Today we are going to talk about our chiefs here. If you want to know the ways of Dagbon, you have to know about the ways of the chiefs. And this talk of chiefs is a big talk and an important talk in Dagbon here. And what I have been showing you about the Yaa-Naa, truly, it is a very deep talk, and you should know that even some drummers don't know about it. Some people will take it that I am showing the anus of Dagbon to you. As I am showing you, probably it is that you don't take it to be something big, and it is because you don't know it. And so now that we are getting deeply inside some of our Dagbon customs, I can tell you that somebody who knows something about it will know that what I am telling you is very deep. And there are some people who will blame me for that. And it is because you don't know it that you may not take it to be something. Someone can go and sing just a small part of it, and they will give him a lot of money. And that is why I don't want everybody to know all that I am doing with you, because I don't want to hear them talking and finding my fault. And so I am telling you this because of you and me, because I don't want us to spoil.
Our Dagbamba chieftaincy has many ways, because how chieftaincy is, our chiefs move from one chieftaincy to another. As the Yaa-Naa is there, he is the Zuɣulana, the head chief, or paramount chief: he is holding all of us. And apart from the Yaa-Naa, there are some big chiefs who resemble the Yaa-Naa. And all of them are holding villages which are under their chieftaincies. And some of these villages have also got smaller villages. And I think if you follow it and get into it deeply, there will be about five or six standing places, or levels. And so how I am going to tell you about our chiefs, if I take it to show you how they move from one place to another, you should listen carefully. If I am talking something to you and you become confused, you should be patient and just listen quietly and see. If you get into too many questions, this talk will go back. I am trying to arrange it correctly for you. The way I will take to follow it, I will start from the Yaa-Naa and show you the big chiefs following the Yaa-Naa and how they also hold the smaller chiefs in their divisions and how the different levels stand in relation to one another.
Let me give you an example. The Yaa-Naa is the paramount chief of Dagbon. And that is the first level. If Yendi falls, the Savelugu chief can go to eat the Yendi chieftaincy. And so that is the second level, and it shows that Yendi is more than Savelugu. The chief of Voggo, the Vo-Naa, can come to eat Savelugu, and it shows that Savelugu is more than Voggo, and so Voggo is at the third level. The chief of Tibung, the Tibunglana, can come to eat Voggo, and it shows that Voggo is more than Tibung. And so the Tibunglana is the fourth level. The Banvimlana can come from Banvim to eat Tibung, and so Tibung is more than Banvim, and Banvim is the fifth level. The Gushie-Naa can come from Gushie to eat Banvim, and it shows that Banvim is more than Gushie. And so if we follow it from the Yendi chieftaincy, that this one is following that one who is following this one, you will see that we get different levels. And each level of chieftaincy has got the chiefs who have a way to eat it, that is, if such-and-such a chief gets the chieftaincy at a higher level, he can go to eat it. And sometimes it will happen that someone will jump from a small chieftaincy to a big chieftaincy. And that is how it moves. Every town has got the chiefs who can come to eat chieftaincy there. And a chief has the road he will follow to move to another chieftaincy. And so if we want to count the chieftaincies that this one is bigger than that one, as we are sitting, we will count four, five, six, or even more levels. And so we will take it and talk.
After the Yaa-Naa, the big chiefs or the divisional chiefs in Dagbon here are twelve. Who are they? The big chiefs are Mion, Savelugu, Karaga, Tolon, Kumbungu, Gukpeogu, Gushegu, Nanton, Yelizoli, Sunson, Demon, and Korli. And there is one chief more at Chereponi and we call him Malba; the people living there are Chekosi people, but they are under the Yaa-Naa. The Yaa-Naa gives the Chereponi chieftaincy to a Chekosi, and all the Chekosis follow the Chereponi chief. And so Chereponi is under the Yaa-Naa, but a Dagbana doesn't eat it. If you are a Dagbana and you go to eat the Chereponi chieftaincy, what language are you going to speak to the people? Dagbani? It wouldn't do.
All these thirteen people, it is the Yaa-Naa who gives them their chieftaincies. And all of them buy their chieftaincies from the Yaa-Naa. How do they buy? If a certain chieftaincy falls, and you are the one who has a way to eat it, whether you are a son of the dead chief or you are holding a chieftaincy which shows that you can move to eat the one which has fallen, you will be sending your messengers to greet the Yaa-Naa. When they go, they will be greeting him with cola, and this cola is not just the real cola; it is money. And so it is money they use to give respect to the Yaa-Naa before the Yaa-Naa will give them chieftaincy they are looking for.
And all these chiefs, they have their small villages too, and if any small chieftaincy falls, they will also sell it. The eating of that chieftaincy doesn't go to the Yaa-Naa. And what I am saying is that the Yaa-Naa is the paramount chief of all the Dagbamba, and there is no chief who is bigger than the Yaa-Naa. But it doesn't show that the Yaa-Naa is controlling all the chieftaincies in Dagbon. The divisional chiefs have all got their villages to sell. If it is Savelugu, for example, the Savelugu chief has got villages. Nyoglo, Diko, Libga, Daambee are all small villages under Savelugu, and there are many more. The Savelugu chief can collect money before giving any of these chieftaincies to somebody. But he doesn't collect money for the Savelugu chieftaincy itself. If the Savelugu chief dies and the chieftaincy falls, someone who is searching for the Savelugu chieftaincy cannot go and see the Savelugu chief. How will he get it? He will go and see the Yaa-Naa. If you are the Savelugu chief, and I am the chief of Tampion and I want Savelugu, I will not buy it from you the one I am going to succeed. I will go and buy it from the Yaa-Naa. If the chief of Banvim wants Savelugu, he has to search for it from the Yaa-Naa. And so someone who is going to give money to eat a chieftaincy, he does not give the money to the chief he is going to succeed. He gives it to the chief who is controlling that chieftaincy.
And so the divisional chiefs, if they become chiefs, the Yaa-Naa knows that the towns they are controlling have got small villages, and they have the strength to give chieftaincy to other people of these small villages. If not because of that, the divisional chiefs would not have been going to buy their chieftaincies from the Yaa-Naa. They will be selling the chieftaincies of these villages in their divisions, and they get money there, and the Yaa-Naa knows about it. If a small chieftaincy falls, they won't take it to the Yaa-Naa. The divisional chief will just make someone the chief in the small village and get the money himself. If not that, if you go to the Yaa-Naa to buy a divisional chieftaincy, what will you get from inside it? And so, as a chief's villages fall and he sells them, that's how he gets his money. As we are sitting at this time, they will spend a lot of money even to buy a small village, and they will struggle to buy it. As for money, there is no money in Dagbon now. Our Ghana money is not money. Those who know the amount are the elders in the chief's house. The elders and those who want to buy the chieftaincy, they sit down and make a market. They are those whom the chief will send to tell the buyers the price. And so they are the ones who know. And they know that the one who pays will also be selling villages and will make back that money.
The way the chief is selling the chieftaincy that has fallen, he has not called for anyone to bring any money. Those who want chieftaincy have been bringing money to greet the chief, up to the time a chieftaincy will fall. That money they will come and be giving to the chief, they only want to put their names into the mind of the chief, so that if they come to look for a chieftaincy, the chief will know them. How it will come, some people will fix certain days to go to see the chief and greet him with money. They will be doing that every time. If you also want it, but you don't often come to see the chief and give him money, then when the chieftaincy falls and you come there, he won't look at you. He will only look at those who always come to greet him. Let me show you example and you will see. The way we and you are, we are now one. You have been greeting us. If you get any good thing, you feel that it is good that we should have it. Or is that not it? And so the way you are holding us, if something happens to be within us, and you want that thing, and another white man comes, and we don't know him at all, and the other white man wants the same thing: what will happen? You and the other white man are looking for the same thing: whom should I look at? And so this is the way they greet Yaa-Naa. Many of them will be greeting him so that when a chieftaincy falls, he's going to look through all of them and select one and give it to him. And the rest, they should go and be sitting at home and be praying for another one to fall. And they have to get up and go again, and the lucky one will collect his thing and go. That one, it's not a fault. They will go back home and be praying to God and getting money to go back again.
Let's say you have been greeting the chief all the time, and chieftaincy falls, and someone comes who has a lot of money, it can happen that they will leave you and sell to him. As for that talk, it is there. But I can say that as for the one who is ready to pay heavy money, usually they don't consider such people. It is because they only appear at a time, and they can disappear at a time again. And so if you are somebody who thinks very well, as a chief, you have to give the chieftaincy to the one who has been greeting you every day. If it happens that all of you haven't been greeting the chief, and the chieftaincy falls, and all of you just come at once, then the one who is ready to pay the heavy money is the one the elders will advise the chief to give it to. It is even the elders who will push the chief back, and then they themselves will face the buyers to collect the money. They won't allow you the buyer to see the chief directly: they will put a zana mat between you and the chief, and they will deal with you and eat all your money. And they will get all the money from the money man and throw him away, so that he will collect the chieftaincy and go.
And the reason why the chief will give it to you the one who has been greeting him all the time is because of the greetings, and shyness. There were days you gave some amounts to the chief, and the money solved his problems, and he was happy with it. Maybe another day he was sitting down looking for that money and he didn't have it, and the expenses too were waiting for him, and he has nothing to sell and get the money to solve his problems. And then he will hear that you have come to greet him, and you give him some money, or you give money to a messenger and send to greet him. He will collect the money and solve his problem, and he will think, “Oi! Today I didn't know what I was going to do with myself.” Let's say there is another person who has not been coming to greet the chief. Maybe a chieftaincy will fall, and you are looking for it, and then the one who has not come to greet the chief will carry a big amount, thinking that the chief wants money and will give the chieftaincy to him and leave you. And so as for the chief: how hard is his head? That is the reason why the chief will give the chieftaincy to the one who has been greeting him and respecting him all the time. And so shyness enters into it, and that is good.
Sometimes a big chief may have up to a hundred or more villages, and sometimes he will have fifty villages, or thirty, or fifteen. And any time the chieftaincy falls in any of these villages, the chief is the one who will sell it. For example, I think that if you count the villages of the Gukpe-Naa, they will be more than a hundred. Gukpeogu is a village near Yendi, and in the olden days the Gukpe-Naa was sitting there. You take the road to Yelizoli and branch right. It is about six miles from Yendi. It was only the time when the British were sitting in Tamale here that they said this town should have a big chief, and the Gukpe-Naa came here. And so the Gukpe-Naa has got more than a hundred villages near Yendi in the east, and here, going on the Savelugu road about eleven miles away from Tamale, all the villages are under the Gukpe-Naa. If any of the chiefs in any of these villages dies, those who are searching for that chieftaincy have to come to the Gukpe-Naa. They don't go to the Yaa-Naa. The Gukpe-Naa has already bought the chieftaincy of Gukpeogu, and so he is the one to give them the chieftaincy. If there is a quarrel between some of the people over the chieftaincy of the village, maybe someone will go behind the Gukpe-Naa and go to ask the Yaa-Naa to beg the Gukpe-Naa to give the chieftaincy to him. If the Yaa-Naa says that the Gukpe-Naa should give the chieftaincy to that fellow, then the Gukpe-Naa is still the one who is going to sell the chieftaincy and get the money. Have you heard?
As for the Yaa-Naa himself, he has got a lot of villages. In the olden days, the villages the Yaa-Naa was having were more than three hundred. But now some of these villages, the people have left them. And some of the villages have been joined with other villages. And so I don't know the number of villages the Yaa-Naa has now. As some of the villages are dispersed or gone to group with another village, I think the number will be about two hundred or something like that. And so the divisional chiefs I have counted, some of them are more than one another, because this man's town is older than that man's town. But how the Yaa-Naa is, if the Yaa-Naa gives chieftaincy to somebody, we call such a chief a divisional chief. Even if the whole village is only one house, we don't call him a village chief; we call him a divisional chief. The small villages like the ones the Savelugu chief has are what we call village chieftaincies. And so anyone the Yaa-Naa gives a gown to wear as a chief, we don't call him a village chief. Because the Yaa-Naa gave him the chieftaincy, then how you give respect to the Yaa-Naa is the same way you will give respect to him. When he speaks to you, you answer him: “Chief!” If you go to his house to greet him, those who sit with him will clap their hands or snap their fingers when you greet. But when a village chief speaks to you, you can even say, “Eh?” That is how it is.
