A Drummer's Testament
<Home page>
<PDF file>
Reasons why Dagbamba marry many wives; the hierarchy of wives; rooms and cooking; how the chiefs live with their wives
<top of page>
Supplementary material
<top of page>
Contents outline and links by paragraph
Introduction
- 1. beginning the section on householding
Marrying many wives and Dagbamba custom
- 2. marrying many wives started with the chiefs, then those who could hold people, then maalams
- 3. polygamy is Dagbamba custom; different from white man's custom
- 4. need more than one wife if wife travels or gives birth and goes to family house
- 5. receive strangers
- 6. having many wives shows respect and personhood
- 7. a person without wives and children is abused as useless
Olden days difficulties to get a wife
- 8. previously people only had one wife; no food
- 9. strong people could collect women; whipping at the chief's court
- 10. many people became old before they could get a wife
- 11. this talk from Alhaji Ibrahim's father; even greeting elders before they had daughters
- 12. chiefs got wives by force; also, women were fewer in number
- 13. not sure why the women were not many in olden days; maybe war or starvation
- 14. maybe the shortage of women was not because of anything
In modern times, having one wife is a problem
- 15. women are more available; if one wife travels, husband is tempted to commit adultery
- 16. adultery brings bad things
- 17. if one wife, can be deceived; no perspective; husband will not know about the marriage
- 18. one wife with one husband are happy together, until another wife comes
- 19. most men with one wife want more wives
- 20. a strong woman can prevent the husband from getting another wife
- 21. how Christian marriage with a ring kills a family; inheritance
- 22. in Christian marriage, the family is not extended
- 23. one wife means worries: poor person, useless person, villagers
- 24. women are many in the towns, fewer in the villages; difficult for villagers to marry
- 25. villagers with one wife suffer when the wife gives birth
How chiefs get many wives
- 26. princes get wives before chieftaincy because of their respect and means
- 27. titles of chiefs' wives: Paani and Paampaɣa are first two; last wife is Komlana
- 28. women marry chiefs for money, status, and to have children who are princes
- 29. chiefs also get bad women from families; also catch women; sisters' daughters
- 30. chief also gets wives from his elders when he arrives in a town
How wives get their rooms in a house
- 31. how the chief groups his wives into rooms; senior wives and roomchildren
- 32. wives get their own rooms by giving birth; also get cooking days
- 33. Muslims are different; the wife gets a room to hold the leefɛ
- 34. Muslim amaliya starts cooking immediately; young one might be trained by husband's mother; some people wait forty days
- 35. with typical Dagbamba, the wife must give birth before she gets her cooking; commoners and chiefs
Cooking, roomchildren, and sex in the chief's house
- 36. as the chief gets more wives, he may group many of them in the rooms
- 37. the roomchild works for the senior wife until she gets her cooking
- 38. chief sleeps with the wife who cooks
- 39. two days for each wife to cook; roomchildren do not have cooking and don't sleep with chief
- 40. how the chief sleeps with the roomchildren
- 41. if the roomchild gets pregnant, the child is not senior to other children
- 42. the Paani will determine when to tell the chief about the child
- 43. if a woman without cooking leaves a child in the chief's house, the child will not become a chief
- 44. how chiefs' wives commit adultery; can lie about a man and give him trouble
- 45. gradually the roomchildren will get their rooms, their cooking, and their own roomchildren
Others who marry many wives
- 46. people with money get many wives; have to be able to feed everyone in the house
- 47. maalams can marry up to four wives; the waljira is senior
- 48. commoners can marry to the extent they can feed the household
<top of page>
Proverbs and Sayings
If we see someone with only one wife, we say that he is a bachelor, and we say that he doesn't know what is inside marriage.
You cannot take your way of living and compare it to our way of living here.
A woman is the house.
If you have a friend who comes from another town to visit you, he is coming to see how your house is. As he has come to see your house, he has come to see the women and how you live with them.
If you have no wife in Dagbon here, you are not a person.
In our Dagbamba living, somebody who is not a child, and sickness is not worrying him, if he has no wife, we call him a useless person.
It's cool for the monkey; that is why it puts its child on its back.
You cannot take the cheeks and the temple and add them together.
A person with one wife doesn't even know whether the woman truly likes him or not.
If somebody has one wife, he doesn't know what is inside having women. And if a woman is alone with her husband, she doesn't know what is inside having a husband.
It is when you have many women that you know what is in women and in men.
Is it not in greeting that we know there is family?
In a village, when a village woman gives birth, the man also gives birth.
If a lizard doesn't take his hand to press his rib-bone to see how strong it is, it will never fall into water.
They have gathered her cooking.
<top of page>
Dagbani words and other search terms
- Chiefs, elders, and titles
- Gukpe-Naa
- Kamo-Naa
- Komlana
- Paampaga (Paampaɣa)
- Paani
- Wulana
- Yaa-Naa
- Miscellaneous terms
- amaliya
- amoonsi
- barazim
- chieftaincy
- cowife, cowives
- housechild, housechildren
- Kambonsi
- kpalannyirichoo
- kpalgu
- maalam, maalams
- napag' zuli, napag' zuya (napaɣ' zuli, napaɣ' zuya)
- roomchild, roomchildren
- tindana
- waljira
- water-fetcher
- Towns and places
- Dagbon
- Gushegu
- Nanton
- Savelugu
- Tolon
- Voggo
- Yendi
- Cultural groups
- Dagbamba
- Dagbana