Oppong, C.

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ARTICLES 27.
A NOTE ON DAGOMBA FIDDLERS 
by C . Oppong*
The Dagomba fiddlers, 'gondzenema1, play the 
single-stringed, bowed lute.l According to one oral 
account, che first fiddler arrived in Dagbon in the 
reign of Naa Saa, after migrating from Pada N ’Gourma 
in Upper Volta. They were not formerly organized 
under a chief resident in Yendi, as they are today.
Then in the reign of Naa Yakubu, in the^late nine­
teenth century, the office of Yamba Naa, chief fiddler, was created.
The fragment of genealogy recorded below shows 
some of the male issue of the first Yamba Naa, as re­
membered by one of his descendants, living and playing
in the capital in 19 6 5. It adds support to the state­
ment fiddlers make about their belonging to one family, 
and also indicates the way in which related fiddlers 
are scattered, not only throughout Dagbon, but Southern 
Ghana too. It also shows the extent to which sons tend 
to follow their fathers' profession, though some re­
cruits are uterine kin of fiddlers and others are even complete outsiders.
There were only two instances recorded in that 
genealogy where a son did not learn to play. In the 
first case (a) the boy became a butcher, in the second 
he was physically handicapped (b).
Daughters in a fiddler’s household are taught 
to play rattle accompaniments, though this lapses 
when they marry, only to be resumed should they return 
home for any reason. The loss of the daughter's skill
Mrs. C. Oppong is a Research Fellow in Social
Anthropology.
I. This account is based on case histories, genealo­
gies and household censuses collected from fiddlers 
in three chiefs’ villages in Dagbon during 1964 and1965.
ARTICLES 28.
SOWE AGrNATIC. DESCENDANTS 
OF T H E  FIRST Y A M B A  NAA,
. VfW6A
I
lamale
Tamal^ Takcroa^ ^
Sang.
Soul
San S a r ^
^endi^ N|endi ^  
Ntndjj|
YfcMSft
VfcMBft 
N Afrd 2
^en^i
'fendi
ARTICLES 29.
is sometimes replaced in the next generation, when 
a daughter’s son is sent to his mother's brother to 
learn to play,- the son who is in a sense considered 
to have inherited it. Dreams can be a signal of this, 
but there are not the strong compulsory sanctions 
compelling sisters’ sons to learn as there are in the 
drumming profession. If any boy in a fiddler’s house­
hold does not want to learn to play he can simply ' 
learn how to rattle and then run away.
A child can begin to learn to play the fiddle 
when he is quite small, about five or six years old.
The first step is simply to learn to move the bow up 
and down while sitting next to the father or other 
teacher, who performs the finger movements with his 
left hand. Words and music are learnt simultaneously, 
so that if the player does not sing aloud while he plays 
he tends to unconsciously mouth the words at the same 
time. As in the case of drummers, talents differ, so 
that while one has a good memory for songs and praises, 
another has a sweet voice and a third is a skilful 
player.
Some boys born into fiddlers' families are 
said to be able to play by instinct and this seems 
to be proved by the fact that one boy may be able 
to learn to play in a matter of months, while another 
takes years to become a mediocre performer. For ex­
ample one boy, Abu was sent to his mother's older 
brother for training at about twelve years because 
he was misbehaving at home and had refused to stay 
with his father. He learnt to play with considerable 
competence in a mere five months, his performance 
being considered better than that of many pupils after 
three years’ training. It is thought that it is really 
only the boy who spends the whole of his childhood and 
adolescence in a fiddler's household, continually 
exposed to the music and to practising it, who will 
become a really first class performer. It is said that 
connoisseurs of gondze music can tell by ear where a 
particular player was taught, since the main fiddlers’ 
households have their own particular styles of presenta-
ARTICLES 30.
tion and certain teachers are renowned for their skill
in performance.
Pupils practice playing at any time when they 
are free and if a'teacher is at hand and hears the boy 
playing badly he will call him to correct him and 
demonstrate the correct way. By the age of nine or 
ten a boy with aptitude may be quite a competent player 
and may be called by neighbouring musicians to accomp­
any them to play in villages nearby, as well as going 
to play with his father or other teacher.
There are comparatively few fiddlers in the 
state and they are found in the divisional capitals 
and the royal and other terminus chiefdoms at the 
apex of the traditional, political hierarchy, includ­
ing Yendi, Savelugu, Karaga, Mion, Nanton, Kumbungu, 
Zabsugu, Tampion, Diari and Tolon. In Yendi there 
were in 3965 only two households 6f fiddlers playing 
for the king and in 75 villages in Western Dagbon 
fiddlers were only recorded to be living in three.
Since fiddlers' households are rare and widely scat­
tered the typical playing unit is often the householder, 
together with one or two sons and other pupils who 
fiddle and one or two young daughters who rattle. Even 
