Traditional and School-Based Education among the Bulsa

Adapted and translated from F. Kröger 1987: Traditionelle und schulische Erziehung bei den Bulsa in Nordghana, in: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, vol 112 (2), pp. 269–283. — Parenthetical numbers such as [p. 269] refer to page numbers in the original German version. The photographs were taken between 1973 and 2011 and inserted into the text in 2025.

Traditional and School-Based Education among the Bulsa in Northern Ghana

Franz Kröger

The effects of the introduction of school-based education on the economy and social structure of a developing nation have already been thoroughly investigated and described (see Ph. Foster 1965, p. 201ff..; M. Peil 1965; R. Schott 1980). The exodus of school-leaving youth from rural areas, the associated loss of the strongest age groups for agricultural work and the flooding of large cities with semi-educated young people who are inexperienced in practical work and increase the number of unemployed residents have been recognised as problems, and there is no shortage of sensible solutions, ranging from job creation programmes in the cities to the provision of further vocational training opportunities and the resettlement of young people in their original communities, which are becoming more attractive due to modern agricultural projects.

Voices from the scientific community or state bureaucracy that seek to restrict elementary school attendance are quite rare and face strong opposition. Nevertheless, school attendance, especially at the primary level, is questioned or even openly rejected by many thousands of parents each year. In my opinion, the arguments and discussions that take place in the families of children of school age or already enrolled in schools have been insufficiently studied, perhaps because the effects of school attendance are not immediately and directly felt by the state and its urban centres at this stage. The change in the economic, social and religious structure of previously illiterate families as a result of their children attending school is likely, however, to have a lasting effect on Ghana and most other developing countries of the Global South.

The attitudes of traditional rural families towards school attendance and, in particular, the sudden or gradual effects of these attitudes cannot be explored simply by handing out questionnaires, as has been the method used in all previous studies on the attitudes of advanced students of middle schools. Familial attitudes emerge before children are able to meaningfully complete a questionnaire, and my attempts to address questions to the heads of rural compounds have met with manifold difficulties. Although these attempts provided valuable data, as did the administering of questionnaires to older pupils, the actual problems discussed here were best approached primarily through other methods [p. 270]:

1) Unstructured interviews with fathers of young school-age children,

2) Analyses of life stories prepared by younger school leavers, and

3) Observations of a generation of pupils and their families over several years.

These studies were carried out among the Bulsa, an ethnic group of about 60,000 people [1987] in northern Ghana, in 1972–1974, 1978, 1979, 1981 and 1984.

The beginning of a child’s school attendance is not always associated with conflicts in the family. Especially for fathers or heads of compounds (yeri nyam, sing. yeri nyono) who themselves attended school, it often seems quite natural today that their children should do the same. Even many fathers who cannot read or write and have several sons consider it useful for some of their children to attend school, since these children can then help their fathers with the increasing number of written or English-language tasks (letter-writing, court proceedings, visits to authorities, etc.) they face. This paper, however, will focus mainly on the areas in which school attendance can lead to difficulties and conflicts in the family. The economic sphere is affected when, for example, the family is deprived of valuable labour as a result of school attendance. Conflicts can arise because students seek to evade their religious duties within the family. Social and psychological aspects can also play a role when, for example, an estrangement occurs between an ‘educated’ son and an illiterate father, or when parents fear they will ‘lose’ their school-attending child.

The fields of conflict cannot be completely separated from one another. For instance, the economic aspect seems to prevail when a father hopes to entrust his son with herding his cattle rather than send him to school. Like every father, however, he will also realise that his son is more likely to learn the traditional values of rural society through the hard pastoral life than through attending a primary school that remains methodologically and didactically strongly British–European in orientation.

Consequently, in deciding whether his child should attend school or join the local herding group, the father is faced with perhaps the most important decision for that child’s future. Let us first consider the economic aspect. When and to what extent are children needed to herd the cattle? Herding is limited to the rainy season, when the fields must be protected from grazing cows. During the dry season, the cattle roam the bush unsupervised for months and, according to [p. 271] information from my informants, return to the settlement areas towards the end of the season, often with newborn calves. When the first green tips of early millet appear in the fields, each compound that owns cattle and sheep provides, depending on the number of animals, one or two younger shepherds (aged about four to eight) for the sheep pastures near the farm and one or two older herders (naapierik; cf. naab, cow; pieri, to drive together) aged about six to fourteen for the bush pasture. Goats are not herded but graze secured to pegs near the house.

