Tullum: A Gendered African Wisdom with Possibilities forDevelopment1

Agnes Atia ApusigahUniversity for Development Studies, Ghana

Introduction

Diverse paradigms have shaped and defined African/Ghanaian development efforts (Nyanteng, 1996; ISSER, 2004). Significantamong them has been the early post-independence African socialist paradigm that sought to chart a development pathway that reflected indigenous sensibilities. The then president’s vision of riding the country and the African continent of colonialism and all of its vestiges marked the beginning of a paradigm shift; a drastic move from a centralized, market-oriented and imperialist system that served the colonial European economy to a decentralized, people-centered and nationalist system intended to serve Ghanaian needs. After winning political independence, President Nkrumah dedicated his struggle to the total liberation of the Ghanaian people. Nkrumah’s liberatory theology, couched in the spirit of emancipationism, sought political decolonialization and cultural reclamation (Nkrumah 1961; 1972). The new Ghanaian and African that Nkrumah envisioned was one rooted in indigenous culture with a personality that was truly African.

Nkrumah’s reclamation efforts were not a mere exercise in the retrieval of a lost past. Rather, Nkrumah imagined a reclaimedpast rid of colonialism, defiant of neo-colonialism and serving of indigenous culture. This meant the shaping of the retrieved past in ways that fostered the re-tooling of the African/Ghanaian identities toward useful collective/communal/social and individual/personal ends. His reclamation exercise refrained from a nostalgic crave for an innocent and pure past. Rather, it sought to indigenize development in ways that would foster the modernization of tradition and culture.

1 Presented at 2006 CODESRIA Annual Campus on IKS

Following Nkrumah’s cues and necessitated by ongoing attempts to make development culturally relevant and competent, I embark on a recovery exercise. It is an exercise toward drawing from culturally relevant knowledge's and practices forshaping and defining development. As we endeavor to improve the conditions of our people and as we work to change the existing deplorable conditions of our people, we could learn lessons from the past.

Growing up as a northern Ghanaian woman and watching my mothers and grandmothers struggle through thick and thin to make ends meet, I learned many lessons. I heard stories of howmy foremothers fended for and defended their families in timesof difficulties. I learned about the ways that women lived their lives within patriarchal systems that defined their identities in restrictive and constrictive ways, yet, these women defied total subjection. I learned of how subjugated living became a site for not just contesting and confronting domination but also for redefining women’s identities in ways that were empowering. I learned how my foremothers rejected victim-creating situations through various assertive-responsive agencies that were not merely reactionary but also positioned them strategically in knowledge-creating processes.These lessons are worth reclaiming and sharing in this era of the renaissance even as we rethink African development.

The rebirth envisaged in ongoing development initiatives presupposes a return to Africa’s own ways. This is a return toour indigenous systems; our systems of knowing and creating, of living and growing and of viewing and defining ourselves. As suggested by Oyewumi (1997) we need to recreate ourselves in our own terms. We need to do this in culturally meaningful ways by drawing from the past in the bid to reshape our futures. I suggest that we look back to our knowledge systems for significant learning. We however need to do this by not just relishing the past but also living the present and surviving the future.

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In this chapter, I contribute to the process of recreation by initiating a process of “retrieving” wisdom from the past, which I argue has possibilities for development. It entails the retrieval of living wisdom that resides with women and nota relic located in a museum. This living wisdom has been nurtured and guarded by African women, has been used to mitigate crisis and to support everyday living. It is wisdom that has survived all forms of domination, whether patriarchalor paternalism. It has lived through colonialism with its imperialist machinations. It has defied obliteration and annihilation because it was born out of the surviving and creative energies of a determined group of people; Gur women. This same determination should guide Africa’s efforts to undermine the forces of globalization and imperialism as exhibited in present day development. The defining tools of survival and creativity, I argue, hold the key for accomplishing the project of rebirth. The sophistications of new age colonialism, Nkrumah called it neo-colonialism, requires tools that are inaccessible to the colonizer. These tools should defy any form of piracy. The options available can only lie in the African past in the present; in our knowledge systems.2 They rest in condemned sites as open secrets because nobody cares to look and, exist in oblivion because of the particular types of agencies required for bearing them.

I embark on a conceptual excavation intended to serve the purpose of re/valorizing African/women’s knowledges. It is nota mere reclamation of lost knowledge but a project of re/valorizing diminished and condemned knowledges for the purposes of at once making meaning of African/women’s identifies and reshaping our futures. I draw from critical cultural tools of conceptual analysis, interrogative interactionism, collective memory sharing and experiential learning. The conceptual analysis draws from the works of Nkrumah, McFadden, Oyewumi and Odora Hoppers, among others. Itentails various conceptual borrowings to facilitate the

2 The concept “past in the present” has been coined to reflect fluid, generative system that comes of old but lives through present time.

