THE POLITICAL SYSTEM OF THE TALLENSI OF THE NORTHERN TERRITORIES OF THE GOLD COAST
By M. FORTES
/. The Country and the People
'HpHE Northern Territories of the Gold Coast are inhabited by -L nearly three-quarters of a million people of negroid stock. They are part of a great congeries of peoples spreading far into French West Africa which speak related languages and share the same basic culture. To this congeries belong the Tallensi, who speak a dialect of Mole-Dagbane, a language prevailing in the eastern half, roughly, of the culture area under consideration. South of them, across the White Volta River, dwell the Mamprusi, speaking a dialect hardly distinguishable from theirs, but exhibiting a somewhat different variant of the culture. Economically and demographically, the Mamprusi show many contrasts to the Tallensi.1 The other tribes adjacent to the Tallensi—the Gorisi (or Nankansi), Namnam, and Kusaasi, as they are commonly named—differ so little from them that they might all be regarded as subdivisions of a single cultural unit. Together they number some 170,000 people in British territory.
The Tallensi total about 35,000. To describe them as a tribe suggests a cohesive or at least well-defined political or cultural entity differentiated from like units. Actually, no 'tribe* of this region can be circumscribed by a precise boundary—territorial, linguistic, cultural or political. Each merges with its neighbours
1 The Mamprusi have a population density of twenty-three to the square mile, whereas the administrative district which includes the Tallensi has a density of 171 to the square mile. The Mamprusi live in villages often widely scattered and varying in size from tiny hamlets to places with several thousand inhabitants. Their country, relatively low-lying by contrast with the high, well-drained plateau north of the White Volta, is reduced to swamp over considerable areas in the rainy season. Their economic system is much more complex than that of the Tallensi, and their religion has been influenced by Mohammedan communities settled in their midst. All population data are cited from the 1931 Census.