Cattle grazing in bushland

The young cattle herders, who are of particular interest to us here, join the children of the neighbouring compounds (these need not always be compounds in the same lineage segment) to form herding groups of about three to thirty (mainly male) children. If a farmer has problems providing enough herders for his cattle, he will usually try, by all means possible, to keep these children from attending school. Farmers are very reluctant to entrust the animals of their own households to the children of their neighbours or – as was more common in the past – to a Fulani herdsman. Indeed, even if the need for herders is covered, many farmers prefer also to place all their other children in herding groups rather than send them to school, since they consider the life of a herder to be the best education for future farmers and perhaps, later, their successors as the heads of compounds. This education is in many ways diametrically opposed to that received in schools: herders and schoolchildren know that they belong to different walks of life and grow up in different value systems, a recognition expressed, for example, in some students’ haughty contempt for the often stark naked, illiterate herders, some herders’ quiet envy of the uniformed students and even open hostility and brawls.

The following text examines which educational values cannot or can only partially be taught by schools but are imparted by membership of a herding group.

A young herder riding a cow

A boy climbing a rock to watch for his cows

For children new to herding, who have so far led a sheltered and carefree life with their families, their time in the bush begins as a lesson in hardship, deprivation and endurance. While students may boast of receiving three school meals a day, the young herders usually set off into the bush with the herds between seven and eight o’clock, taking no provisions. Apart from berries, tubers, a hunted mouse, rat or lizard and a small ration of milk, they often go nine to ten hours without food. They sometimes walk more than twenty kilometres in a day, although this may be interrupted by a short ride on a cow. Even young children are required to climb to the tops of tall trees or rocks to look for the cattle, which have been grazing unattended all day, when they are to be rounded up in the evening.

[p. 272] The children, pampered until this time by their mothers, must suddenly become accustomed to the harsh discipline of the herding group.

Herders wrestling

The herding season begins with wrestling matches: as many bouts take place as are required to establish a clear hierarchy for the entire group, which will operate on the principle of this pecking order throughout the grazing season. The most successful child is the leader of the group and holds almost unlimited command and disciplinary power over the others. If the group splits into several smaller groups, for example when thecattle are to be rounded up, then the command structure in these smaller groups is automatically established by the bearer of a higher rank giving orders to herders of lower rank. Each child knows exactly their position. When I asked the leader of a large herding group about the hierarchy in his group, he drew the following large figure in the sand with his stick:

After a few commands and shouts, each child stood exactly in the ‘box’ that corresponded to their rank. Characteristics other than physical strength in wrestling, such as the position of one’s father, age, gender, intelligence or school attendance, have no influence on this ranking. I know of several cases in which a girl led an otherwise all-male group simply because she emerged from all of her wrestling matches as the victor.

It has already become apparent that the life of the herding group takes place completely independently and at a great distance from the adult world. Thus, the harsh laws of the group cannot be mitigated by any intervention by an adult. A herding leader can impose inhumanely harsh punishments for minor transgressions and disobedience, with some group members beaten so hard that they cannot follow the group the next day. Other punishments, such as drinking dirty water or urine, can result in health issues. One young man from Sandema remembered his time as a herder, which was later abruptly interrupted by his enrolment in school:

We sometimes went to swimming races in the bush. It was there that we used to punish our shepherd boys who disobeyed the leaders. We forced them to the deeper part of the water where they could not swim out. There they were forced to drink the water until their belly was full up before we helped them out. And when we came to our resting place (naakui) where we milked the cows, we refused to give them their share of milk. We sometimes whipped them if [at] that time we did not go swimming.

The adults do not usually interfere in the order of the herding group, especially since they generally know little about conflicts, punishments, and so on. A child who complains to their parents must expect the worst possible punishment, namely expulsion from the group.