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critical discussions of ideas and experiences with the view tofinding the language and context for the discussions. Interrogative interactionism entails the use of informal interactive situations as sites for probing and learning from African systems. Collective memory sharing allows women to reflect on their individual experiences and reconstruct them as a group with the view to building a complete story. The experiential learning entails personal reflections from learning at the feet of my forebears (mother and fathers) and as a “native” speaker. It has been my own way of self-identification. The combined use of these strategies presentedsurprise, revelations and contestations hardly reflected in this writing.

Thus informed, this chapter begins with an examination of the concept “tullum;” its meanings and origins, as manifested among the Gurusi3, in particular, the Gur peoples of northern Ghana and Burkina Faso, in general. With such revelations, itbecomes possible to examine its gendered implications and manifestations as well as the teachings availed in the process. This is followed by an examination of its gendered implications with an emphasis on women’s lived realities as a context for nurturing and cherishing “tullum.” Next is an exploration of the potentials of “tullum” for African development. The discussions, at this stage, center on issues regarding food security, women’s empowerment, values educationand natural resources conservation. Consequently, I make a proposition for the adoption of “tullum” as a philosophy and/or heuristic for Africa’s development in the search for alternatives to the myriad problems confronting the continent.

Re/claiming, re/defining and re/appreciating “Tullum”

In her challenge and exposure of the colonizing project of discourse on and about Africa, Oyeronke Oyewumi (1997) adopts a methodological framework that enables her to deconstruct Western scholarship in very informative ways worth borrowing

3 The Gurusi are part of the Frafra ethnic group of the Upper Eat Region ofGhana.

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in this analysis. She adopts a critical analytical framework utilizing conceptual and linguistic tools. Not only does she unpack western scholarship to unveil their imperialist underpinnings, she also utilizes Yoruba concepts to situate appropriately the roots of the knowledge forms and systems sheanalyses. Her methodology is useful for explaining and understanding “tullum.” The use of the originary word, “tullum,” in its various ramifications, in this exercise, in aborrowed language, is necessary for securing its intended meanings and for negotiating the relevant processes toward purposeful and meaningful learnings. Before Oyewumi’s documentation, Audre Lorde (1984: 112), an African-American woman, was documented for arriving at a similar conclusion in her contestations of the use of the “masters” tools. Lorde concluded in her analysis that the “master’s tools can never dismantle the master’s house” for “only the most narrow perimeters of change are possible and allowable” through temporary accommodations rather than long-term transformation.The mastery of the master’s act (patriarchy, paternalism, colonialism), she suggests, cannot be adequate for dismantlinghis house. We need our own tools (indigenous/endogenous), those that allow us as Africans, to recognize and identify ourweaknesses, harness them and work at converting them into strengths even us as we draw on existing strengths to transform our societies in culturally relevant and socially equitable ways. Hence, drawing from an African wisdom, in its Gurunẽ4 form, and adopting a critical cultural (anti-imperialistic/postcolonial) analysis becomes plausible in thisexercise.

“Tullum” presents among the Gurusi, Talenhe, Nabnam, Mwamprushi, Dagaabe, Dagbamba and Kusaasi of northern Ghana and the Mossi and Dagaara of Burkina Faso. These ethnic groupsalthough through colonization and territorialization (frontiersharing) find themselves in two distinct countries, on Anglophone the other Francophone, belong to the same ethnic origins often call the Gur speaking group (Antwi, 1992). Although with slight differences in intonation, “tullum” 4 Gurunẽ is the language of the Gurusi of northern Ghana.

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manifests as an ideological connotation of lived realities with practical everyday relevance. The emphasis on a near sacred preservation and conservation of things important and unimportant as well as small and big is commonly acknowledged in its everyday usage. This reclamation reaches beyond this popular connotation to unravel its inherent ethico-political intonations. The analysis is preceded by a conceptual-linguistic analysis followed by an exploration on context and relevance.

Among the Gurunẽ speaking group, whose intonation is used here, but among all other Gur ethnicities of northern Ghana and Burkina Faso, “tullum” bears close semblance with two related words: “tuooo” or “tulga.” There could be more of such but I choose to focus on these two. Literally, “tuooo” means difficult, painful, bitter and hard. It is used to measure feelings in depths and proportions that are unimaginable. For lack of suitable words to describe these representations of feeling in the English Language, the words above serve as mere approximations that reduce the intent if left unqualified. One practical manifestation of “tuooo” is its use in the description of particular forms of taste that are not sweet or good but also not bad but deep and sharp. “Tuooo” is distinctive from “mesigo” (sour/stale), “yalgide” (no English Language equivalent). For instance, the tastes of bitter leaf and quinine are referred to as “tuooo.” Ailments that are deep, terminal, painful and/or fatal are also referred to as “tuooo.” For instance, cholera is referred to as “ku-tuooo,” literarily bitter water, due to its fatal nature while diarrhoea is “nyeaa,” literarily shitting. A sorefeeling is also described using the concept “tuooo” in the form “la tǜ me” (it is “painful”). By implication, “tuooo” expresses unpleasant and unlikable conditions thus triggering avoidance feelings.