And the people I have counted for you, they are the high and important chiefs in Dagbon, and the Yaa-Naa is having control over all of them. These twelve divisional chieftaincies, and taking Chereponi to add, these are the biggest chiefs, and there is no one senior to them apart from the Yaa-Naa. Tolon-Naa, Gushe-Naa, Gukpe-Naa, Kumbun-Naa, Karaga-Naa, Savelugu-Naa, Mionlana, Nanton-Naa, Yelizolilana, Sunson-Naa, Demon-Naa, Kori-Naa: they are all big chiefs, and if you want to give them respect, their respect is the same. And again, there are other divisional chiefs who are not up to them. The chief of Voggo is a big chief, and he has got a lot of villages. The Tampion chief is there, and he is a big chief.
There are many chieftaincies that the Yaa-Naa gives. Kpatinga, Lungbunga, Tibung, Gbulun, Sagnerigu, Wariboggo, Nyankpala, Lamashegu, Kasuliyili, Banvim, Pigu, Galiwe, Yamolkaraga, Sung, Pisigu, Tong, Diari, Sakpiegu, Bagurugu, Nyong, Kpano, Boggo, Zulogo, Zugu, Singa, Dipali, Dalun, Tamalgu, Kpalun, Gushie, Kunkon, Sakpie, Piong, Kortung, Gbungbaliga, Sang, Tugu, Nakpachee, Taginamo, Zori, Tijo, Zantani, Zosalli, Nyimbung, Saguli, Zakpalisi, Moglaa, Kpatarboɣu, Saakpuli: the chiefs of all these towns are there, and they are all big chiefs. They all have villages under them, and they are different from the village chiefs. But they are more than one another because they are standing at different levels. That is how it is. And as I have told you that any chieftaincy that is given by the Yaa-Naa is a big chieftaincy, they are not small chiefs; they are big chiefs. In the olden days, some of the chiefs who were eating these chieftaincies were able to get the Yendi chieftaincy to eat. They are all there, and they have no end; I cannot sit to count all of them. There are even some I have forgotten.
And so the twelve I counted first are leading, and the others are also there. They are not as strong as the big chiefs, but they all have small villages to sell, and they themselves cannot count them. And so let's knock down all the talks and say that any chieftaincy the Yaa-Naa gives is a big chieftaincy. And all these chiefs buy their chieftaincy from the Yaa-Naa. As I have told you that the chief of Gushie can eat the chieftaincy of Banvim, the chief of Gushie doesn't go and buy the Gushie chieftaincy from the Banvim chief. He goes to Yaa-Naa to search for it. The Tampion chief can move to Nanton; he can move to Mion; he can move to Savelugu; he can move to Karaga. But when somebody is searching for Tampion, he goes to the Yaa-Naa to search for the chieftaincy. This is how it goes. Anyone who is looking for a chieftaincy that the Yaa-Naa gives, he will go to the Yaa-Naa to buy it. And if you are a divisional chief, you will only be selling those villages you are controlling.
Any chieftaincy that the Yaa-Naa gives, every one has its way, and every person has his way. And some people's roads will come to make one road. And so they are all mixed. The Kpano chief can search for Nanton, but the Nanton chief won't search for Kpano. The Kpatinga chief can search for Mion and he can search for Savelugu. The Galiwe chief can search for Savelugu. The Yamolkaraga-Naa can search for Savelugu; he can search for Karaga; he can search for Galiwe, too; he can search for Kpatinga; he can search for Pisigu. Let me show you another example. You see these towns: Banvim, Pigu, Gushie, Tibung, Zangbalin, Zugu. They are all Yaa-Naa's chieftaincies. Zugu is the biggest among them. The Zangbalinlana can move to Zugu because Zugu is older than Zangbalin. The Banvimlana can search for Zugu. Zugulana won't move to Zangbalin or Banvim. The Zugulana won't eat any of those chieftaincies. Those chieftaincies will rather want to move to Zugu. If Zugulana is going to go out, if not Savelugu, then Nanton. Pigu is bigger than Gushie. Gushie-Naa will move to Pigu, but Pigu won't move to Gushie. If the Pigulana gets up, he is heading to Savelugu or Nanton. I told you that Banvimlana will move to Tibung, and Gushie-Naa will move to Banvim. That is the way they are bigger than one another. But if you want to group them, you will see that other towns enter the talk. Sagnerigu eats Pigu and eats Banvim. The Tibunglana wants Zugu and also wants Voggo.
If I count all of them for you, this thing is going to take too much time. I want to tell you in a simple way. If it starts to enter “this town eats this town” and “that town eats that town,” the whole thing is going to become confusing. That is why I am giving you examples. But you should know that as I am showing you this talk, and you are going to write it, you yourself will have to know, “This talk they are showing me, this is what I will do and the talk will go straight.” And I am also showing you, and showing you that, “This fellow is mixing with that one, and that one is mixing with that one.” And that is why I talk and separate them for you. It's like taking a small child and showing him the Holy Qur'an: you don't show him the whole thing at once; you start from the first chapter. Truly, this talk is thick, and if I am going to separate it, I have to take it small-small before we get into details, and even I cannot bring all the details. That is why I will tell you, say, that the Yaa-Naa's children and grandchildren eat Karaga, but I will not be counting them and telling you all their names. If I am going to be telling you something about all these chieftaincies, I think it will take us too far, and the talks will be curving. And so I am trying to give you a straight talk, but you should know that talks separate. And so when I talk and you don't hear, sometimes it may be that my talk is coming to enter something that is further on. If the talks start to enter one another at some point, I will separate them. And you should also take you sense and add it.
When we started this talk, I took the example of Savelugu to show the different levels, and I showed the chiefs who can move from one chieftaincy to the next to eat Savelugu. Truly, there are many more of them, but I counted some to show you that one is more than another. Voggo, Tibung, Banvim, Gushie: I showed you that these chieftaincies are below Savelugu and moving up to Savelugu, and these chieftaincies are places that Yaa-Naa's children and grandchildren eat. And so these places are different from the village chieftaincies. They are not sold by the person above them on the road to Savelugu. And it is not the divisional chiefs who are selling these chieftaincies. It is the Yaa-Naa who gives them. And what I am telling you shows that the chiefs who move to Savelugu or the chiefs who move to the divisional chieftaincies, they all get their chieftaincies from the Yaa-Naa. But the villages that are under the divisional chiefs, these villages are the ones that the divisional chiefs sell, not the ones that are going to move up to that divisional chieftaincy. The Nanton-Naa doesn't sell Tampion; the Mionlana doesn't sell Korli, and so on. And so what I'm saying, if you fix it like that, it will be good.
Sometimes it seems that as we are talking, you are not hearing. That is why we become tired. I can tell you that. And so listen well. I'm going to give you an example. It can happen that a village chief will eat a big chieftaincy. This Banvimlana who died, Abilai, he went out from his village to eat Banvim. He left Sabaa and he ate Banvim, and Sabaa is one of Banvim's villages. Have you heard? As it is, it's not a fault, and it hasn't prevented him from eating Banvim. He sold Sabaa to somebody. But he bought Banvim from the Yaa-Naa. And so he is not inside small chieftaincy again. His chieftaincy gown has become a Yaa-Naa's gown. And so a Yaa-Naa's town cannot sell a Yaa-Naa's town. And it shows that a Yaa-Naa's town is big to everybody, but they are more than one another.
The Mionlana cannot sell Korli. The Savelugu-Naa cannot sell the Voggo chieftaincy. The Vo-Naa cannot sell the Tibung chieftaincy. Have you seen? They are all Yaa-Naa's children and grandchildren. And so if somebody talks to you, you have to take your sense and show that these chiefs, they also have their villages and they can sell those villages. Look and see. The Nanton-Naa is for Ziong; he sells Ziong; if the Zionglana dies, the Nanton-Naa sells it. The Nanton-Naa is for Changnayili, Duunying, Babshee, Zuo, Ticheli, Pagazaa, Taloli. These are all villages of the Nanton-Naa, and if you count them, they will be more than a hundred. The Yaa-Naa cannot collect one of them and sell.
And so what I have shown you, you yourself will take your sense and show this chief and his villages, that chief and his villages. Those villages the Yaa-Naa does not give, the chiefs who are for them are the ones selling them. If you know it will make the talk go forward, then you will take it and put it inside the book. I am only showing you some of them and some of the ways they move. I'm not showing all. If it is the talk of a particular town, we drummers know it, and I can show it. But I only want to give you a general idea on it and show you the important towns, because to me, I don't think that I have to count all of them. And so it isn't that I have been talking and hiding anything from the talk. I told you that if someone is talking talks, what is coming is not what is going back. And so you should think inside your heart and know that, “The talk they are talking to me, this is what I am going to do, and this is how I'm going to put it.” I want this talk to be clean, and so I am separating them and grouping them. And what I am saying is that every chief the Yaa-Naa gives chieftaincy to, that chief has got his villages. The chief of Korli, Kori-Naa, has got his villages. Yelizolilana has got his villages. Even if a chief has no villages, he has his elders, and he will sell his elders' chieftaincies and collect money. He won't give the selling of his elders' chieftaincies to the Yaa-Naa. You can take all this and add to the talk, and you will know the one that is going to follow the way of our work and make it nice. Dagbamba have a proverb: you don't give someone a wife and show him how to sex her. If you give somebody a wife and show him how to sex, then that person is a useless person. And so I am giving you a wife, and you should know how you are going to sex her.
As I have talked to you about these chieftaincies, I am going to separate some towns again. When I called the towns of the big divisional chiefs, I called Savelugu, Karaga, Mion, Nanton, Yelizoli, Sunson, Demon, Korli, Tolon, Gushegu, Kumbungu, Gukpeogu, and Chereponi. And I removed Chereponi. And I am going to separate some towns again. I want to separate Gushegu and Gukpeogu, Kumbungu, and Tolon. Why have I separated them for you? It is because they don't want Savelugu, don't want Karaga, don't want Mion. Even if the Yaa-Naa likes one of them more than anything, if Savelugu falls, the Yaa-Naa won't take Savelugu and give him, and that person himself won't want it. These four towns, we call them “kpamba” chieftaincies, or elders' chieftaincies, and commoners can eat them. And these towns too, if a Yaa-Naa likes somebody, and if that person is not a chief's son, the Yaa-Naa can give the chieftaincy of one of these towns to him. And so they are different from the chieftaincies that are for the son of a chief. And the chiefs of these towns won't go out to eat any other chieftaincy again. And so the elders' chieftaincies, they have their lines, and they have those who search for them. And they all have their villages. The Gushe-Naa has got his villages; Tolon-Naa has; Kumbun-Naa has; Gukpe-Naa has.
Inside the talk of those four towns, I want you to take Gushegu and separate it. As for Gushegu, it is the children of a Gushegu chief who eat it. And separate Gukpeogu, too, because it is a Gukpe-Naa's child who eats it, or it is someone who is eating Duɣu or Malle, or it is the Zalankolana who eats it; they can eat Gukpeogu. And those who eat Gushegu or Gukpeogu, they can't eat any other chieftaincy again. As for Tolon-Naa and Kumbun-Naa, they are the ones who lead the chief into war. These two chiefs, and the chiefs of Langa and Wariboggo, we call them warizɔhinima because they ride horses to lead in a war. And there are some towns that are adding to Tolon and Kumbungu: Wariboggo, Langa, Kasuliyili, Lungbunga, Salankpang, Gbulun, Tali. These towns I have added can search for the chieftaincies of one another, and they can search for Tolon and Kumbungu. They search like that. They can search for each other, but they will not search for any other place. They are not princes of Yendi. The Yaa-Naa won't bring such a person and give him, say, Voggo or Tibung or Nanton or Zangbalin or Zugu. They cannot search for Banvim, Pigu, Gushie, Savelugu. The Yaa-Naa won't take commoners and enter into the chieftaincies that are for the Yaa-Naa's children. If the Yaa-Naa likes somebody, he can take such a place and give him, and that person will not be a son of a chief of that town. And so these chiefs I have called, they are different. All of them have got their ways, and they all search for one another. Let me give you an example. Do you know Tali? If you pass Tolon, you reach Tali, and the Tali-Naa is holding the Tolon market. As for Tali, it is the Tolon-Naa who gives the Tali chieftaincy. The Tali-Naa is a village chief, but the Tolon-Naa gets his chieftaincy from the Yaa-Naa. And so the Tali-Naa can move to become the Tolon-Naa, but the Tali-Naa gets the Tali chieftaincy from the Tolon-Naa. And if Tali falls, if the Yaa-Naa likes a person, he can tell the Tolon-Naa to give Tali to him, and the Tolon-Naa won't argue. And if Tolon falls, the Tali chief can move to Tolon.
