7
DOI: 10.4312/mz.58.1.7-41
UDK 39:781.7:783(667)=432.542
Ruptures, Junctures, and Difference:  
The Role of Music and Ritual Performance  
in Framing “Tradition” in Contemporary  
Royal Ceremonies, Ghana
Daniel Avorgbedor
University of Ghana
ABSTRACT
Royal rituals and festivities are vibrant sites of cultural continuity among the Ewe of Ghana. 
The rituals exhibit elements of hyperreal, sonic, and sacred/secular sensibilities that frame 
performance and embodied affectivity. The royal event complex engages the multisensory, the 
carnivalesque and interstices of the sacred/secular in Ewe spirituality and religious outlook.
Keywords: sonic affectivity, sacred-secular continuum, multisensory, contestations, Ewe 
performance
IZVLEČEK
Kraljevski obredi in praznovanja so živahna okolja kulturne kontinuitete ljudstva Ewe v Gani. 
Izvedbo in utelešeno afektivnost teh obredov zaobjemajo elementi hiperrealnih zvočnih in 
sakralnih/sekularnih senzibilnosti. Kraljevski večplastni dogodki prepletajo multisenzorič-
nost, karnevalskost in vmesnost sakralne/sekularne duhovnosti in religioznosti ljudstva Ewe.
Ključne besede: zvočna afektivnost, sakralno-sekularni kontinuum, multisenzoričnost, tek-
movalnost, performativnost ljudstva Ewe
* The main fieldwork on which this essay is based was supported by the Carnegie-Mellon Project 
RBE9 – Oral Traditions and Expressive Diversity: A Research, Documentation and Archival Project 
fund and other sources from the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. A few 
of the photos (and related videos) were taken by multiple research team members and I take this 
opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of Dr. Edem Adotey, Dr. Sela Adjei, Kofi Anthonio, 
and the technical crew of Fidelia Ametewee, Selina Emma Okle and Nat Kpogo. In addition, I 
acknowledge and appreciate generous research information from individual collaborators such as 
Dr. George-Grandy Hallow, Mr. Kofi Wilson Bonuedi (Secretary to the Dzokoto royal house), 
Professor Theophilus Adiku, (Chair of the Togbegã Gabusu VI funeral planning committee), 
Madam Beta Sarfo and her household, Dr. Edem Adotey, Mr. Gershon Ahadzi, and others.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   7 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   7 28. 07. 2022   12:07:29 28. 07. 2022   12:07:29

muzikološki zbornik • musicological annual lviii/1
8
Introduction
Since the 1980s there has been significant growth and diversification of religious 
expression in Ghana which is associated primarily with Ghanaian Christianity 
(Asamoah-Gyadu 2005; Meyer 1999, 2015; Wijsen 2017).
1
 Some of these de-
velopments are reflected in national political campaigns and cultural programs 
closely linked to the larger project of Ghanaian postcolonial national identity 
reconstruction (Chazan 1982, 2019; Heaton, James and Oheneba-Sakyi 2009; 
Meyer 1998). I have investigated and articulated in great detail the sphere of 
religion and spirituality in everyday Ghanaian experience during recent field 
research projects on Ewe royal ritual and performance traditions that highlight 
the significant place of sonic manifestations within the complex interweaving 
of the multimodal and the multisensory. Drawing from the research conducted, 
the narrative of the present study will gradually introduce, clarify, and justify 
the use of terms and concepts such as rupture, rapture, disruption, eruption, 
and disjuncture. These concepts will be particularly useful for explicating how 
the complex multimedia and multimodal arena of performance facilitates the 
mediation and contestation of authenticity, cultural authority, (re)invention, dif-
ference, and politics of in/exclusion in the royal events.
This paper argues further for a reconsideration of sacred and secular di -
chotomies in light of fieldwork data on Ewe royal traditions and recent schol-
arship on African religions, spirituality, and local cosmologies (Olupona 2014; 
Olupona and Chiorazzi 2015; Platvoet 2004; Platvoet and van Rinsum 2003; 
Shaw 1990; Wiredu 2011; Zielińska 2013). Specific aspects of musical perfor-
mance, ritual and related enactments are examined to demonstrate not only 
their affective impact but also how they alter the qualities of ongoing interper-
sonal transactions and ritual flow. By isolating and interrelating the expressive-
aesthetic mediums and resources of sound, movement, gesture, proxemics and 
the sensorium, this essay also demonstrates how and why the Ewe contexts of 
religion, spirituality, and cultural norms refine analytical notions and assump-
tions in the interdisciplinary fields of performance, sound, sensory, religious, 
and ritual studies. Thus, a secondary purpose of the paper is to provide new 
1 In Ghanaian and in general African histories, the “Cross preceded the Crescent,” that is, Chris-
tianity reached Africa before Islam. In Ghana, the years 1471 and 1482 are often noted as the 
period in which Portuguese Christian missionary work began in the country, formerly known 
as the Gold Coast. Since then, Christianity has grown to become the dominant religion, with 
recent statistics showing 70% of Ghana’s population as Christian. Ghanaian Christianity is fur-
ther distributed along several denominational and independent church affiliations, especially as 
indicated in Sasu (2012), in a census report by the Ghana Statistical Services (2012), by the 
World Religions Index (Index Mundi 2020), John S. Pobee (1975), and Hans Werner Debrunner 
(1967). Recent publications by Meera Venkatachalam (2015) and several texts by Birgit Meyer 
(1999, 2002, 2012), illuminate the specific location of the Ewe people in the Ghanaian Christian 
heritage. There is also a small segment of Ghanaian Christian population that is represented by 
Rastafarianism and Ethiopianism (MacLeod 2014).
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   8 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   8 28. 07. 2022   12:07:29 28. 07. 2022   12:07:29

Daniel Avorgbedor: Ruptures, Junctures, and Difference...
9
insights and challenges that will broaden and enrich perspectives on religion 
and spirituality, with important implications and suggestions for rethinking 
conventional methodological approaches.
Much of the general domain of religion and spirituality in everyday Gha-
naian life shares many features with most other African societies, past and 
present. There are, however, certain features that seem more pronounced in the 
contemporary Ghanaian context and the following examples serve to articu-
late such differences.
Religion and Spirituality in Contemporary Ghana: Secularizing the 
Sacred, Sacralizing the Secular
It is a very common to see and read Biblical and Quranic verses in paraphrased 
form and inscribed boldly on the back of private cars and public transportation 
vehicles. Very often these diverse snippets of scripture coincide with and thus 
reflect and reinforce indigenous belief systems and cosmological orientations. 
For example, recent favorites include “God First,” “Grace,” and their local vari-
ants such as Adom (Akan), Drom ɔ (Ga), and Amenuveve (Ewe) and many oth-
ers that find parallels and correspondences in local onomastics where indig-
enous beliefs and attributes of a Supreme Being and Destiny are adduced and 
affirmed.
2
 Similar practices are found in privately-owned and other businesses 
that are in turn complemented by other everyday practices; one example is the 
relative freedom in playing or broadcasting Christian music and devotional 
readings from the Bible in secular public or government spaces such as bank 
offices, supermarkets, etc. By comparison, the performance or broadcasting of 
specific types of indigenous shrine music out of its traditional context is not 
favored because of the expected contextual requirements, and the exposure to 
diverse non-shrine audiences and/or the uninitiated.
In Ghana, religion, spirituality, and the reinscription of the sacred in secular 
public spaces as a performative spectacle is easily observed and often com-
mented on by visitors from neighboring African countries. A sentiment of 
interest, for example, was observed by an African scholar in the following com-
ment by Burkinabé who stated “[…] even taxis are born-again.”
3
 This singular 
observation, however, does not seem to consider the indigenous worldview 
2 Ghana is multilingual and multiethnic, but a large segment of the national population can speak 
more than one language and many individuals are thus able to decipher these inscriptions with 
much ease. The concept of a “Supreme Being” is common in many (indigenous) African religious 
systems and worldviews and coincides in many ways with the Christian “God.” An alternative 
viewpoint on relationships between the indigenous idea of a “Supreme Being” and the Christian 
“God” is presented in Greene (1996). As indicated elsewhere, Ghana is overwhelmingly Chris-
tian, with Pentecostals and “charismatic” denominations leading in popularity.
3 Dr. Mercy Akrofi-Ansah of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, shared this 
story with me (Personal communication, February 2022).
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   9 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   9 28. 07. 2022   12:07:29 28. 07. 2022   12:07:29

muzikološki zbornik • musicological annual lviii/1
10
within which the varieties of Ghanaian Christianity and their related symbols, 
ideas, and retranslations are located. Similarly, such foregrounded readings can 
also obscure hidden or overt proselytizing intentions behind these inscriptions 
– i.e., “to win souls for Christ,” as often expressed in the Ghanaian context.
Figure 1: Contemporary Charismatic or Pentecostal Christianity shares some  
basic beliefs and Old Testament theological orientations with local versions of  
Rastafarianism/Ethiopianism (see “Lion of Judah”).
4
Figure 2: Grocery shop with street vending. Note the coexistence of the Christ-centered 
affirmation and the food/drink advertisement: “Restore Your Energy.”
4 All the photographs were taken by the author, except when stated otherwise.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   10 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   10 28. 07. 2022   12:07:30 28. 07. 2022   12:07:30