The second word of semblance, “tulga,” literarily means heat or hot. Among the Gurunsi, hot or warm weather or food is expressed in the sense of tulga. ”Tulga” then expresses the burning sensation felt when one touches food or stays out in

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the sun. “Tulga” is generic in the sense that by itself it incorporates degree or intensity. It expresses a state of feeling that is already out of the ordinary or normal, thus, rendering qualifications irrelevant. Unlike its English equivalent, which requires a qualifier or modifier for estimating degree or intensity as in very hot or very warm, “tulga” already expresses the maximum that a feeling can be within the category of feeling. Beyond that range, entire new words are used. As a derivative of “tullum,” “tulga” draws from the parent word and its qualifier to take on the connotation of rarity or pressing. “Tulga” captures those circumstances that are rare and out of the ordinary. It offers opportunity for dealing with pressing issues as againsteveryday concerns. Whether expressed as rare or pressing, “tulga” means more than an emergency. It includes but is not restricted to emergencies.

“Tulga” also refers to blood temperature; very distinct from Western usage. The kind of explanation offered in Gurunẽ cosmology is spiritual. People use their “zi-tulga” (hot blood) when they are moved by a spiritual force. In near deathand premature death situations, people are moved by the “zi-tulga” to respond unusually to their circumstances, which might need the reclamation of life or escape from death. “Tulga” also describes personality characteristics. Women especially are described as “pog-tulga” (hot woman) to denote smartness, pace-setting and dependability. “Bi-tulga” is oftenused on young men when there is need to get things done very quickly and perfectly. Unlike the first derivative “tuooo,” tulga is positive and connotes goodness triggering approachable feelings.

When juxtaposed, “tulga and “tuooo” seem to connote opposites and perhaps oppositionality. Yet, the contexts under which “tuooo” and “tulga” are used are informed by qualities comparable to those inherent in bitter leaf; a very green leafy vegetable considered a delicacy by many northern Ghanaians and Nigerians. The taste of bitter leaf is referred in Gurunẽ as “tuooo.” This “tuooo” in bitter leaf is however

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different and unique as it possesses both bitterness and sweetness. The initial taste is bitter, however, continual eating diminishes the bitterness until one reaches a sweet after taste, especially when water is taken. “Tuooo” in bitterleaf then becomes a close equivalent of “tullum” in this sense.

“Tullum” within the bitter leaf context of “tuooo,” then, provokes both approach and avoidance sensibilities. It is avoidance to the extent of its bitter and sharp start-up taste(before taste). It presents as approach through its soothing and comforting after taste. Yet, these tastes present together, not at once but in succession. One cannot experiencethe bitter without the sweetness. They two follow in succession and closely. The two-in-one taste of bitter leaf “tuooo” comes as a package that anyone must at once experience. It takes a certain height of desire and sensibility to appreciate “tuooo” as manifested in bitter leaf, yet, if endured one reaches a new level of experience, asatisfying experience of a sweet after taste. As a young Gurun-poka (Gurusi woman), I yearned for the sweet after tasteof bitter leaf. My yearnings or even craving for this after taste made me feel less the bitterness of the before taste.

As a derivative of “tuooo (connoting its bitter characteristics) and tulga (connoting sweet characteristics),”“tullum” reflects a unique condition. This results in the connotation of dealing with challenge. Its “tuooo” derivative in the form of the bitter before taste points to the hash realities of the every day. Yet, joined to a sweet after taste, “tullum” also connotes ability and/or potential to surmount difficulties. These potentials are nurtured in creative energies for moving victim-creating situations through the harnessing of victor-converting energies for reaching assertive-responsive agencies. By so doing, it becomes possible to redefine the self in ways that foster the reclamation of lost identifies and forging of new ones.

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The complex and sophisticated ways that “tullum” manifests itself, defies any clear and straightforward definition. One can only begin to explain it using very reductionist language and concepts but with very much caution. Hence, I propose the use of the word challenge, cautiously. Challenge becomes a preferred approximation of “tullum” and a reduced translation of an African indigenous concept rich and deep in meaning. Reduced as an expression of challenge, “tullum” steers away from a state of hopelessness. Instead, it suggests possibilityfor change. It offers opportunity for turning bad or difficultsituations around; an opportunity for demonstrating creative abilities and potentials.

Taken together, the various ramifications of “tullum” coalesceand manifest in the form of preparedness to deal with challenging and pressing situations. “Tullum” can then become an expression of a state of anticipating and preparing to deal with rare and challenging situations. “Tullum” expresses more than an emergency response situation. For, “tullum” has more exactitude in response than emergencies require. It connotes a high measure of criticalness in decision-making, a political agency that is liberatory and responsiveness to practical situations. It connotes a preparedness and capacity to deal with and overcome challenging situations.

