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National Geographic : 1951 Aug
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Hunting Musical Game in West Africa passengers hanging on like stunt men, and its trailer bouncing from side to side. Soon the dust settles, bush birds resume their perches, and it is safe to proceed-until the next time. No respectable mammy wagon gallops down the road of annihilation without a motto of reassurance painted on front or sides for the benefit of driver, hapless passengers, or pe destrians (page 279). Such mottoes include these: "Fear Not, Death Comes Suddenly"; "Experience Is Essential"; "Don't Worry, God's Time Is Best"; "Who Knows the End?" and "Remember Thy Creator in the Days of Thy Youth." Recorder "Steals" a Tongue In addition to the tribespeople of the Ashanti country, tall, regal Moslems from the Northern Territories roamed the area. The tribal music of both groups, including Ashanti forest songs and ceremonial and talking drums, showed an abrupt change from the coastal strip near by, toward more primitive forms and delivery. The proven magic of our recording machine became even stronger as we traveled away from the coast. One pagan tribesman, on hearing the playback of his voice and drum ming, shouted the Twi language equivalent of: "It has stolen my tongue!" Eyes rolling, he danced stiff-legged around the recorder, menacing it with his short spear. After his exhortations had cast the "devil" out of the box, we pacified him by showing him his tongue in a mirror. South of Kumasi, we followed lumber camp trails deep into solid bush, to photo graph the felling and trimming of giant trees. A team of loinclothed lumberjacks, perched above ground on a platform of poles bound with vines, takes about four hours to knock down a 3-foot-thick, 120-foot-high hardwood. The softer woods make easier cutting, but, except for dugout canoes, are used rarely. Well off the nearest trail and 100 miles from the sea, were three natives leisurely carving a dugout from a fallen cottonwood tree with their primitive adzes. Sooner or later, it would be carried south to Cape Coast on a number of heads and eventually launched. Close by, a big sapele tree came crashing to earth like a broken powerhouse chimney. Bushwhackers swarmed over the trunk, strip ping it of vines and foliage with their razor sharp knives. Sawed by hand into main sec tions, it was skidded out of the bush by trac tor, for shipment to the coast. The central bush is airless, suffocating, and malarial. We were soon off again, feeling deep respect for the handful of white supervisors whose work kept them there for 18 months or more at a time. Kumasi is more than the capital and the crossroads of the Gold Coast interior. It is also the historic center of one of West Africa's most important civilizations. Under a despotic, blood-thirsty, slave-raiding system, which nevertheless set high cultural standards, the Ashanti were responsible for much of the intertribal warfare that kept this part of Africa in fear and chaos until they were paci fied at the beginning of the present century. Their last attempt to drive out the white conqueror took place in 1900, when the Ashanti besieged a small British force in Fort Kumasi, a mud-walled strong point of colonial authority which still stands on the hill above the city. * The Ashanti today show little resemblance to their warlike forebears. Having turned their energies toward politics, trade, and agri culture, they are proving that in many fields new to them Africans can function as capably as their white counterparts. One leading figure in this new Africa is the Hon. K. A. Korsah, Justice of Kumasi dis trict. A distinguished public servant, im pressive in the traditional red robe and pow dered wig of the British bench, he enjoys the admiration and respect of the colonial ad ministration as well as of his own people. Kumasi Market an African World's Fair Kumasi's central market is one of the largest in the Gold Coast. Here, shown to a casual public in orderly rows of booths, are all the petty trade goods of the area (page 268). Judiciously located in a separate street of its own are pungent piles of dried and smoked fish of many varieties. Other fra grant delicacies compete with the deadly aroma of fish in speeding the uninitiated on their way. Here, too, occasional examples of an old Ashanti art may be found, the geometric gold weights and so-called "proverb" weights, il lustrating the varied activities of the tribes people, and cast in bronze by the cire perdue, or lost wax, method. These weights were once in common use among the Ashanti for weighing specific quantities of gold dust, in a kind of African Bureau of Standards. Such examples of the Ashanti art, as well as the magnificent bronzes of Benin, in Nigeria, were being cast in this manner by these "savages" at least as long ago as the 15th century. Off to one side of the market, in a section all its own, is the highly colorful "gray" mar ket in printed cotton cloth. These unusual prints, produced in Europe for the African trade, are prized by all non-Europeanized * See "Revolt of the Ashantis," NATIONAL GEO GRAPHIC MAGAZINE, June, 1900. 273
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