linda's ceremony of acceptance
As I became more
involved with the villages and surrounding community, the elders decided to
give me a local name, Wurre. She came to the Tongo hills as many did at the
time of the first settlers, from another tribe or clan, which possibly
escaped from the clutches of the slave raiders at that time. She came to
the area with her dog and became the first wife of the settler, Na’ab. At
the death of her faithful dog, she buried him at the foot of a rock
outcropping and asked that she be buried along side when her life was over.
This is unusual as most Talensie are buried in family grave pits in special
graveyards.
The elders decided that I should do a sacrifice at my namesake’s shrine and a ceremony of acceptance. We started off just after dawn, walking towards the famous Tongo Hills with my Ghanaian brother, Daniel, a couple of elders to do the ceremony, a young man, Atampugre, to assist, a black fowl, a gourd full of millet gruel, and, of course, anyone visiting the shrine of Wurre needs to be accompanied by a village dog.
Upon reaching the shrine, Zim began calling Wurre’s dog to let her know we were there. He said some prayers, asked her blessing and proceeded to pour libation with the millet. He carefully removed some of the stones covering previous sacrifices. With more prayers introducing me and imploring Wurre to accept me as her daughter, he slit the neck of the chicken, let it bleed onto the shrine and let it free.
This was the moment of truth. If I was accepted, the chicken would rest finally on it’s back. A half-hearted, dubious acceptance and the fowl would remain on its side. The worst outcome would be if the fowl, heaving its last breath, landed on its breast or belly.
I was taking photos and got up from my position across from Zim to get a better shot. The fowl kept flopping around for several minutes and landed in the middle of us all on its belly. No one moved, no one dared to even look at the others. This would be a very bad omen and all that I wanted to do in the village would be impacted by this ceremony.
Suddenly after a few long minutes the chicken heaved off the ground and with a mighty surge landed just where I had been sitting. It landed on its back. Smiles of relief went all around. Atempugre built a small fire with sticks, burned off all the feathers and roasted the chicken. It was the best BBQ chicken I ever ate! We then went down to the village with the good news.
