A Drummer's Testament

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Chapter III-22:  The Work Women Do in a House and How They Help One Another

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Types of work women do in the house; the character of Dagbamba women; how women help each other



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Women singing while pounding the floor of a compound  (22:01)


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Contents outline and links by paragraph

Introduction

Women's work

How the women live with one another

Bad women

The work in the house

Women do not talk about the people or the issues in their household

How women communicate in the house

The bad traits of women

Dagbamba stories about bad women

Sharing and not sharing secrets



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Proverbs and Sayings

All our old talks, we are going back to search for them.

Our elders talked, and they told us that we shouldn't leave our customs.  And they said we would come back to our customs.

How it is coming now, if we don't look for our old things, the suffering we are eating today will look better than the suffering of those who will be coming.  And so we will go into our old talks again.

A person gets a good thing to put down for those following.

There are some women, the way they live is to help others.  And there are some women, they take their sense to get for themselves.

How women live, they bluff one another.

There can be a woman in the house, and she has no time to bluff.  But as there are many women in the house, there will be some who like to bluff.  And those who bluff, they bluff to show themselves on those who don't bluff.  And it is in all their bluffing that we get to know that one woman is better than another woman.

You can't catch a live bee and put it into a hole:  it will come out.

The work you like is the work that worries you.

If you want a certain work among many works, and they give you that work, if the work is too much, you can't say anything because it is you who wanted that work.  If it worries you, you like it.  That is why it worries you; if you didn't want it, it wouldn't worry you.

There is no one who will be doing something when there is no benefit from it.

If someone with sense is doing some work, it is because his heart wants the work.

If not because of what you want, no one will see your foolishness.

No one can cheat a woman.

A woman has got a lot of sense, and it is a broad sense, and the sense of a woman is too much to let somebody carry her to his house and just be cheating her.

There is no forgetting within a woman's sense.

What we take to know what is inside a woman's heart is that we look at their work.

If a commoner sits in his house and gets the truth, if he goes to the chief's house, the chief will not take the truth and give to him.

What a person wants, this is what kills him or takes his things.

If you don't understand the talk I am going to talk, then it will be that hearing has not heard.

“You fall and I will fall”:  that is what makes the playing of dogs to be good.

Fall and fall makes the playing of dogs good.

Fall and fall repairs the playing of dogs.

Someone who cuts proverbs is somebody who wants trouble.

A woman is like the tongue, and again, a woman is like the heart.

This heart: it is the heart that spoils, and it will bring some bad talk and give it to the tongue; it is this heart which is white, and takes a good talk and gives it to the tongue.

Bad meat:  that is the heart; good meat:  that is the heart.

Bad meat:  that is the tongue; good meat:  that is the tongue.

Sense and sense, there are different types of sense.

If there were no sense, forgetting would forget.

Somebody who holds everything like that is waiting for a bad thing.

A woman's secret is stronger than ours.

A woman's sense is a dangerous sense.


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