“TULLUM” AS A GENDERED PRACTICE

There is probably no better avenue for the expression and exemplification of culture as gendered practice in terms articulated by Patricia McFadden (2001), an African woman. McFadden speaks of culture as a:

… heavily contested source of identity (in gendered and ethnic terms) and power (in a political and material sense), which is located in the historical struggles against colonialism and racism on the African continent, and in the more recent struggles by women for rights of inclusion into the space called “nation,” as it is

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emerging in the countries of Southern Africa in particular (p. 59).

Indeed, in the struggle to de/colonize African knowledges, re/invent our identities and rebuild our nations, we should also contest elements of domination and exclusion within our cultures. In an earlier work with others, this agenda was welldetailed (Apusigah, Issaka & Afegra, 2005). Other African women such as Amina Mama, Takyiwaa Manu and Molara Ogundipe, among others, take on the women’s challenge even as they participate in the broader agenda of the decolonization of African cultures. McFadden’s analysis appears to be is partially informed by Said’s (1994), cited in McFadden (2001),articulation of culture as:

… all those practices, like the arts of description, communication and representation, that have relative autonomy from the economic, social, and political realms and that often exist in aesthetic forms, one of whose principal aims is pleasure… source of identity, and a rather combative one at that, as we see in recent ‘returns’ to culture and traditions. … In this second sense, culture is a sort of theatre where various political and ideological causes engage one another.

Said reiterates succinctly, and rightly so, the multi-faceted nature of domination. This implies that in engaging in the struggle over domination, we need to consider all sides. More importantly, as so well articulated by McFadden, we need to also engage the crosscutting and undercutting issues of domination such as sexism, alongside equally important others such as racism, ethnocentricism and ablism, among others.

It is against this backdrop that I want to participate in Odora Hoppers’ (2002) mission of revalorizing African or indigenous knowledge systems. Yet, I want to tread cautiously as I struggle to keep the memory of gender-based domination alive. By so doing, I participate also in Hountondji’s (2001) struggle between memory and forgetting. Yet mine, like

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McFadden’s, extends beyond the remembering of Africa’s rich cultural heritage and critiques of inherent compromises and colonialisms. My remembering will encapsulate the contestationof culture’s gendered underpinnings as well the embrace of itswomen’s empowering elements with the view to supporting gendersensitive reclamations and identities. In examining “tullum,”then, I explore and unearth spaces where women’s histories of subjugation position them positively to embrace and nurture itin ways that have contributed to the preservation of an indigenous wisdom in spite of persistent threats by imperialism and colonialism. Women and “tullum”

Although “tullum” as both a concept and practice presents originally in a neutral form among the Gur peoples of northernGhana and Burkina Faso, it has over the years, become gendered. The gendering of “tullum” manifests in the form of it finding residence with women and especially elderly and/or titled5 women. The Gurunẽ saying: “Pog-yanga ta-re tullum” meaning an old woman has “tullum” captures the very basis of the gendering of “tullum.” Aged women, who often remain almostinvisible,6 are at the same time the pillars of their familiesand the custodians of the wisdom and culture. Elderly and/or title holding women of households, families, clans and communities are often turned to in matters of “tullum.” That is to say, when there is a challenging situation such women are required to respond to them by offering advice, solutions or alternatives to the problem.

5 The titled women referred to included heads of households or families, women’s leader (i.e., magazia) or even the oldest woman of the household or family (i.e., dei-daana). 6 Gur women are generally very active as farmers, traders, wives, mothers, community workers. In their old age, women’s social participation is drastically curtailed. In old age, they stay at home and take care of theirgrand children, guarding their families, offering advice and intervene onlyin crisis situations.

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Elderly and/or titled women; namely “dei-daa,” magazia or pog-yanga7, are often characterized as detailed and thrifty. By being detailed, elderly and/or titled women are very careful about every thing about and around them. They insist that everything worth doing is worth doing well. They pick on all the nifty gritty of issues and things. They would follow-up onall issues and activities. They are often there to raise questions long forgotten by all. They insist that every side of the issue is considered before a decision is made. They offer all kinds of possibilities for re/doing and re/considering issues and activities, often abandoned or shelved for lack of alternatives.

Elderly and/or titled women’s thrift is exhibited in the form of an incessant need to save. Such women never empty their pots unless there is replacement. No matter how small there is in the pot, they will still leave something in it. Even their food bowls are never empty; “for the children,” they say! This is often out of anticipation of a future need or demand. Everything that comes their way is seen as having a potential to satisfy a future demand. Hence, in using that item, some of it is saved toward that future demand. This sometimes happens through the sacrifice of a present desire orneed in the bid to create an opportunity for a future use.

During community level interactions with elderly and/or titledwomen in the Bongo area, they stressed the importance of always anticipating a future need. For them, it was very essential to hold oneself in readiness for that future need oropportunity. In material terms, these women thought that it was shaming and damning to consume everything that came one’s way. They said: “bunkote ka iti bela” meaning an elder does not do that (they actually meant that she does not empty the stocks). An elder should always keep a portion, a piece; food,wisdom. Only young people can afford to be careless.