And so all these chieftaincies I have just counted, if there is a Dagbana who is not a chief's son, the Yaa-Naa can give such a chieftaincy to him. Do you see Kasuliyili? Even somebody who has no door to any chieftaincy can eat it. If Kasuliyili should fall, someone can go and ask for it from the Yaa-Naa. The Lungbunga chieftaincy, if it falls, even if you are not a chief or from a chief's family, you can go and ask for it. A long time ago, Yaa-Naa's children were eating Lungbunga, but that time is far. Now Lungbunga is for commoners. As for Kasuliyili, it started with commoners. None of Yaa-Naa's children has eaten it. And so these are chieftaincies of commoners. And there are some towns that are adding. As Nyankpala is sitting, it is for commoners. Do you see Dalun? The Dalun chiefs, they are Yaa-Naa's grandchildren, and friends. They can eat it. But the time a Yaa-Naa's child ate Dalun was long ago, in Naa Nyaɣsi's time. Naa Nyaɣsi was putting his children there, but up to now, a Yaa-Naa's child doesn't eat Dalun. This Dalunlana Blemah, on my mother's side, as for them, they were grandchildren. And so Dalun and Singa are now for commoners. And Dipali, too, a long time ago, it was for princes, but now it is a commoner's chieftaincy.
Truly, there are many chieftaincies that are now mixed: princes eat and commoners eat. They were meant for Yaa-Naa's children and grandchildren, but commoners sometimes eat them. Some of them, if the chieftaincy falls, Yaa-Naa's children don't want it and they don't look for it. If Yaa-Naa doesn't get a child or grandchild to eat it, he will give it to a commoner. If you are a commoner, and you are lucky and get one of these chieftaincies, you won't think about moving to any other chieftaincy that is meant for Yaa-Naa's children. You will only thank God, and remain there. And so for example, if a prince of Yendi eats Bagurugu, he can even search for Savelugu, Mion, or Karaga. The one eating Bagurugu now is a Savelugu-Naa's child. But if a commoner eats Bagurugu, it is only Tamalgu he can search for. If he wants, he can search for Diari if it falls. And so Bagurugu, Nyong, Zulogo, Tamalgu, Sakpie, Kpano, Tijo, Tugu: as for these places, they mix and eat it. And so these chieftaincies I have separated, the Yaa-Naa can take the chieftaincies I called and give them to a commoner.
As for the other chieftaincies remaining, apart from Yendi, it is a Yaa-Naa's son or a Yaa-Naa's grandson who eats it. As for Yendi, a Yaa-Naa's grandson or nephew cannot eat it, but if a Yaa-Naa's son gets Yendi, he will eat. And there are some chieftaincies that a Yaa-Naa's nephew can eat. But a Yaa-Naa's nephew cannot eat Savelugu; he can't eat Mion; he can't eat Karaga. A Yaa-Naa's nephew can eat Yelizoli; he can eat Diari; he can eat Taginamo, Nakpachee: that is how it is going. And so our Dagbon chieftaincy is mixed up. Only we drummers know how it goes. And so when we want to say it, we just say “a Yaa-Naa's son and his chieftaincy.” It can stand and a Yaa-Naa's child will eat a chieftaincy. And he will not keep long, and he will die. He was a Yaa-Naa's son, and he also suffered a lot. And his first-born is there. It will be good they take his father's chieftaincy and give to him. Has he not become a grandson eating that chieftaincy? Because of his father's suffering, they can give him like that. And so that is how our Dagbon chieftaincy goes. It is not standing that this Yaa-Naa's son is going to eat this chieftaincy. And so a Yaa-Naa's son eats Voggo, eats Tibung. Have you seen? And a Yaa-Naa's grandson can eat those chieftaincies, but we say that those chieftaincies are for the sons of Yaa-Naas.
And so I want you to get this in a simple way. If you are calling the names of the towns, and after calling the names that in all these villages only Yaa-Naa's children and grandchildren and sometimes nephews eat the chieftaincy of those places, it's good. And it can happen that in some of the villages, some friends of the Yaa-Naa also eat those places, and that is why I separated towns like Dalun and Nyankpala, because those places, a Yaa-Naa's friend can eat chieftaincy, and there are other places like that. I showed you the big chiefs, and they are twelve plus Chereponi, and after them, there are other chieftaincies that are big, and it is because the Yaa-Naa is giving these chieftaincies. But they are not up to the twelve. And so that is the first point. Here I am only counting the chieftaincies that Yaa-Naa gives. And what I am going to say is this: all these villages have the ways of those who are able to eat these chieftaincies. And I am not going to say who those people are at this point.
And so I want to go back over the towns that are Yaa-Naa's chieftaincies. I'm going to count them like that, and there are more, but I am going to count some of them and not all of them. All these towns, I am going to take it that a Yaa-Naa's child or grandchild is eating them, and sometimes it can happen that a nephew can also eat. And it is standing like that. And so I'm going to call these names again, that these are all Yaa-Naa's chieftaincies that the Yaa-Naa is giving. I have separated some that are horse-chieftaincies or chieftaincies that commoners can eat: Lungbunga, Wariboggo, Kasuliyili, Gbulun, Salankpang, Langa, Singa, Dipali, Dalun. And I separated some that are for the children of Yaa-Naas, but they are mixed because commoners can also eat them: Bagurugu, Nyong, Kpano, Lamashegu, Zulogo, Sakpie, Tamalgu, Tijo. Some of those towns are not small chieftaincies. Do you see Tugu? It was Yaa-Naa's sons and grandsons who were eating it, and now a commoner is eating. Tugulana Iddi was Naa Andani's zuu; Tugulana Simaani was Naa Andani's child; Tugulana Dahimani was Naa Zoli's zuu. Nanton-Naa Alaasan Kpɛma's son Issa was eating Tugu, but Yakubu removed him and brought a commoner to sit there. And again, I told you that there are towns that princes eat and nephews eat, like Diari.
All those remaining are for the children of Yaa-Naas: Voggo, Tampion, Kpatinga, Tibung, Sagnerigu, Banvim, Pigu, Galiwe, Yamolkaraga, Sung, Tong, Diari, Sakpiegu, Boggo, Zugu, Gushie, Nakpachee, Taginamo, Kortung, Kunkon, Pisigu, Piong, Gbungbaliga, Sang, Zori, Zangbalin, and there are more. And truly, some of them are more than the others, but they are all big chiefs. They all have villages. Anybody Yaa-Naa will give a gown, or any town he will give to somebody to wear a chieftaincy gown, it is a big chieftaincy. Some of these villages, you can go to them and see that the whole village is about ten houses, but their small villages are more than the village itself. It is there like that. It can happen that one of these chiefs will have some small villages under him which are even bigger than the village he is eating. I can tell you that these towns, even in Ghana and even in Dagbon, some people don't know where some of these towns are. And so some of them are small towns, but the chieftaincies are big.
And so, how someone's chieftaincy goes from one place to another, there are different levels, and it is not every chief who can move from his town to eat the chieftaincy of another town. And it is the particular town which shows whether a chief of that town can go out from the town to eat another town's chieftaincy. And every town has got people who have a way to eat chieftaincy there. As for the big divisional chiefs, the twelve don't move to eat one another's chieftaincy. It is only Korli and Demon: the chiefs of those towns can move to Mion. But all those remaining, they don't go out from their towns. If the Yaa-Naa has given you a divisional chieftaincy, whom are you going to see to get another divisional chieftaincy? It is only the Mion, Savelugu, and Karaga chiefs who can go out, because if Yendi should fall, one of these three chiefs can move to eat it. And so listen well and I will show you how these chiefs move in their chieftaincies.
As for Yendi itself, no one buys it. It is soothsaying which shows that someone will become the Yaa-Naa, but it always happens that the soothsayers choose the one the Yendi elders want. And so to me, the soothsaying is not there on the part of Yendi; it is rather the Yendi elders who choose. And I have told you that there are three chiefs who have a way to go out from their towns to eat Yendi. And you can add one more: the Yaa-Naa's Gbɔŋlana, that is, the Yendi Regent. The Mionlana, the Savelugu-Naa, and the Karaga-Naa, if Yendi falls, it is these three people and also the dead Yaa-Naa's Gbɔŋlana who are the ones who will have a way to eat Yendi. This is how Yendi stands. And so Mion, Savelugu, and Karaga, they usually like to give these chieftaincies to the princes of a Yaa-Naa. How the Yendi princes move, if a Yaa-Naa's son wants to eat Yendi, maybe he will first go and eat the chieftaincy of Pisigu. From Pisigu he will go to Tampion and from Tampion to Mion or Savelugu or Karaga. If he gets any of those three towns, he can eat it, and from there, if the Yaa-Naa should die, he can move to Yendi. The chief of Bagurugu, if he gets the Tampion chieftaincy, he will eat it. If he is eating Tampion and the chief of Savelugu dies, he can move from Tampion to eat Savelugu, and if Yaa-Naa should die, he can search for Yendi. You see Kpatinga: it is a Yaa-Naa's son who eats it. The Kpatinlana can go to eat Tampion. If the Karaga-Naa dies, the Tampionlana can eat it, and from Karaga, he can search for Yendi. A Yaa-Naa's son eats Gbungbaliga. If Mion falls, the Gbungbaligalana can go to eat it, and if Yendi falls, he can move from Mion to Yendi. You see Korli: a Yaa-Naa's son can eat it, and if Mion falls, the Kori-Naa can eat Mion, and from there if the Yaa-Naa dies, he can move from Mion to Yendi. This is how the princes of the paramount chief move from town to town and how they can become divisional chiefs.
And Yendi is standing that only the son of a Yaa-Naa should eat it. And so if a Yaa-Naa's son should eat Mion or Karaga or Savelugu and if he dies there, then since he could not eat the Yendi chieftaincy, his children will not be able to search for Yendi. They have become grandchildren of a Yaa-Naa, and so only a few of them will get a chance to eat the chieftaincy their father was eating when he died. If they eat the chieftaincy and come to sit where their father was, whether Mion, Savelugu, or Karaga, then if Yendi falls, they will want to eat it. It is not that they want to be the Yaa-Naa, but rather it is the position of their chieftaincy that shows that they should ask for the Yendi chieftaincy. And so that is the reason why they usually give Savelugu, Mion, and Karaga to Yaa-Naa's children but not grandchildren. The Savelugu chief who just died, Savelugu-Naa Abdulai, was a grandson of a Yaa-Naa. The Karaga chief too who just died, Karaga-Naa Adam, was also a grandson of Yaa-Naa; he came from Sunson to eat Karaga. And both of them kept long. And so if such grandsons are eating Karaga and Savelugu, and Yendi falls, then it is only the Mionlana or the Gbɔŋlana, the regent, who will eat it. That is how Yendi stands, and that is why they don't like giving Savelugu or Karaga to grandsons. And so there are many chiefs who can move to eat Savelugu or Karaga, but its way is that someone who is not a Yaa-Naa's son is not supposed to reach Yendi.
And so if you follow it, Mion is stronger than Karaga and Savelugu. The Karaga and Savelugu chiefs can eat Yendi. If a Yaa-Naa's son eats Karaga or Savelugu, and the Yaa-Naa dies, he has a way to eat the Yendi chieftaincy. But if the son of a Savelugu chief eats Savelugu, even if the chieftaincy of Yendi is rolling on the ground, they will never give it to him. He is a grandson, and a grandson never eats the Yendi chieftaincy. If a Yaa-Naa's son eats the Karaga chieftaincy, and Yendi falls, there is a way to give Yendi to the son. But if it is that a Karaga chief's son becomes the Karaga-Naa, even if the Yendi chieftaincy is lying down and nobody wants it, they will not give it to him. He is a grandson. It is the same thing with Mion, too, but since the Mion chieftaincy started, only one son of a Mion chief who died there ever became chief of Mion. And so Mion is only for the children of a Yaa-Naa. And that is why somebody who is eating Mion is strong on the part of Yendi.
