Farewell to Ghana

A surprise happened as our plane lifted off from the ground to take us back to the US. Allyson and I started to weep. At first I didn’t realize that she was crying also. I gave a small wave goodbye to Ghana and then the tears came. Allyson was turned to face the window. I touched her arm, and when she looked at me, I saw her tears. We didn’t talk about it. However, when I saw her weeping, the flood gates opened, and I started crying harder. I started to think about the way Togbe kissed the beads before he put them around my neck and Dr. Kofi’s explanation of the gesture. (Please see Blog 1) Through him my ancestors apologized for our parting and welcomed me back. Something happened during that ceremony and has happened to me during my time in Ghana. This is my land and I belong here.

It is not that I am not ready to be home in DC. It is that I also belong in Ghana – in Africa. Ghana is Black. Black majority, Black leadership, Black everything. Black, Black, Black!! That is why I feel at home. I didn’t realize how isolated we are in the United States. The explanation is in the name of my nation. African – American.

And we have been received. Older women would stop Allyson and I to say hello and welcome us home. I wore a skirt to a music festival that showed my backside a little. A lady looked at my hips and said something about me in Ewe to the man she was standing with. I said…”What is it Auntie?’’ She pointed at my body and said, “your feet!…your leg!…your hip!” She was right. My body shape is thick and curvaceous West African through and through. Every time I showed it a little (I went on a horseback ride on Labadi beach in Accra) women would stop and say, “Are you an African woman?” or “Are you Ghanaian.” I was also astounded to see people that look like Black people back home that I know. A billboard in Accra announced a church service being led by an evangelist that looked exactly like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. A man working as a teller at Barclay’s bank looked exactly like one of my graduate school professors. Here in Ghana is a missing link, a missing piece of the puzzle for African – Americans…a deeper understanding of who we are and our long lost family.

So right now I am listening to Fela as I type, with small tears in my eyes, feeling homesick. It is the language that he is singing in that connects me to my homeland – “pidgin” and Yoruba. It reminds me of Ghana. I want to go back. No, Ghana is not perfect. But it is also wonderful and it is mine. My homeland. I will be back in Dzodze in time for Christmas by the grace of God.

Music of the Mali Empire in Northern Ghana

West Africa is often represented by symbols or accoutrements of culture  - Kente cloth and instruments like the Kora and the Balafon. These actually represent well - known and powerful empires. Kente cloth has come to represent the Ashanti Kingdom of central Ghana (although I learned it was created by the Ewes). The Kora and Balafon represent the northern part of West Africa, more specifically Senegambia. It is this area that boasts the legacy of the Mali Empire, one of most well-known kingdoms of West Africa. It is also known as the Manding Empire. It was founded by King Sundiata in the year 1280 AD. Mansa Musa also ruled Mali in the 1300s, and is historically the richest man who ever lived. (See renderings of King Sundiata and the Mali Empire Below)

  

The story of the founding of the empire has been preserved and passed down through the centuries by musicians called Griots also known as Jelis. They perform a song - poem called the Epic of Sundiata, which was transcribed by D T Niane. Sundiata Keita was a warrior king of Mali who founded the empire by making alliances with vassals of other kingdoms to defeat a common enemy - the King of Soso. He was also known as the sorcerer king who oppressed people with Black magic and kidnapped Sundiata’s sister.  Sundiata’s Griot plays a dominant role in the story as his advisor and historian. Griots are well known throughout the world. Traditionally, they are a part of the Manding Nyamakala class of artisans. Some Nyamakala artisans work with leather, some with wood. Griots work with words and music. Songs and instrumental prowess have been passed down from father to son for generations. Manding cultures have many instruments. One is the Djembe drum, which is now widely used in many West African cultures, especially in Ghana. Another is the ekonting which “evolved” into the African – American banjo.  I put evolved in quotes because it is essentially the same instrument. See the 'evolution' of the Ekonting to the Banjo from left to right below.

