The
Dagara and their Neighbors (Burkina Faso and Ghana)
Today,
Dagara settlements can be found on both sides of the Black Volta River
(Mouhoun), roughly between the 11°20' and 10° parallels. The international
boundary between Ghana and Burkina Faso divides a Dagara-speaking population
which should soon reach a million persons. However, given ethnic categories
have been suppressed in the population censuses of both Burkina Faso and
Ghana since the 1960s, this can only be a rough estimate. The region lies
within the Sudanic vegetation belt of the West African savannah, where
millet, sorghum, corn and yams are grown as the main staples. Migrant labour
has been an important economic factor in the region from early colonial
times up to the present day, with many Dagara working the gold mines and
plantations of southern Ghana and the Ivory Coast.
In
the last two hundred years, the Black Volta region has been the site of
highly successful agricultural expansion by Dagara-speaking groups. Setting
out probably from the area around Wa, small groups of Dagara migrated to
the north, some of them then turning westwards to cross the Black Volta
river into the present-day Burkina Faso. They rarely entered unpopulated
territory, but instead displaced Sisala-, Dyane-, Pwi- and Bwamu-speaking
groups, who themselves moved further west and north. Today, Dagara settlements
can be found in an area of about 3,500 km2 in southern Burkina Faso, where
they represent the sixth largest language group. Roughly the same area
is occupied by Dagara in Ghana, though they are clearly a minority group
nationally. It is not easy to define what may be called 'Dagara country'
(Dagara teng) in a region with many multiethnic villages and shifting
settlement frontiers. One criterion for defining a particular settlement
as Dagara is the existence of a Dagara earth-shrine (tengan) covering
a ritual parish and served by a custodian, the tengan sob ('owner
of the earth' or 'earth-priest'). Against this, however, is the fact that
there are also a number of settlements where the majority of the population
are Dagara but the custodian of the earth-shrine is a non-Dagara.
The
question of the correct ethnic name for the 'Dagara' has been a matter
of considerable intellectual and political controversy. British colonial
administrators introduced the terms 'Dagarti' and 'Lobi', which some Ghanaians
continue to use. French district commissioners often referred to the term
'Dagari', which is still used by many Burkinabé. To the dismay of
many Dagara, Jack Goody, who wrote the first major ethnographies on the
Dagara, introduced the term LoDagaa, which he subdivided further into the
LoDagaba and the LoWiili. Most of those so labelled reject all of these
names as incorrect or even pejorative, but there is much discussion of
what to use instead. Some believe that the people living around Wa, Nadoli
and Jirapa form a distinct group, the 'Dagaba', who speak 'Dagaare'; that
most of the settlements around Diébougou and Dano are inhabited
by the 'Wiile'; and that the term 'Dagara' (or 'Lobr') should be reserved
for the population of Lawra, Nandom and parts of south-west Burkina Faso.
Others hold that 'Dagara' is the only correct unitary term for both the
language and the ethnic group.
Mass
conversion to Catholicism from the 1930s and the subsequent integration
of many Dagara into Western educational institutions produced a considerable
number of intellectuals - in Burkina Faso, the Dagara region is sometimes
jokingly referred to as the 'Quartier Latin'. It is therefore not surprising
to find included in the bibliographies many titles written by Dagara themselves.
The first bibliography to be published on them is Nurukyor Claude Somda
(1983), 'Bibliographie générale du Dagara', in Notes et
études voltaïques, Vol. 14 (1), pp. 73-82.
Another
bibliography on the Dagara, which is mainly linguistic in scope, was compiled
in 1998 by Adams Bodomo. It can be viewed at http://www.hku.hk/linguist/staff_ab.DagaareBibliog.html
Bibliographic
information on Dagara linguistics and neighboring languages can also be
found in Manfred von Roncador and Gudrun Miehe (1998), Les langues gur
(voltaïques): Bibliographie commentée et inventaire des appellations
des langues, Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag (Gur Monographs/Monographies
Voltaïques, No. 1).
The following bibliography on 'The Dagara and their Neighbors' has been compiled by the members(Richard Kuba, Carola Lentz, Volker Linz, Michaela Oberhofer, Katja Werthmann) of a research project based at the University of Frankfurt am Main (Germany) entitled 'The Appropriation of Space and Local Identity in South-western Burkina Faso', under the direction of Prof. Carola Lentz. Further information on the Dagara and their neighbors can be located on the project's homepage: http://www.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de/~sfb268/a9/a9.htm
This
bibliography was revised and updated in June 2000. While literature on
the Dagara should be more or less complete, titles on the neighboring societies
such as the Lobi, Birifor, Dyan, Phuo (Pougouli), Bwaba, and Sisala, may
not be, as they merely reflect the specific research interests of the project
members. The scope of the bibliography is not so much governed by ethnic
criteria but rather by a more or less well defined regional frame. We do
not aspire to compile an exhaustive bibliography on stateless gur- or voltaic-speaking
societies; therefore one will not find - to cite just one example - Meyer
Fortes’s writings on the Tallensi. On the other hand works on Kong, Wa,
the Zaberma and the regional Dyula trade are included because these states
or groups had some influence on the Dagara and their immediate neighbors.
However, literature on regional powers such as the Mossi, Mamprusi or Gonja
states are not included as they were of no or only very indirect relevance
for the history of our research region.
Listed
works are in English, French, German and Italian. We would be pleased to
receive any information concerning omissions or errors. Please mail to:
Kuba@em.uni-frankfurt.de