Daniel Avorgbedor: Ruptures, Junctures, and Difference...
11
Figure 3: “Chop Bar” (rustic and informal restaurant or food vending outlet). While the 
immediate “Great Provider” context references God/Christ, there is also the possibility of 
an advertising subtext, such as the chop bar “provides great service and great food.”
Figure 4: Alternative, intertextual reading of a public favorite inscription often found  
in funeral brochures and posters – “What a Shock.”
5
Figure 5: According to the provisional 2021 census, between 17 and 20%  
of Ghana’s population is Muslim.
5 “What a Shock” and “A Life Well Lived” are common expressions employed when sharing deaths 
and funeral notices.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   11 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   11 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33

muzikološki zbornik • musicological annual lviii/1
12
Finally, in this preliminary study designed to better understand contexts for 
Ghanaian religion and spirituality, one must also consider the dynamics and 
dialectics of culture and tradition, and postcolonial efforts to establish cultural 
autonomy, a sense of national unity and progress, and local articulations of mo-
dernity. For example, it is a common practice during the national holiday, Gha-
na’s Independence Day (March 6) that religious leaders from different faiths 
and religious orientations (i.e., indigenous, Christian, and Muslim) are invited 
to take turns in offering intercessory prayers. One invited Baptist minister told 
me he decided not to attend the event and recite a prayer because he might 
have to share the same platform or space with an indigenous priest. But since 
that particular incident in the 1980s, adherents of diverse faiths and religious 
expression have become more tolerant in such contexts, as they align with 
the national goals of unity in a multiethnic (pluralistic) society.
6
 This is not 
surprising as there is an overwhelming consensus on the dominant place of re-
ligion and ethnicity in Ghanaian national politics (Aidoo and Botchway 2021; 
Langer and Ukiwo 2008; McCauley 2014). In the discussion that follows, it 
will become increasingly clear that there is a deeply embedded disposition in 
Ghanaian society towards the blending of the sacred and the secular into one 
stream as observed in the previous examples of textualization in public and 
mobile spaces/sites. The case examples from contemporary royal ceremonies 
will illuminate shifting sites where indigenous traditions are reproduced, thus 
ensuring significant continuities, especially with music and ritual performance 
as the enduring core.
Contemporary Royal Funeral and Installation Rituals  
and Ceremonies
7
Most royal funeral and new chief installation ceremonies and rituals in the 
diverse multiethnic Ghanaian contexts and histories possess common core 
features. First, there is a general pattern and sequence of procedures that in-
clude ritual confinement or seclusion. The number of days of confinement and 
6 In April 2022, one of my field projects as part of the Easter festivities included the installation 
and final public display of two new “development” queen mothers (i.e., honorary titles not strictly 
designated through royal lineage, the role of the honorary queens being the encouragement of 
projects to advance a town’s socioeconomic and sociocultural progress) in Alakple, an Ewe inter-
lacustrine town. During the installation ceremony an indigenous religious expert and a Catholic 
Rev. Father (Catholicism began officially in 1930 in Alakple and remains a predominant denomi-
nation in the town) took turns to say prayers for the success, safety, progress, and prosperity of 
the new queens and for the entire town. Details on the Catholic missionary work in Alakple is 
available in Francis Fiakpornu (2013).
7 Secondary sources that confirm and elaborate on the historicity, diversity and yet rootedness and 
enduring values and practices in past and contemporary chieftaincy and associated rituals in the 
multi-ethnic Ghanaian context include Adotey (2021), Arhin and Brempong (2002), and Hagan 
and Odotei (2001).
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   12 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   12 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33

Daniel Avorgbedor: Ruptures, Junctures, and Difference...
13
details concerning specific private rituals, including the time before public dis-
play (known in Ghana as “outdooring”) vary from one community to another, 
and are also dependent on past histories and contemporary exigencies and 
pragmatic concerns.
8
Other stages of the royal funeral and installation rituals include swear-
ing of oaths twice: one during the confinement period and private ritual of 
installation, and a second that is often a formal response to each oath during 
the public display of the new chief or king. In the case of royal funerals and 
in the Ewe context, there is a private “withdrawal” or “taking away” of names 
given during initiation or installation (as often encountered in rites of passage 
in other world cultures) and this also occurs in oathlike fashion. Similar prac-
tices are also found in non-royal rituals, especially in the installation of new 
indigenous spiritual leaders or priests, or in “releasing safely” into the world of 
ancestors and into “former states” in the case of funerary rites.
9
 The official in -
stallation rituals are always preceded by a dramaturgical “capture” or “arrest” of 
the new-chief-to-be for the confinement rituals, a practice that recalls elope-
ment rituals of several cultures. Thus, in any of these cases, royal and non-royal, 
there are important symbolic performances that mark transition and change 
of status, including aspects of liminal stages that are often identified with rites 
of passage, especially in the works of van Gennep (1909), Victor Turner (1968, 
1974), and Richard Schechner (2022).
10
I have chosen to focus on five select cases which represent important as-
pects of ritual and general performance practices that are common to most of 
the four royal funeral and installation ceremonies that I researched within a 
six-month period from July 2021 to January 2022. These ceremonies involved 
the final funerals and subsequent installations, as presented in Table 1.
11
8 Today, most royal, and non-rituals such as widowhood rites that would require individual confine-
ment for several months are now being adumbrated due to several changing factors such as vo-
cational and socioeconomic considerations. Similarly, there are now shifting criteria for selection 
that privilege wealth and advanced education over established heredity and line of succession.
9 The taking on and assignment of a new name in many rites of passage is integral to the expected 
transformation, change or reversal of status, including rebirth – i.e., symbolic enactment of dying 
and being reborn, critical moments in liminal states and necessary achieving the desired transfor-
mation that is central to some rites of passages worldwide.
10 See Avorgbedor (1999) for a comparative overview of the structure, content, and function of rites 
of passage.
11 There are hierarchies in local chieftaincy and in indigenous rule and governance. Briefly, and for 
the purpose of this paper, the top of the hierarchy in the Ewe system includes a paramount chief 
(Togbegã, for the northern Ewe, and Awoamefia for the Southern Anlo Ewe) who is the overall 
head of a cluster of village or town units and districts, and the Dufia, the head chief of subchiefs 
of a particular town. Paramount chiefs can also serve as clan heads (there are several clans com-
posing southern and northern Ewe societies and lineages). Within the town and at the level of a 
confederation of towns and chiefdoms, there are also special military-style formations (common in 
ancient wartime), known as Left, Middle, and Right wings and led by the respective chiefs.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   13 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   13 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33