And again, the only other person who is added to those three is the Gbɔŋlana, the regent. You know that our chiefs sit on skins of animals. This Gbɔŋlana is the one who “holds” the skin, and the Gbɔŋlana will sit on the skins and hold his father's chieftaincy if the chief dies and up to the time they perform the dead chief's funeral and choose a new chief; he is the senior son of the dead chief, and he comes to sit in the town when his father dies. As the Gbɔŋlana has sat on the skins of Yendi, he is fit to eat Yendi. And because of that, we drummers even say, “So-and-so sat on the skins and remained in the chieftaincy.” If the elders of Yendi like a regent, then he can become the paramount chief. And truly, the elders of Yendi are many, and I'm not talking only of those who are living in Yendi itself. But what I'm telling you right now, the strong elders of Yendi are the Tolon-Naa, the Gushe-Naa, and the Gukpe-Naa. And if these people all like a Gbɔŋlana, then he will be the paramount chief. And so the Mionlana and the Yaa-Naa's Gbɔŋlana, they are standing as the ones who should eat Yendi.
How it is, there are people who eat about five chieftaincies before they will get to Mion or Savelugu or Karaga. Naa Mahama Kpɛma: when he was going to eat chieftaincy, he went and ate Boggo, and he left Boggo and ate Nasa, and he from there he ate Tampion, and he left Tampion and went and ate Mion. And from Mion he went to Yendi. Naa Alaasani: he ate Pigu. He left Pigu and ate Tampion. He left Tampion and ate Karaga. And from Karaga he went and ate Yendi. Has eating a small chieftaincy prevented something? Naa Andani Jɛŋgbarga ate Zagbon, and from Zagbon he went and ate Zoggo. From Zoggo he ate Savelugu. Then from Savelugu he ate Yendi. Naa Mahama Bila ate Nyingali, and from there he went to Tampion, from Tampion to Mion, and from Mion to Yendi. Naa Abudu Setaŋ' Kuɣli ate Gbungbaliga, and when Naa Alaasani died, he sat as Gbɔŋlana and remained on the skin. And so as for a chief's son, when we call somebody “he is the Yaa-Naa's child,” he will eat a small chieftaincy until he comes up to a big one. If you see someone who has eaten a big chieftaincy without eating a small chieftaincy, then it will be the Gbɔŋlana. If he has sat on the Yendi skins, and he didn't get Yendi to eat, then they will give him the chieftaincy of the one who ate Yendi. If the Mionlana eats, the Gbɔŋlana will go to Mion; if the Savelugu-Naa eats, the Gbɔŋlana will go to Savelugu; if the Karaga chief eats, the Gbɔŋlana will go to Karaga. As for that, he will not suffer to eat a big chieftaincy. But if it happens like that, for the Gbɔŋlana to go out from there and eat Yendi will be difficult. It's not even there. For somebody to sit on the Yendi skins, and not get the Yendi chieftaincy, and get up from the skins, and come back and eat Yendi: it's difficult.
But I want you to look inside it deeply and think about what I am telling you. And I will show you one of the secrets of drumming. We show that it is the Mionlana, the Karaga-Naa, the Savelugu-Naa, and the Gbɔŋlana who are the ones who eat Yendi. And as we show that they eat Yendi, in the olden days it was not like that. And so we say that the one who eats Yendi is “the one God likes.” Some people say that it is soothsaying that catches the Yaa-Naa, but yesterday I told you that it is not soothsaying. The soothsayers will choose the one the elders want. And so it is the Yendi elders and the one they want. Our custom doesn't show that the particular chieftaincy you have got is the one that is going to eat Yendi. In the olden days, many of the Yaa-Naas were coming from different towns. Naa Garba came from Tampion to eat Yendi. Naa Siɣli came from Singa to eat Yendi. Naa Dalgu came form Zagbon to eat Yendi. The towns from which chiefs came to become Yaa-Naa are many, and I cannot count them. And a Yaa-Naa's child who is eating chieftaincy in the other towns, even if the chieftaincy is a small chieftaincy, he can move and shift. And so in Dagbon here, every chief stands on his own way. And Yendi talks don't die. If you say that Yendi talks have died, the next day the talks will stand up again. And so Yendi too has got its ways.
But in these modern times, everybody's eyes are open, and we have taken it that those who are eating the chieftaincies next to Yendi are those who should have a way to eat Yendi, and they are not the small chiefs. And so the olden days chiefs who left these small towns to eat Yendi, today the chiefs there cannot do that. When the Yaa-Naa is not there, anyone who wants Yendi has to come out so that they will know that he will eat it if he gets it. And today if a small chief comes out like that, people will say that he is deceiving himself. And so today, those who have become the chiefs of these towns, towns like Zangbalin or Tibung, the Yaa-Naa calls them his junior fathers because some of them are children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Yaa-Naas. They don't try to eat Yendi. But can we say they are not the sons and grandsons of Yaa-Naas? And the big chiefs like Yelizoli and Sunson and Nanton, they don't want Yendi, and their children and grandchildren don't want Yendi, and they don't go out again. This Yelizoli: Naa Tutuɣri's first-born was a chief there, and today a Yaa-Naa's child or grandchild does not eat it. It has become a chieftaincy for women's children, that is, nephews. They eat it, along with the children of the Yelizolilana. When you see something that was eaten by the sons of men, and it is now eaten by the sons of women, you should know that it has become weak. Those who were sons of men and they were eating it, today they don't look for it, and there is no fault. But can we say that these are not the chieftaincies of Yaa-Naa's children? And the other big chiefs like Tolon-Naa, Gushe-Naa, Gukpe-Naa, Kumbun-Naa, as they are sitting, if they get Yendi, whatever happens, they won't eat it because it is not on their way. And even if you look, you will see that the chiefs of Savelugu and Karaga who have eaten Yendi, they are not many. Naa Andani Jɛŋgbarga went from Savelugu to eat Yendi, but since the time of Naa Yakuba, the only chief who left Savelugu to eat Yendi was Naa Andani Naanigoo. Apart from him, no one has left Savelugu to eat Yendi. If you want, you can say that Kukara Djee left Savelugu to eat Yendi, but I have told you that we don't count him as a Yaa-Naa because he ran away from war. Karaga, too, apart from Naa Alaasani, in these modern times, no one has left Karaga to become the Yaa-Naa. But the time these chiefs were there was not long ago, and there have been many chiefs of Yendi. But can we throw it away and say that their chieftaincies are not the chieftaincies of Yaa-Naa's children? And so what I'm telling you today, every town has got its ways, and Yendi talks don't die. If you say Yendi talks die, it won't do. If you say a talk dies, the next day it grows, because there are children and grandchildren and elders. And so Yendi has got its ways. And so if you want to know Yendi in a short way, then you just should know that the one who becomes Yaa-Naa is the one God likes. And if God gives Yendi to someone, and it is following the way of custom, can we throw it away?
And so listen well, and I am going to separate the twelve big chiefs, and I will show you the ways of the towns and how they are standing. Those chiefs who are next to the Yaa-Naa, the Yaa-Naa calls them his grandfathers, senior fathers, and junior fathers. And they are the ones we call big chiefs. Why does the Yaa-Naa call them “senior father” or “junior father”? Let's say that your father is the Yaa-Naa, and my father is also the Yaa-Naa, and Kissmal's father is the Yaa-Naa; and so we three have the same father. When our father dies, you get a chance to go and eat Karaga, and I go and eat Savelugu, and Kissmal goes and eats Mion. If it happens that I cannot reach the chieftaincy of Yendi, but you are able to get it, if you give birth to a son, how will he call me? As I am senior to you, your son will call me his senior father, and he will call Kissmal his junior father. And truly, as for Yendi, it has happened like that, and that is how it has come down. As the Karaga-Naa is there, the Yaa-Naa calls him his senior father. When you hear them say the chief's senior father, that is Karaga-Naa. The towns whose chiefs are adding to Karaga are Savelugu, Demon, and Korli: Yaa-Naa calls those chiefs his senior father. As for Kuɣa-Naa, the Yaa-Naa calls him his grandfather. A chief who doesn't want any chieftaincy again, or a tindana, or a drummer, the chief calls him his grandfather. Who are they? Nanton-Naa, Yelizolilana, Sunson-Naa, Gushe-Naa, Tolon-Naa, Kumbun-Naa, Gukpe-Naa: the Yaa-Naa calls them his grandfathers. Apart from these chiefs, the Yaa-Naa will call any chief his junior father. And truly, as for Mion, it always stands that the Yaa-Naa calls the Mionlana his junior father. If you hear the chief calling anyone his uncle, it shows that the person belongs to the mother's side. And a woman chief, and even his own daughter, he calls her his aunt.
I'm talking on the part of what our custom shows. But I can say again that as the Yaa-Naa is holding all of them, if he wants, he will call them by any name. The Yaa-Naa can call another chief his uncle, and it's not a fault. It's only that he won't call another chief his senior brother or junior brother. And so our custom shows that the way the lines of the chiefs are moving, the chiefs show that in the past, there were some people who were senior, and their junior brothers left them and ate the Yendi chieftaincy. Do you see the way it is: chieftaincy and custom? Some people want to put it the way they want. If it were to be some other place, do you think Yaa-Naa will call somebody his father again. And this is where they hang the zana mat I have told you about. You will see some people: Yaa-Naa will call some his senior fathers and call others junior fathers, and somebody would like to open the zana mat to see why he is calling them like that. And that is just how the custom standing from the beginning, or come and bent. Every day, day in and day out. This is why they say a chieftaincy is a zana mat. That is how it is. Yaa-Naa is using four names to call anybody: my grandfather, my senior father, my junior father, and adding my uncle or my aunt. All those eating chieftaincy, including his own father, and princes, they are his junior fathers. Vo-Naa, Zangbalin-Naa, Tibunglana, Zosallilana, Zoggolana, all the chieftaincies that belong to Yaa-Naa's children and grandchildren, those who are in Toma and those who are in Yendi: he calls them junior fathers.
Apart from Mion, Savelugu, and Karaga, the other divisional chiefs don't move from their towns. There are some exceptions, because as for the Kori-Naa and Demon-Naa, I have already told you that someone can move from Korli or Demon to eat Mion. But if you follow it, if someone eats one of those other divisional chieftaincies, he will remain there; he won't go out from that town to eat another chieftaincy. And so I have already separated Gushe-Naa, Tolon-Naa, Gukpe-Naa, and Kumbun-Naa. Their talks are many, but they don't enter our talks at this point on the part of the Yendi chieftaincy. And I have taken Mion, Savelugu and Karaga and grouped them. And I want to group Sunson, Yelizoli and Nanton, and then come to Korli and Demon.
And apart from Korli and Demon, the princes of the Yaa-Naa eat Sunson and Nanton. As for Sunson and Nanton, they are not chieftaincies for women's children; they have always been Yaa-Naa's children; but if a prince of Yendi eats either of these chieftaincies, for him to go out is hard. And so if someone eats the Sunson chieftaincy, that is where he will remain. And as for the Nanton-Naa, the Sunson-Naa and the Yelizolilana, they don't go out to eat any other chieftaincy, and it is their town which shows it. A long time ago, Naa Tutuɣri's son was the chief of Yelizoli. And he was called Yelizolilana Gurumancheɣu. He and Naa Zanjina had one father, and he was older than Naa Zanjina. He was sitting, and Yendi fell and he wanted it, but it was Naa Zanjina who went to eat the Yendi chieftaincy. At that time too, Sunson-Naa Timaani was the son of Naa Tutuɣri, and he was senior to Naa Zanjina. And when Yendi fell, it was Naa Zanjina who ate Yendi, and Sunson-Naa Timaani remained at Sunson. And this Yelizolilana Gurumancheɣu and Sunson-Naa Timaani were annoyed, and they said they didn't want Yendi again. And so the Yelizolilana and the Sunson-Naa don't go out. Truly, I told you that the Karaga-Naa who just died, Kari-Naa Adam, he moved from Sunson to eat Karaga, but he is the only person to bring this surprise since they started the chieftaincy. And the reason why he moved is that he was the son of the Karaga chief. But now the chiefs of Sunson are not children of the Karaga-Naa, so I don't think it can happen again. The Nanton chieftaincy: a prince of Yendi can go to eat it, but the Nanton-Naa never goes out to eat another chieftaincy. In the olden days, one of Naa Zanjina's sons was eating the Nanton chieftaincy, and he was called Nanton-Naa Musa. He was a senior brother to Naa Garba; he and Naa Garba had the same father and the same mother. Yendi fell, and Nanton-Naa Musa said that he would remain in Nanton. At that time Naa Garba was the chief of Tampion, and Naa Garba moved from Tampion to Yendi. And again, there was one Nanton-Naa Mahami who was the son of Naa Ziblim Bandamda, and he was fit to eat Yendi but he didn't go out. And so because all of these people didn't go out, it is standing that the Sunson-Naa, the Nanton-Naa and the Yelizolilana don't go out.
