Sounding the woods: the significance of gyil music in Dagara funeral ceremonies

This article examines the musical meaning and role that the gyil (a pentatonic xylophone) plays during Dagara funeral ceremonies in north-west Ghana. It is based on several months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Nandom traditional area in Ghana’s upper western region. Whereas Dagara funerary rituals have undergone transformation over time, gyil music remains a fundamental and essential aspect of them. What then makes gyil music so indispensable in Dagara funerals? This study establishes that gyil music is essential because of its affective nature: the music moves funeral attendants in certain powerful ways – an experience that the Dagara claim cannot be found with any other music. The music propels funeral attendants to express their emotions in culturally acceptable ways, and thus bestows both cultural identity and authenticity on the funeral as a true Dagara event. In this regard, the music is crucial for asserting ‘Dagaraness’ within the current milieu of cultural heterogeneity in contemporary Ghana

Percussion Ensemble featuring John Wesley Dankwa, Master Drummer from Ghana

Kennesaw State University School of Music presents Percussion Ensemble featuring John Wesley Dankwa, master drummer from Ghana.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/musicprograms/1364/thumbnail.jp

Sounding the woods: the significance of gyil music in Dagara funeral ceremonies

Funerals are significant social events among the Dagara of Ghana. Each occasion offers families a space to mourn the deceased according to traditional religious and cultural practices. Music plays an integral role in Dagara funeral ceremonies. Almost every death triggers musical performances that stimulate typical and diverse emotional reactions during funerary events. Music essentially drives the symbolic behaviours which constitute Dagara people’s endorsement of a deceased person, as well as validates the funeral as a public event (Saighoe 1988; Dankwa 2018). Funerals in Dagara society revolve around a pentatonic xylophone called the gyil, the use of which is paramount. Somé (1994:59), a Dagara spiritualist and scholar, captures this succinctly: ‘without the xylophones […] there is no funeral, no grief, and no death’.