at great festivals such as Damba in the capital when 
musicians are playing in public for the king there may 
not be many fiddlers in evidence. Thus in 1965 in Yendi 
at the climax of the Damba celebration over fifty drum­
mers gathered to play but only four fiddlers were pre­
sent accompanied by nine boys and girls playing rattles.
Though few they still figure prominently with 
their music on important public occasions and travel 
around a great deal providing entertainment at weddings 
and namings in private homes, as well as on politically 
significant occasions. Some travel south for a time, 
entertaining their countrymen and other people who 
appreciate their music in the towns.
Their main task is to sing the praises of 
chiefs and their ancestors, especially on Monday and
ARTICLES 31.
Friday mornings when courtiers greet their chiefs. 
Reciprocal ties of gifts and favours, given in return 
for loyal service, may result in a musician and his 
sons being attached to a chief and following him from 
one skin to the next, as the chief climbs the ladder 
of political office, till the fiddler and his sons 
remains at the chief*s terminus to serve successive 
occupants of the skin. These relationships of patron 
and client are expressed by the actors in kinship terms, 
such as junior and senior brother, father and child.
At the same time the fiddler is referred to by his 
patron as his wife and he in turn calls the latter 
husband, indicating the complementary inequality of 
their relationship.
The case of Sumane gondze provides an example 
of such a situation. Sumane served a divisional chief, 
Bukari, as court fiddler and then, when Bukari's son 
Iddrissu succeeded to a terminal skin, he asked Sumane 
to follow him. When Sumane died one of his sons, Seidu, 
who had been farming for several years, returned to 
assume his father’s role as fiddler for Iddrissu, for 
at that time he was the only fiddler in the village.
After Iddrissu’s death Seidu served the next four occu­
pants of that same skin. In the time span illustrated 
below Sumane and his son served six chiefs in succession.
. SUMANE GONDZE
ARTICLES 32.
Table I
Fiddlers' Marriages
Other*
5
38
Includes farmers and craftsmen.
Fiddlers
Rulers
F 19 5
M 13 4Total 32 9
Occupational Group of Spouse 
Muslims Warriors Drummers Fiddlers
9
1
10
0
4
4
Above is a classification, by occupational affilia­
tions, of the marriage partners of thirty two men and wo­
men of fiddler parentage. It calls into question Tait's 
statement that the fiddlers exhibit the signs of group 
endogamy which drummers show (1956). No in-group marriage 
was recorded at all. Fiddlers say that they always marry 
spouses from other groups because they are one family. 
Moreover there are not the sanctions operating, which as 
has been described elsewhere, predispose drummers to marry 
members of the same professional group. They neither 
encounter the same objections from outsiders regarding 
the fact of compulsory adoption of daughters’ children, 
nor do they have the. same internal pressure to incorporate 
such children, by making in-group family marriages.
(Oppong, 1969) According to the figures in the present 
sample their own group is the only one from which they do 
not take spouses. Further data will support or disprove 
this. At least the data tally with actors' statements 
about what they think happens.
Ovep half of these thirty-two marriages were made 
with spouses from two groups, the rulers and the mallams. 
Admittedly these two groups mainly live in the type of 
communities in which fiddlers are found, but it may also 
indicate both a strengthening of patron client bonds, as 
in the case of drummers, and also the fact that the fiddlers 
are a mor<£ muslimized group than the other musicians.
ARTICLES 33.
Conclusions
These fragments of data, including family his­
tory and marriage choice patterns, are useful in that 
they indicate interesting areas for further investiga­
tion in the area of the kinship system and organization 
of specialist occupational groups among the Dagomba.
For instance it would be Interesting to compare this 
fragment of a genealogy with similar ones collected 
from fiddlers in all the main chiefdoms of the state, 
to see to what extent they may be correlated with one 
another to form a genealogy including most of the 
Dagomba fiddlers. Tait wrote that the gondzenema 
have distinct localized kin groups (19 5 6). They are 
certainly located in specific communities in the king­
dom, but whether these should be termed kin groups or 
merely households linked to each other by a widely 
ramifying net-work of kinship ties remains to be ex­plored.
Bibliography 
Oppong, C. 1969 A Preliminary Account of the Role 
and Recruitment of Drummers in Dagbon. 
I.A.S. Research Review Vol.6 No.l 
Michaelmas Term.
Tait, D. -1956 Structural Change in the Northern 
Territories of the Gold Coast. 
Proceedings of the Fourth Annual 
Conference of the West African 
Institute of Social and Economic 
Research, Ibadan.
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A note on Dagomba fiddlers

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A note on Dagomba fiddlers

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