muzikološki zbornik • musicological annual lviii/1
14
Table 1: List of royal funerals and installations
Royalty Status/Rank/Position Event type Area/Location
Togbui* Gligui Tengey 
Dzokoto VI
12
Paramount Chief, Dufia 
(town chief ) and Head of 
Bate Clan
Funeral Anyako, Volta 
Region of 
Ghana
Togbui Gligui Tengey 
Dzokoto VII
Paramount Chief, Dufia and 
Head of Bate Clan
Installation Anyako, Volta 
Region of 
Ghana
Togbui Nyaho 
Tamakloe VI
Paramount Chief, Miafiagã 
(Left Wing commander),** 
Dufia and Head of Adzovia 
Clan
Installation Whuti, Volta 
Region of 
Ghana
Togbegã*** Gabusu VI Paramount Chief and Head 
of Torkoni Clan
Funeral Gbi-Hohoe, 
Volta Region of 
Ghana
Mamagã Dewotornyo 
I (buried July 2021)****
Paramount Queen Mother Funeral Gbi-Hohoe, 
Volta Region of 
Ghana
Comments for Table 1:
* “Togbui” is the southern Ewe dialectal variation and orthography; “Togbe” is the northern Ewe 
designation. These are indigenous titular designations for a chief, elder, ruler, etc. “Mama” is the 
female equivalent in both southern and northern Ewe contexts. The suffix “gã” is the alternative 
local designation for “Paramount.”
** See Footnote 11 for details on the military formations, hierarchies and responsibilities pertaining 
to civic, social, and spiritual welfare and jurisdictional matters.
*** There is no new installation yet.
**** Mamagã Agoe Dewotornyo I succeeded the late Mamagã Dewotornyo I.
Shared and Common Features of the Ceremonies
Some features common to these events include the spread of the events over 
several days, processions, open and closed rituals, administration of oaths, 
multiple and concurrent music, dance, and theatrical performances presented 
on multiple stages and sometimes at different times; media promotion and 
coverage of the event (print social media, and drone aerial photography);
13
 
involvement in and knowledge of local church affairs; stool
14
 candidates with 
12 These Roman numerals designate positions in linear succession, such as in King George I, II, or IV.
13 Details on the growing interest in drone technology and its possibilities in enhancing general 
ethnographic and visually-oriented research are documented in Adotey (2021).
14 This church service, known as a Thanksgiving Service, is also routinely held for general non-royal 
funeral occasions. Families of the deceased come forward to render special appreciation verbally; 
sometimes the chosen speaker initiates spontaneous singing which the entire congregation may 
join in on. The song is usually related to the theme of gratitude, both to God, pastors, and to the 
entire congregation. In the case of the Thanksgiving Service terminating a royal event, the chief or 
someone else is designated to perform this role.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   14 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   14 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33

Daniel Avorgbedor: Ruptures, Junctures, and Difference...
15
considerable formal education and wealth; symbols of power and status (royal 
drums); the presence of MCs; and a church service called “Thanksgiving Ser -
vice” to close the event.
Table 2: Types, levels and varieties of performances (limited to royal contexts)
Sonic form, source, type Special traits or 
performance engagement
Special subcontexts,
comments, 
observations
Royal ensembles, such as 
atrikpui, atompani, afli, etc.
There are surrogate 
instruments such as animal 
horns and talking drums 
(lãkle ˜ʋu) that imitate the 
snarl of a leopard and 
perform appellations and 
honorifics.
The royal ensembles 
continue to play 
sporadically throughout the 
entire event.
Special sonic articulations 
such as:
aseyetsoto, bobokpakpa 
(involving disguised voice 
and falsetto) 
asiƒunu (ululation 
employing vocal and 
bilabial vibrations activated 
by the palm) and others
These are performed mostly 
by women. 
They are performed 
to signal moments of 
grave danger, spectacular 
accomplishment, arrival, 
and departure of royalty 
and to signal the climax 
or conclusion of special 
rituals such as prayers and 
offerings to tutelary spirits.
Speech surrogates 
(instruments such as 
whistles of Western origins, 
animal horns and talking 
drums (lãkle ̃ʋu, lit., wild 
animal drum) that imitate 
spoken forms
These are performed 
sporadically and they 
imitate the snarl of a leopard 
and perform appellations 
and honorifics. They are an 
important accompaniment 
to royal processions.
The leopard, its voice/
sound, and skin are all 
significant status symbols in 
many West, East, Central, 
and Southern African royal 
traditions.
Hyperreal, exotic, 
innovative and modified 
musical instruments
Musical and surrogate 
instruments (including 
drums, and other percussion 
instruments) receive further 
symbolic visual exaggeration 
and decoration through 
the attachment of ritual 
paraphernalia such as 
cowries, miniature copper 
bells, raffia, etc. together 
with the dressing of these 
instruments in ritual color 
combinations of white, red, 
indigo, and black.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   15 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   15 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33

muzikološki zbornik • musicological annual lviii/1
16
Sonic form, source, type Special traits or 
performance engagement
Special subcontexts,
comments, 
observations
Guest and professional 
(hired) groups
They perform mixed and 
specialized repertoire such 
as contemporary neo-
traditional and popular 
ensembles and include 
brass bands, DJs, and 
special guest performers of 
other ethnic origins.
The brass band that 
performed at the Dzokoto 
funeral blended indigenous 
agbadza styles with 
the general brass band 
repertoire of martial music 
– marches, and popular 
tunes.
In the case of Togbui 
Dzokoto funeral a special 
divination society (afa) 
performed their repertoire.
Special guests or acts These include non-royal 
ensembles and emerging 
popular groups such as the 
neo-traditional style known 
as Borborbor.
In the case of Togbui 
Nyaho Tamakloe’s final 
installation ceremonies 
a very popular musician 
called Samini appeared 
and took everyone by 
surprise, especially when he 
performed songs familiar to 
the audience. 
Musketry, variety, 
comedic, magical acts, 
prayers, libations, 
eulogies, appellations, etc .
Some of the eulogies 
witnessed demonstrate 
high-level competence, 
skill, and close familiarity 
with tradition; they are 
serious performances. 
Christian repertoire The emphasis and source 
of music depends largely 
on church affiliations and 
membership of the royalty.
A church service called 
Thanksgiving Service is 
held on the last Sunday 
of the week(s) of the 
festivities. In the case of 
an installation the new 
chief may present the 
thanksgiving in a form of a 
mini sermon.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   16 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   16 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33

Daniel Avorgbedor: Ruptures, Junctures, and Difference...
17
Figure 6: Program of activities for day 9, last day of  
Togbegã Gabusu VI funeral (Hohoe).
15
The diversity and spatio-temporal locations of these events and their ultimate 
qualitative feel and sensibilities may quickly suggest the common analytical 
category of “cultural performance.” The Ewe royal examples, in particular, pos-
sess a propensity of complex and extended features that would enrich conven-
tional notions and applications of “cultural performance.” For example, (a) the 
total event occurs over several days; (b) the nestedness of sub-performance 
events sometimes creates temporary affective highpoints, bringing the events 
to the forefront; (c) the events manifest much complexity, intensity, plurality, 
and simultaneity, including their length and distribution in time, space, and 
place; (d) open, nonlinear structures encourage unexpected, but significantly 
emergent choreographies, and the staggered arrivals of special performing 
groups that enhance levels of expectation, anticipation, and the overall quali-
tative impact; (e) large, mixed audiences who attend are often drawn to the 
events through longstanding, institutionalized and reciprocal arrangements 
15 Such artworks for the various daily activities for the burial rites are available for down-
load at the official web page of Gbiduk ɔ Development Union: https://gbidukor.org/details.
cfm?Download-Artworks-for-Daily-Activities---Burial-of-Togbega-Gabusu-VI&corpnews_
scatid=12&corpnews_catid=5&corpnews_scatlinkid=181.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   17 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   17 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33

