Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.

Accepted Paper:

The beast that killed the chief: remembering the past and affirming the future through imitation  
Eileadh Swan (University of St Andrews)

Paper short abstract:

This paper considers three different types of knowledge that are generated through a series of imitations and re-enactments of past events during Funeral Rites for a Chief in Ho, Ghana; historical knowledge of the past, embodied knowledge of the Great Oath of Asogli and anthropological knowledge.

Paper long abstract:

Imitations and re-enactments of past ways of life are often central to Ghanaian festivals and competitions designed to teach both local youth and foreign visitors about Ghanaian culture. While the final funeral rites performed for the Paramount Chief of the Asogli Traditional Area can be seen as an example of how re-enactment of past events can transfer knowledge from the elders to the youth, this paper argues that it was not the main purpose. The week long rites worked on another level to reaffirm relationships and social obligations between four 'brother' towns by re-enacting scenes from the past in which, together, they searched for a dead body or the beast that had killed the person. In this case, the fact that the chief had already been buried and that there are no longer wild animals roaming the town was beside the point. The beast, modelled out of sticks and leaves, was found, shot down and presented to the current Chief. I argue that this re-enactment of the hunt and the presentation of the imitation beast was, for those involved, the embodiment of the Great Oath of Asogli. It worked to invoke the past events through which the Oath was created and showed that, despite many changes in the social and political environment, the Oath remains relevant, connecting the past with the future. In addition, I examine my participant observation in this context as 'imitating an imitation' and discuss the heightened and embodied awareness of anthropological methodology it brought forth.

Panel P12
Something borrowed, something new? Practices and politics of imitation
  Session 1