Man Vol 16, Number 2, June 1981, pgs. 300-302
CORRESPONDENCE

The authority of ancestors
Professor Kopytoff's comments (Man (N.S.) 16, 135-7) on DrCalhoun's paper raise more issues than can be dealt with in brief response.Let me begin with the Tallensi concept of kpeem. Kopytoff lists the keydefinition I offered among the various 'glosses' he has extracted from theethnography but the full definition deserves repeating. (And here let meremind Kopytoff of the linguistic commonplace that the informationconveyed to the actors by a concept of such central importance, as kpeemis among all Mole-Dagbane peoples, far exceeds its semantic range.Indeed this is equally true of comparable terms in any modern European language- c.f. 'elder' in the O.E.D. or Webster.) The definition I refer to goes asfollows (1945: 224). 'Kpeem literally means "senior": a kpeem isa senior, an elder' (one O.E.D. definition of 'elder' is 'One who is older, asenior, usu. in pl.)'. And in discussing this definition I remark (1945: 224)'In all collective activities of men the places of honour are taken by the mostsenior men, the kpem' (plural of kpeem).
Kopytoff cites the criteria I list for attributing kpem[partialdiff]twhich I translate as 'seniority', that is, the qualities that distinguish akpeem from anon-kpeem, and infers that because social maturityand status, as of a chief, are among these criteria, the term is thus 'takenout of the lineage sphere and out of age and kinship spheres'. But the term isnowhere stated to be confined to the 'lineage sphere' in the sense of beinglimited to descent-regulated social relationships. The example I give (1945:224) of seniority being recognised by a group of boys herding cattle anddeferring to 'the oldest among them' should have made this clear. When a chiefsummons accessible kpem to come to a meeting he is seeking theassistance of men of experience and mature judgement regardless of theirlineage status. When a polygynist refers to his most senior wife - most seniorby time of marriage, regardless of age or lineage - as his p)ya-kpeem itis to her domestic status he is referring. And there are other usages of thesame sort.
What, however, Kopytoff seems to have in mind is that the term 'elder' shouldalways signify a status by age or generation within the lineage, or at leastthat this is the sense in which Calhoun has cited kpeem. But Calhoun'spoint, 		as I understand it, is that Tallensi clearly distinguish seculareldership, the status of kpeem, from that of yaab, deceasedancestor. This is unquestionably correct. Kpeem is never used to referto the ancestral dead or the dead in general in their spiritual or ritual modeof existence, whereas yaab is often so used. Mole-Dagbane languages donot make semantic use of tonal or pitch differences as is the case with suchKWA languages as Twi, Fanti or Yoruba. Semantic distinctions are expressedphonemically. Kpeem, elder, is thus never confused with kpiim(cf. 1945: 209 fn.) the dead, or kpe'em, tough, hard, difficult in ametaphorical sense as in de kpe'em pam 'It is very hard or difficult',said of a court case.
Yaab, grandparent, like ba, father, and ma, mother, areused in reference and address for living kin of these types, in a secularsense. And they are also used for deceased parental and ancestral antecedentsin the appropriate ritual contexts. Nor is there any difficulty as to knowingexactly whether the reference is to the living or the dead. Thus when Teezienexplained, of a particular shrine in his possession, mba Kunkonki ma la- ['This is] my father K's mother', there was no mistaking the reference todeceased ancestors. But when Saa, explaining why his younger brother hadinherited their father's divining shrine remarked tam ten)ni bi-kpeem pudeeg[partialdiff]t u ba bakologo - 'In this our country a senior son[strictly, in this context, first-born] does not take over his father'sdivining shrine' - the reference was patently to a shrine that had belonged tohis living father. Again, when Omarra described how his yaab Boligraanahad 'reached' him to become one of his Yin ancestors, there was nomistaking the reference to a deceased ancestor. But when we went on to tellhow this same Bloigraana had, five generations earlier, established thesettlement at Biung, it was as clear that he was referring to a then livingman. The action context is decisive, not the dictionary.