7 Meaning old woman. It takes on a specific meaning when accorded to women who wield influence and respect and who play custodial roles in society. The may or not be the oldest woman in the clan, household or family.

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Mma Aduko, one of these women, in reference to her young daughters and daughters-in-law, explained:

Today’s youth are very careless. They do not have time for anything. You ask them to do anything they are in a hurry. Always in a hurry! They never take time to think, to consider what they are doing. Every thing is a rush! Anytime they work for you, you have to clean up because they don’t know how to do that! All they do is their hurry. They don’t observe, they don’t listen and they don’t do anything well. How can they remember anything! They really do not treasure anything. I watch them and shake my head. Where are we heading ifour young people are so very careless! …. As an old woman, I know that because I know them. I know them because I watch them. I know that they are fast with every thing. (They think we waste time). But I also know that theywill soon come back looking for the things that they throw away in their hurry. That is where I have the headache. They will come and throw their eyeseverywhere. They throw their hands in the air and I know there is trouble. They never learn! The next thing I know it is I. They will call out my name in desperation! Then I know they are in trouble. They need somebody to rescue them and they are turning to me.

(Community Interactions at Yorogo in the BolgatangaMunicipal Area, Ghana, 2005)

I am not new to such warnings from my mothers and grandmothers. As a girl and a Gurunga, growing up under very deprived socio-economic conditions, I was witness, many times,to what the older women in my household, family and clan did in the name of “tullum.” I saw my mother often reserve something (it could be dried meat, vegetables, tobacco, beads,cloth, anything) at the bottommost pot in her stacks of pots in her “bo–o” (special room for titled women in the household roofed with bricks). “Tullum” items are stored far from reach of everybody and anything. They are reserved for critical and emergency situations only. Under no other circumstance can a “tullum” item be used. “Tullum” items can be used in ordinary time only when there is a ready replacement. Children and daughters-in-law who disregard “tullum” and take such items often incur the displeasure of the titled woman. Daughters-in-law might become enemies of their mothers-law if they repeatedly break the “tullum” regime. Elderly women have been

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accused of witchcraft because they have insisted that nobody touches their “tullum” items or storage pots. They are often suspected to be hiding bewitched people in those pots.

Mma Aduko’s account above raises a number of issues about the separations and connections of the worlds of the youth and of the old. It insinuates the challenges of an ever-growing worldof modernity and its clashes with tradition. It also points tothe growing incidence of materialism and its accompanying illsof marketization and consumerism, among others. Among the many issues and suggestions made are the related issues of being and knowing. The story points to spatial differences andknowledges yielded for different locators. Mma Aduko’s “treatise” has ontological and epistemological relevance.

Women’s ontological realism and epistemic positionings

In this postmodern postcolonial era, Critical Cultural Studieshave contributed to unearthing the shortcomings of Cartesian science. The benefits of such analysis lie in the paradigm shift toward all embracing and encompassing framing of knowledge and its productions. Such analysis has contributed to the opening up of discourse in ways that capture complexityand reflect pluralism and fluidity. Discourse itself has been freed from inertia and statis. From Foucaultian analyses, we draw inspiration to conceive knowledge as a process rather than a product. As such, the productions become flexible reflecting diversity in positioning, interpretations and projections. The self (being) becomes as important as the reason (rationality) in knowledge creations and productions. Products and processes are equally valued. Subjective reality and cultural experiences become inalienable elements of knowledge productions. The prioritization of being and its situatedness in the production process becomes essential.

In this section, I explore the connection between women’s ontological reality in relation to northern Ghanaian women’s

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epistemic positioning. I am interested in the effects of women’s subjugated lives on their ability to know or the lack of it. This discussion is necessitated by perceptions regarding women’s ability to know. These perceptions, I argue,have been informed wrongly by a Cartesian dualism, which separates rationality from emotion. Hence, women, who are often perceived as very emotional beings are often erroneouslydismissed as lacking the capacity to know.

My many encounters in rural communities as I participate in rural development in Ghana lead me to wonder how women who areimbued with very rich cultural knowledge still consider themselves unknowledgeable. There have been many times when myefforts to learn from women have been met with the statement, what do I know? Let my husband come! Oh, talk to the landlord or elders! usually men. Women often would avoid discussions about their family occupations and histories. They do not consider themselves privy to cultural or lineage knowledge or even capable or entitled to voice those knowledges even when it sits with them. During community meetings, women would not speak if put together with men. They often only are prepared to listen rather than talk and engage. Extra efforts have to be exerted and special attention paid to them before they contribute and engage. It is only through probing and insistence that they offer their knowledge. A contradiction presents in the double standard of women as custodians of cultural values but not the owners and voice of it. Also, girls are easily passed over for boys, when parents are faced with a choice of who to send to school. These situations speakto the general doubt of women’s ability as knowing beings but also out of gendered socio-economic systems that subjugate women’s roles and contributions.

