Editorial

Franz Kröger

Since 1999 Ghanatta Ayaric and I (F. Kröger) have been publishing our BULUK magazine without any major technical, content or person-related problems. During the publication of BULUK 11, however, the challenges were serious and occurred in large numbers. For a long time, technical problems prevented access to the Buluk website and it took a great deal of time and financial effort before it reappeared in its old form.
Shortly thereafter, no new texts and images could be uploaded since the hyperlink function of our completely outdated Frontpage program no longer worked. To keep in touch with our readers, I created a new Facebook website called “Bulsa Journal”, in which some recent articles were uploaded. After many futile attempts to repair our old website, I hired an employee of a computer shop who created a completely new website under the name “Buluk.de/new”.
Another difficulty arose after Ghanatta left Germany at the beginning of the year for Brazil to continue his teaching career at the German School in Rio de Janeiro. With a new language (Portuguese) to learn and also a new school and completely different social and cultural environment to adjust to, his active engagement as co-editor of BULUK has became almost impossible. I would like to take the opportunity here to express my sincere thanks to him for his almost twenty years of co-editorship and for the numerous articles that he wrote. As an expert of Bulsa society and through his very good command of the English language, he always edited my articles and those submitted by other Bulsa. On a more personal level, our cooperation has been very good; there has never been the slightest conflict between us in all the years we’ve worked together.
An old problem related to the publication of our magazine – namely, the difficulty getting many Bulsa to write for it– persisted during the planning of BULUK 11. Thus we are grateful to the qualified writers who have made themselves available as authors and also to those who furnished information, answered questions and corrected first drafts.

For the recent issue, John Agandin provided a report on the Accra Feok Festival and another example of his poetry. He also helped to partially fill the gap created by Ghanatta’s new situation (moving to Brazil) by reading several chapters and suggesting some corrections before printing. I am also grateful to Robert Asekabta and Yaw Akumasi who provided help in telephone calls and in e-mails.
The greatest problems arose with the chapter “Events”. Cornelius Adumpo, who had provided enourmous quantities of data for this section in former editions of BULUK, could only send me the texts and photos for seven events. I had to look for more in Ghanaweb and in Facebook entries etc., but nevertheless the list of data is considerably shorter than in former issues, exact dates were not available and some important events might not have been recorded.

The idea of the new Main Feature of BULUK 11 arose when, early in 2017, the question of Bulsa cultural heritage and tourism was discussed extensively in connection with the planning of a Bulsa museum in Sandema. This topic was also considered for the Feok Festival program of 2017. May the recent issue of our magazine serve to keep these thoughts of cultural heritage alive.
F. Kröger tried to shed some light on various aspects of Bulsa cultural life that might be interesting for Bulsa as well as foreign visitors to the two Districts. Some of them might wish to visit sites of historical importance (battle sites, caves or trees that served as refuge during the time of slave raids etc.) while others might prefer watching Bulsa dances (e.g. the famous war dance) or the products of material culture and traditional technologies (e.g. baskets, pottery, etc.).
One of the greatest attractions that the Bulsa can offer tourists is the Feok Festival. In the first months of 2018, the following two questions were discussed extensively: How can the Sandema Feok be made more attractive for visitors and may or should Feok festivals be held in other cities? Augustine Atano commented on the first question in a review that first appeared on the website “The Road to Sandema” and which he kindly made available to us.
The second question was discussed in Bulsa Facebook groups. The idea of performing Bulsa festivals in big towns in Southern Ghana is supported by the fact that these festivals would make Bulsa culture better known among non-Bulsa and strengthen the sense of togetherness in the diaspora. A majority of the discussion participants, however, firmly rejected the export of this festival, especially under the name Feok.
Attitudes of educated Bulsa toward important questions of the present can perhaps be explored through the use of a large questionnaire. Since it is no longer possible for the editor to carry out such a project, he had to fall back on comments in the Facebook groups. Some statements mentioned there were somewhat surprising, for example, the attitude of the educated Bulsa towards the Kantosi who immigrated to the Bulsa area about 100 years ago. In an age when many countries of our modern world display a certain disinclination and intolerance towards migrants (e.g. refugees, economic migrants, asylum seekers), “Buluk Kaniak” posts almost unanimously praise the good cooperation with the Kantosi, emphasize their cultural merits and partly propose their stronger integration into Bulsa society by allowing them, as long as they own a compound, to actively participate in the elections of chiefs.
Since the launch of our Internet journal, we have also been concerned with this question: Who are the readers of BULUK? Our first assumption was that these are mainly Bulsa in the diaspora and perhaps some of the numerous students at the Institute of Ethnology (University of Münster) which, at that time, had specialized in research of the Bulsa. The answer to the question is extremely important for the authors and editors because it impacts the content and language design of the journal. Should they write in simple language for readers who are not yet completely proficient in English? Or should all articles use a more formal language and style? Should these articles try to acquaint foreign readers with a rudimentary knowledge of Bulsaland or would the majority of Bulsa readers feel bored by well-known facts?
Since some counters on the websites also indicate the nationalities of the visitors, our knowledge about them has increased considerably.
The count over a year revealed that, somewhat surprisingly, mainly US Americans have been interested in information about the Bulsa. How far Bulsa readers living in the USA or other countries are included here and which social classes and professional groups they come from is unknown.

Let me finish with a view at the near future. We are looking forward to the coming Feok Festial in December, when for 2 days Sandema will become one of the most exciting places for tourists, Ghanaians from other parts of the country and last but not least the Bulsa themselves.
John Agandin, with a group of interested Bulsa friends (among them Lawrence Abakisi and Cornelius Adumpo) is trying to launch an exhibition (in the District Library?) displaying Bulsa material culture. Moreover, they will present photos of Bulsa schools and pupils in the 1970s. We are hopeful that all this may further the idea of a future Bulsa Museum, which will present history, culture and all that shows and reflects the customs, traditions, practices and general way of life in one central location for everyone, for Bulsa themselves, non-Bulsa and for generations to come.
It is our hope that the BULUK journal will be available in the planned Museum serving as one of the rich sources of documented information on Bulsa society and culture.

I thank Ghanatta Ayaric for reading and revising this editorial.