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Uses of the Past in Gola Discourse1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Warren L. d'Azevedo
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Extract

Knowledge of the past is a highly valued commodity among the Gola of West Africa. ‘Setting things straight’ and ‘putting a proper form to things’ is a major preoccupation of this highly articulate people. There is no man among them worth his salt who is not ready at the slightest provocation to ‘make new ideas from old ones’ (ke djike dje yun gogo), or, more literally, to present ‘new ideas of the old people’. But there are many cultural restrictions and formal requirements which must guide the approach to things past. The past is considered to be the repository of all important sacred and secular knowledge, and the act of formal retrospection is the duty of qualified men of wisdom who are expected to apply their accumulated memories to the solution of problems confronting the living present.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 1962 , pp. 11 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1962

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References

2 A more detailed presentation of the regional and historical relations of the Gola has been made elsewhere by the author. See ‘The Setting of Gola Society and Culture: Some Theoretical Implications of Variation in Time and Space’, The Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers, no. 21, Autumn 1959, Berkeley, 43–125.Google Scholar

3 The Gola word fuwa is usually translated by them into English as ‘country’ (ma fuwa—p1.). More precisely, however, it designates a territory claimed and inhabited by a cluster of related lineages, or by a centralized political entity such as a chiefdom or a state.Google Scholar

4 In Gola terminology ke kpo refers to the patrilineal descent group, and o sa to the domestic unit. When the English word family is used by the Gola the former grouping is implied.Google Scholar

5 The djewe is any reckoning of lines of descent through either or both parents. But in the specific sense implied by djewe mio it refers to the line of descent by which the speaker defines his position within a particular patrilineage—his ke kpo.Google Scholar

6 The sacredness of such persons is derived from the hierarchical and gerontocratic values of Gola society. Accumulated experience and great age have made them ‘holy’, a phenomenon of particular significance in a region where life-expectancy is less than forty years. Yet it must be noted that the powers which such very aged persons wield seem to be relegated to the sphere of blessings and sage advice. Their role is that of the revered exemplar and does not intrude upon that of specialists such as diviners, magicians or curers.Google Scholar

7 The term Goa gbli has reference to the names of two legendary figures from a Gola origin tale. Goa was a woman ‘King’ who, with her husband, Gbli, remained with a majority of her people in the ancient Gola homeland of Komgba. Her sister Gob, however, led a large contingent of migrants into the new forest territories to the west. Thus the former are known as the ‘real old Gola’, or Goa, while the latter became known as the ‘new Gola’, or Golo, after their leaders. The term Goa gbli, therefore, has a special qualitative significance and is not used in the same contexts as the common Gola word for truth (tunyan), or the real truth (tunyan kena).Google Scholar

8 Thompson, Cf. Stith, The Folktale, 1946, 7–10.Google Scholar

9 The plural form.Google Scholar

10 This famous script was invented by a Vai man in the mid-nineteenth century. It spread rapidly and was widely used by scribes throughout the chiefdoms of southern Sierra Leone and north-western Liberia until very recently.Google Scholar

11 Karnga, Aboyomi, History of Liberia, Liverpool, 1926.Google Scholar