Tallensi

The Tallensi people live in the northern part of the modern country of Ghana. They are descended from an agricultural people who inhabited the savanna region of Ghana. It is believed that the Tallensi govern their land with an elaborate clan system based on kinship. All government must be under the control and guidance of the high priests of the Earth, as well as the kings of the people. These two groups represent two independent clans, and therefore the functions of the priests and the kings are always separate, a sort of separation of the church and state. The current population of Tallensi is no more than 300,000. Speaking the Talni language, the Tallensi have been closely identified with the Gur language group.

Almost all of the Tallensi customs, traditions, and values are related to rituals dealing with the first-born son. As a polygamous people who trace their lineage through the father's line, that is, a patrilineal kinship system, the Tallensi value inheritance founded on the principles of father-firstborn son relationships. Like other African ethnic groups, the Tallensi value family and see the kinship links as sacred. Thus, the relationship of parents to children, and especially father to firstborn son, is fundamental. Therefore, the Tallensi believe that it is the purpose of families to produce children, and the aim of every father is to have a son. The essentiality of producing a son creates all types of social and behavioral responses that may cause tensions in the family or the village.

The reason for this strong emphasis on having a firstborn son or firstborn daughter is that a person can never achieve the fulfillment necessary to become a revered ancestor after death if he or she does not have children to carry on rituals. The birth of a firstborn son or firstborn daughter makes a man truly mature and fulfilled, and it represents his ascendance to the highest position in the society. This is also the beginning of the decline of the man because his child will one day supplant him in the world. Many Tallensi rituals, ceremonies, and taboos are related to the firstborn son and the father.

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 considered 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 celebration of his own father's life. The late father being recently dead becomes the mediator between the living and the remote Dead.

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