Thus, on the question of translating the term kpeem as 'elder' in astrictly secular sense, I think that Calhoun is right; I have checked with DrMoses Anafu whose knowledge of his native Tallensi language is both profoundand scholarly and am assured by him that this is correct. I have also checkedwith him the pronunciation, orthography and translations of the other Talniwords and terms I am here

discussing and have his assurance that they are correct.
It is not correct to say, as Kopytoff does, that when Tallensi use terms forlineage elders this means that they 'disregard the dividing line between thosewho are alive and those who are dead'. What it does mean is that theyrecognise a form of continued existence, or rather efficacy, of those dead whohave descendants in the appropriate later generational statuses. And that isdocumented in various institutional as well as material ways, no less than inworld view, moral principles and ritual practices. But then when Christiansutter the Lord's prayer they are not disregarding the line between livingfatherhood and the fatherhood of God; and there is plenty of evidence thattheir God and other divinities are deemed to be in some way present here onearth, among the believers. Tallensi diviners, by the way, when they pass onthe messages and demands of the ancestors always use only the appropriatekinship terms -ba, ma, ba-kpeem (for an actual grandfather), yaabetc. This reflects the basic rule that only genealogically connected ancestorsare efficacious in the life of any person.
The verbal usages I have listed for the Tallensi are exactly paralleled in theother Mole-Dagbane languages, as Kopytoff indicates. But he has been misled bythe orthography in one or two instances. Alexandre, to whose excellentdictionary he refers, uses superscripts to mark vowel length and accentualdistinctions, in effect, therefore, characteristic phonemic distinctions. Morekyéma, (phonetically, kyéema 'être plusâgé, plus grand, plus important ...' is directly cognate withTalni kpeem (as in a kyema man, he is older than, Tal.u kpeem man). More kyéma (pl. kyémdamba)'aîné, plus âgé ... is the corresponding substantiveas in bi-kyem, oldest child (Tal. bi-kpeem) pugh-kyema(Tal. p)ya-kpeem) 'la première femme'. Kyema, 'dur,difficile' corresponds to Tal. kpe'em and is a near homonymous butdifferent lexeme from kyema, older etc. Kyema in Gorni istranslated as 'head' e.g. of a lineage or section by Rattray (e.g. 1932: vol.i. 245), also as 'elder' (1932: 255 and passim ). Elsewhere he writesof a bride as 'the wife's eldest daughter (p)ka-bi-kyema)' ... (cf.Talni p)ya-bi-kpeem). And, incidentally Rattray provides manyinformants' statements passim in which yaba is translated as'ancestor' (e.g. 1932: vol. ii, 296) and prayers and sacrifices are addressedto 'fathers', 'mothers', and other lineal kin. Thus (vol. ii, 1932: 326)'Anereba then said "My mother ..."' and later 'Anereba ... spoke as follows "Myfather, Aganda ..."' Kyima (Tal. kpiim) he translates as 'spiritsof the dead' (vol. I, 1932: 44).
The Mole-Dagbane dialects closest to Talni, however, are not More and Gornibut Mampruli, the dialect of the Mamprussi, 		and Dagbane, the dialect of theDagomba. According to the short but accurate dictionary compiled by Arana andSwadesh (1967) there is a Mampruli word kpeeman pl. kpeem-di-mawhich they translate, in English/Spanish as 'senior': 'mayor en edad...' Oraku (1917) in the excellent word list appended to his DagombaGrammar cites kpema pl. kpamba which he translates as'elder'. Arana and Swadesh cite kpeengu, strength, hardness: fuerza,dureza', which, in Okraku appears as 'kpeon, strength, power'. TheTalni equivalent is kpe'on. And finally, let me quote thelinguistically more up-to-date Dagbane Dictionary compiled by a committee inTamale in 1941 under the chairmanship of then District Commissioner Mr H.A.Blair who had an expert knowledge of the language. This cites 'kpe'ma,noun pl. kpamba, elder (referring to age or rank)' and'kpe')n, strength' as well as 'kpe'ma, adjective or verb, to behard; to be strong.' Okraku has 'kpima, dead body' and Blair etal. have 'kpima, the dead, dead body, ghost' (cf. Talnikpiim).
