Traditional Cultural Practices

Traditional cultural practices reflect values, norms, beliefs and myths held by members of a community spanning generations. All social groups all over the world have specific practices and beliefs which often have strong cultural underpinnings. These can be positive, but they can also be negative. Almost all societies have positive cultural practices that are beneficial to all members, such as those which sustain society, provide cohesion and solidarity, and promote development in its broad sense. However, all cultures are inherently predisposed to change and, at the same time, to resist change. There are dynamic processes operating that encourage the acceptance of new ideas while there are others that encourage changeless stability. This

During the sixth decade of the eighteenth century, Dagbon was described as the ‘Mohammadan Kingdom of Dagbon’ (Ferguson, 1972:314; Römer, 2000:171). In the mid-nineteenth century, informants told Barth that the people of Yendi were idolaters, “who…drink buza or peto [maize beer] in great quantity. The name of the Governor is Kirgangu, before whose house two baskets of meat are daily given to vultures, to whom a sort of worship seems to be paid.” (ibid.315) However, during that same period, Gouldsbury, the first known European to have visited Yendi said the following in 1876: “Yendi is the chief town of a considerable extent of the country, and its king reigns over many towns and villages. The greater portions of the population are followers of Mohammed, and the most superficial observer could at once perceive that the people were believers in a less degrading worship or creed than that of fetishism.”

Before the introduction of Islam into the ancient kingdom of Dagbon, the Dagbamba were rooted in the practice of the indigenous African traditional religion led by the earth priests, the tindaamba. The traditional religious practice in Dagbani is referred to as Baɤayuli Malibu, the veneration of the gods or ancestors as the case may be. In almost every village or household, there were sacred shrines referred to in Dagbani as Buɤa (plural for Buɤili). In individual households or clans, the Yidana or family head – serving as master of the cult – was in charge of the necessary rituals and sacrifices. However, within the village or town, the earth priest or tindana would be the care taker. These Buɤa or shrines were highly respected, because for the Dagbamba traditionalists, they could only get to Naawuni (Almighty God) through them (the