Boy with an undug giant rat (bandicoot, dayiuk)

A young herder binding thorns to an older calf’s mouth to let a newborn calf drink from its mother’s udder alone

During their time in the group, children also learn various practical skills and knowledge that may be useful to them in later life. [p. 273] Each member becomes familiar with the topography of the bushland; they know where to find fruit trees, edible tubers, huntable game and waterholes. While the cows are grazing, the children hunt small animals (hares, squirrels, rats, mice, snakes, monitor and other lizards, etc.) using their clubs and sometimes a hunting dog. They know how to smoke out a hive of wild bees to get to their much-coveted honey. They tell time by estimating the altitude and azimuth of the Sun, and they can all determine midday to within half an hour. The correct treatment of cattle also requires important knowledge and skills: child herders know the most important cattle diseases and are happy to assist with the birth of calves, as the afterbirth is a special delicacy for them. They know how, with the help of a bundle of brushwood tied to its back, a cow can be prepared for riding. Even an elementary knowledge of mathematics is necessary when the cows are rounded up in the evening. For example, if only nineteen cows are counted one evening instead of twenty-four, most members will immediately know that five are missing.

These examples of learned skills and knowledge illustrate how, in this context, the direct usefulness of what is learnt is already made apparent in the process by which it is learnt, and everyone is aware that they will often need to apply it in the near and distant future. In contrast, students in primary and middle schools often experience great frustration when, for example, they learn by heart incomprehensible historical facts from European history without ever suspecting any possible application.

It would be false to assume that children only fulfil their duties as herders under duress. Most feel comfortable in the company of their peers, and some school students voluntarily return to their former herding groups on school-free days, although they do not have the opportunity to be fully reintegrated, that is, to become firmly re-established in the hierarchy of command and obedience. Nor does the community of herders break up when some of its male members leave after reaching the age of fourteen to sixteen, receiving pieces of arable land from their fathers, which they must then cultivate themselves, and becoming marriageable. The herding group continues to live, for the most part, as a male age group. If a member wishes to marry, the rest of the group takes over the courtship and subsequent ‘kidnapping’ of the bride (see F. Kröger, 1978: 258ff.), and its members, together with the groom, perform the prescribed work in the fields of the bride’s parents. When a young man is faced with the choice of whether to give priority to his family or his friends, he does not always choose in favour of his family or lineage. When one young man from Kalijiisa wanted to marry, his friend from Longsa warned him that a man from his own household in Longsa wanted to kidnap the same girl and that they must do so first. Even if the [p. 274] group of young herders largely becomes functionless in later years, when some of its members have become farmers themselves, the emotional ties to former friends remain. Even among very old men, memories of their time as herders evoke almost nostalgic feelings, and usually, these individuals can not only name all the members of their respective groups but also recall the exact hierarchy at the time of their departure.

The time spent at school has a much stronger transitional character for the adolescent. As a small child, they join a group that is foreign to them, and ultimately, this group often breaks up after the school-leaving exam, when the majority of its members leave for the south, to make way for new bonds. Even the first step of detachment from the family and integration into a different community is often associated with conflicts and transitional difficulties. This begins with the recruitment of beginner students. The following excerpt from the life of G., born in 1946 or 1947, describes a situation that was then probably typical of families in a similar position: the mother is worried about losing her child; the father, though not very pleased, bows to the demands of the state authorities; the boy himself, who, as the first child in the family to start school, has no idea of what school life will be like, remains passive. He remembers:

In December 1950, when they were looking for children to fill up the class at the beginning of the new form in 1951, I was seen in the market by some of the teachers, and they put my hand over my head and tried to see if my palm could touch my opposite ear. My palm could not touch it, but they wrote down my name and the section I came from. And they took it to the chief. When I came home and told what had happened to me at the market, my mother did not allow me to go to the market any more for fear that I would be taken to school and, [with me] being her last son, she would be left alone. The chief sent my name to the headman of my section, and the headman also informed my father what the chief had said, and my father took me to the chief to see if I was up to the age of going to school. When my father was taking me to the chief, my mother wept bitterly, and she did not eat that day. She felt I would no more come home that day, because the school children in those days were kept in the school for six months without coming home and were not properly treated.

