Documenting Spoken and Sung Texts of the Dagaaba of West Africa

Abstract

This article discusses a documentation of spoken texts, sung texts, and dances of the Dagaaba, a mainly oral West African cultural group based on actual interdisciplinary linguistic and musicological field research within the group. The importance of this documentation lies in the fact that traditional oral cultures are fast disappearing among some sections of such societies in the face of a ruthless process of globalization. The article outlines the socio-cultural organization of the communities investigated, gives a succinct description of the structure of Dagaare, language of the Dagaaba, and describes the structure of bawaa, their main dance, before analyzing transcriptions of a representative sample of spoken and sung folktales with comments on the thought systems and world-views emanating from these texts.

Keywords

• West Africa
• song
• dance
• story
• oral culture
• Dagaare
• Dagaaba
• bawaa