Damba Festival (“Damma” in Mampruli) is the biggest event of the year in Nalerigu, Ghana. It is based on the Mamprusi ritual calendar which makes it is very hard to predict much in advance when it will occur. This year it just so happen to land on January 2nd and included festivities the day prior (1st) and the morning after (3rd).
A few days before the festival, the king’s steward (Naazɔa) stopped me in front of the palace to tell me about the upcoming festival. He doesn’t speak much English, so with my growing understanding of Mampruli and his broken English, I was able to piece together a rough idea of when and what was going to happen. Here is my summary of what I observed. I hope that as the years go by I’m able to understand more about what the rituals symbolize.
In the more predominantly Muslim areas of northern Ghana (i.e. Tamale), the festival is tied to the birth and naming of the prophet Mohammed. However, the Mamprusi have a strong background in traditional religion and everyone I spoke to was either oblivious to the Muslim theology or livid that Islam had tried to appropriate this traditional event.
The festival breaks down into a handful of basic elements. The first day was what several locals referred to as “practice” and everyone participated – local Mamprusi as well as “foreigners” from other ethnic groups (Bimoba, Frafra, etc…). From 3-6pm, dance groups performed various traditional dances from the different groups represented. The chiefs from other villages began to gather at this event but the king (“NaYiri”) never emerged from the palace.
The main Mamprusi dances were the “tuhu waa” and “takaai.” Tuhu waa is the most common in which men in smocks (“dansikisi”) along with other men wearing ankle rattlers (“kya ala”) and tutus and women danced in a circle to the beat of the Damma drummers (“lungsi”). For the Takaai dance, a group of men in smocks dance counter-clockwise in a circle and twirl methodically to the beat while holding iron rods (“kuti”). They rotate to the dancers preceding and following them and clink their rods together on the beat.
On the second day (technically the first day of the actual festival) the drummers again began playing around 3pm and the crowds gathered. The NaYiri’s horse (“Naabayoofu”) came out into the plaza decorated with a blue velvet saddle, gold blanket, embroidered bridle and other regalia. Then the NaYiri made his grand appearance under his massive red parasol (“leemu”) wearing a brilliant hood and surrounded by his elders (“taranna”), priest chiefs (“tindaana”) and warriors (“Kambɔnsi Naaba”). They paraded across the plaza in front of the palace (“samanni”) and settled under the shade porch (“leŋŋa”) on the other side. Then the drummers lined up in front of the palace for the centerpiece of the festival.
Led by the senior King’s drummer (“luŋŋa”), the drummers played their talking drums as he sang through the names of all the past royals (back to the 15th century!), the priest chiefs and their ancestors. He sat on the ground and periodical slid forward a few inches. The entire performance took well over an hour and by the end he had reached the foot of the shade porch, exhausted.
Then the chief warrior and two priest chiefs performed a narrative mime that references some historical pacts made by the first NaYiri (Na Gbewaa). They marched across the plaza, spears in hand, until they reached the NaYiri and pretended to threaten him. A few of the royals danced individually and then the NaYiri and his entourage returned to the palace before dark. After his departure, the warriors with guns (“maffa”) started firing blanks indiscriminately into the air and the crowd quickly dispersed.
That night around midnight, the drumming began again (now technically the third day) and locals danced through the night until dawn (I didn’t go back until 5AM). As the sun rose, the NaYiri again emerged with his entourage and they sat in front of the palace. Then one by one (“yinni yinni”) the royals were chosen by the Chief Warrior to dance by handing them his horsetail (they seem to call it “juju tiim” which means something like “voodoo medicine” because the handle of the tail has some magic ingredients sewn inside). Each royal danced and members of the crowd came forward and payed homage to him (or her) by giving him money (which ends up being the drummers’ fees).
Finally around 8:30AM, the NaYiri once again retreated to the palace and that marked the end of the festival. I left at that point and heard that later some other rituals were performed. The cow tied up outside the palace was slaughtered and its meat distributed to the town’s residents.
If you are really interest in the festival’s rituals and symbolism, you can read Susan Drucker-Brown’s 1986 paper “Calendar and Ritual: The Mamprusi Case“. She has some fascinating observations and descriptions of their complicated sense of time.
I’ve also posted video montages of each day’s events on this blog post: 2015 Damba Festival Videos