Various gender researches on Ghana show that women occupy the lower echelons of society (Amu, n.a.; Manu, 1998; Ofei-Aboagye, 2001). These studies capture issues of unequal access to, ownership of and control over resources (productiveand cultural) within the informal and formal socio-economic system. They stress, also, the important contributions of

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women in all sectors of family, community and national development and yet remain at the bottom in benefits and resource sharing.

In an introduction to their work on selected Ghanaian women innatural resources management, Ardayfio-Schandorf and Wrigley (2001) demonstrate how the presence and absence of laws make no difference in the situation of Ghanaian women. In particular, they suggest that although there are no official or public laws limiting the participation of women in the various sectors of the economy, women still cannot gain access. What Ardayfio-Schandorf and Wrigley fail to acknowledge is the power of the many conventions and legislations that limit women’s access and ascent in the formal sector, in particular and women find ways to compensatefor these in the informal/private/domestic domains. They fail to appreciate the power of cultural meanings and how those translate in practice. Above all, they fail to make a connection between the domestic and the formal sectors, especially with regard to women in Ghana. Indeed, women’s cultural roles and subservient positions, which limit their access to, ownership of and control over resources also restrict and regulate their participation in formal sector work and resources.

Other studies that focus on the even worse situation of northern Ghanaian women explain how, compared to women of southern Ghana, northern Ghanaian women are more vulnerable topoverty and its many ramifications (Wumbila, 2001; Apusigah, 2004). They show how specific cultural meanings render northern women almost sub-human and continue to restrict theirsocial participation. Specific practices such as widowhood rites and inheritance, dowry and bride wealth, female genital mutilation and cultural laws regarding inheritance, among others, work together to compound and complicate northern Ghanaian women’s vulnerabilities. Basically, these studies stress women’s subjugation and end up placing them in victim positions only. Areas of reactionism and empowerment are oftenlost in the process. In this analysis, I attempt to make a

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shift in positioning by including and stressing areas of empowerment even in their subjugated living conditions

While there is a wide acceptability that the conditions of Ghanaian women and especially those of the north are complex, analysis often fail to address the nuances of such appreciation. For instance, northern women’s conversions of their vulnerabilities from positions of disadvantage to those of advantage are hardly ever acknowledged. In particular, their actions and reactions to restrictions of access, ownership of and control over resources are of prime importance. These are critical as they offer opportunities forappreciating the complexities of women’s lives. An appreciation of complexity, as I argue elsewhere (Apusigah, 2004), embraces women’s empowering and disempowering locations. By so doing, it becomes possible to appreciate the extent to which those often considered victims are able to move positions and break/subvert barriers. Even in those subjugated positions, women are able to exercise agency that converts their situations into victor positions.

It is through the release of their victor-converting energies that Gurusi women in particular and Gur women in general are able to exercise their assertive-responsive agencies that makethem nurturers and bearers of such important wisdom as “tullum.” They do not allow their lived reality in subjugationto hold them back. Subjugated living gives them a certain level of agency that yields epistemic benefits with extensive relevance to society and their own struggle to maintain their ways of life. These knowledges and agencies have been born outof their intuitive response to an ontological reality, which Iargue, is born out of an intuitive sense.

Women’s intuitive appreciation

Intuition as a form of knowing remains a relatively unexploredarea, at least in Ghana. As a knowing medium that does not lend itself to empirical verifiability, it is often dismissed or even mocked. In an attempt to chart a pathway for African

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Sciences, Millar (2005) identifies intuition as an important medium by which Africans come to knowledge. Embracing this knowledge source as critical for explaining African phenomena,as such phenomena manifest themselves beyond the natural to include the supernatural, is indeed productive and informative. The many and intricate worlds that Africans occupy and within which they sense their worlds make it expedient for accounts on that knowledge to incorporate the mystical and extra-sensory.

In her thesis on the complexities of African knowledge forms, Oyewumi (1997) makes a distinction, among others, regarding African ways of experiencing. Oyewumi argues that the multiplemedia through which Africans access and generate meanings are varied and complex. She stresses the need to acknowledge thosemyriad sources but above all, the need to capture the expandedhorizons of African knowing systems appropriately. She proposed, in that rendition, for the use of the concept of world sensing rather than world vision. For her, vision restricts productions to sight and things that appeal to the eye. She stresses the fact that the nearest approximation of African experiencing systems is multiple sensing including butnot limited to vision.

In an earlier paper on the re-situating and reconstruction of knowledge productions as Africa reclaims its identity toward aworthy future, my associates and I demonstrate how the recovery of extra-sensory experience is critical to that project. In this paper, I revisit the question of intuition, specifically, in order to re-affirm the importance of women’s extra-sense perceptions. In this particular case, I want to emphasize the case of women’s learning from their situatednessand intuitive re/actions to upset and recreate boundaries in ways that serve not just their purposes but also those of their families, clans and society.