muzikološki zbornik • musicological annual lviii/1
18
and facilitated further through national and regional associations and net-
works of chiefs as well as national and foreign dignitaries.
Sonic and Corporeal Sensorialities and Out-of-Body Experiences in 
Royal Ritual Ceremonies
The variety of symbols and regalia closely associated with Ewe royal or chief -
taincy institutions privileges both symbolic and highly constituted musical and 
“non-musical” sounds, instruments, and ensembles. In Ewe society, this variety 
is further enriched by extant traditions and genres of music and dance, in-
cluding those reserved for religious spaces such as those devoted to ancestral, 
tutelary, and divination spirits (e.g., yeʋeʋu, afaʋu, adeʋu, k ɔkuʋu, and a more 
inclusive terminology or nomenclature of tr ɔʋu or voduʋu; i.e., the general cat -
egory of music and dance associated with a broad range of the Ewe world of 
religion and spirituality).
16
 Corporeal sensoriality would seem to be the most 
plausible means to conceptualize and represent the complex range of events, 
both private and public that unfold during royal ceremonies and ultimately 
endow the ritual performances with experiences of awe, deep affect, and eidetic 
memory.
17
 Within this broad domain of the bodily (ritual embodiment) reside 
and emanate the close constituents of sonic and gestural manifestations. It is 
within this broader conception and reality of corporeal sensoriality that we 
can easily reconfigure and thus better appreciate the meanings of conventional 
terms often associated with sonic-centered events (e.g., not just “verbal,” es -
pecially in the case of formulaic, heightened, or patterned utterances) such as 
“paramusical” and “paralinguistic.” Examples from the afore-mentioned royal 
contexts will also further illuminate current directions in deeper explorations 
16 General characteristics, genres, functions and contexts of Ewe music and dance repertoire are 
found in Amegago (2012), Fiagbedzi (1977), and Gbolonyo (2009). For additional sources on 
the generation, employment and function of special sonic expressivities and symbolisms among 
the Anlo-Ewe, see Avorgbedor (2004, 2020). For details on the general spiritual phenomenon 
including shrines among the Ewe, see Friedson (2009), Greene (2002), and Montgomery and 
Vannier (2017).
17 One of the early, promising studies concerning the nature of eidetic memory and the place of 
the senses was based on research in Ghana (Feldman 1968). Unfortunately, very little has been 
accomplished since then. I hope, with Henry Drewal’s current research interests in what he 
calls “sensiotics” (Drewal [n. d.]) much progress can be made, especially when the African data 
is the focus. Part of the expected outcomes of this essay is thus to invigorate and broaden cur-
rent research in sensory ethnography, especially the project at the Centre for Sensory Studies 
(https://centreforsensorystudies.org) and interdisciplinary research in Sensory Studies (https://
www.sensorystudies.org ), including key publications such as Ways of Sensing: Understanding the 
Senses in Society (Howes and Classen 2014), Ritual, Performance and the Senses (Bull and Mitchell 
2015), The Life of the Senses: Introduction to Modal Anthropology (Laplantine 2015), and Doing 
Sensory Ethnography (Pink 2009). My essay, “Körperliche und nicht-körperliche Expressivität in 
der afrikanischen Performance” (Avorgbedor 2013) explores several dimensions of performance, 
the performative, and the intersensory in extended contexts of Anlo-Ewe performance and in 
everyday life.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   18 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   18 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33

Daniel Avorgbedor: Ruptures, Junctures, and Difference...
19
of “performance,” “cultural performance,” the “performative,” and “sensory eth-
nography,” etc.
Case Example I: Hatudada
18
Musketry is an intense and elaborate technique and practice; it is suggestive 
of infinite temporality and thus an “out-of-this-world” experience, considering 
the reach and extended audiation associated with the resulting “sonic booms.” 
The “reach” is best understood in relation to the sheer amount of aerial, geo -
physical and bodily vibrations/reverberations that erupt and accompany the 
firings. Because the northern Ewe are well known for their special skills and 
technology in local gun manufacturing, they exhibit spectacular prowess that 
is far superior to the southern Ewe. In my recent field experiences with royal 
funerals among the northern Ewe (e.g., Hohoe) I observed physical destruc -
tion by the debris and aftershock of each firing session:
19
 for example, parts of 
one expensive royal umbrella were torn by live ammunition (the use was gener-
ally proscribed, however), and the perturbations. Individual audience members 
felt as if they were literally being lifted off-ground by the sudden booms, to 
the point where one of my research fellows suggested carrying along earmuffs 
(such as those used on long-haul flights) to subsequent events like these.
It is difficult to fully narrate the scope of intensity, frequency, and overall 
impact of musketry to someone who has never witnessed the tradition, espe-
cially in case examples 3 and 4 (Gbi-Hohoe) and surrounding areas of north-
ern Ewe communities. Unfortunately, it was virtually impossible to capture the 
sonic booms and reverberations with audiovisual equipment.
There are broader cosmological foundations and applications of gunshots, 
which are sometimes employed in ritual cleansing, healing, and exorcism ritu-
als. The overall impact of both the sonic reach and the proxemics and semio-
aesthetics in which the shots are framed can be better understood by locating 
hatudada in its systematic procedures, techniques, ambience, skill, and audi-
enceship which includes the audience’s frequent comments. Gunners assume, 
in sequence, linear, half-circle, and finally squatting positions, and in both pre-
scribed and intuitive fashion; they target clouds, tree branches, corners, etc. 
They often simulate the shooting of an animal or hunt, and merge seamlessly 
with ongoing asafo (i.e, music and dance of warrior groups who exhibit gestures 
and songs of bravery and taunt); this further encourages the simulation since 
the asafo dance form and its prescriptions privilege innovative and creative 
18 This term means musketry, salvo or literally, group gun-firing.
19 The firing intensifies at some critical stages of rituals, such as before the onset and at the conclu -
sion of, for example, the final journey with the royal corpse to the funeral service or burial site, 
initial announcement of death, before a procession from the sacred installation space, at the con-
clusion of a midnight ritual, etc.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   19 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   19 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33

muzikološki zbornik • musicological annual lviii/1
20
gestures and movements, including those of hunters performing their normal 
adeυu dance (hunters’ music and dance).
20
 In this non-hunting performance 
context – i.e., royal rituals and festivities – the gun thus becomes a prop but at 
the same time completes the sense of “authenticity.” Since much of the asafo 
repertoire draws on adevυu (or shares many of its music, dance, and costume 
features), the connotations and dialogics of appropriation and reinterpretation 
regarding hatudada are relevant here.
It is now important to address hatudada and the issues of safety, in the sense 
of possible physical-neurological damage to individuals and material entities, 
and general ecocritical considerations. Hatudada is a performance, and by ex-
tension a highly and sensuously framed type of performativity. The sonic varie-
ties, including their affective intensities, are enriched and diversified through 
the use of a variety of gun and rifle types, including their specific techniques, 
timbre, and capacity.
21
 For example, a notable variety of gun type is the aprim, 
a miniature cannon derived from early Portuguese prototypes which were once 
stationed close to slave forts dotting the Ghanaian coast to ward off compet-
ing enemy traders.
22
 The aprim has been quickly appropriated and reinvented 
to serve local purposes and the creativity continues to improve on the level and 
reach of the sound product. The musketeers are sometimes hired and work as 
professionals; they wear distinct uniforms, whether amateur, semi-professional 
or professional, especially on these special occasions.
23
 The number, frequency 
and overall accompanying choreographies or bodily maneuvers are determined 
also by the status of the deceased (i.e., in both royal and non-royal funerals), 
general community relevance and ritual type. For example, one of the most 
impressive displays of sonic “violence” and “timed” explosive rupture-rapture 
scenes occurred on one of the funeral days reserved for a special ritual called 
d ɔdada (curing/healing of illness or disease, which is more prevalent in north-
ern than southern Ewe communities).
24
 In this royal practice, d ɔdada is both a 
20 Audio examples are replete in the performance videos that are publicly available on YouTube, for 
example, and are cited in different segments of this paper.
21 There is an increasing interest in sound studies, especially those associated with warfare and vio -
lence. My field examples and their unique traits would complement and at the same time extend 
arguments and theoretical conclusions found in, for example, Abe (2016), Goodman (2010), and 
Thompson and Biddle (2013).
22 For details of the aprim and related firearms, see Kea (1971) and Ijoma (1982).
23 The uniform is integral to the armaments and expected visual display.
24 This practice and its associated beliefs represent a very complex subject which is yet to receive full 
attention and satisfactory explanation, especially when some of the details are formulated in eso-
teric language. In addition, both researcher and informant(s) must use much discretion, especially 
when some aspects of the rituals are protected and are not accessible to the general public. At the 
moment, there is at least one PhD student with a religious studies background researching the 
topic at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. One team researcher, Dr. Edem 
Adotey, spent much of the night witnessing aspects of the ritual, but outside of the immediate 
precinct, and managed to engage in conversation with some key participants.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   20 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   20 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33

