Another event we went to in Ghana was the Fokuo Festival. This is a religious ceremony in a small village. The basics are that there is a high priest that sends up the wishes for the year to the heavens, then there is a celebration once the results come back. That celebration was very interesting and consisted of elephant guns being shot into the air, a chicken sacrifice and lots of drumming, drinking, and dancing.

 

The charcoal on the men was collected from the fires of several of the wives. It was ground up and mixed with water and spread over their bodies. A small loin cloth, made from the bark of the homaben shrub, called danta was also worn.

I think the children in this neighborhood don’t see a lot of white people, so they would touch my hand to see if it felt the same as theirs. We created a few videos of the drumming and have a picture gallery of the event.

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