When we got to the chief’s house, there were boys of the same age [as] me, who were also brought to the chief for selection to go to the school. The chief did the same as what the teacher did to me at the market, and my palm could not touch the opposite ear. So the chief said I was too young, but I could go to school with those who were grown to learn until the next year. When I was grown, I could fully be admitted into school. When the news reached my mother that I was chosen, she was restless, and that night she tried to escape with me to an unknown place so that I might not be able to go to school, but my father knew it and was all the time sleeping in my mother’s room to prevent her from escaping with me, for if my mother had succeeded in escaping with me, my father would have been detained by the chief until I was brought. When my mother [p. 275] saw that she could not escape with me and time was drawing near for me to part with her and go to school, she started in-rubbing the whole of my body as a sign that I [was] not well. When the day came for me to leave for school, my father told my mother to get food for me to eat, before he could send me to the school in the evening, but my mother told him that I was not well and that she did not think I could go to school today. My father was very angry when she said this and said, even if I [was] dying, he [would] send me to the school. So my mother was forced to cook the food for me. I could not eat the food when it was ready, for it was my first time of leaving for school to go and stay somewhere without my parents. When it was about four o’clock in the evening, my father put me on his horse and took me to the school.

The Sandema Continuation Boarding School in 1973

Sometimes, the officials and teachers who seek out suitable children for the schools find allies in the children themselves, who try to assert themselves against the wishes of their parents, as described in the life story of a boy born in 1949 or 1950 in Sandema-Kori:

One day, we were hunting lizards when [a] man appeared before us. We all knew him. He asked for our names, one after the other. After he finished writing [down] our names, he went to other houses. He never told our parents anything until the day they opened school. Our section sub-chief called my father and asked him to take me to school the following day.

My father was annoyed to hear they had registered my name. He went to the chief. He told the chief that I was his only helper, so he wanted to withdraw me. By then I had started [going to] school. The chief told him he had nothing [he could] do about children [who] asked to go to school. So he should go back. My father went to the police with the same matter, and he was chased away.

The following day, he decided to send one of my brothers instead of me. I did not want to stop going to school again, because I was very happy to be a schoolboy. So I deceived him, saying that one man also sent a different boy to replace his son, and they took both the children and registered their names and drove away their fathers.

Why might many children want to go to school against their parents’ wishes at such an early age? Some further excerpts from life stories offer information about this:

At my father’s house, there were two schoolboys. They were speaking English, which I didn’t understand, and when I asked them, ‘What are you saying?’ they started to insult me: ‘If you want to understand English, you must go to school.’ At [their] saying [this] to me, I was worried and decided to go to school, but I thought: Maybe my parents will not agree.

(Ag., born 1944, Sandema-Balansa)

One afternoon in the month of February 1934, I was playing and wrestling with my friends on a field near the barracks (Tamale) when suddenly we heard the melodious music of the school band. We stopped all that we were doing automatically and listened to the sweet music being played, spellbound. In a few moments, we saw, at a distance, the [p. 276] schoolchildren, neatly dressed in white smocks, [whose] appearance looked like the assembly of cattle-egrets, approaching the Town Football Field. Their teachers, also in the same apparel, flanked them… It was after this that three friends and I irrevocably resolved that we would seek enrolment into the school. We thought that if we became schoolboys, we could also play very well…

(As., born 1922, Wiaga-Farinsa)

My brother made me go to school by bringing a piece of chalk and milk-powder, as well as pictures, when they were still attending school.

(No., born 1953, Sandema-Kalijiisa, brother of G.)

These quotations, which could be supplemented by further similar examples, show that often, external reasons make children keen to attend school. By no means do they understand the implications of this decision, and only in the course of the following years may they become aware, in a vague form and in contrast to their illiterate siblings, of what is presented in this paper as a fundamental thesis, namely that schooling and traditional non-school education impart values and approaches that are, in many respects, contrary to one another. At school, the student expects theoretical instruction, the usefulness of which for life is not always obvious. In the family and the pastoral group, the child learns from the necessity of a concrete situation. At school, the child must submit completely to the adult teacher and the central institution (Ministry of Education; West African Examination Council) and the rules and curricula set up by those authorities, while the herding group is fully autonomous and shielded from almost all influences that might intrude from the adult world. There, the child not only takes orders but can also give them from the outset, provided they are not at the bottom of the ranking. The clear hierarchy of the herders is usually established for one rainy season and is based on the results of wrestling matches, while the authority of a student within their class is determined by various factors (academic performance, background, manners, etc.) but is never clearly established; important decisions made by the class without a teacher are often determined by majority vote.

