examines the European conception of African history and contributions of Africanist historians, leading to the establishment of the historiographical tradition. Emphasis is laid on oral traditions as a valid and viable source in the reconstruction of the histories of several localities not only in Nigeria but in West Africa as a whole.
African Indigenous Epistemologies, Traditions, and Practices Before the Arrival of Europeans
Ernestina Wiafe, 2023
Africa is the second-largest continent in the world (after Asia), making up around one-fifth of the planet’s land area. There are many different cultural and linguistic groupings, because of how long humans have lived there. Due to this, Africans have a network of knowledge, beliefs, and traditions that they use to preserve, explain, and contextualize their ties with their culture and en-vironment before the arrival of Europeans. Formal and informal transfers of indigenous knowledge took place between families, tribes, and communities through social contacts, oral traditions, ceremonial acts, and other activities. I will indicate, with all these indigenous systems and ways of life, the Europeans and other foreign settlers to the areas of Africa labeled the cher-ished traditional ways of teaching and learning of the native people as primitive and referred to the indigenous as uneducated, savage, and uncultured. It is therefore important to tell the story so that those who mismanage our affairs would not silence our criticism by pretending they have facts not available to the rest of us because, as Cinua Achebe stated, “Until the lions have their historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”
E-Journal of Religious and Theological Studies, 2021
The Western missionaries' attitude towards Asante indigenous belief systems created the impression that Christianity was unable to live side by side with Asante indigenous knowledge systems. The missionaries ended up creating tension between the Christian faith and the pre-missionary cultural values. The indigenous knowledge systems that informed the world views of the people were not considered as integral part of the available resources for the shaping of the Asante Christian world view. The Salem communities for example, were set up to facilitate the disconnection of the new converts from their cultural past. This study is about the available pre-missionary Asante indigenous knowledge systems that Robert Sutherland Rattray after thorough studies published and made available to facilitate all aspects of the Asante life especially interpretation and transmission of the Christian faith. With a critical examination of the various major works of Robert Rattray and observation of Asante cultural and Christian activities, the study identified some specific areas that the Asante indigenous knowledge systems have lived side by side with the Christian faith. The study concludes with a call for respect, pride and intentional exploration into the indigenous knowledge systems to serve the Asante and other Akan Christian needs.
Revitalizing African Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Knowledge Production
2020
The article is based on the following arguments: the history of Africa’s Indigenous ways of knowing and knowledge production did not begin with the coming of Western knowledge systems, and neither should their future depend exclusively on Western and other worldviews. Like other human societies across the globe, African indigenous societies have, for centuries, developed their own sets of experiences and explanations relating to the environments they live in (Kimwaga 2010). This is due to the fact that the way learning is perceived and how people actually learn is culturally specific. Different cultures have different ways and experiences of social reality and, hence, learning (Matike 2008). This is influenced by their worldview and belief systems of the natural environment, including the socio-economic and ecological context of their livelihood. These culturally and locally specific ways of knowing and knowledge production are often referred to as traditional, ecological, community...
This article examines the contested ways in which the international development concept of “indigenous knowledge” has been used and understood by a variety of actors within Ghana including both Ghanaian and non-Ghanaian development workers, chiefs, and members of beneficiary communities. While an ostensibly simplistic opposition between “indigenous” and “western” knowledge underscores this discourse, I argue that it has acted to frame a number of complex and geographically specific debates concerning the respective roles of chiefs and elites in the development of the country. The article also explores how the assumed incommensurability of these knowledge systems creates the need for various kinds of “mediation” and “translation” in which both chiefs and development workers foreground a “dual” identity. Against the prevailing anthropological tendency to critique the opposition between “indigenous” and “western” knowledge, I suggest that it is important to understand how these terms are used by different actors in the negotiation of identities and relations that are not reducible to the binary logic of the terms themselves.
Illuminating African Knowledge Systems: The Need for a Contemporary Development Agenda
International Journal of Advanced Research, 2016
Despite obvious differences between the regions and ethnic groups on the vast African continent, one can identify common elements in the way African people see themselves (cultural universalis), the way they know and organise themselves: their religions, worldviews, relationships to nature, their notion of time, artistic expressions, leadership, and ethnic organizations, their ethics and values. In contemporary Africa, traditional knowledge, ethics and values still are an important driving force in a rural peoples" decisions making (action or inaction) and development activities in general. Of recent times there is the debate as to the degree of cultural erosion. Some argue that the erosion (enculturation/ inculturation/ cross-culturaliness) has debased the values associated with African knowledges. In-place of joining this debate the choice here is to establish as far as we can WHAT WAS and WHAT IS with respect to the Dagaaba of Northern Ghana. This being a Case Study has its limitations but the reward/ motivation is an attempt at documenting a people"s knowledge for today and for posterity.