As for the chieftaincies of Nanton and Yelizoli, too, they don't show that only a Yaa-Naa's son can eat the chieftaincy there. The people who have a way to eat the Yelizoli are also there. The Taginamo-Naa can move to Yelizoli. The Zabzugu chief can eat Yelizoli. The chief of Nakpachee can eat Yelizoli. And as for Nanton, the Banvim chief can eat it. If the Sagnerigu chief gets Nanton, he can eat it. The Sagnerigu chief can eat Nanton, and he can also eat Savelugu. The Zugu chief can eat Nanton; the Nanton-Naa who just died, Nanton-Naa Alaasambila Issa, moved from Zugu to Nanton. The Tugu chief can move from Tugu to Nanton; Nanton-Naa Alaasan Kpɛma, the Nanton chief who died before this Alaasambila came, was formerly eating the Tugu chieftaincy. The Zoggo chief can eat Nanton; one of the Zoggo chiefs who ate Nanton some time ago was called Nanton-Naa Sule. And so these are all the people who have a way to eat the chieftaincies of Yelizoli and Nanton. And if one of them happens to eat either of these chieftaincies and he is not the son of a Yaa-Naa, it doesn't matter. And the princes of the town are also added to them. But it is also standing that if a Yaa-Naa's son should eat these chieftaincies, he won't go out again.
But the Demon-Naa or the Kori-Naa can go out from their chieftaincies. The chief of Korli or the chief of Demon, if Mion falls, if he is a Yaa-Naa's son, he can go and search for it, and it can happen and the Yaa-Naa will give it to him. And so the Demon-Naa is a chief's son. The Demon-Naa doesn't move from Demon to eat Yendi, but he can move to eat Mion, and from Mion, he can go to Yendi. And the same thing applies to the Kori-Naa. And so the Kori-Naa and Demon-Naa, if you want, you can add them to Mion and it will be nice, because they can go out from their chieftaincies to eat Mion. Or if you want, you group Korli and Demon together, because a Korli chief's son can eat Demon, and a Demon chief's son can eat Korli. Kori-Naa Abukari's first-born son, his Gbɔŋlana, ate Demon. And Demon-Naa Mahama, his Gbɔŋlana ate Korli. That is how it is.
And truly, a Yaa-Naa's son or grandson can eat Korli or Demon. Drummers are sitting in Korli and Demon, and if you ask them, they will also tell you that the chiefs there are children of the Yaa-Naa. And Kori-Naa Mahami was Naa Yakuba's son, and as it is, was the Kori-Naa not a Yaa-Naa's son? Demon-Naa Mahama was Naa Alaasani's son. If it is a grandson, I have told you that a chieftaincy will fall, and a grandson will just go and interfere, and he won't mind. Even though they won't give him, he will search for the chieftaincy. Even if a Yaa-Naa's grandson is eating Savelugu and the Yaa-Naa dies, he will go and interfere at Yendi, but they won't give him. That is how Korli and Demon also are. If a Yaa-Naa's son is eating Korli and Mion falls, he can eat it. But if a Yaa-Naa's grandson is eating Korli and Mion falls, he will go and interfere, but they won't give it to him because he's a grandson. They won't give it, and talks will come and mix. You should know the meaning of what I'm telling you. That is why I am always telling you to be watching. Or haven't you seen the way of my talk? Kori-Naa Abukari was a son of Mionlana Kalim, and Mionlana Kalim was Naa Abudu's son. As it is, was the Kori-Naa not a Yaa-Naa's grandson? And I have just told you that Kori-Naa Abukari's first-born ate Demon, and Demon-Naa Mahama's first-born ate Korli. That is how it goes, and it enters one another, and it's not a fault. And so we just put it that Korli and Demon are chieftaincies of Yaa-Naa's children, and if a grandchild is eating, it is not a fault. And truly, I can say that the chiefs of Demon and Korli can go out to eat Mion, but it will be hard. If a grandson eats a chieftaincy like that, he will not get Yendi. And so if they are grandsons, it will be hard.
And don't you see that Mion was also like that, and one person was a Yaa-Naa's grandson and came and ate it? But it is standing that it is a chieftaincy for Yaa-Naa's children. And truly, Savelugu and Karaga too were standing like that, but it has come and grandsons are eating. And those grandsons, too, they won't eat Yendi. That is why a Yaa-Naa's Gbɔŋlana will sometimes sit on the skins and remain in the chieftaincy. That is why I told you that if a Yaa-Naa's Gbɔŋlana sits on the skins and doesn't remain in Yendi, and he goes to eat a chieftaincy somewhere, he won't eat Yendi again. If he eats Yendi, it will bring confusion. The talks I am talking to you, I want you also to watch. That is how it is.
And so those are the big chiefs, and I am going to add salt to this talk. If you want, you can take Diari and add to them. A Yaa-Naa's grandsons eat Diari. Sometimes a Savelugu chief's children can eat Diari. And sometimes women's children eat it, and a Yaa-Naa's nephew can go and eat there. And so sometimes princes eat Diari, but I can say that the Diarilana won't go out and eat any other chieftaincy. If you put it and people see it, they won't say that it's wrong. It's not a fault. And I can say again that the Diarilana can go out and eat somewhere. But as the Diarilana can go out, has he gone out? We haven't seen it, and I haven't heard them say that the Diari chief has ever gone out. But you should know that if he wants, he can search for another chieftaincy, and if the Yaa-Naa likes him, he can give it to him. But we have never seen Diarilana get another chieftaincy and go to eat it. Do you see Kasuliyili? A commoner eats Kasuliyili, and the Kasuliyili chief doesn't go out. But I told you that the Kasuliyili chief can search for any of the other commoners' chieftaincies. If it happens that the Kasuliyili chief is a prince of Tolon or Kumbungu, he can search for those places, but since the starting, they haven't tried it. None of the people who ate Kasuliyili has gone out to eat another chieftaincy. And so what I am saying is only that we haven't seen the Kasuliyili chief go out. And so it is the Yaa-Naa who gives chieftaincy, and so if the Yaa-Naa wants somebody, he will give him a chieftaincy. And he will give it on its way. Haven't you seen the Diari chief who just died, Diarilana Mahama? His two uncles ate Nanton: Nanton-Naa Yinfa and Nanton-Naa Sule were his uncles. As he has eaten Diari, he won't go out again. But if he didn't get Diari, if he could get Nanton, he would eat it.
And so this is another of the hidden talks of the drummers on the part of what I am saying about chieftaincy. Something will show that something doesn't happen, and we haven't seen it, but it can happen. I want to tell you that even Nanton, the Nanton-Naa wants Savelugu. And he too, he won't get Savelugu. We have never heard them say that the Nanton-Naa has gone out. This present Nanton-Naa who died, Nanton-Naa Alaasambila, his father was Nanton-Naa Issa, and Nanton-Naa Issa searched for Savelugu two times. He was eating Nanton when he searched for it, and he didn't get it. But he was fit to eat Savelugu because his father was a chief of Savelugu; Nanton-Naa Issa was a son of Savelugu-Naa Kantampara. And Nanton-Naa Issa didn't get Savelugu to eat. And this present Nanton-Naa who died, too, he wanted Savelugu, and he wouldn't get it. If he had been able to get it, it would have been that the Yaa-Naa wanted him. But we haven't heard them say that somebody has left Nanton to eat Savelugu, and so it just stands that the Nanton-Naa doesn't go out because we haven't seen him go out. And so if you want, you can put it like that, and it is no fault. That is why I say that old talks don't die. If they die, they change. That is how tradition is, and it is not a fault. If you take it like that, it will be good, and there will be nothing wrong with the talk. And so on the way of the chieftaincies the Yaa-Naa gives, how I have talked it, I think that even somebody who doesn't even know how to pronounce the names of the towns can get some understanding from it.
Let me open your eyes about this example. This talk I'm talking, you have been writing it down. As for me, it is just in my head. But I have heard some things about what the white men have written, and what they have said in the courts. What I have talked is different from what the white people said. They said that in the custom, a son cannot rise higher than the father. They want to show eye-opening too much in the custom, but I have been telling you that they can't put it down like that. That is what is spoiling Dagbon. As you have listened to this talk about Nanton, you have seen it. By now you can know exactly that the way of this talk is different from what those people said.
Nanton-Naa Yinfa gave birth to Nanton-Naa Alaasan Kpɛma. Yinfa's father was Zangbalin-Naa Aduna. This Aduna was also Vo-Naa Aduna. He was eating Voggo and eating Zangbalin together. In the olden days, sometimes they were eating like that. Nanton-Naa Yinfa's father was at Voggo and Zangbalin, and Yinfa went and ate Nanton. He went higher than his father. And so in this case, you see somebody coming to eat Nanton, and the father was only at Voggo and Zangbalin. This present Nanton-Naa, Nanton-Naa Sule: when Nanton-Naa Alaasambila died, he came and ate Nanton. His father was not a chief. His father was a child of Savelugu-Naa Piɛɣu who didn't get chieftaincy. Savelugu-Naa Piɛɣu was given birth by Sagnerigu-Naa Suleman, and Sagnerigulana Suleman was a child of Naa Yakuba. In the custom way, it is Nanton-Naa's children who should eat Sagnerigu. And so this Nanton-Naa Sule has come to eat the chieftaincy of Nanton, but his great-grandfather didn't eat it. His great-grandfather ate Sagnerigu and died there without eating Nanton, and now the great-grandson has gone to eat Nanton. He is more than his great-grandfather. And look again: Savelugu-Naa Piɛɣu was given birth by Sagnerigulana. As Sagnerigu searches for Savelugu, it shows that Savelugu is more than Sagnerigu.
And so as for those who have written, don't follow their footprints. They have taken the lead to do the work, and those who followed only looked at what the first ones did, and they themselves didn't go inside. And now you are coming later, and you are actually going inside the talk, and you are doing better than they did. And so you will open their eyes. Dagbamba have a proverb: they only carry a child on the shoulder to see what is far away. Something that is far away, a child can't see it, and so you have to put the child on your shoulder, and then you will point at that place to him, “Look at what is going there.” But something that is coming, then the child will stand by the father. It will come, and the child too will see it. And so it is not that the father will tell him, “This is the thing I was showing you.” That is the same way of this talk we are talking. How we have chased ourselves and come to this point, you have seen the thing in front of you. So that is it.
And so what I want is for you to look well and see that in Dagbon here, each of the towns has got its way. If you are chief of the town and another chieftaincy falls, maybe you would like to get that chieftaincy to eat, but you won't get it. And it is your town which will show how your chieftaincy moves. These big chieftaincies which I have just talked about, there can be a Yaa-Naa's child who will not eat any of them. And so that is why the princes of these towns are many, because it is only a few of them who eat their father's or their grandfather's chieftaincy.
And what is adding again? I have already told you again that there are some towns, too, even if you are not a chief or you are not from the chief's family, if such a chieftaincy falls, you can go and ask for it. If the one controlling that chieftaincy likes you, he can take it and give to you. The Kasuliyili chief doesn't go out; his town is small but he is a big chief. The chief of Lungbunga doesn't go out, and he is a big chief. The chief of Dalun doesn't go out. I am not going to count all of them for you, but I am showing you that if a common person goes and asks for such a town's chieftaincy, and he gets it, it doesn't matter.
And on the part of the big chieftaincies in Dagbon here, what is adding is the talk of the chiefs of Tolon, Gushegu, Gukpeogu, and Kumbungu. Earlier today I told you something about these towns, and they are not eaten by the children of a Yaa-Naa. But I can say that they are our big chiefs in Dagbon here. They are elders of the Yaa-Naa, and they are the ones who are strong on the part of someone's getting the Yendi chieftaincy. A Yaa-Naa's son does not eat Gushegu, and a Yaa-Naa's son does not eat Tolon or Kumbungu. A Yaa-Naa's son does not eat Gukpeogu. And so I can say that Gushegu, Gukpeogu, Tolon, Kumbungu: they are different from the other towns. The way they eat their chieftaincies is different, too. Yesterday I told you what work the Gushe-Naa, the Tolon-Naa, the Gukpe-Naa, and the Kumbun-Naa do with regard to the Yendi chieftaincy, and today I am going to join their talk to the talk of the chiefs and tell you more about them and how they are standing in their chieftaincies.