Daniel Avorgbedor: Ruptures, Junctures, and Difference...
21
simulacrum and a surreal and dramaturgical reinterpretation of normative or 
generic d ɔdada. Although the ruler or chief may be clinically dead, such deaths 
are not publicly announced immediately, and even when finally announced 
the message is usually couched in special metaphors (or culturally appropriate 
codings), such as fia mu zi (the chief has tilted the stool and fia yi k ɔƒe (the 
chief has gone to the village). There are many tactical and deeply cosmological 
foundations for such retranslations and characterizations that are beyond the 
scope of this paper. For example, it is necessary to locate and thus elaborate on 
the understanding of d ɔdada within the more complex existential realities and 
rituals associated with “divine kingship” in African societies.
25
Three factors account for the unusual framing of this funerary ritual, with 
significant sonic markings at its core: it is not open to the public, it is held at 
night and consummated at midnight.
26
 The midnight salvos set out denoue -
ment and confirmation of the de facto status of the deceased, thus opening the 
way for the rest of the event to unfold.
Case Example 2: Sonic Imaginaries, Surreal and Hyperreal 
The overall proxemics (i.e., creative approaches to place, space, placement and 
the dynamics of such arrangements and their interaction with and impact on 
ongoing frames of communication and performance moment), site of activ-
ity/setting, and the spectacular sonic articulations (salvos, royal drums, ulula-
tions) that close the ritual but continue sporadically throughout the rest of the 
night elevate levels of anxiety and surprise; previous states of anxiety, on the 
other hand, lose momentum with the closure of the ritual, at least temporarily. 
The cathartic and supersensory consummation of the acoustically destabilized 
ritual at midnight enables the sudden eruption of moments of rapture, and 
the state of being ushered into a new day with the sense of an altered self. A 
more recent example, observed while writing this paper, masterfully reveals the 
closing moments of the official ritualistic formal opening of the funeral for 
the late subchief Togbe Kwasi Afele II at Ho, a town located about 77 km or 
47 miles from Hohoe. Videos of this event began to appear on YouTube, and 
the footage
27
 beginning at 4:38 onwards illustrates how the traditional libation 
(i.e., pouring of a special liquid in symbolic and patterned ways to the ac -
companiment of the formulaic recitation of prayer, petition, etc., and directed 
25 For details on divine kinship in the African context, see Fagg (1978), Meyerowitz (1960), and 
Olupona (2014).
26 Both relative time reckoning (i.e., identifying a moment in history but relative to some other event 
or situation such as “around the time of the last solar eclipse” or “when a performing ensemble was 
being formed”) and chronomic-solar, temporal orientations are employed in ritual, everyday social 
and formal transactions.
27 Available at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nmQ4g-CcG0 (“The Most 
Feared […]” [2022]).
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   21 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   21 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33

muzikološki zbornik • musicological annual lviii/1
22
to ancestral and disembodied spirits) is soon followed by salvos and ulula-
tion, a consummation of the opening segment of the broader ceremony. The 
aesthetic/symbolic and general cultural significance of ululation, performed 
mostly by women, functions also in situations of great adulation, impressive 
music and dance performance, danger, alarm, or catastrophes (especially those 
at the threshold of life and death). Other forms of unique, surrealistic and 
hyperrealistic sounds frequently encountered in these royal performances in-
clude falsetto or disguised voice types, such as those employed to welcome 
and terminate a royal or ritual circuit (i.e, processions, or entourages where 
priests and devotees visit sacred places in succession), or in conversation with 
the spirit world.
28
The inherent spirituality and symbolism in these contexts acknowledge 
expected cultural norms and beliefs about the supernatural. Such norms and 
beliefs are related to the fact that the royal head is also an embodiment of 
ancestral and guardian spirits that seek to ensure the welfare and security of 
the people, as noted under “divine kingship.”
29
 Sacerdotal functions and re-
sources are further consolidated and ensured through court priests and divin-
ers, often seen in close proximity to chiefs during public events; their role is 
to attend to the spiritual welfare of the chiefs. In addition, many Ewe com-
munities normally identify with at least one guardian spirit at the town level.
30
 
The choreographed, dramaturgical placement of the midnight ritual climax 
also demonstrates and expands on popular notions about the cathartic rami-
fications of beliefs and experiences associated with the mystical “meeting” or 
“knocking together” of year[s] often referred to as fe-kpekpe (literally, old and 
new years colliding) – that is, the passing of the Old Year and transitioning 
(collision) into the New Year. An affective-experiential state, fe-kpekpe, is also 
identified with a sonic imaginary that mediates and reifies that phenomenal 
experience.
31
 Ƒetat ɔtr ɔ (i.e., turning over of the end of the year and ushering in 
of the new but mostly in non-Christian contexts), as often observed in general 
indigenous religious households, is another important annual cosmic, spiritual 
28 Details of some of the unique sonic articulations in ritual contexts and in world shamanism are 
provided in Avorgbedor (2004, 2020).
29 See Footnote 24 for details on “divine kingship.”
30 In many southern Ewe towns, it was common practice to have three guardian spirits (dule ̃gba): 
one located at the center of the town/village, and two in the north and south areas, respectively 
(Cudjoe-Calvocoressi 1974; Gilbert 1982).
31 “Sonic imaginary,” as used here refers to the sound that is associated with the colliding of the 
old and new year at the critical midnight moment. While there is no actual physical sound that 
is heard in relation to this transitioning/collision, there are times when observers at a midnight 
watch would hear coincidental sounds emanating from the action of winds blowing through tree 
branches, especially those that ruffle the roofs of the meeting space. This imagining and identifi -
cation of natural, coincidental sounds with those of the general repertoire of folk belief and su-
perstition, nevertheless, have an important influence on beliefs about physical, social, and spiritual 
wholesomeness, and are hence phenomenal.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   22 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   22 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33 28. 07. 2022   12:07:33

Daniel Avorgbedor: Ruptures, Junctures, and Difference...
23
phenomenon that is well celebrated through an elaborate, and all-night music-
making vigil.
32
 As detailed elsewhere, there are other nocturnal and midnight, 
performative events that involve deeply affective sonic expressions, such as 
the employment of disguised voices and timbres, sounds of livestock at the 
threshold of death, and extreme cacophonies designed to alter and improve 
relationships between mortals and the spiritual realm, including personal and 
social well-being. Thus, both experimental and pragmatic criteria are instantly 
involved in the material, dramaturgical, and multisensory constitution, and ex-
ploration of hyperrealities of sound effects, both in royal and other indigenous 
ritual contexts (Avorgbedor 2020).
Figure 7: Hyperritualized drum in a procession with paraphernalia played  
on the back of a porter (left) who symbolizes a “path-clearing”  
spiritual guide with ritual paraphernalia on his head.
33
These ritual and symbolic performances thus form a critical corpus or cata -
logue of performance expressions, sonic manifestations, and related beliefs that 
are creatively engaged in ensuring the efficacy, continuity, and general social, 
physical, moral, and spiritual well-being, both of individuals and communi-
ties. While some observers and analysts may view these performance activities 
and their affective outcomes as creating commotion, disturbance and a breach 
of peace, the institutional and cultural framework with its rootedness in the 
world of spirits would caution such premature conclusions. In addition, these 
“sanctioned” or necessary private or public cultural events are legitimated fur-
ther through procuring an appropriate police permit; in fact, the police also 
32 See Friedson (2009) for contemporary versions of ƒetat ɔtr ɔ. “Shrine” here refers to a constellation 
of spirit-based beliefs and practices often loosely referred as vodu or voodoo in Ewe societies.
33 Photo by the research team member Sela Adjei.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   23 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   23 28. 07. 2022   12:07:34 28. 07. 2022   12:07:34

muzikološki zbornik • musicological annual lviii/1
24
provide security at many levels. These symbolic and conventional sounds and 
the mechanisms that produce them are the central or primary defining param-
eters that distinguish formal royal events from the everyday or ordinary ones.
Figure 8: Female musketeer in prescribed costume on the left  
(Togbegã Gabusu funeral, Hohoe).
34
Figure 9: Male musketeers in “white” costumes appropriate for auspicious contexts  
(i.e., not for mourning the dead but celebrating an event that is pleasurable and instills  
a sense of happiness) such as an installation ceremony (Anyako, installation of  
Dufia Togbui Tenge Dzokoto VI).
34 Photo by the research team member Sela Adjei.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   24 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   24 28. 07. 2022   12:07:35 28. 07. 2022   12:07:35

Daniel Avorgbedor: Ruptures, Junctures, and Difference...
25
Case Example 3: Reflections on Gender, Musical Production, and the 
Role of Women in Ghanaian Expressive Culture
The range of sound practices and the audience’s related liminal states in hatu-
dada are further enriched through strategic, yet seemingly theatrical moments 
when women are recruited to perform in the traditionally all-male tradition.
35
 