Next, our comparison of traditional and school education will address the religious aspect, which has been neglected so far. In the parental compound, the growing child is imperceptibly introduced to traditional religious values through observation and instruction but also, most strongly, through their own experience of religious rites. A discontinuity in religious education occurs for some children when they start attending school, even if they do not immediately experience it as such. Before lessons begin, the child will try to repeat the Christian prayer in English during the assembly (when all the pupils of a school gather in the schoolyard) and sing the church songs that are sung while students march to their classrooms. Children from non-Christian homes are not usually given anti-Christian rules of conduct by their parents. Indeed, a survey of all [p. 277] fathers of schoolchildren in Sandema-Kalijiisa-Yongsa showed that almost all took it for granted that a pupil would also become a Christian. Conflicts over religious matters usually do not arise from such conversion to Christianity but from neglect of religious duties towards one’s ancestors, the earth and other divine powers and spirits, especially when parents fear great harm to their child’s health or the disruption of harmonious coexistence in the household due to the student’s refusal to participate in a rite.

Assembly at Sandema Continuation Boarding School (1973)

Since children are expected to participate in important sacrifices as spectators and consumers of the sacrificial meal but do not otherwise play a significant role, their presence can be dispensed with relatively easily. The situation is different with rites of passage, which are performed on the children themselves at certain stages of life and in certain life crises. Birth rites and consecration to an ancestor or other protective spirit fall at a time when the child has not yet acquired a defensive position through school experience. Bulsa marriage, which is to be sought after leaving school, is associated with minimal religious rites, and the few traditional acts that are expected (e.g. visiting the prospective in-laws with small gifts) are accepted by school leavers as a condition for being able to marry in Bulsaland.

Conflicts with parents and compound heads often flare up when, for female students, the question of circumcision (excision) becomes acute, while among male students, erecting (wen piirika) and sacrificing (kaabka) to their personal shrine (wen bogluk) often plays a major role in relationships with non-Christian families. For girls, it remains relatively easy to avoid circumcision: most parents will not have a female child circumcised without her consent. Often, female students can also avoid conflict by removing themselves from their parents’ clan sections, stating important reasons, when a circumciser comes to their village during the long holidays. This is how one former student describes her successful evasion of the practice in her life story:

I would say that every girl at the age of excision should not agree to her parents or husband when she is asked to leave the school and be excised. I was asked to leave the school and be excised by my parents, and I refused. They did all that they could in order to get me out of the school and [have me] be excised but failed…

I went to Tamale to spend my holidays there. That helped me escape from my parents [so as] not to be excised. And when the vacation was over, I came back to Sandema.

Female circumcision is not much integrated into the religious cosmos of the Bulsa; in some compounds, it is even taboo (kisuk). Failure to excise does not usually incur sanctions from the ancestors or other powers, [p. 278] although, at least in the past, a deceased uncircumcised woman was not due the funeral rites of a woman but only those of a young unmarried man. The main argument used by parents in favour of circumcision is usually that their uncircumcised daughter will not achieve full womanhood and will, therefore, have difficulty finding an acceptable husband. This argument is no longer convincing, as most school-leaving boys (allegedly) do not care whether their future wives are circumcised or not. Nevertheless, the question of excision does lead to tensions in some households, and some female students, against their better instinct, give in to their parents’ pressure.

Often more difficult are the conflicts that can arise between a boy and his father when the former refuses to sacrifice to his personal shrine (wen-bogluk). This becomes even worse when a boy destroys his personal shrine on the instructions of a teacher. One graduate of a middle school, which roughly corresponds to the German Hauptschule (lit. main school, today [2025] a type of secondary school), recalls in his life story:

The Reverend Sisters taught mostly on the Ten Commandments, stressing obedience to our parents and elder persons. On the other hand, sacrificing to false gods by our parents was preached against. I became a Christian on 15 August 1963 through the influence of the Right Reverend Father. When I was baptised on that date and went home the following morning, I told my mother and brother: ‘As of today, as I already told you, I am no longer going to do sacrificing or anything that is connected with that; therefore, I am removing my personal bogluk (god9 today.’ I had already thrown it away before giving them the information; so my brother had to go out to bring it back, saying that if I do not sacrifice, I should let it be there.