As for these divisional chiefs, they never go out to eat any other chieftaincy. The Tolon chief doesn't go out. Since the starting of the Tolon chieftaincy, if you eat Tolon, you won't go to any other place again. The Kumbun-Naa does not go out. Since the Kumbungu chieftaincy started, no one has ever left Kumbungu to eat any other chieftaincy. At Gushegu, since the starting of the Gushegu chieftaincy, the Gushe-Naa has never gone to eat another chieftaincy. Gukpe-Naa is also like that. These people I have counted, their chieftaincies seem to be like the Yendi chieftaincy. Why do I say that? The Yaa-Naa doesn't go out to eat another chieftaincy, and they are holding the same thing. And how the Yaa-Naa is, they are the same. The Yaa-Naa lies on the skins of a lion, a leopard, and a hyena. The Yaa-Naa's wives shave their heads. All these chiefs, they sit on the skins of wild animals, and they shave their wives. And so because the Yaa-Naa has given them these chieftaincies and they won't go out again, they do the same things the Yaa-Naa is doing. These chiefs are elders of Yendi, and when any of them goes to greet the Yaa-Naa, the Yaa-Naa greets him, “My grandfather.”
Apart from that, there is some drumming we beat called Bimbiɛɣu. This Bimbiɛɣu is beaten when the chief rides a horse and is going, or if he enters a car and is coming to a town. They will beat Bimbiɛɣu and follow him. I have told you that there is some drumming we call Giŋgaani, and we beat it when the chief is coming out from the house and going; we play Giŋgaani for him. And it is not all chiefs we play Giŋgaani for. Bimbiɛɣu is added to Giŋgaani on the part of some chiefs. Drummers beat Bimbiɛɣu and follow the Yaa-Naa. As for Bimbiɛɣu, the chiefs whom they play it for are there. And when they beat it for a chief, they don't play it every day, only the time the chief is going out again. But if the chief is not someone they beat Bimbiɛɣu for, no matter how white the chief's heart is, he will not let them beat Bimbiɛɣu for him. The Gukpe-Naa: they play Bimbiɛɣu for him, and his wives shave their heads. The Tolon-Naa: they play Bimbiɛɣu for him, and his wives shave their heads. The Gushe-Naa: they play Bimbiɛɣu for him, and his wives shave their heads. And apart from the Kumbun-Naa, drummers beat Bimbiɛɣu for these chiefs. And the Kumbun-Naa's drummers don't beat it because the Tolon-Naa's drummers beat it, and the Tolon-Naa is senior to the Kumbun-Naa. The Kumbun-Naa and the Tolon-Naa, they have some talks between them, and their talks are separate from the other chiefs, because they are the ones who group themselves with the Langlana and the Wariboggo-Naa and ride horses and follow the Yaa-Naa to war. The Kumbun-Naa doesn't go out, but they don't beat Bimbiɛɣu and follow the Kumbun-Naa because the Tolon-Naa's drummers beat it.
And so it is someone's chieftaincy that shows whether they will beat Bimbiɛɣu and follow him. And what their chieftaincy shows and they beat Bimbiɛɣu is this: they don't want any other place again. They will not go out from their towns to eat another town's chieftaincy. Apart from these four, the Yaa-Naa and the three chiefs I have called, they beat Bimbiɛɣu and follow the someone who is holding all his people because such a chief is like the Yaa-Naa. They beat it and follow the Mamprusi chief. The one they call Mamprugulana or Nayiri: that is the Mamprusi chief, and he is the Yaa-Naa of his place. If not now that things have spoiled, the Mamprusi chief was holding Nalerigu and Gambaga and even to Bolgatanga and up to Bawku. Drummers beat Bimbiɛɣu for the chief of Bimbila. They beat it for the Yaboŋwura, the paramount chief of the Gonjas; he is the Yaa-Naa at his place. They beat it for the Asantehene, the big chief of the Ashantis. All of them are the big chiefs at their places, and what the Yaa-Naa is doing, they also have a way to do it. It is Dagbamba drummers who are there to beat for them, because when they didn't have lunsi drummers, it was the Yaa-Naa who sent drummers to them. As for Asantehene, those who have gone there to beat it for him, they say that he enjoys Bimbiɛɣu a lot. And so these chiefs, as they go and drummers follow them with Bimbiɛɣu, they are showing themselves to be like the Yaa-Naa, that what is inside Yaa-Naa's house, it is the same thing in their house. That is how it is.
Bimbiɛɣu is not played for anyone apart from the chiefs I have named and also the Nanton-Naa. The Nanton-Naa: they play Bimbiɛɣu for him, and his wives shave their heads. I will show you the reason why they play Bimbiɛɣu for the Nanton-Naa. Maybe someone will tell you something about it, and I don't want you to be confused about this point. I told you that Naa Zanjina gave birth to Nanton-Naa Musa. He and Naa Garba had the same mother, and this Nanton-Naa Musa was senior to Naa Garba. Naa Garba was eating Tampion and Nanton-Naa Musa was eating Nanton. When Yendi fell, they said that it had come to meet Nanton-Naa Musa, and he would eat it. And Nanton-Naa Musa said he would not change Nanton for Yendi. And he said that his brother is there, and his brother should go and eat it, and Naa Garba went and ate Yendi. And as the Yaa-Naa beats Bimbiɛɣu, if you are strong and your senior brother is there, then whose strength is it? It was Nanton-Naa Musa's strength that let Naa Garba eat Yendi. That is why the Nanton chief beats Bimbiɛɣu. But the Savelugu-Naa, they don't beat Bimbiɛɣu for him because he wants Yendi. The Karaga-Naa and the Mionlana are the same: drummers don't beat Bimbiɛɣu and follow them. I have never seen them beat Bimbiɛɣu and follow the Yelizoli chief. There is no chief they beat it for apart from the ones I have called. The chiefs I have called, none of them wants any other chieftaincy again. According to our custom, they don't eat the Yendi chieftaincy, but their chieftaincies look like the Yendi chieftaincy. And so it is their chieftaincies that show that drummers can beat Bimbiɛɣu for them. As it is, the chiefs of Diari and Lungbunga don't go out, but drummers don't beat Bimbiɛɣu for them.
Let me add you salt. Bimbiɛɣu: Nanton is the right place for it. But it is not every Nanton-Naa they beat Bimbiɛɣu for. Some of the people eating there, when they eat, they will tell the drummers that they don't want it. Nanton-Naa Yakubu, Nanton-Naa Sule, Nanton-Naa Alaasan Kpɛma: we were beating Bimbiɛɣu for these three chiefs. But Nanton-Naa Alaasambila: when he ate, he didn't want it. The way his father, Nanton-Naa Issa, didn't want it, he also didn't want it. We don't yet know about the present one, whether he wants it or not. It's just because of what I have told you about the Nanton chieftaincy. Since the time of Nanton-Naa Musa, the Nanton chief does not go out from Nanton to eat another chieftaincy. But some of them who will come and eat that place, and they will have the mind that, as for them, they are not going to remain there; they want to go out, and so they don't want to hear Bimbiɛɣu again. I told you that Nanton-Naa Issa's father was Savelugu-Naa Kantampara, and Nanton-Naa Issa searched for Savelugu, and he didn't get it. That was the taste Nanton-Naa Issa was having, and he refused Bimbiɛɣu, and he didn't get Savelugu, and his child who succeeded him, he also said he didn't want Bimbiɛɣu. And the two of them, they didn't go to anywhere. And so if you beat Bimbiɛɣu for Nanton-Naa, it means that the drummers are forcing him that he should be there permanently. And so any chief who will tell you that as for him, he doesn't want Bimbiɛɣu, then we all know that he is having some taste for going out. And this taste is deceiving him to refuse Bimbiɛɣu, because the Nanton-Naa doesn't go out. Had he collected Bimbiɛɣu, it would have been better. That is what is inside it, and sometimes they don't beat Bimbiɛɣu for Nanton-Naa. And so these chiefs who come and sit in chieftaincy, they have a taste for Yendi from the day they sit down. They will tell the drummers that they don't want Bimbiɛɣu. If not that, if there is a gathering of chiefs, and the drummers beat it for a chief, everybody will know that he has agreed to sit in that chieftaincy.
Apart from Bimbiɛɣu, there is a drum we cover with a leopard skin, and we call it gbiŋgbiri luŋa. We sew the skin to cover it. We call a leopard gbiŋgbirgu, and so when we use a leopard skin to cover the wooden body of the drum, we call it gbiŋgbiri luŋa. Only a few drummers in Dagbon have such a drum, and they are chiefs of drummers. Namo-Naa has got this type of drum, and at Yendi, and Yendi Sampahi-Naa also has it. I have told you that Namo-Naa and Yendi Sampahi-Naa are like two parts of a broken calabash. That is how it is. As for Namo-Naa, he plays the medium-sized lundɔɣu, the lundɔ' mahili, and he uses the skin of a leopard to cover it. Apart from Yendi, those chiefs who also beat the gbiŋgbiri luŋa: the Lun-Naa at Tolon has it; Darikuɣu-Naa at Gushegu has it; the Lun-Naa at Bimbila has it; Palo-Naa at Savelugu has it; I have heard that Zablɔŋ at Yelizoli has it. They are the ones who have that kind of drum. And I myself have seen this type of drum at the house of Sampahi-Naa of the Mamprusi chief, and he is one of the drum chiefs there. And I have also seen it at the Ashanti chief's house in Kumasi, and it is we Dagbamba who sewed it for him. Ashanti people brought this kind of skin to us to make it for them. As for Nanton, they don't have the leopard-skin drum there, because if they had it, I would have seen it. And if it were something that could happen, it would have happened a long time ago.
And what I have been showing you is that these chieftaincies I am talking about, each of them is standing on its way, and the talks of the chiefs are mixed. It is only when you get inside the talks and come to each particular chief that you will know what is inside his chieftaincy. If you group them and you don't separate them at the same time, you will come to enter lies. That is how our chieftaincy is. As for the Samban' luŋa in Dagbon here, they don't play the Samban' luŋa at the house of all chiefs. Those chiefs at whose houses they play the Samban' luŋa are there. And again, it's not all chiefs they beat Bimbiɛɣu and follow. And again, it isn't all chiefs who have the timpana. And so the playing of the gbiŋgbiri luŋa is like that.
It is the chief who gives the leopard skin to the drummer to sew a drum. This kind of drum is an old thing in Dagbon, and it's an old talk, but it's not that the drums themselves are always old. If anyone tells you that such a drum in such-and-such a town is the original drum of that type, he is telling lies. Even if it is in a book, it is lies. And so those people who are having this kind of drum are chiefs of the drummers in those towns. When someone is made the chief of the drummers, then he knows that his grandfathers all had this kind of drum, and he will ask the chief for the skin to cover it. The chief will get the skin for him to make this kind of drum for himself, not for any other person, but because he is the chief of the drummers. Those chiefs I have mentioned for you, the drumming chiefs of those towns are also important people in Dagbon. Only Namo-Naa sits on the skins of lions and leopards. But these other drum chiefs I have called, when we see someone having this kind of drum, and there are elders with him, then we also know that those people he is following are great people.
They hang this drum in the room, and they don't bring it out to beat it for life. It is not for beating Naɣbiɛɣu or Naanigoo. This drum is only beaten for something important. If the Yaa-Naa is dead, Namo-Naa will bring out this drum. If the Bimbila chief is dead, the chief drummer at Bimbila will bring out the drum with the leopard skin. If the Savelugu chief dies, Palo-Naa will bring out this drum. At Tolon and Gushegu and Yelizoli, it is the same. This drum can only be brought out for the chief, and they will bring it to the chief's house. Why does the chief of drummers bring it there? It is because the leopard is a warrior, and God is also great. Because of that, the drum is not beaten for people who are not great. It is only used for big chiefs who are like the Yaa-Naa. If Yaa-Naa is going to some place, Namo-Naa can bring it out. As the bad thing is going, they carry the bad drum to follow him. After that, they hang the drum. That is how it is. The towns I have counted are the only towns where the drum with the leopard skin is beaten.