  

There are also specific instruments that only Griots are allowed to play. One is called the Ngoni, which is featured in the 2016 Roots miniseries. Another is called the Balafon. The seven hundred year old Epic of King Sundiata, mentions the Balafon at a key turning point in the story. It is this African xylophone that marks the presence of the Mali Empire in Northern Ghana. (From left to right: Ngoni, Balafon and African Xylophone called the Gyil)

  

The Mali Empire stretched from Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and the Gambia through Guinea, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso and into Northern Ghana, where the Dagara tribe is dominant. They migrated into Ghana from Burkina Faso. Here is where the history of the Mali Empire and my modern encounter with Ghanaian music intersect. I am learning to play the Gyil which is one of the only traditional Dagara instruments. As the Dagara were once a part of the Mali Empire, they play this version of the xylophone. The Gyil is tuned to the pentatonic scale. Some are tuned to the key of G and some in C. Listen closely and you can hear the blues in the instrument. Like the Balafon, large calabash gourds are used as resonators beneath wooden keys that are longest on the bass end and shortest on the treble end. Large dots of white paper are affixed onto the gourds to give the notes a rattling sound as they are played.

A Gyil 'heaven' at Orff Afrique in Dzodze

Sampson Kuudenign, Gyil Master and Professor,
University of Ghana, Legon

 When I heard the Gyiles resounding in the background, I thought “this is the sound of the ‘Old World.’” Our instructor is named Sampson Kuudenign, a member of the Dagara nation from Northern Ghana. He has a resonant, deep voice and a booming laugh. When he lectures, he speaks with a slow rhythm and precise diction. He teaches at the University of Ghana at Legon in Accra and is a master Gyil player. He looks very different from Ghanaians in other parts of the country. When I saw him, I instantly knew he was from the north because his appearance is similar to other Manding ethnic groups. When I interviewed him he shared that the Gyil is played by many Dagara people, even women. However, the instrument is male dominated and women do not perform in public. He also said that when a baby is born with their fists clenched in the playing position (the thumb wedged between the pointer and middle finger), then they are destined to become a Gyil master.  I absolutely enjoy learning to play the songs that Mr. Sampson is teaching. I initially thought each song was simply composed as a beautiful musical idea, nothing more. However, Mr. Sampson informed me during our interview that these melodies are much, much more than pretty ideas. The true purpose of the songs is fascinating.  When he began to teach, Mr. Sampson called each melodic phrase a stanza. Why? Because each phrase is literally Dagara language. The melodies are actually intoned poetry lines. Mr. Sampson described one song as a “love song.” In Dagara language it means, “Don’t pass me by” or “Don’t ignore me.” Another title of a song is translated to mean “Lazy Boy.” He said the main phrase means ‘lazy boy’ or a boy who chases after a young women (or several) without marrying her (or them). Why lazy? In Dagara culture, when a man wants to marry a woman, he must work for her father for a certain amount of time. After this time, he must pay a bride price of a minimum of two cows, sometimes three. A lazy boy simply wants to enjoy the company of a young lady without working for her father and following through with the formal commitment of marriage. I shared that African – Americans call such a man a “player.” Another song he played is a funeral song for a woman that says beautiful things about her life and character. All Dagaras can understand the words being played. This is very similar to the concept and function of the West African ‘talking drum,’ which articulates language using drum rhythms. This drum has different names in various cultures.

 The melodies start with a simple motive that builds by adding on more and more notes. In concept, the songs are like an improvised idea that a jazz musician would vary as his solo progresses. Often in Dagara Gyil songs there are sections for improvisation. I have heard Mr. Samson play beautiful ideas. The way he teaches the instrument is very different from the Western European approach. He describes the bass part of the xylophone as the head and the tremble section as the feet. He also described a key interval, which is present in all Dagara songs, as ‘twins.’ I have been fortunate enough to be able to purchase a Gyil to practice at home. I hope to master it one day…

As I walk through the hotel compound in Dzodze, I hear the beautiful, bubbling, buoyant notes floating up to the clouds in the distance. I am reminded that I am now in the Old World. In Africa my homeland. My mind imagines the sound of West Africa in the 1280s when King Sundiata first ruled that vast and great empire. This must have been the sound of Old Mali.

