When a boy is 6 years of age, he may not eat
from the same dish as his father. This is a taboo.
Other taboos relate to the use of the father’s
weapons, the father’s clothes, or the father’s tools.
Furthermore, when a son arrives at adolescence,
around the age of 12 or 13, he cannot enter the
house compound at the same time as his father. If,
for some reason, the son violates this taboo, then
there must be purification rites. The firstborn
daughter cannot look into her mother’s storage
containers, vases, pots, or tubs; this is a taboo.
Of course, among the Tallensi, this is consid-
ered the proper way to maintain the community
because the relationship is sacred between the
parents and the children. Thus, when a person
dies, it is the firstborn son or daughter who leads
in the ritual ceremonies. Only at this moment
can the son actually put on his father’s cap and
his father’s cloth and walk in the father’s shoes.
One of the elders of the village will then guide
the son, even if the son is an adult by this time,
to the father’s granary and show him what is
inside. At this point, the moment of realization
of what is in his father’s house and granary
makes him a mature person who is responsible
for all of the sacrifices to the ancestors in his
family. His main function becomes the celebra-
tion of his own father’s life. The late father being
recently dead becomes the mediator between the
living and the remote Dead.
The Tallensi use the wordkpeemto mean sec-
ular eldership, that is, an old person in the lin-
eage. They use the termyaabto refer to deceased
ancestors. They do not refer to the ancestral dead
as kpeem but, rather, as lineage eldership.
However, to the Tallensi, the yaab represents a
connection to a spiritual mode of existence that is
heavily dependent on ritual ceremony. Thus, the
Tallensi take the term for elder,kpeem, and the
term for ancestral Dead,yaab, and use them in
their teaching of values and customs. Technically,
the wordyaabmeans grandparents, whereas the
wordkpeemmeans any older person. Everything
in the Tallensi society works together to maintain
this balance between the secular lineage and the
ancestral dead.
Molefi Kete AsanteSeealsoAkan; Ga
Further Readings
Fortes, M. (1945).The Dynamics of Clanship Among
the Tallensi. London: Oxford University Press (for
International African Institute).
Fortes, M. (1949).The Web of Kinship Among the
Tallensi. London: Oxford University Press (for
International African Institute).
Riehl, V. (2003). The Dynamics of Peace: Role of
Traditional Festivals of the Tallensí in Northern
Ghana in Creating Sustainable Peace. In F. Kröger &
B. Meier (Eds.),Ghana’s North(pp. 207–223).
Frankfurt Main: Peter Lang Verlag.TANO RIVER
The Tano River runs 400 kilometers (approxi-
mately 250 miles) from the Ghana–Ivory Coast
border in the north down toward the Atlantic
Ocean, where it empties into the sea. It is a highly
regarded river by the Akan culture and has been
associated with many of the great events and his-
torical deeds of the Akan. Indeed, at the head of
the river, where it begins, is the Tano Sacred Grove
noted in history and by custom for its beautifully
mystical clusters of striking sandstone formations,
all enclosed in a semideciduous forest. Here the
earliest settlements of the Akan are said to have
taken place. The people emerged from the land in
this region and then began to create the first cen-
tralized state. These Bono people, as they were
called, were the first to identify the headwaters of
the river with the sacred designation. Originally
called Bono-Manso, this kingdom grew and was
called the Techiman-Bono kingdom.
In time, the Tano River was associated with
some of the greatest and oldest deities on Earth. In
fact, Taakora, the greatest of the Akan gods on
Earth, was said to dwell at the source of the Tano
River in the grove. This has always been a place
of the highest sanctity and worship for the
Akan. Although the Supreme God Onyankopon
(Onyame) is a sky deity, Taakora is the highest
deity on Earth.
The waters of the river are used for purifica-
tion. Indeed the Tano Shrine is kept nearby in the
town of Tanoboase. However, the chief priest
takes this powerful religious shrine annually to the648 Tano River