Apart from that, I have told you that in Dagbon here, after the death of a chief, the first-born son of the chief becomes the Gbɔŋlana, the regent, and the Gbɔŋlana is the one who is holding the skins. When a chief dies, the Gbɔŋlana has a right to do all the things he was not doing: he will do the things his father was doing until his father's funeral is performed. The types of dresses he was not wearing, he will wear them. The drums they were not playing for him, they will play them. All this shows that he is standing for his father. But if a drum chief who is holding a gbiŋgbiri luŋa dies, and his Gbɔŋlana sits, when they are going to perform his father's funeral, he will only take the gbiŋgbiri luŋa and hang it on his shoulder. He won't be beating it. If it happens that the one who is going to perform his father's funeral is there, say, Yaa-Naa or Tolon-Naa, the Gbɔŋlana can take the drum and greet the big chief. But when they finish that very beating at that place, then they collect the drum back. As he hasn't eaten his father's place, he's not sure whether he will get it or not, and so he will only be hanging the drum until they see who will get the drum chieftaincy. That is how it is if Namo-Naa dies and his funeral is not yet performed, and his eldest son sits as his Gbɔŋlana. If Darikuɣu-Naa in Gushegu dies, his eldest son will sit in his place. If the Lun-Naa of Bimbila dies and his funeral is not yet performed, his eldest son is there like that. Zablɔŋ, Tolon Lun-Naa, Palo-Naa, if any of them dies and his funeral is not yet performed, his eldest son will be Gbɔŋlana. And after the funeral, if the Gbɔŋlana doesn't get the drumming chieftaincy his father was eating, and he goes to become chief of another village, then he doesn't have a way to hold that drum again. All the privileges he was having when he was sitting as the regent for his father, all of them are finished. And so that is standing for the Gbɔŋlana of the chiefs of drummers who are holding this drum.
And if it is a town where they beat this gbiŋgbiri luŋa, and the chief of the town dies, they will not beat this drum for the Gbɔŋlana of that town. If this drum is played for the Gbɔŋlana, then that Gbɔŋlana will not get the chieftaincy he wants. If we take this drum and beat it for such a son, he will spoil. It shows that he has already eaten his father's chieftaincy, and so he will not get the chieftaincy to eat again and he won't get any small chieftaincy either. And so there are some things that we don't do for the Gbɔŋlana, and this is one of them. There are some dresses that a chief wears, and his son cannot wear that dress. If the Gbɔŋlana wears that type of dress, it means that he has already become a chief, and he will not get any chieftaincy again.
As I am saying that they play this drum in the Yaa-Naa's house, and if the Yaa-Naa is passing, they can play it and praise him, truly, if a Yaa-Naa's son is passing outside and they are holding this drum, I am not saying that they will say that because they are holding this leopard-skin drum, they will not praise him. They will praise him because that is our work. As the chief's son is passing, the drummers are there. But if the chief's son is holding a small chieftaincy, they will not take this drum to his village. And the towns where this drum is not there, when the chiefs of those towns go to Yendi, the Yendi drummers don't bring this drum out. Namo-Naa will not agree to take this drum out and beat it for such a chief. And so drummers will not agree to play it for someone who is not a big chief. Where they beat the gbiŋgbiri luŋa, it is a big thing; it is not a small thing. Truly, it can happen that if the chief is happy and the chief drummer is also happy; at that time, the chief drummer might bring it to the chief's house and beat it. And it shows that the chief is someone who has the way for them to beat it for him, and so if they beat it like that, it's not a fault. But I can tell you that Namo-Naa doesn't play a drum by heart. He doesn't play without a reason. If something does not happen, Namo-Naa will not take a drum and play. The Palo-Naa at Savelugu doesn't play a drum by heart. Darikuɣu-Naa at Gushegu doesn't play a drum by heart. Zablɔŋ at Yelizoli doesn't play a drum by heart. Tolon Lun-Naa doesn't not play a drum by heart.
And so here it is: you will not play a drum by heart; if something doesn't happen, will you play? But when a festival comes, your heart is white, and you can take the drum to the chief's house. If the chief is going anywhere, you can take the drum and follow him. When the chief dies, you can take the drum and go. If they are going to beat the Samban' luŋa, you will take the drum and go. If the chief is happy, he will say, “Come and beat drums for me”; you can take the drum and go. If only the chief is someone they beat the leopard-skin drum for, you can take it and go. Everybody is happy, and you will play. And all these things, the chief of drummers can play the leopard-skin drum, and it is not a fault. And so the talk of the leopard-skin also looks like the talk of Bimbiɛɣu. It is something that stands on the part of the very high and respected chiefs and the drumming chiefs of these towns, and it shows that their chieftaincies are very, very big, and they even look like the Yendi chieftaincy. And so if you see somebody doing something that the Yaa-Naa is doing, or if you hear the Yaa-Naa call someone his grandfather, then you should use your sense and know that there is something behind it. This is how it is on the part of our divisional chiefs. And what I have told you, it seems I have turned the talks, because it seems that this talk also stands inside the talk of drumming. But talks come to enter one another. And so on the part of the way drummers beat Bimbiɛɣu and on the part of the leopard-skin drum, these talks are also adding to show that these chiefs are big chiefs.
And so Gushegu, Gukpeogu, Tolon, and Kumbungu: they are the chieftaincies of elders, and that is why I separated them when I was showing you the chieftaincies that are eaten by a Yaa-Naa's children, grandchildren and nephews. As for these four towns, all these towns have got the people who have a way to eat the chieftaincy. If you see somebody eating any of these chieftaincies, then if not his father, then maybe his grandfather was eating that chieftaincy before. And again, any of them, if the Yaa-Naa has his friend, he can catch his friend and give him any of these chieftaincies to eat. And so the chiefs of these towns, they have sons, but it doesn't show that the sons have to eat the chieftaincy. In Tolon or Kumbungu, the chief's children and grandchildren are many, but they don't always get to eat the chieftaincy. And so their talk is separate from the other chiefs. And so I will show you how these chieftaincies are moving.
I will start with the Gukpe-Naa because the Gukpe-Naa is sitting in this town. As for Gukpeogu, it was there in Naa Nyaɣsi's time. Truly, I don't know all of the Gukpe-Naa's starting, but I have heard that the Gukpe-Naa was already there in Naa Shitɔbu's time, and I think it is true. I told you that when a Yaa-Naa is going to be made, it is the Gukpe-Naa who catches him. And it is Gukpe-Naa who takes the new Yaa-Naa into the Katin' duu. And so the Gukpe-Naa is a strong elder of the Yaa-Naa. And how the Gukpe-Naa becomes a chief, and how his starting was, if it is following the way, it is we drummers who know the talk that is inside it. Yesterday I told you that it is the chief of Duɣu who becomes the chief of Gukpeogu; if not Mba Duɣu, then it will be one of the Yaa-Naa's namɔɣlinsi like Mba Malle or Zalankolana. It is now that Dagbon has spoiled and they have turned this talk because of the one who is now Gukpe-Naa: this man was never the chief of Duɣu, and a Gukpe-Naa does not become a chief in the way this man has become the chief. And so as for Gukpeogu, the real people who can ask for it are at Yendi, and they are elders of the Yaa-Naa. Mba Duɣu is at Yendi with the Yaa-Naa. If the Yaa-Naa is not in the house, Mba Duɣu has control; or if the Yaa-Naa is supposed to go somewhere but is not able to go, Mba Duɣu will go to represent him and stand in his standing place. If Gukpeogu falls, Mba Duɣu can go and eat it. After Mba Duɣu, we have somebody called Mba Malle: he is an elder of the Yaa-Naa, and he can also eat the Gukpeogu chieftaincy. Apart from these two people, there are some other people who have a door to eat the chieftaincy of Gukpeogu. The Zalankolana is an elder of the Yaa-Naa, and a child of the Gukpe-Naa can go and eat that chieftaincy. And now, truly, Gukpeogu is left to the family of Mba Duɣu, because it is the first-born son of the Gukpe-Naa who goes to eat the Duɣu chieftaincy. But it's not just the Gukpe-Naa's child who goes to eat Duɣu. It can happen that the Zalankolana will go to eat the Duɣu chieftaincy, and it's not a fault. It can even happen that the Zalankolana will come and eat Gukpeogu, and so if the Zalankolana gets Gukpeogu, he will eat. And so it's not that Gukpeogu is just standing in one way. If I don't separate its talks for you, it will come to look as if I don't know. And so this is the way of the Gukpeogu chieftaincy, and the Gukpe-Naa doesn't move from this town to any other town.
Gukpeogu is a small village near Yendi, but the Gukpe-Naa sits in this Tamale. How the Gukpe-Naa came to be sitting here, in the olden days, as the Gukpe-Naa was sitting down, he had no villages around Yendi. All his villages were here. It was the chief of Choggo who used to judge his cases for him, and so the Choggo-Naa was like his magistrate, and he would send his things to him. The time the white man was here, people's eyes were opening, and as it was like that, the Gukpe-Naa saw that they were cheating him. Those who had been the Gukpeogu chiefs and had died, their eyes were not yet opened. But Gukpe-Naa Iddi's eyes were open, and he knew they were cheating him. The Gukpe-Naa wanted to come and sit here so that he would settle the cases himself, and no one else would collect and cut only part for him. By then, it was the time of Naa Abudu, and it was the white man who told Naa Abudu that it is good for this town to have a chief and it is good for the Gukpe-Naa to come to this town. And Naa Abudu told the Gukpe-Naa. The Gukpe-Naa took it and added his own part, and he came to this town. And so there was no quarrel. I think it is about fifty years now, because I was still young and I heard them say that Gukpe-Naa Iddi had come to Tamale here. It was Gukpe-Naa Moro who came first, and he came and sat with Dakpɛma Busaɣri, and he went home. He didn't reach one year and he died, and Gukpe-Naa Iddi came and sat here. When Gukpe-Naa Iddi died, it was Gukpe-Naa Alhassan who came and sat. And when he died, his senior son Alaasani became Mba Duɣu, and Gukpe-Naa Iddi's senior son Alaasambila became the Gukpeogu chief. That was your friend when you first came here. Gukpe-Naa Alaasambila was the chief of Duɣu before he came here and sat. And when Dagbon spoiled, they removed him and he died. And it was this present Gukpe-Naa that they brought. And this is what I know about how the Gukpe-Naa came to Tamale.
As for the Tolon-Naa and the Kumbun-Naa, if there should be a war, they will come to the front on their horses to lead. They and those who follow them are the warizɔhinima, those who ride horses in a war. As for the Tolon-Naa, he is the leader of the spear throwers at Yendi. Apart from children and grandchildren of the chiefs of Tolon, and if it is not that the Yaa-Naa catches somebody for the chieftaincy, the chief of Tali can move from Tali to Tolon. Tali is bigger than all the other villages: if someone is eating Tali and he is going out from there, he is only coming to eat Tolon and not any other village. But the chief of Tiboggo can go to eat Tolon. The chief of Wariboggo can move from Wariboggo to eat Tolon. The chief of Langa can go to eat Tolon. Behind that, if a prince of Tolon goes to eat any town's chieftaincy, he can move from that town to Tolon. Do you see Savelugu? It usually happens that the Savelugu Wulana and the Savelugu Kpanalana are princes of Tolon, and if Tolon falls, one of them can eat it. And so these are examples, and there are others. If a Tolon chief's child goes out from Tolon and is able to eat a small chieftaincy somewhere, he can later come back again to eat Tolon. When we last went to Diari, the elder of the Nanton-Naa who stood up and was talking, he is a Tolon chief's child: if Tolon should fall, the Nanton-Naa can help get it for him. The Nanton-Naa can go to Yendi and tell the Yaa-Naa to give it to him. And if God likes him, he can search for Tolon and eat it. That is how it is. And so that is apart from the towns I have counted. These towns I have counted are just examples. It's not that they are the only towns that can move to eat Tolon. Some of the Tolon chiefs have eaten like that, and some too haven't eaten like that. And so there are other towns.
Tolon started in the time of Naa Nyaɣsi and Naa Shitɔbu. I last told you that Naa Nyaɣsi's father was Naa Shitɔbu, and Naa Nyaɣsi told his father that he wanted to go to war. And Naa Shitɔbu said, “Don't go. What have you got and you say you are going for war?” And Naa Nyaɣsi went back and sat down. When it was night, Naa Shitɔbu called him and said, “Go and tell the elders that they should come and beg me to allow you to go for war.” And they came, and Naa Shitɔbu told them that he was ready for Naa Nyaɣsi to go to war. At that time, the chiefs were not chiefs. You know, as the Dagbon lands were there, they didn't even have names like “this is the name of this town.” People were just there, and the tindanas were there. It was the tindanas who were chiefs. The Yaa-Naa was there with Gukpe-Naa, Gushe-Naa, Kuɣa-Naa, Zɔhi-Naa, and the Yendi elders. They were the chiefs during the olden days, and it was only the Yaa-Naa who was a chief and the others were his elders. Tolon, Kumbungu, Karaga, all the surrounding villages were ruled by the tindanas.