I argue that the limitations of subservient living, especiallyamong northern Ghanaian women, have taught them to conserve and preserve life and things (material and immaterial). They

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have learned to appreciate all things important and unimportant as well as big and small. They have learned to take up challenges that other members of society fail to anticipate and toward which to plan. They have developed a high value for “tullum.” They hold ‘tullum” in high esteem andensure that nothing considered “tullum” escapes them. They practice “tullum” in many spheres: in rites of admission (in outdooring and naming), passage (puberty) and departure (widowhood, funerals). They practice “tullum” in celebration and in mourning. “Tullum” manifests in material (nutrition, festivals, architecture) and immaterial forms (ideas, values, practices). It manifests in the ordinary (everyday events) and the extraordinary (emergencies, occasions). Above all, women’s preservation of “tullum” holds tremendous potential for Africa’s development.

POTENTIAL OF “TULLUM” FOR DEVELOPMENT

The benefits of “tullum”extend beyond women to embrace entire communities and cultures. These benefits lie in the potentialsthat “tullum” holds for development. Some of the potentials of“tullum” for development include food security, women’s empowerment, values education and natural resources conservation. The issues identified here are major developmentareas that require depths of analysis and discussions impossible to cover here. Hence, I focus on pointing out theirpotentials only and leaving the issues for further and latter explorations.

Women’s Empowerment

The world conferences on women, dating back from Mexico to Beijing, have drawn attention to the negative implications of planned development on women in the ways that it participates in the paternalistic and patriarchal projects of economic growth without a human face. Planned development’s compromisessuch as the widening inequalities, worsening vulnerabilities and undermining women’s empowerment have been contested. The grave gender inequalities documented in various reports give

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credence to separating and addressing women’s issues (UNDP 2000; World Bank, 2000; GG, 2003; GSS, 2003).

The compromises on women’s empowerment have been of particularinterest in the search for gender equitable development. Hence, women’s global, regional, national and grassroots advocacy have sought to point out the specific areas of gender-based discrimination while offering alternatives for targeting women. The Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies and the Beijing Platform of Action are a few of many alternatives offered by women. Women’s empowerment projects have thus evolved out of the need to compensate for past and ongoing discrimination. They identify and offer options for specifically targeting women.

Women’s empowerments initiatives and advocacy stand to gain tremendously from lessons offered through “tullum.” “Tullum” offers opportunity for personal agency; an important ingredient for empowerment. Since empowerment is manifested inindividual and collective responses to situations in the form of the contestation of domination through strategizing and acting to overcome oppression, “tullum” becomes an important strategic tool. For such an initiative, “tullum” offers examples of subversive abilities in the form of assertive-response agencies and victor-converting energies. These empowering values could guide programming to shift emphasis from victim identifying ones toward a focus on the reactionaryenergies of women. By so doing, programmes can recognize, identify and draw from women’s myriad potentials to forge new pathways and alternative livelihood that improve their conditions but facilitate transformations with positive effects on women’s social status.

Values Education

Through gendering, “tullum” has been lost to majority of the members of indigenous societies. Thus, gendered it resides largely with elderly and/or titled women. This restricts access as it becomes a specialized area reserved for a

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particular group; the old women who must keep it (from Mma Aduko’s account). It is only these old women who treasure and nurture “tullum.” Its makes me wonder what happens when all the old women are gone or when young people find themselves out of the reach of these old women. Consequently, it is important that such important wisdom be taught to all.

The discussions this far show that “tullum” offers various lessons in the knowledges, skills and values that it teaches. These skills could serve as important part of our education system where students learn the values of living right, of saving, conserving and planning. Lessons in creativity, livingbeyond reproach and valuing all things are important in our fast changing world. Besides, our young ones will also learn about an indigenous wisdom. I believe the knowledge loss that our indigenous societies suffer from, the gaps in our histories and our general susceptibility to imperialism and colonialism stem, in part, from our inability to maintain, pass on and live our cultural values. “Tullum” offers a challenge. Food Security

Food (in)security has become an important component of povertyreduction efforts in Ghana. From the just completed Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS I) to the ongoing Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II), food security concerns have been central. Many programmes on food security seek to ensure that deprived people are able to grow, store and utilize their foods to meet their nutritional needs. Proper nutrition, stemming from eating right, returns healthy people who are able to contribute to their own growth and national development. Living in good health, they will be able to contribute more meaningfully to production. The production benefits of food security include healthy and dependable labor, enhanced productivity, higher earnings and reduced dependency for the individual, corporate entity and the nation. Yet, in the last few decades, food insecurity has become the standard for Ghana and many other African