I conclude that the comparative evidence fully supports Calhoun's translatingkpeem as 'elder' in the secular sense and yaabas ancestor in theritual sense. Ba, father, like ma, mother can be and often isextended classifactorily in common usage to refer to a father's brother (withinthe limits described in 1949: 140 sqq.) and father's father's brother's son butnot to father's father's brother (as Kopytoff claims for More) who isclassified with ba-kpee. Ba and ma are also extended,like the English word father, to refer to forefathers (ba-nam) andforemothers, if I might coin a term for antecedent matrikin. This is easy,among the Tallensi, since the lineage is thought of as a corporate group, 'oneperson' jurally and metaphorically, filially connected with an antecedent'father' or 'mother'.
As far as I know it is universally the case that terms for 'father' and'mother' are different - they must be, to distinguish patrifiliation preciselyfrom matrifiliation. But parents' parents, like the reciprocal child's childphonemically distinguished by a linguistic device common throughout theMole-Dagbane area (i.e. yaa-b, reciprocal yaa-n) are not, neednot jurally be, so distinguished. However, when a distinction is made it isdone by means of a gender-indicating suffix, yaab-doog, male,yaab-p)k, female grandparent. The same terms and conventions are foundin More - yaba-daogha, yabpoka in Alexandre's orthography - as well asin Mampruli and Dagbane, and in every case these terms are extended toancestors as is also the case with French aïeul, aîeule, thetranslations given by Alexandre.
I do not understand Kopytoff's contraposition of the 'horizontal' and the'vertical'
boundaries between living and dead lineage members. What theserepresent is not opposed dimensions of Tallensi social structure butcomplementary domains of social action, neither of which can be regarded assecondary to the other. The lineage boundary is decisive in, for instance, thepolitico-jural sphere of competition for high office, or in the domestic sphereof marriage negotiations. But one cannot sacrifice to a living lineage elder.In all ritual activities, the horizontal dimension is the critical one. Andthe transactions in the vertical dimension can never, according to traditionalcustom, be finally settled without the appropriate ritual sanctioning.Semantics alone cannot account for this. Where, to my mind, Kopytoff'ssemantic analysis of 1971 did make a most important contribution to our - or atleast my - understanding of African ancestor cults was in a differentdirection. It was in emphasising, as I have already noted, the continuouspresence of the ancestors among their living descendants in states of existencethat represent a transformation, through the agency of ritual, of aspects ofnormal, secular parenthood. The dead are not fathers and mothers andgrandparents in any sense that is coterminous with the exercise of livingparental and grandparental roles and capacities. But they are deemed toperpetuate in a transcendental mode as Calhoun argues, the components ofparental and grandparental roles and capacities that represent the authorityvested in their status.
Meyer Fortes
Cambridge
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Arana, Evangelina y Mauricio Swadesh 1967. Diccionario analitico delMampruli: con una introducciòn etnogràphico por Susan DruckerBrown. Mexico: Museo de las Culturas, Instituto Nacional de Antropologia eHistoria.
Blair, H.A. et al. 1941. Dagomba (Dagbane) dictionary andgrammar. Accra, Gold Coast: Government Printer.
Calhoun, C.J. 1980. The authority of ancestors: a sociological reconsiderationof Forte's Tallensi in response to Forte's critics. Man (N.S.)15, 304-19.
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Kopytoff, Igor 1971. Ancestors as elders in Africa. Africa41,129-42.
Okraku, John A.S. 1917. Dagomba grammar: with exercises andvocabularies. Cambridge: Univ. Press.
Rattray, R.S. 1932. The tribes of the Ashanti hinterlan. v.2. Oxford:Clarendon Press.
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