And one of the elders of Naa Shitɔbu was Zandu-Naa. As for the Zandu-Naa and his people, they are the warizɔhinima, that is, horse riders. I told you that when a Yaa-Naa prepares for war, he and the chief of the warriors, they are the soldiers of the Yaa-Naa. They were there during the time of Naa Shitɔbu. And Naa Shitɔbu's friend was called Suŋbi, Zandu-Naa Suŋbi. And this Zandu-Naa was like the Wulana of the Yaa-Naa. The time Naa Shitɔbu said Naa Nyaɣsi should go for war, Zandu-Naa said, “As I am sitting, I cannot leave the chief and go with his son. If I follow his son, and somebody comes to fight the chief, who will be there to free him? And so I am giving this child as the messenger of my pledge,” and everybody got a child and gave to Naa Nyaɣsi. And Naa Nyaɣsi took his weapons and his followers and went. Any town where he arrived, he killed the tindana, and he put one of his followers as chief of that town. And any of his followers, we say of him that, “He was a son of Naa Nyaɣsi.” Sometimes the tindanas heard of his coming, and they ran away. Then Naa Nyaɣsi would take one of his followers and put him as chief of that town, and we call him as a son of Naa Nyaɣsi. And Naa Nyaɣsi was going around to all the villages, fighting and killing the tindanas.
And when Naa Nyaɣsi went to war, the way he took to reach these towns and put his children to be sitting, that was how the towns had their names. And it's not all of them we call the same way, but most of the towns started then. When Naa Nyaɣsi went to fight the Tolon tindana, I don't know whether Naa Nyaɣsi killed the tindana or whether the tindana ran away, but as Zandu-Naa took his son and messaged him to go to war with Naa Nyaɣsi, Naa Nyaɣsi put this child of Zandu-Naa as the chief there. And he called the place Talin. We Dagbamba, if you take somebody and give him to somebody to take and go, we say you have given that person to “talin,” that is, as a “message.” As he was pledged, the Dagbamba called it “talin,” meaning that he had been sent as a message. And so the chief of Tolon is sitting like that. And so the child Zandu-Naa sent, where he sat they called it Talin, and now we call it Tolon. And so it was in Naa Nyaɣsi's time that Tolon started, because Tolon-Naa followed Naa Nyaɣsi to war. And so Tolon-Naa is the child of Zandu-Naa, and Zandu-Naa is senior. But if they say it like that, and you take it and watch, you will see that all the warizɔhinima are following Tolon-Naa. The Tolon-Naa was the Wulana of Naa Nyaɣsi, and if there is any fighting, it is Tolon-Naa who will fight for the Yaa-Naa. And if the Savelugu chief or the Voggo chief or the Zugu chief or any of the chiefs at this side come to quarrel, it is the Tolon-Naa who will separate it.
As for Kumbungu, I have heard that Kumbungu also started in Naa Nyaɣsi's time. They say, “Kumbun-Naa Bimbiɛm, Naa Nyaɣsi bia”: Naa Nyaɣsi's child. And so to me, I have heard and I believe that the Kumbun-Naa was there in Naa Nyaɣsi's time. But I don't know that Kumbungu started at the same time as Tolon because the Tolon-Naa is senior to the Kumbun-Naa. As it is, you can group the Kumbun-Naa with the Tolon-Naa, because the Kumbun-Naa is also standing as someone who will fight for the Yaa-Naa. And so Kumbun-Naa is an elder chief, but what I have heard is that in the olden days, in Naa Zɔlgu's time, a Yaa-Naa's son ate Kumbungu. There was a son of Naa Zɔlgu called Zimbaa Pannyu' ma, that is, “enemies will like me.” He was a son of Naa Zɔlgu, and he ate Kumbungu. Apart from him, I have never heard that a son of a Yaa-Naa ate Kumbungu.
As for Kumbungu, the people who eat the Kumbungu chieftaincy are there. The chief of Kpaliga can move from Kpaliga to Kumbungu. The Kpee-Naa, the chief of Kpiɔɣu, can go to eat the Kumbungu chieftaincy. The Gbulun chief can eat Kumbungu. The Boggonayili chief, if he gets a chance, he can eat Kumbungu. Do you know Boggonayili? Boggo is a Yaa-Naa's village, but Boggonayili is for the Kumbun-Naa. And so one is Boggo and the other one is Boggonayili. This present Kumbun-Naa, Kumbun-Naa Asimaani, was eating Boggonayili before he moved to eat the Kumbungu chieftaincy. Among these villages, it is only Gbulun that the Yaa-Naa is selling. The others are villages of the Kumbun-Naa, and the Kumbun-Naa is selling them. Apart from that, the Gbulun chief can eat Kumbungu. Among these four villages, it is only Gbulun that the Yaa-Naa is selling, but Yaa-Naa's children eat it and commoners eat it. Nanton-Naa Yakubu grandfathers were Yaa-Naas, and he came from Gbulun and ate Nanton. If Kumbun-Naa's children eat it, and if Kumbungu falls, they can search for it. And these are the villages that can eat Kumbungu. All these people have a way to eat Kumbungu, they and the children and grandchildren of a Kumbun-Naa. And so a Kumbungu prince can eat Kumbungu. And again, because Tolon is senior to Kumbungu, a prince of Tolon can go to eat Kumbungu. And if any of these princes is holding a chieftaincy in another town, he can move from that town to eat Kumbungu. Even if a prince of Tolon is sitting in Tolon, if the Yaa-Naa likes him, he can give Kumbungu to him. But it is not that the chief of Tolon or Kumbungu will go out to eat the other town. And so this is how these people are moving with their chieftaincies. And so Tolon and Kumbungu, the one the Yaa-Naa likes, and he is not a Yaa-Naa's son or a Yaa-Naa's grandson or a Yaa-Naa's nephew, but he is just the Yaa-Naa's friend, the Yaa-Naa can give him Tolon or Kumbungu. If he is a prince of the town, and he is at Yendi and following the Yaa-Naa, whether he's eating chieftaincy or not, the Yaa-Naa can take it and give him. That is how it is.
As for Gushegu, I don't know how it started, because how Yendi started, that is how it also started. Gushegu is an old town, and to me, I think in my heart that the Gushe-Naa was already there and he had strength when Yendi started. It was Nyolugu Lun-Naa Issahaku who told me that when the Dagbamba came, there was no Gushe-Naa. Issahaku said that Gushegu was started by a Mossi woman, and this Mossi woman was married by the grandson of a Yaa-Naa, and the Gushegu people and the Mossis are one. And it was this person who started Gushegu. And so Issahaku said that when the Dagbamba came, Gushegu was not there. And Lun-Naa Issahaku called the name Piɛmbiɛɣu: that was the name of the Mossi woman's husband. He was the grandson of a Yaa-Naa, of Naa Shitɔbu. Piɛmbiɛɣu's father was called Yidi. He didn't become a chief. And this Piɛmbiɛɣu, the one who started Gushegu, his child's name was Shiwoo, Gushe-Naa Shiwoo, Piɛmbiɛɣu's son. And so whether the Gushe-Naa was there when the Dagbamba came, I don't know. But I know that the Gushegu was strong from its starting. The Gushe-Naa was called Tiŋkpɛma, that is, “the elder of the land.” Even up to now the Gushe-Naa is still Tiŋkpɛma. But Issahaku said that Gushe-Naa's starting is from Naa Shitɔbu, and half of him is Mossi. And so what I know is that the Gushegu people have some talk with the Mossis, and as for that, it is true. I think that truly, the Gushe-Naa is strong because the Gushegu people are Mossis. I have told you that to me, the Gushe-Naa is our strong elder in Dagbon, because it is the Gushe-Naa who catches the Yaa-Naa. When a Yaa-Naa is dead, Gushe-Naa will go and play with the Yaa-Naa's children. And when the Kuɣa-Naa is going to catch a Yaa-Naa, at that time the Gushe-Naa will get up from Gushegu and come and lie at Malizheri. And the Kuɣa-Naa will send a child to tell him, that if tomorrow he comes to remove the grass, that he should take it and give to so-and-so. This is how it is.
And the Gushegu chieftaincy, you already know that Gushegu is an old town, and it also has its ways and the people who can eat it. There are villages that the Gushe-Naa's princes eat. The chief of Gbogo, the Gbogolana, can go to eat Gushegu. There is a village called Kanshegu near to Gushegu: the Kanshe-Naa can eat Gushegu. The Waawuu chief can eat Gushegu. And so these are the people or the chiefs who can eat the Gushegu chieftaincy if they are princes of Gushegu. And any child or grandchild of a Gushe-Naa, or a Gushe-Naa's nephew, if he gets it, he can eat. But the Yaa-Naa cannot give Gushegu to someone who is not from the town, and so a Yaa-Naa's friend doesn't eat it, unless he is from the town. And so Gushegu is different from Tolon and Kumbungu, because the Yaa-Naa can give Tolon or Kumbungu to his friend, even if that fellow is not a child or a grandchild of the town. And so the Gukpe-Naa and the Gushe-Naa, they also have their ways. And they don't go out from their towns.
And so what I want you to know is this: in Dagbon here, every chief stands on his own way. And if you follow it you will see that chieftaincy talk doesn't die. And how the chiefs move, it doesn't show that if you are the son of a chief, you will also eat chieftaincy some day. On the part of our chieftaincy talks, whether it is a small chieftaincy or whether it is the Yendi chieftaincy, it is all one: if you are given birth by a Yaa-Naa and you yourself don't become the Yaa-Naa, it is nothing. There are a lot of Yendi chiefs who gave birth to a lot of children, and not all of the children have become chiefs of Yendi. And there are many people who have a way to become chiefs in Dagbon here, and not all of them become chiefs. And so our custom shows us that the person who becomes a chief is someone God likes.
Do you see Naa Garba? Naa Garba gave birth to Naa Ziblim Bandamda. Naa Ziblim's line is not in Yendi again. Naa Ziblim Bandamda gave birth to Naa Mahami, and Naa Mahami gave birth to Naa Simaani Zoli. After that, the family's door to Yendi died, because Naa Zoli didn't give birth to a child who ate Yendi. And so Naa Ziblim's line has become commoners, and we have taken them to add into the commoners of Dagbon. Have you seen how it goes? Naa Ziblim Bandamda and Naa Andani Jɛŋgbarga had the same father. They didn't have the same mother, but their father was Naa Garba. And Naa Andani Jɛŋgbarga came and ate Yendi. Naa Andani's first-born son was Mionlana Asimaani, and this Asimaani ate Mion. And when he ate Mion, he also died there: he didn't get Yendi to eat. All the line of Mionlana Asimaani is now dead on the part of Yendi: they have become commoners. And so Naa Andani's first-born son's line have become commoners. You should listen well. Naa Andani gave birth to Naa Ziblim Kulunku, and Naa Ziblim Kulunku ate Yendi and also brought forth a son. This son was Karaga-Naa Mahami, and he didn't get Yendi to eat. He ate Karaga, and he remained at Karaga. And so Naa Ziblim Kulunku's line is all at Karaga, and they are not at Yendi again. Have you seen? This is one line I am counting, Naa Garba's line.
And that is how it is. In Dagbon here, every town has got its way. And every family has its way. And so the talk of chieftaincy never ends, and no one can know all of it. And what I have talked today, you yourself can know that it is not a small talk. And we Dagbamba have a proverb which says that if you farm millet and birds come to eat the seeds, you don't send a blind person to go and watch your farm. Do you know its meaning? A blind person has not got eyes to see even millet; what of the birds? And so if you want to give something to someone to keep for you, you should give it to someone with patience and with very good eyes so that he will be watching the thing well for you. And I see that you are not a blind person, and you can hold what I'm telling you. And so what I have told you today, you should keep it well. What I have told you, there are a lot of people who are older than I am, but they don't know it. And it is a big and important talk. There are many drummers, if you ask them to talk about our chiefs, and you say you will give them any amount of money, they will not agree to talk about these things. And so what I have talked today, hold it well. And tomorrow I will show you the way of living of the princes and how they are moving when they are searching for chieftaincy.