Even stronger was the conflict between another student and his grandfather (FaFa), a famous diviner, gravedigger and section head (kpagi), after the boy was sent from southern Ghana to Bulsaland by his parents:

When I went home from my parents to my grandfather, he offered me a god (bogluk), and this god was always in [the] front of my room, and I was sacrificing [to] it, but when I went to school, it came to a time that we were doing our religious studies, when our teacher told us that any one of us who had a god should destroy it and be attending church, because it was meaningless to kill fowls for a stone. That day, [in the] evening, when I reached home, I took my god and threw it away during the absence of my grandfather, but when my grandfather noticed it, he asked me, and I told him I had destroyed it, but he put it back again and asked me to kill a goat for it, and I refused. From this time, he asked my brother to do it for me, and when my brother did it, I knew that I was still the one [responsible], and so I destroyed it again and again. He asked me why, and I told him I was ready to do all such things because I wanted to become a Catholic, and so my grandfather kept cool and never brought the god back to me again up to today. And so, at present, I am a Catholic all together with my family, and I don’t think I shall ever kill a fowl for a stone any more, [and] neither [will] any of my children.

[p. 279] The question of a Christian student’s sacrificial activities probably represents the most frequent reason for conflict with the non-Christian parental home, but I am aware of a few cases where non-compliance with prescribed taboos by students or school leavers led to arguments with other residents. Occasionally, a student is not willing to respect the prescribed enmities (dachari) of their household community. These enmities usually arise from the remarriage of a divorced woman: if a woman who was previously married to a man from Section A marries a man from Section B, this inevitably leads to a prescribed enmity between Sections A and B, but especially between the two households concerned. School pupils are often unwilling to avoid contact with classmates from a hostile section. If they go so far as to desire marriage to an individual from a hostile section or one that is too closely related to the subject of enmity, their parents will object. In many cases, such conflicts end with the bride and groom fleeing to the south of Ghana.

One less-than-commonplace case saw a conflict between a married Christian man and the non-Christian residents of his compound over whether he was allowed to build a house with a corrugated iron roof. Probably after a major fire a long time ago, the Christian’s residential section had accepted a taboo (kisuk) against building houses with thatched roofs, preferring clay buildings with flat terrace roofs. Corrugated iron roofs were probably not yet under discussion at the time of the fire. Since the Christian man was not related in a patrilineal sense to the section of the other inhabitants of the compound, he was, after considerable argument, allowed to build his house. Subsequently, however, he and the corrugated iron roof were held responsible for every misfortune and illness in the house, to the point that he considered demolishing his house or moving out of the compound. When his wife became seriously ill, he was subjected to reproaches from all sides. The arguments of his sister-in-law are very revealing. He recalls them in great detail in his life story:

When I alighted at Sandema market, I met a relative of my wife… ‘Please, come here; I want to speak with you,’ she said. I followed her into one of the market stores. She began to talk: ‘You see, you have to take off the iron sheets from your room. If not, your wife will never get better, or if she gets better, someone [else] in your family will fall into the same condition, because I heard that the heirs of Anur (founder of the section) are forbidden to put up a building with any kind of roof. As you said, you are a Christian. So you will never follow the customs of our ancestors. It is all the same. Our ancestors did not get… power [by their own efforts], but God gave them the power. If you try to obey their laws, you are not sinning against God. I will advise you to take off the roof of your room, and your wife will be better. Do not mind whatever your pastor tells you. You can obey him by outer word but not with your heart, for he is not staying with you in your house. Please, take this advice. It will help you.’ She said this to me. ‘Thank you, sister,’ I thanked her.