As part of contemporary forms of negotiating tradition in response to the 
forces of modernization and everyday realities, there is a growing tendency 
toward revising former attitudes and practices that uphold the separation of 
male and female spaces socially, musically, and in political, educational and 
religious (indigenous, Christianity, Islam, etc.) contexts. For example, since the 
1990s, local news media, the elite class, and global forces have encouraged 
active discourse concerning more conscious advocacy and appreciation of the 
role of women and their contributions to Ghanaian society. Although there is 
no sure way to measure the level of impact this advocacy has had in indigenous 
circles, independent studies confirm a growing presence and participation of 
women in contexts and spaces once reserved for men, including some indig-
enous performing ensembles. A deeper understanding of the ritual ceremonial 
examples presented can be achieved by noting the power, reach and influence 
of the media in disseminating information about the increasing organization 
of new music and dance ensembles that serve multiple purposes, including the 
highlighting of women as lead drummers, etc.
36
 However, new directions and 
innovative tendencies in contemporary Ghanaian culture and society include 
this new tendency in which the sudden translocation of female power and vis-
ibility is received both with much acclaim and consternation, as indicated in 
this news item: “Rare Act: Female Pallbearers at Tafi Agome.”
37
35 In my updated (i.e., December 2021 and June 2022) conversations with Madam Beta Sarfo, one 
of the leading female kingmakers and cultural knowledge experts of the Gbi-Hohoe area and who 
is often closely involved in performing installation rituals, explained that sometimes women who 
never gave birth are allowed special moments to display courage and bravery by taking part in the 
musketry. There are, however, many deeper and hidden aspects to her narrative and I intend to ex-
plore them further through engagements with additional independent cultural experts, including 
males. With her explanation in view, one could readily see some socio-psychotherapeutic values of 
this female participation.
 On June 19, 2022, I spoke briefly with Mr. C. K. Galley, a well-known kingmaker and installation 
expert in the southern Ewe community. He played a central role in a March 2022 royal installa-
tion ritual at Dzita. At that event, a procession of women was led by a woman with a rifle. When 
I asked Mr. Galley about the symbolic import of this gesture, often reserved for men, he simply 
(in my estimation) said, “once they show courage and are interested, we allow them.”
36 There are, however, indigenous practices where, for example, women ritual leaders take full re -
sponsibility for preparing the corpse and serve as pallbearers, a responsibility usually reserved for 
men, as I have often witnessed in non-royal funeral contexts.
37 This issue of The Spectator includes a picture of women pallbearers – coffin aloft on their heads – 
ion the way to the graveyard (“Rare Act […]” 2022).
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   25 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   25 28. 07. 2022   12:07:35 28. 07. 2022   12:07:35

muzikološki zbornik • musicological annual lviii/1
26
Although the number of female gunners involved in each musketry mo-
ment is still much smaller than that of males, their presence and overall per-
formance skills not only reinforce consternation and local debates; they also 
introduce useful “cognitive dissonance” that also enables sites of useful rup-
tures. Such ruptures are prerequisites for transforming moments of raptures 
associated with the sublime and the liminal; they also are among markers of 
the highpoints of excess and ecstasy (i.e., extreme joy, overpowering emotion, 
pleasure or “rapturous delight,” according to the Merriam-Webster Diction-
ary) that occur during these events.
38
 With the presence and participation of 
women in such contexts, however, the powers and privileges associated with 
virility are complemented but through subtle insertions of the seemingly sub-
versive, sacrilegious-transgressive, or disruptive. I suggest that the example of a 
female “transgressor” who “transgresses” when performing “sacred” or tabooed 
drums cannot and should not be interpreted as a symbolic reversal or question-
ing of a male-centered practice. This is because the materialities, sensibilities, 
and beliefs about sound practices and those contexts generally associated with 
“artistic license” in many cultures often complicate assumptions and criteria 
about what is appropriate, sacred, acceptable, etc.
As intimated in the media report referred to above (“Rare Act […]” 2022), 
the audience’s visual gaze of the female drummer seems to confirm her per-
formance display as a “rare, transgressive act,” as suggested in the newspaper 
report headline about the female pallbearers. One can even postulate that she 
is performing double transgressivity as a female drummer, on special sacred 
royal drums, a practice that is normally considered to be taboo. Although con-
ventional practice dictates that royal deaths are officially communicated to the
38 Examples of “rupture” includes moments of disagreements on ritual procedures, uncertainties 
concerning the appropriation and integration of Christian values; magical, exotic, and daredevil 
performance acts that challenge the audience’s expectations and leave them psychologically and 
emotionally disoriented because they are unable to find a reasonable explanation for such acts 
and their impact. A rupture is also denoted in the examples of gun bullets, sonic booms and 
reverberations that can tear down event canopies and pose a significant threat to the human 
hearing system. Raptures are more about the positive reception and appraisal of general 
performance affects, including deep satisfaction and emotional attunement with the flow of 
performance moments. Both “sublime” and “liminal” would thus be appropriate in characterizing 
these highpoints of artistic-aesthetic moments. Music and dance performances in ordinary, non-
ritual contexts among the Ewe also encourage moments of exhilaration and highpoints. Rapture 
is also the state of being ushered into a new day with the sense of an altered self.
 There are different stages of the liminal, often associated with rites of passage where stages and 
moments of initiation situate initiands at the threshold of life and death, or as summarized by 
Richard Schechner (2022, 66), one of the leading scholars on performance studies as follows: 
“During the liminal phase of a ritual two things are accomplished: First, those undergoing the 
ritual temporarily become ‘nothing,’ put into a state of extreme vulnerability where they are open 
to change. Persons are stripped of their former identities and positions in the social world; they 
enter a time-place where they are not-this-not-that, neither here nor there, in the midst of a 
journey from one social self to another.”
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   26 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   26 28. 07. 2022   12:07:35 28. 07. 2022   12:07:35

Daniel Avorgbedor: Ruptures, Junctures, and Difference...
27
Figure 10: Female drummer (Yaa Godogbe) playing the sacred  
royal atompani (widely known in the literature as “talking drum”)  
pair to the audience’s awe and amazement.
39
 Such drums and  
performance roles are normally a female taboo.
40
public through print media and social media videos, the female drummer con-
tributed to the sensorial level of disseminating the news through narrating it 
by means of the talking drum. Because the video of her performance (see Foot-
note 36) circulated virtually, albeit briefly, I was fortunate to see the drummer 
physically perform on day two of the nine-day funeral event.
The performance by the female drummer who was a special guest mainly 
due to her popularity as a drummer in the community, must be read within 
and along with other acts involving the carnivalesque that often characterize 
these events. Her courage and display of competence parallel and comple-
ment those of ambulatory magicians, etc., all in pursuit of an audience’s en-
chantment, ritual efficacy, and the quest for out-of-the-norm experiences. The 
cumulative effects of these experiences and anticipations contribute toward 
effectual transformative experiences, mediated through sonic affect and related 
sites of affectivities.
41
 These ritual contexts, therefore, constitute an ideal arena 
for enacting and displaying the peculiar, avant-garde, “out-of-this-world,” and 
the hyperreal.
39 Video footage of this performance is available via the following link: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=hmK1Q_j4RDc&t=97s (“Tribute from […]” 2021).
40 Photo by the research team member Dr. Edem Adotey.
41 At first sight, these types of encounters may seem to disrupt the flow of events and thus suggest 
instances of chaos in which the audience must re-orient themselves to better appraise and contain 
these moments beyond seemingly subversive-transgressive and secularizing impressions.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   27 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   27 28. 07. 2022   12:07:38 28. 07. 2022   12:07:38

muzikološki zbornik • musicological annual lviii/1
28
Figure 11: Masked individual in funeral and asafo costume.  
The “white” face introduces and adds to the ruptures of exoticism, imagination,  
and inclusion but enacts visuality as difference.
Figure 12: Female performing groups play several other performance roles.  
Here, the visual is stressed, as well as the kinesthetic and the playing of  
the typical akaye (gourd-shaker) used in the funerary aviha genre.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   28 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   28 28. 07. 2022   12:07:40 28. 07. 2022   12:07:40

