La densità di una transizione. Successione, divinazione e infanticidio nel Ghana nord-orientale

Abstract

The process of succession to the office of nakwe tu (village elder) opens up the understanding of a whole ensemble of ideas and practices among the Kassena people of West Africa. This article, based on fieldwork in the Upper East Region of Ghana, aims at exploring the thick meaning of this ritual transition, which is characterized by seemingly discordant principles. A prime example from the chiefdom of Paga is taken into account as a starting point in order to launch an ethnografical strategy that consists in following a series of meaningful connections found on the ground: from the specific tactics of people involved in the process to the final funeral rites, from recourses to divination to unstable definitions of reality, from the belief in dangerous, invisible dwarves to tragic accounts of ritual infanticides.