[p. 280] The examples cited in this study may have shown that the departure of young people from the life paths predetermined by ritual prescriptions and taboos and their deviation from traditional values as they are realised, for example, in pastoralist groups often lead to conflicts. Such conflicts are undoubtedly an expression of social change. They indicate the incipient disintegration of the social system of a segmentary society that, nonetheless, remains largely functioning and signal the detachment of the individual from the strict demands but also from the security of the extended family or an even larger kinship group. Conflicts in the religious sphere cannot be resolved outside their social and economic contexts. Elsewhere (F. Kröger, 1982), it has been shown that ownership of and sacrificial obligations at an ancestral shrine (wen bogluk) fall to the official head (kpagi) of all descendants of the relevant ancestor and, at the same time, grant him all the land and livestock of this ancestor. Only after the death of that sacrificer does the ancestral shrine, along with the position of kpagi and all the land and livestock, pass to the next descendant in line. In most cases, this is the oldest living descendant from the oldest generation. This means that the indifferent or even oppositional attitude taken by most school students towards ancestor veneration is not a private decision of conscience but a reason to question the future of the whole social and economic system of traditional Bulsa society.

Whoever refuses to sacrifice to the ancestors cannot become the kpagi of a lineage segment and cannot take over the goods of those ancestors. It often happens that a fairly young man, holding the greatest seniority as a member of an older generation, can become kpagi of a large lineage segment and hold, as such, religious and social precedence over all, even including much older men of the lineage concerned. The chances of taking over the office of kpagi at a young age are further increased by the custom that for a deceased kpagi whose funeral has not yet been held, it is not his successor, the holder of the next greatest seniority, who acts as a deputy but the youngest biological son of the deceased. The probability is thus not small that a student or recent school leaver will be urged by the men of his lineage segment to take over the ancestral shrine and the corresponding sacrificial activities, as otherwise, the lineage’s founder cannot receive sacrifices. This would not only be a disgrace for the entire section, which could incur the sanctions of the ancestors; the corresponding lineage segment would run the risk of breaking apart entirely once the unifying force of common sacrifices under the leadership of a universally recognised kpagi ceased to exist. A Christian school graduate who continues to live in his clan section can find it difficult to escape the pressure of his lineage when it comes to taking on the office of kpagi, even if he only performs the prescribed sacrificial activities under pressure from the lineage elders or only makes the sacrifices [p. 281] because he himself considers them necessary for the cohesion of the community. This leads to seemingly paradoxical cases in which a Christian compound head regularly provides Christian religious education to the children of his compound and asks them to accompany him to church on Sundays but continues to make the prescribed sacrifices to the ancestors.

For Christians who want to avoid the office of kpagi or yeri nyono, often, the only option is to emigrate to southern Ghana or at least to leave their ancestral compounds. Today, inhabited Bulsa compounds can be found in which the ancestors have not received sacrifices for many years, because the men authorised to perform those sacrifices are in southern Ghana. Discussions are common in the council of lineage elders about the extent to which an absent kpagi or yeri nyono can be represented by a male relative. I know of a few cases in which a younger brother (by the same mother) has performed the sacrificial activities for his older brother, but this representation is controversial. Extended relatives of the absent person usually cannot sacrifice on their behalf.

The preceding discussions and examples may suggest that the Bulsa’s traditional system is under severe attack and strain from the young, Christian student generation. It would be premature to claim, however, that the last step of the change now underway will be taken when these Christian school graduates move into the positions of compound heads and lineage leaders. There are also clear signs that attitudes towards traditional education and religion are changing as the formally educated age-groups grow older. Many men who moved to the large cities of southern Ghana immediately after leaving school now send their young sons to join herding groups at their parents’ farms so that the children are not completely alienated from the Bulsa way of life. The father himself often returns to his village just at the time when he, after the death of his father or brother, must assume the office of head of the compound, to spend the rest of his life in his own kinship group, respecting all the rules customary there. As a compound head and father, he may experience some of the conflict situations he recalls from his school days, now playing a different role.

It is possible, however, that starting school is beginning to be recognised as an important life crisis for young people, one to be alleviated by transition rituals and incorporated into the rhythm of Bulsa life. There are already indications of such rituals. My informant C. from Wiaga-Chiok (born in 1949) reports that all children starting school in his clan section were brought by the section chief (sub-chief, kambon-naab) to the kpagi of the section. The latter made a sacrifice to the founders of the section in the presence of the children and asked them to ensure the latter’s academic success. The children are thus relieved of the feeling of playing an outsider’s role in their parental section; their academic success at the mission school could even be [p. 282] seen as proof of the ancestors’ power in areas of felika tuini (white men’s work or white men’s matters).