  

Keta - The Ancestral Homeland of Maya Angelou

On Wednesday, I went to the town of Keta, here in the Volta Region of Ghana. The story that I am going to tell today is most precious. One of the most precious days of my life. The story begins with my name. My mother named me after Maya Angelou, the well - known Black American writer, poet and actress. I received my first Maya Angelou book when I was six years old. It was a segment from her autobiography I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings called Mrs. Flowers. I also met Dr. Angelou that same year. My mother and one of my aunties took me to George Mason University where she was scheduled to speak. We arrived late, which turned out to be a good thing. Just as we were walking up to the large double doors, a long dark blue limousine glided to a stop in front of the entrance. Out stepped the Maya Angelou dressed in a luxurious fur coat. My mother introduced her to me as my ‘name sake.’ She scooped me up in her arms in a generous embrace. I remember her mink coat and her wide smile. During her show she performed her poems and others from the classic Black writers. I remember the Langston Hughes poem Images that she acted out with dramatic but graceful movements…If she could dance naked under palm trees then she would know she said, with her arms extended up, moving in gentle rhythms. She autographed my little Mrs. Flowers book that evening.

When I was a little older I read through her first autobiography and eventually read all of them as I grew into my teens. Many are familiar with her work and her life, but I will explain her story briefly, since it figures so prominently in our visit to Keta. Maya Angelou was raised in a small Arkansas town called Stamps by her grandmother Annie Henderson, along with her brother Bailey. She said that anthropologists have cited Stamps for its many Africanisms among the Black population that lives there. In her teen years, she lived with her mother in California, in the San Francisco area. At seventeen she went out on her own with an infant son. Her autobiographical series chronicles her experiences that took her from operating a train car, working as a creole fry cook, becoming a dancer, then singer, then actress, then writer. She toured Europe with the original company of Porgy and Bess in the 1950s. James Baldwin was one of her best friends and she worked as an actress in New York City with Cicely Tyson, Roscoe Lee Brown, Jr., Lou Gosset and James Earl Jones. She became deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement as the Coordinator of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference Office at 125^th street and 7^th Avenue in Harlem.

Maya Angelou lived in Accra, Ghana in 1963 and was here when W.E.B. Dubois passed away the night of the March on Washington. It is her profound relationship to the African Continent, and to Ghana specifically, that led me to the town of Keta. She chronicles her time in Ghana in her fifth  autobiographical installment entitled All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes. She worked at the University of Ghana in Legon and became good friends with Afua Sutherland, the woman who started Panafest. During her last month in Ghana, someone offered to take her to the Volta Region, where I am now.  Her host explained that Keta is located between a lagoon and the Atlantic Ocean. A beautiful location, yes, but the town was slowly being eroded by the sea. When she heard this sad news, she said she felt upset like she was hearing of the death of an old friend. As they approached Keta, the car moved forward to cross a bridge. Maya became inexplicably terrified and refused to cross. Her host asked if she had heard anything about the bridge. When she said no, he told her that the bridge had blown down five times and many had lost their lives. She recognized that there was no way she could have had knowledge of the bridge. As they walked through a narrow alley leading to the market in the center of town, a woman stopped her. Maya Angelou was six feet tall, this woman was just a little taller. 

Photo of Young Maya Angelou

Young Woman Sitting on Bench in Front of Fort Prinzinstein

The woman began shouting and pointing her finger in Maya’s face. She tried to speak to her, and even apologize, in Fanti, Twi, French and English, but this was Ewe land. The woman would not be appeased. When Maya saw her face, she was the splitting image of her paternal grandmother who raised her. The woman was speaking in a low - timbred voice identical to hers. She later called this the ‘ewe voice box.’ The woman continued to speak to her harshly until her host intervened and explained that she was Black American. The woman refused to believe her until she showed an old California driver’s license. All at once the woman placed her hands on top of her head, interlocking her fingers, and began to rock from side to side weeping. Her host explained that it was the way Ewes mourn. Maya said that when she or her brother assumed this position, her grandmother would take time to uncross their hands and said that it was a sign of bad luck. The woman led Maya to her market stall and swept all of her vegetables into a basket, offering her more if she wanted. She then led her to other women at the market who repeated the same gestures of mourning and giving. When she asked, her host explained the situation. Maya reminded the women of someone…people they never had the chance to meet. He explained that during the slave trade era, every adult in Keta was captured and sold into slavery. The children got away and were raised by families in neighboring communities. When they grew up, they went back to Keta and resettled the town. They told their children, who told their children, about those who were stolen away. They knew by her face, her height and her voice that Maya Angelou was a descendant of those who were taken. I believe it was by the hand of God that Maya found her ancestral homeland. She found her long lost family. I think this is profound. When I read this, I prayed to be able to go to Keta…to see it for myself. God answered this prayer. I checked google maps before I arrived. Keta is only one hour away from Dzodze.

