Tattoos, Leopard Skins and the Queen Mother

One of the mysteries of the Humjibre people has been the presence of their names tattoed inexpertly on their forearm with a date of birth and apparently some kind of serial number. Normally you only see that kind of thing on concentration camp victims and prison inmates, so after tentatively asking a few people and getting only queer looks in return, I thought it best to leave the mystery unsolved.

Anyway, it turns out that a few years back a group of travelling salesmen arrived in the village offering to tattoo people for a very cheap rate. Well, you know how these things go, one dude gets his name and number hot needled into his arm and everyone wants to do it. Apparently, for a few balmy days it was all the rage in Humjibre. Why? Well, one good reason is the very real chance that you'd be decapitated, this is Sefwi land after all.

The Sefwis are part of the Akan family, which means their language is similar to the dominant Twi of the Asante and they even pay fealty to the Asantehene, Chief of the Chiefs of Asante. However, Sefwi culture is different in some important respects, one of them being their faith in the medicine that can be derived from a disembodied head. The Ghanaians who work with us from other parts of the country often joke about how their friends thought they were crazy (or 'off their head' to use a bad pun) to come here and we often read headlines such as "Horror at Sefwi" in the national rag, the Daily Graphic.

So it was with no little discomfort that we took the news that the Queen Mother of the village had died. For British readers this might seem laughable as we are used to the image of a gin-soaked, nicotine-stained, doddery old hag as Queen Mother but the Queen Mother in Akan culture holds a position of considerable power and influence. In fact, it was the Queen Mother, Yaa Asantewaa, who began the Asante Uprising that nearly repelled the British from Ghanaian soil back in 1901. She is the King Maker and is the only one who can physically touch the chief, which is an allusion to her ability to slap him down. Anyway, all this means that there should traditionally be a lot of bloodletting when she passes to the 'next realm'. Especially since she had been on her throne since 1953, for longer than Ghana has been independent.

I may have mentioned that the loudspeakerman is not one for understatement, (even the footy scores are spat out like a curse), but when he starts announcing that no-one should leave their house after 10pm, you start to listen. So, for the last few days and until Monday, we are under curfew. Probably bollocks of course, but I like my neck how it is thank you very much.

Ilona and I donned our blacks and went along to the funeral. The usual blaring Hiplife was replaced by the royal drummers. At the Yam Festival, I had had a bit too much palm wine and was freaky dancing so I now get on with the drummers really well. They were using special leopard skin drums and since they had been going for days spent the time in between dances to compare blisters. The beat they pound is really asynchronous and like nothing I've heard elsewhere. They begin as if they're all playing a different tune then it somehow coalesces and you feel yourself dragged along. The dancing is cool too. It reminds me of a guy I once saw after a music festival in Copenhagen dancing to the 'please walk' music at a pedestrian crossing. There's a few town drunks but one in particular that always gets up to boogy. This time, as the drummers saw him stumble towards the area used to dance, they looked at each other and cut the dance off dead. Everybody was laughing at the poor guy in mid gyration. That kind of thing is common at these get-togethers and there's always a bawdy undertone. Witness the guy dancing with four women pretending to worship at his feet. Or the way that young guys will dance in a way that looks like they are pretending to hump each other for the girls to watch.

Recently, I was asked in front of a crowd where I was from, and I answered 'me firi Humjibre'. They lapped it up and it added to the feeling that we're treated in almost a chiefly manner. I hope this means I don't need my name penned on my forearm...

Ode to a Scruff

We whistled
you came
you'd never be so obedient again

You dig holes
and eat shits
chew plastic bags to bits

You bite skirts
and bark mad
but when it rains you look sad

Your favourite place
is on our laps
we cuddle you like saps

You growl and gnash
you lay down the law
what'll we do when you no longer nose on our door?

Profundities on Rotundities

The following extracts are from an account of a Dutch visitor to Ghana on the eve of independence, called ‘Black Man’s Country’:

“What would you do if you saw a naked girl walking down the road? Well, so did I – gaped at her, jammed on the brakes, and got out of the car. Her response was not very encouraging. She took to her heels, for how could she know that all I wanted to do was photograph her?”

“The market was held in the shade of some large trees. There were hundreds of naked women. My hands itched to smack all the round backsides”

Things have changed. Girls, to the detriment of foreign photographers, are generally clothed. Interestingly however, this doesn’t apply to their grandmothers. Their boobs, hanging slack from long years of greedily guzzling children hanging from them are, in Ilona’s words, like “leather drinking pouches”.

Baby shower

As you might expect in a village where the average family size is over 5 kids, we get used to seeing many new borns in the village (they just plop ‘em out like an assembly line here) but its always special when its one of our friends. A fella who often stops by and has a laugh with us is called ‘Dirty’ Donkor. Unfortunately, according to our sources, the origin of the name is shrouded either in forgetfulness or secrecy and its not the kind of thing we can ask him directly. His wife has just had a baby girl who they have called Ilona. Definitely the first Humjibrean with that name. Some of the names they give here are rather amusing, for instance, Queen Star Lord Obeng, Justicle, Perserverance, the brothers Elvis and Carlos, and Perpetual. So all of you who have kids on the way (a scary number, I must be getting old), you have a lot to live up to.

African Time

It’s a well worn phrase. Similar, (if you know my Dad especially) to the concept of Caley time. Ghana is another of those countries which that archetypal Civil Servant Sir Humphrey described with his usual wit and wry smile as being a ‘HRRC or Human Resource Rich Country’. He might as easily have said that this is a TRC or Time Rich Country.

Hours are like pennies. To be tossed gaily over the shoulder. To get lost down the back of the sofa. To be spent. Engagements such as church, funerals and public meetings take forever because forever is not that long. Day-long prayathons are not uncommon. These things will last well into the night, the wailing electronically amplified for the whole village to hear. Funerals last three noisy days. The first day is usually Friday, which is the wake-keeping. It is obligatory to crank up the speakers and play 50 cent (note to mum and dad, this is one of those nasty American rappers who talks incessantly of corporate hospitality and oversized diamond encrusted penis enlargers) and the like plus some 2nd rate Ghanaian impersonators all night long. Nobody’s there, mind. But the memory of Mad. (short for Madam but sometimes quite an apt title in and of itself) Nyame Bekyere is best kept to the strains of ‘get rich or die tryin’ booming out the beatbox. The next day is spent just hanging around all day and the last in the church followed by quite a lot of nothing. All the while, nobody with any relation, blood or social, can go to farm or open their shop etc. So you can tell how well-liked or important someone was by how much time they waste.

The way many people will express respect is by coming to your house and sitting with you. This means that sometimes we will literally spend all afternoon sitting on the porch with a succession of mute people just wishing to pass the time of day with us. Time passes slowly as with most people there’s only so much middle ground to occupy. Weather, bit of politics, local gossip, our garden, how the dog doesn’t look like a rat or a cat these days then you get a bit desperate. Sometimes I realise that the ‘conversation’ has really been just one long monologue. Are they interested in the origins of LFC songs and how many different types of tea there are? I somehow doubt it, but then it passes the time of day…

Let’s face it, public meetings are usually a waste of time anywhere. But here especially. Whenever someone expresses an opinion, everybody else has to agree in a new and increasingly meandering way. Don’t get me wrong, its quite interesting in an anthropological sense since it is obviously the way disputes have been resolved for generations. (i.e. boring the other side till they fall asleep and then taking a vote). However, thinking deep thoughts on the peculiarities of Ghanaian rational discourse is all well and good but when you’ve been doing it for the past three hours, hard liquor becomes more and more attractive.