Moreover, the administration and organisation of schools need not necessarily continue to be based solely on European models. I have been told that at Sinyansa Primary School (Wiaga), in addition to the official divisions into school classes, the pupils are divided into six groups according to their patrilineages. While the school classes serve as performance groups in the learning process, the section groups take on general organisational tasks (cleaning the school building, tending the school farm, etc.), compete in sports competitions against one another and sometimes engage in conflicts and fights – as occurs between herding groups from different villages. As among the herders, the leader of such a patrilineal section has an exceptionally high level of authority over other members, even outside the school grounds.

There are few potential starting points for incorporating traditional religion into the school learning process. Rather, attempts are largely made from the parental home to influence the school career and life of the student at a boarding school through religious practices. In addition to the sacrifices already mentioned, before making important decisions, families visit a diviner (baano, plural baanoba), or a concerned father may acquire an amulet for his child from a tiim-nyono (medicine man). This is intended to protect the student from all dangers but also ensure their academic success. The inclusion of traditional religious and organisational forms in school life remains quantitatively limited, and the academic principle of achievement and the teaching content, aligned with European teaching content, remain largely untouched. It remains to be seen whether and to what extent a peaceful synthesis can be achieved in the near future between the ideals of traditional and school-based education and between the religious ideas conveyed in schools and the economic and social system previously guaranteed by the ancestors.

Literature

(including some publications since 1987)

Aduedem, Joseph

2019 The Art of Shepherding: The Origins of Conflict with Farmers in the Cultural Context of the Bulsa. In: Buluk – Journal of Bulsa Culture and Society 12, pp. 49–53.

Agyeman, Dominic Kofi

1973 Erziehung und Nationwerdung in Ghana. Munich.

Bening, R. B.

1971 The Development of Education in Northern Ghana 1908–1957. In: Ghana Social Science Journal 1 (2), pp. 21–42.

Foster, Philip

1965 Education and Social Change in Ghana. Chicago, London, Toronto.

Grindal, Bruce

1972 Growing Up in Two Worlds. Education and Transition among the Sisala of Northern Ghana. New York et al. [p. 283].

Kröger, Franz

1978 Übergangsriten im Wandel. Kindheit, Reife und Heirat bei den Bulsa in Nord Ghana. Kulturanthropologische Studien, edited by R. Schott and G. Wiegelmann, vol. 1. Hohenschäftlarn near Munich.

1980 The Friend of the Family or the Pok Nong Relation of the Bulsa of Northern Ghana. In: Sociologus 30 (2), pp. 153–165.

1982 Ancestor Worship among the Bulsa of Northern Ghana. Religious, Social and Economic Aspects. Kulturanthropologische Studien, edited by R. Schott and G. Wiegelmann, vol. 9. Hohenschäftlarn near Munich.

2025 Teaching at Sandema Continuation Boarding School (1973 and 1974). In: Buluk – Journal of Bulsa Culture and Society 15, buluk.de/new

Oppong, Christine

1966 The Dagomba Response to the Introduction of State Schools. In: Ghana Journal of Sociology 2 (1), pp. 17–25.

Peil, M.

1966 Middle School Leavers: Occupational Aspirations and Prospects. In: Ghana Journal of Sociology 2 (1), pp. 7–16.

Schott, Rüdiger

1970 Aus Leben und Dichtung eines westafrikanischen Bauernvolkes. Ergebnisse völkerkundlicher Forschungen bei den Bulsa in Nord-Ghana 1966/67. Cologne, Opladen.

1973/74 Haus- und Wildtiere in der Religion der Bulsa (Nord-Ghana). In: Paideuma 19/20, pp. 280–306.

1980 Entwicklungshilfe und geltendes Recht bei den Bulsa. In: Leben am Rande der Sahara, edited by the Bundesminister für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit in Verbindung mit dem Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum. Cologne.

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