A Drummer's Testament

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Chapter II-1:  The Forbidden Talks of Drumming

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Scope of the historical chapters from origins through Samban' luŋa; different types of historical figures; taboos and sacrifices; the importance of the Samban' luŋa; fears of drummers regarding early history; Harold Blair (Yakubuʒee) and other previous researchers in Dagbon


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Contents outline by paragraph

Introduction

The plan for the talks about chieftaincy and history

Difficulties and dangers of some types of drumming

Sacrifices for beating Samban' luŋa

Drumming work and the importance of knowing one's heritage

Early history before Naa Shitɔbu is more hidden

Confusion about accounts of origins of Dagbon

Yakubuʒee's research  (Harold A. Blair)

Other researchers

Conclusion:  the value of drummers' experience


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Proverbs and Sayings

Every time, every day, every moment, a human mind is changing.

A leopard does not eat goat meat, but when they are preparing the fire to cook goat meat, and a leopard comes to push the firewood, it will come that the leopard will have the appetite for the goat meat.

A dog doesn't bite its child and reach the bone.

Naa Zanjina lit a lantern in Dagbon and opened the eyes of the Dagbamba, and he is the light of the Dagbamba.

You should fear trouble.

To fear trouble is better than to be in trouble.

If a fish comes out of the water and tells you that a crocodile has one eye, you should believe the fish.

No one is able to see what is forbidden unless he tries to do it.

Talk and live, talk and live, and put it down for people.

God did not create us so that we should all follow one way.

It is small drummers who go near to old drummers.

The one who gets his wish will not follow what people say.

The time there is no chief again, then that is the end of our Dagbamba living.

Truly, a talk can be small or short, but its forbidden talks are big.

A scorpion is small, but on the part of pain, a scorpion's bite is up to the bite of a snake.

Something that comes, its peels are lying on the way.

When they harvest groundnuts, anywhere you are walking, you will see groundnut shells.

If a big tree dies, a small tree will come out.  And it is only because it is an old person who gives birth to a young person.  And it is because they don't just give birth to an old person.

Fighting is inside the bone of chieftaincy.

In Dagbon here, if we say that something is forbidden, then it is true that it is forbidden.

Inside anything good, there is some bad.  And inside something bad, there is some good.  And so bad and good, they follow one another.

What comes to eat the life of people is not only one single thing.

As for all of us, we are all human beings, and of course we fear.  There is fear within us.

No one knows all the talks of drumming.

Nobody can know the talks of Dagbon more than a drummer.

It is drummers who know the tradition, and every drummer has the extent of his knowledge.

Tradition is not from anything.  It is just from, “My father said this, and my grandfather said this.”

You have to be inside the drumming before you will understand what is underneath the talks a drummer will talk.

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