My friend and I made off for Keta at 3 in the afternoon. Our taxi driver and guide really took care of us. The drive took about an hour from Dzodze. We dozed off and woke up to a beautiful scene – the African side of the Atlantic Ocean. The Gold Coast. On the left was the crashing waves of the sea. On the right a lagoon, rolling southward with gentle waves. It was beautiful.

Keta is no longer the town that Maya Angelou visited in 1963. The sea has eroded about 3 miles of the town. The market that Maya visited and the bridge she traveled over is now beneath the ocean. The government has built a rocky barrier to try to stop the erosion. If you want to see Keta, try to make it as soon as possible. Our driver stopped in front of a fort. Fort Prinzinstein. It is a slave trading fort built by the Danish in 1784. About a third of it has been eroded by the sea. We walked along the beach taking photographs of the castle. These macabre words were painted on the back wall of a dungeon facing the ocean. Until the lion has his historian, the hunter will always be a hero. That is what I have become. A historian for the Lion.

 

We took a few more photos and walked to the front of the castle. Just then the caretaker pulled up in a taxi. He offered to give us a tour, even though it was after hours. I have no doubt that this is the castle where Maya Angelou’s great - great grandmother was held captive. As he began the tour he mentioned names of European nations that I didn’t expect…Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Do not let European countries fool you with their descriptions of minimized participation in the slave trade and ‘early’ abolition on Wikipedia. Every single one was enriched through the trans - Atlantic slave trade. There are 42 slave castles on the coast of Ghana alone. I was shocked to see a fort built by the Danes, but there is was. I recently saw a movie about the prince of Denmark who marries a ‘normal’ white American farm girl. The wealth depicted in the movie came in part from the Danish run slave castle that stood before me.

Togbe's Royal Stool

Apparently, the Togbe (chief) of Keta allowed the land to be sold to the Danes. They were of course very unhappy when they built the castle with forced labor to start slave trading and launched a war against them. The Danes killed the Togbe and took his royal stool and cane. Both are still in the castle. Many other original artifacts were there. The large iron pot where Banku was made to keep the captives alive. (Banku is a combination of corn flour and cassava dough that the Ewes often eat with soup. It is a little like fufu.)   

I stumbled over an iron chain that was nailed in the middle of the floor. In order to prevent the captives from escaping, the captors would not bring in fresh water. Instead they would pour it in a shallow gutter that is carved into the floor. The desperate captives would have to lap up the water with their tongues. The lower dungeon facing the ocean turned out to be holding place for captives who were deemed especially strong, rebellious or difficult. Our tour guide pointed out a place in the floor where the captives tried to dig their way out. I could only imagine the desperation that would lead them to attempt that…the broken and bleeding fingernails…the blisters, cuts and broken fingers. Fort Prinzinstein was horrible. But the experience of visiting was beautiful at the same time. The rest of the group was visiting a shrine. Allyson and I chose not to participate in that. We chose instead to honor a grandmother of our African – American nation by coming to her homeland and honoring the experiences of our ancestors who suffered and died there.

 

Our guide told us that some of the captives were taken to North and South Carolina. Even before he said it I could see it in the structure of the building. Fort Prinzinstein is made with a building style called ‘tabby.’ This is the same building style of the Gullah and Geechee of the Georgia and South Carolina Sea Islands. It is a mixture of oyster shells, sand and lime. Our guide said that this is also the Ewes traditional building style. We are African through and through.  

West African and Gullah 'Tabby' Traditional Building Style

At the end of the tour, we were able to purchase keep sakes. I bought a painting titled Why, wood carvings and beads. They must have been in that small office for over ten years, since Fort Prinzinstein is not a major tourist attraction. They are precious to me. To be able to see the family origins of Maya Angelou, my namesake, is precious to me.   I will never forget Keta…the beauty of the lagoon, the poetry of the ocean and the tragedy of all that went on with the slave castle that still marks our lives on the both sides of the Atlantic.