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countries. Many reasons have been advanced for this sorry situation and varied strategies have been proposed for combating the problem. Yet, the problem persists. Oftentimes, the strategies used model Western liberal ideologies through structural adjustments. The failures0 of these borrowed strategies make evidently clear their inadequacy in meeting local needs. Studies continually reveal worsening conditions regarding food security and impoverished livelihoods of food crop producers (Ghana Government, 2005, 2003; Dittoh, 2004; GSS, 2003, 2000). In Ghana, women, food crop farmers and ruraldistricts are among the poorest, majority of who are in northern Ghana. Cultural attitudes, gender inequalities, technological decay and geo-political differences are among the many explanations advanced for the persistence of poverty in unacceptable levels specified groups. While this might be true, it is also the case that their subjugated lives and persistent dwelling in depriving spaces, limits their ability to negotiate their lives in meaningful ways. Ironically, it is among these categories of people that “tullum” originates.

I argue that in the particular case of women’s subjugated locations, the limits and restrictions in their ability to exercise “tullum” in the scale that can benefit food security needs are blamable. Hence, “tullum” remaining as a restricted practice is yet to be harnessed on a wider scale to serve the interests of development in general and for addressing the particular case of food insecurity. The lessons from “tullum” for reducing and eventually eliminating food insecurity lies in the values and skills it offers. The values of planning, saving and guarding whatever is at hand offer useful learning in managing post harvest losses. The processing and storage skills offered through the practice of “tullum” are of specialinterest. These can serve as the beginning of managing what isavailable before looking out for support that only ends up placing various bonds on beneficiaries.

Natural Resources Conservation

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Ozone depletion, deforestation, global warming and environmental pollution have made questions of conservation very critical in the quest for alternative forms of development. In the past, the unguarded quest to conquer nature and use it in the service of “man” led to various compromises of questions of biodiversity resulting in the general environmental degradation suffered worldwide. Mining, lumbering, agricultural and construction activities, in the past, had thought little of environment effects. The fast destruction of the environment without a commensurate plan to replenish it has yielded the current situation of the environmental mess that we are all find ourselves. In such a short time, perhaps during the last hundred years, the world has lost almost all of its goodness as it lost its environmental sense. As plans emerge on how to recover, it is also important that we return to the old ways of living amicably with and in nature. This makes a case for “tullum” asone of the few indigenous wisdom forms that can be taped for very useful teachings.

“Tullum” emanates from the two important values of conservation and preservation. In the area of conservation, “tullum” manifests in the way that it allows the nurturing of values, ideas and practices. Elderly women, as custodians of cultural values and wisdom, maintain their positions by not only guarding the values and wisdom but also ensuring that those values and wisdoms survive external invasion and are maintained through generations. They ensure that these values and wisdoms are maintained, utilized and passed on to younger generations at suitable times. Women conserve the values and wisdom by practicing them appropriately and protecting them from undue change. Through story telling, vicarious living anddirect teachings, they keep the values and wisdom alive and pass them on to the younger generations.

Preservation comes from the almost insane insistence that a piece of every thing is stored for future use. This means processing and storing the item properly so that it is not wasted or lost. They have developed basic yet “complex”

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technologies for preserving all kinds of fresh foods. They have also maintained connections, processes and practices thatenable them to avail their knowledges and skills to younger generations in appropriate ways by insisting that the right things are done rightly. Old women insist on eating with children so that they can hold the bowl to show respect but also prevent the round bottom bowl from rolling over. Childrenlearn to guard and care. They learn ‘table’ manners; etiquettebut also respect of the elderly. Such elderly women would insist and ensure that children sit appropriately so that theycan perform their roles but also to prevent them from choking on food. By this, they preserve and pass on ethical values to the young.

Women conserve and preserve food crops, trees, building and the general environment in many ways. They harvest vegetables in specific ways so that it will serve them through out the raining season by harvesting older leaves first. They harvest withered branches of trees for use as firewood instead of cutting fresh ones. They have learned to use environmentally friendly resources such as cow dung, shea waste and dawadawa extracts to protect walls and floors. Women also grow specificcrops for their nutritional, medicinal and emergency values. They grow particular types of sorghum because it helps lactating mothers to produce breast milk. They grow a particular species of “bra” for its ability to cure mild stomach ailments. These conservationist implications of “tullum” offer opportunities for learning knowledges but also skills for indigenizing ongoing natural resources conservationefforts in Ghana. Myriad examples exist in the practice of “tullum” for naturalists and conservationists to learn from this gendered indigenous wisdom.

CONCLUSION

Undoubtedly, the foregone analysis and discussions on “tullum”reveal the potency of “tullum” for cultural enrichment and renewal. “Tullum” offers opportunities for learning about and re/thinking our rich cultural heritage even as we rethink our

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situations and embark of processes of decolonizing our knowledges and cultures as well as reclaim and re/invent our present and future. “Tullum” offers various opportunities for its custodians (women) but also entire communities and cultures to address various development issues regarding women’s empowerment, values education, food security and natural resources conservation.

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