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Reflections on the Oral Traditions of the Nterapo of the Salaga Area

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2014

J. Ako Okoro
J. Ako Okoro*
Affiliation:
University of Ghana
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Extract

This paper presents initial thoughts on the historical, linguistic, and archeological significance of the oral traditions of Nterapo communities in the Salaga area. As members of a minority, and a commoner group in the Gonja traditional sociopolitical system, the Nterapo have not been recognized as relevant as the Nchumuru and Nawuri, who have been highlighted in historical works as autochthones. Historians, cultural anthropologists, and archeologists on Gonja have often failed to identify the Nterapo as being critical for research.

The Nterapo represent a group whose history goes beyond the time of the introduction of Gonja rule in the Volta Basin from the sixteenth century. There is reason to think that the wars of Gonja expansion in the second half of the sixteenth century were particularly brutal ones, in which well-trained cavalry were pitted against local peasantries poorly equipped to withstand the invaders (Wilks et al. 1986:15). Despite this, the Nterapo survived the invasion by accepting and adapting to the process of state formation and emergence of greater sociopolitical complexity in east Gonja. The settlement history and cultural lifeways of the Nterapo can provide insights for the production of premises, conceptual frameworks, and methodological approaches that would create a deeper understanding of human experience in the Salaga area.

Historical method is a systematic body of principles for gathering, critically examining, and presenting the source material of history (Garraghan 1946:33). Written accounts and the spoken word are two important sources of historical information used for historical, anthropological, and archeological research and writing.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 35 , January 2008 , pp. 375 - 400
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2008

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