Daniel Avorgbedor: Ruptures, Junctures, and Difference...
29
Case Example 4: The All-Female Aviha Genre 
The aviha (literally, crying song or song of sorrow) is one of the preferred, 
all-female genres closely identified with funeral occasions in northern Ewe 
communities; akpalu is the generic parallel among the southern Ewe.
42
 It is 
part of a parade or procession where effigies or enlarged photos of the deceased 
are displayed. Segments in the procession include the head portage, the sing-
ing and playing of both school-type hand bells and the singing of women’s 
singing band songs (i.e., performed by older women’s choirs popular in many 
mainstream Protestant denominations), and hybrid sub-performance elements 
with Christian, indigenous, and popular characteristics. Even when such hy-
bridity is privileged or appropriate, expanding the concept to address specific 
processes and their interrelationships would be useful. For example, despite the 
significant place of Christian gestures (i.e., prayers, sermons, performance of 
final rites of interment, etc.), ideas and performances in these royal contexts, 
it is very important to consider how they are re-sacralized (i.e., made accept -
able or appropriate) through different levels and types of recontextualization, 
or just through tacit consent. More so, the analyst needs to account for the 
state and quality of these hybridities by locating them in an essential historical 
continuum that includes shared cultural values, and, by attending to why they 
are located and emphasized in specific spatio-temporalities. The subversive, 
transgressive, transmedial, multisensory acts, together with sonic elements and 
meanings and beliefs associated with these hybridities, are useful for under-
standing how they provide safe, malleable, and yet significantly transformative 
spaces for realizing, and thus ensuring the validity and continuity of tradition 
and ritual.
Hybridities, Visualities, and Corporealities
While current postcolonial critical and revised theories of hybridity clearly 
caution and expand earlier boundaries, perspectives and contexts, the exam-
ples discussed here add new insights, especially in explaining how they dem-
onstrate the interaction and transcendence of dichotomies of sacred-secular, 
profane/grotesque-sacred, male-female, etc.
43
 For example, female pallbearers 
42 For details on the phenomenon of death and dying and related rituals and performance types 
among the southern and northern Ewe societies see Adjandeh (2019), Anyidoho (1982), and 
Verdon (1982). For Akan and Ga ethnic groups of Ghana, see Addai (2016) and Potočnik (2017).
43 Any serious and updated discourse of postcolonial hybridities must necessarily engage the sacred-
secular continuum as part of the everyday, and yet an essential way of being-in-the-world in many 
African sociocultural contexts. Even Steven Terpenning’s brilliant analysis (Terpenning 2016) 
falls short of any significant insights, due to the lack of any awareness and appreciation of the 
sacred-secular and how it informs and influences sites, processes and meanings associated with 
conditions of hybridity. Such failures are too common, especially with Western analysts’ catego-
ries that insist on binaries and linearity. The emerging corpus of literature devoted to a deeper 
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   29 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   29 28. 07. 2022   12:07:40 28. 07. 2022   12:07:40

muzikološki zbornik • musicological annual lviii/1
30
and drummers transform the ritual and proscribed spaces discussed into dram-
aturgic, creative choreographies that facilitate the crossing and inhabiting of 
such liminal and proscribed spaces safely, even if some voices show disapproval. 
Pallbearing in Ghana, in general, has also assumed new dimensions, both as art-
entertainment and as sacred performance. For example, it is now very common 
to hire professional pallbearers who not only dress in exquisite costumes but are 
also competent and impressive dancers. Apart from their ability to delight those 
attending, they sometimes transport the appreciative audience into further lim-
inal-interstitial zones as they display their performance skills, sometimes acci-
dentally dropping the casket and even exposing its contents in the process.
44
 In 
such a “failed,” disastrous case, the “sacred” status of the performance is violated, 
both from the viewpoint of secular adjudication and moral appraisal, and from 
the immediate ritual exigencies as well. Nevertheless, the “dancing corpse” (by 
association), the pallbearers, and the audience are normally able to negotiate 
the status of the sacred performance/duty, its purity and efficacy within popular 
culture, thus loosening and entangling, or one could say blending the strands 
of the sacred, secular, and the profane, all at once.
45
 For example, such enter-
tainment-oriented choreographic performance, an emergent tradition, would 
suggest triviality, play, and grotesque and even extreme secularity, but as seen 
in other contexts discussed above, the transcendent performative essence and 
intentionality of this “serious-sacred” performance of pallbearing possesses flex-
ible borders, both generically and across experiential domains.
Christianity and the Anyako Dzokoto Funeral and  
Installation-Related Performances
In the Anyako Dzokoto funeral and installation performances, the issues 
of absence and partiality, in deference to accommodation of historical and 
understanding and explication of African and African-derived cultures is promising, especially 
those examples which highlight and situate the sacred-secular continuum alongside questions 
of circular/linear/non-linear in indigenous African modes of time reckoning and “oral-literat-
ing” (my new terminology) of history. See, for example, Adjaye (1994), and Fulop and Raboteau 
(1997). Three sources that illuminate debates surrounding the origins and transmutations of “syn-
cretism” (and ultimately updated in discourses of hybridity) include Bhabha (1994), Shaw and 
Stewart (1994), and Stewart (1999).
44 There was at least one such situation when the video circulated on social media. One could see 
and hear a bereaved family member wailing with grave concern over the accidental fall and ex-
posure of the contents of the casket. See pre-dance movements of Chief Dzokoto’s pallbearers 
at 1:17:00 and also at 1:27:48 of the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szqI1DLoM0s 
(“Togbe Dzokoto Anyako Funeral Part 7” 2021). In this and in other royal contexts extra care is 
taken not to trivialize or secularize the sacred royal institution beyond expected norms, and hence 
the original YouTube video which captured and depicted the pallbearers’ more “worldly” dance 
maneuvers was taken offline.
45 For details on modes and foundations of interactions of the sacred and secular in Ghanaian popu-
lar culture, see Collins (2004).
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   30 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   30 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41

Daniel Avorgbedor: Ruptures, Junctures, and Difference...
31
contemporary Christian values and practices, emerged on multiple occasions. 
During an interview session, one subchief of Anyako explained why he would 
not allow certain ritual procedures because of his Christian background and 
membership in Ghana’s Christian Chiefs’ Association – GCCA (Haun 2019; 
Kallinen 2021; “Tribal Chiefs […]” 2019; Wee 2014; Yeboah 2016). I was 
privy to many expressions of dissatisfaction with instances of the omission, 
sequencing, time-placement, duration, and substitutions concerning music 
and ritual performances that were once central to these royal events, including 
ancient war music-dances such as kpegisu and atrikpui. However, there was 
one momentous dramaturgical formulation and translation of this challenge 
or contestation. This occurred when an afli (also known as ak ɔfa ɖɛ, the Anlo 
Ewe asafo music and dance associated with the royal court) dancer improvised, 
according to a choreography that encourages improvisation with linguistically 
coded gestures, metaphorical movements, and facial expressions. During this 
dance, a copy of the Christian Bible was displayed and accompanied by several 
nonverbal interrogative gestures, the questions and concerns communicated 
through dance movements.
Figure 13: Dancer (middle) with Bible and ritual stool choreographic  
demonstration of “incompatibilities” of some Christian values and those  
of indigenous chieftaincy.
Simply understood, the message to the audience could be read as, “Why bring 
in these Christian values and practices, especially the music, prayers, and the 
clergy?” As suggested earlier, such spectacular embodiment of the contesta-
tions and issues of the crossing and mixing of the secular, sacred, profane, in-
digenous sacred, Christian sacred, Christian secular, indigenous secular, etc. 
are best approached and understood within a broader and larger fundamental 
local ontology in which the sacred and the secular operate as a continuum. 
For example, when the Anyako Dzokoto event included some kpegisu (war 
and royal ritual music-dance), the performers had to borrow one indigenous 
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   31 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   31 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41

