A Drummer's Testament
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Rice: origins of rice farming; uses of rice; problems of intensive agriculture; credit facilities and debt patterns; emergent stratification patterns; wage labor in the villages
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Contents outline and links by paragraph
The introduction of rice farming
- 1. introduction: government wants rice farming
- 2. rice previously not regarded; rarely farmed
- 3. encouraged by Nkrumah as commercial farming
Getting a plot to farm
- 4. seeing the chief and elders of a village to get land
- 5. how to greet the chief
- 6. Wulana leads the farmer to choose the land
- 7. greetings for commercial farming versus food farming
Loans, tractors, and labor in farming the plot
- 8. hiring a tractor; plowing, harrowing, sowing rice
- 9. getting a bank loan; bribes
- 10. bank pays out loan money incrementally: seeds, tractors, sowing, fertilizer
- 11. planting other crops in case the rice does not do well
- 12. difficulty of rice: lack of rain; laborers to weed grass
- 13. hiring by-day labor
- 14. cutting the rice: hire laborers; some friends will help without pay
- 15. beating the rice: hire laborers to beat, sieve, and bag the rice
Sharing the yield and paying the debt
- 16. pay with money and add some rice as a gift; contrast with combine harvester
- 17. give rice for using the land: chief, elders, tindana
- 18. report to the bank; show lower yield
- 19. some people bribe the bank; can even get tractor
- 20. if the farm does not yield, bank will make adjustment
Problems of rice farming
- 21. problem of rice farming: tractors do not complete their work
- 22. problem of rice farming: tractors are not timely
- 23. rice farmers can farm and fail
- 24. many problems from not having a tractor
- 25. after sowing, need fertilizer which is not always available
- 26. if the inputs are adequate, the rice will yield; fertilizer
- 27. rice farming has no benefit for many farmers; lack of rain
Commercial farming and government inputs
- 28. tractors can farm and also be hired out to other farmers
- 29. Nkrumah's programs; subsidies of tractors and inputs
- 30. those who benefited from the early assistance are rich; small farmers have fallen
Managing debt
- 31. how rice has increased in cost; living with debt
- 32. managing the debt
- 33. commercial banks versus government banks
- 34. difficulties of paying off debt
- 35. a good harvest can remove a farmer from his debt
The work of rice
- 36. the work of rice: ways of cooking it
- 37. grind the rice and make saɣim
- 38. rice balls
- 39. rice porridge; boiled rice with stew
- 40. duɣrijilli: rice cooked together with the ingredients of the stew; like jollof
Conclusion
- 41. transition to the talk of groundnuts, kpalgu, and shea nuts
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Proverbs and Sayings
If you eat rice, you can't cross a swampy area.
A Dagbana can see money and refuse it.
He has thrown away what he had in his hand, and he is following what he will get from his leg.
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Dagbani words and other search terms
- Chiefs and elders
- Kpanalana
- Wulana
- Zogyuri-Naa (Zoɣyuri-Naa)
- Names and people
- Acheampong (I.K.)
- Busia (Kofi)
- Ibrahim (Abdulai)
- Mumuni (Abdulai)
- Nkrumah (Kwame)
- Miscellaneous terms
- ammonium sulphate
- bambara beans
- cedi, cedis
- dafaduka
- Dagbani
- dawadawa
- dugrijilli (duɣrijilli)
- feces
- groundnut, groundnuts
- guinea
- housewomen
- jollof
- kpalgu
- kunchung (kunchuŋ)
- NPK
- outdooring
- pesewa
- pupuru
- sagbiegu (saɣbɛɣu)
- sagim (saɣim)
- sagvugli (saɣvuɣli)
- shea butter
- sinkaafa (siŋkaafa)
- sinkaafa kpila (siŋkaafa kpila)
- sinkaafa kukogli (siŋkaafa kukɔɣli)
- sinkaafa wali (siŋkaafa wali)
- sinkaafa wasawasa (siŋkaafa wasawasa)
- tindana, tindanas
- Cultural groups
- Ashantis
- Dagbana, Dagbamba
- Towns and places
- Dagbon
- Savelugu
- Voggo
- Yendi
- Ashantis
- Dagbana, Dagbamba