Birifoh Belief System: Perspectives From Birifoh-Sila Yiri, Upper West Region, Ghana

The study focuses on the Birifoh beliefs and worship systems in north-western Ghana. This study examined various uses of shrines and circumstances leading to their establishment in Birifoh-Sila Yiri and its environs. Data was collected through participant observation, interviews, focus groups and desktop research. An interpretative analytical approach was employed. The study found that gods or deities (shrines) in the traditional settings are represented by wooden, metal and ceramic figurines. Several shrines were found including ancestral shrines, wooden figurines, earth shrines, chameleon shrines, ceramics figurines, river shrines, xylophone shrine, landed shrine and kunkpenibie shrine. Their functions were to protect hunters and ensure the general welfare of families including childbirth and general prosperity. The belief of Birifoh is that, shrines represent relationships between the spiritual and physical worlds that form part of the Dagaaba and Lobi cosmology. Keywords: Sila-Yiri, Birifoh, patriclan, figurine, earth shrine, ancestor, religion, divine

Indigenous cosmology, art forms and past medicinal practices: Towards an interpretation of ancient Koma Land sites in northern Ghana

The ancient cultural tradition in the middle belt region of northern Ghana, with its stone circle and house mounds, contains varied material culture. The unique contextual arrangements of the material culture within the stone circle mounds and the diverse ceramic art forms, as well as their ethnographic analogues in West Africa, indicate the mounds’ association with past shrines that have multiple functions, including curative purposes. The archaeology of the mounds and ethnographic associations related to past indigenous medical practices is reviewed and discussed. This paper will also consider how some of the figurines through which the Koma tradition has achieved ‘fame’ possibly functioned as physical representations of disease, perhaps underpinned by intentions of transference from afflicted to image. The notions of protection and healing are also examined with reference to the resorted and disarticulated human remains sometimes recovered from the sites

In vitro antibacterial activities of selected TB drugs in the presence of clay minerals against multidrug-resistant strain of Mycobacterium smegmatis

Healing clay is a rich source of diverse minerals. The relevance of these indigenous minerals in the improvement of antibiotic chemotherapy against prevailing bacterial pathogens is yet to be thoroughly explored. In the present study, healing clay from archaeological context was characterized and used in combination with 19 different antibacterial drugs to test their combined in vitro activity against Mycobacterium smegmatis mc2 155 and a multidrug-resistant (MDR) Mycobacterium smegmatis strain. Among the antibiotics tested, the anti-tuberculosis drug, pyrazinamide (Pzd), showed a drastic antimycobacterial activity against Mycobacterium smegmatis mc2 155 in the presence of 5 µg/µL of the healing clay, whereas ribosome targeted inhibitors such as gentamicin showed significant reduction in activity in the presence of the healing clay. The resistance phenotype of the MDR Mycobacterium smegmatis strain to ampicillin and isoniazid was reversed in the presence of the healing clay. The activity of the other antibiotics was either unaffected, enhanced or reduced in the presence of the healing clay. The activity of ampicillin and isoniazid against the MDR strain in the presence of the healing clay suggest that healing clay might be a useful synergy for these antibiotics against MDR Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Insights into Past Ritual Practice at Yikpabongo, Northern Region, Ghana

Varied interpretations have been provided for the figurine mound sites located in Koma Land and in the Mogduri District, Northern Region, Ghana, including that they represent burial mounds or shrines. In particular, the producers or affiliates of the mounds are unknown, as the traditions of the present inhabitants of the archaeological region dissociate themselves from the mounds. Current excavations of the mounds have provided considerable contextual information, leading the excavation team to hypothesise that the mounds are best understood within a shrine context and that the figurines, possibly representing ancestors or other beings, were used in ceremonies aimed at communicating with the supernatural world for healing or other purposes