muzikološki zbornik • musicological annual lviii/1
32
drum used in a local church, The Apostolic Revelation Society.
46
 While such 
“crossing/mixing” may not be intentional, but strategic and by convenience, it 
nevertheless evokes a more subtle and yet profound context for examining the 
relevance of the above concepts such as sacred-sacred, sacred-profane, sacred-
secular-popular, indigenous sacred-Christian sacred, and “contingent sacred” 
in both indigenous and Christian contexts. The danced disputation and its 
integral sonic details discussed possessed both rhetoric and yet affectivities 
and competence that united to situate the entire performance experience in 
the multisensory, and in the kaleidoscopic sites of collisions, coalitions, disrup-
tions, eruptions, disjunctions, ruptures, raptures, and resolutions.
The women’s processional performance (Figure 12) with emphasis on the 
kinetic, the sonic, color saturation, and elevated visualization of the framed 
royal portraits contributes to the overall lure and sensorial framing of the event. 
The procession’s multiple purposes, both in the case of indigenous royal music 
and the hybrid forms integrated the following elements: heralding or publi-
cizing the event; confirming the visible participation and identity of women; 
enhancing the overall grandeur, diversity and richness of the event; refresh-
ing the general complementarity, reciprocity, and mutual engagement between 
male and female domains; fulfilling specific role assignments specified in items 
on the agenda for each event, and amplifying through space and time, visual-
ity and the kinesthetic and overall bodily engagements that are emphasized in 
Ewe performance practice.
Figure 14: Part of a burial ceremony for a queen mother  
(Mamagã, Gbi-Hohoe, July 17, 2021). Note the gendering of female  
sensualities through aesthetic black-red contrasts and saturations.
46 Details about A. R. S. are provided in Avorgbedor (1997). A. R. S. is an AIC (i.e., African-Ini -
tiated, African Independent Church, or African Indigenous Church) founded in 1939 by local 
charismatic leader the late Rev. C. K. Wovenu (d. 1999).
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   32 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   32 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41

Daniel Avorgbedor: Ruptures, Junctures, and Difference...
33
Figure 15: Aerial view of women’s performance arrangement and proxemics  
(cf. also with Figure 14).
47
Even in the case of details provided in Figures 14 and 15, the description 
and analytical summaries remain porous, at best. For example, the angle of 
independent aerial (drone) photography captures the rotating, concentric and 
silhouetted circular movement of the same group of women mourners/per-
formers as they intersect by means of express, fortuitous design. Such phe-
nomena are imbued with further sensorial force through the predominance of 
the female body, the vibrant dynamism of color-coded gestures and shapes in 
tandem with the visual aura of sensuous movements. All these elements are a 
significant part of the socio-performative choreographies that symbolize the 
ideals, traits, and magnificence of local femininities, especially as emphasized 
in the context of the queen-mother’s funeral. The agility, resilience, prowess 
and overwhelming bodily affectivities and sensualities are projected further 
through imaginative choreographing.
48
 This mode of staging clearly privileges 
plurality of expression. It creates a synthesis of multiple sensory inputs (Hall 
1966; Hobeika 2017) through a kaleidoscope of sonic and bodily gestures, and 
techniques of silhouetting in the spirit of proxemics. The saturation of colors, 
the photo-realistic and malleable bodily architectures within which sonic vari-
eties are engendered situate this all-female performance at the edge of worldly 
sensibilities and those of the spiritual.
Case Example 5: Eruptions, Disruptions and Zangbet ɔ
A final case example involves the appearance of zangbet ɔ, which is an aspect 
of vodu, the official state religion in Benin which has become a growing tourist 
47 Footage from the video of a Ho, Kuƒuƒu Anyi, official announcement of the funeral (day 1) of 
Togbe Kwasi Afele II, provided by Krelo Pictures is available at the following link: https://youtu.
be/3nmQ4g-CcG0 (“The Most Feared […]” [2022]).
48 For example, under the direction of the leader in Figure 15 (performance circle) participants ob-
serve and perform silence, jump, clap, place their hands over their heads, sing game-like songs and 
recitations, and perform mime, etc.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   33 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   33 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41

muzikološki zbornik • musicological annual lviii/1
34
attraction among the Ewe and the Fon of Benin, Togo, and Ghana. Zangbet ɔ’s 
newfound presence and popularity can be viewed as the manifestation of a dis-
sonant, cataclysmic (unexpected, unplanned) eruption as in my experience it oc-
curred in the arena where the funeral church service (i.e., for the late Togbegã 
Gabusu, Hohoe) was in progress. It creates dissonance because, vodu (vodun, voo-
doo, etc.) is supposedly antithetical to the Christian faith and akin to heathenism. 
On the other hand, zangbet ɔ’s growing popularity and spectacular appeal and 
the enchantment associated with the “magical” transmutations, rotations, and 
sheer kinesthetic force executed by its adepts, often adds to the overall awe and 
affective-cathartic moments experienced by onlookers.
49
 The eruption-disruption 
that occurred with the zangbet ɔ performance at the royal funeral I attended, con-
stitutes an unforgettable moment, especially since the performance continued 
concurrently with the church service held within the premises of the funeral.
Conclusion
In this paper, I have presented examples of various degrees of rapture, rupture, 
and disjuncture in Ewe royal funerary and installation ritual ceremonial events. 
These occurrences can be experienced and understood as sonic elements with 
their affective reach and potential neurological repercussions (musketry, drum-
ming); gender-related taboos such as the appearance of female drummers and 
dancing female pallbearers; debates concerning authenticity and merchandis-
ing strategies of a commercial nature; interjected elements of the grotesque as-
sociated with choreographed theatricality, etc. Disagreements regarding ritual 
procedures such as the omission and substitution of ritual symbols and practic-
es, the absence of expected or invited delegates and challenges associated with 
a growing presence of Christian values (and the dilemma posed by “Christian” 
chiefs),
50
 and dissatisfaction with the performance of music and dance of other 
Ghanaian ethnic sources, are among the factors that support the premises of 
rupture and disjuncture. The large and diverse repertoire of music and dance 
which privileges skillful execution in these royal contexts combines with the 
extraordinary moments of magic and unexpected novel acts to raise the overall 
49 Zangbet ɔ is now performed (or provides guest appearances) in national and non-Ewe con-
texts – there are several examples on YouTube, for example: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=TyBJHVEVMn0&t=21s (“Zangbeto’s Part 2 […]” 2020); https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=D7dVUUgGjr0 (“Zangbetos, Magia […]” 2020); https://www.youtube.
co m/ watc h?v=baX849Ug9E M (Nomi 2015); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XT-
iEjnO2s&t=1043s (Agbayanou 2019).
50 In a provocative essay, a published version of a public lecture by a local Akan chief Nana Susubiribi 
Krobea Asante, we witness advocation for the legitimization of a “Christian chief,” highlighting 
traditions, practices and beliefs that in his opinion support or are shared by some biblical examples. 
He then concludes, “I find unrelenting and indiscriminate condemnation of chieftaincy by some 
Christians somewhat puzzling in view of the enormous contributions made by traditional leaders 
over the years to the reception of Christianity and Western education in Ghana” (Asante 2018, 45).
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   34 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   34 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41

Daniel Avorgbedor: Ruptures, Junctures, and Difference...
35
affectivities and expectations concerning ritual efficacy and performance excel-
lence. The field data pose challenges to current technologies, perspectives, and 
practices in visual and sensory ethnographies; they also clarify and uphold the 
dynamics and close interaction of religion and spirituality in African contexts. 
With new compelling data, the study illuminates the growing field of sonic 
studies and calls for close attention to and a deeper understanding and ap-
preciation of local cosmologies within which ritual and performance traditions 
are enacted; it also acknowledges the limits of conventional research paradigms 
and tools concerning the world of religion and spirituality.
References
Abe, Marié. 2016. “Sounding Against Nuclear Power in Post-3.11 Japan: Resonances of 
Silence and Chindonya.” Ethnomusicology 60, no. 2: 233–262.
Addai, Emmanuel Adu. 2016. “End-of-Life Care, Death and Funerals of the Asante: An 
Ethical and Theological Vision.” Licentiate in Sacred Theology, Boston College, MA.
Adjandeh, Evelyn. 2019. “The Socio-Cultural Life of the Eʋe through Funeral Poetry: A 
Case Study of the Akpini of the Volta Region, Ghana.” PhD diss., Institute of African 
Studies, University of Ghana, Legon.
Adjaye, Joseph, ed. 1994. Time in the Black Experience. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Adotey, Edem. 2021a. “Multiplicity and Simultaneity in Ethnographic Research: Exploring 
the Use of Drones in Ghana.” African Affairs 120, no. 480: 445–459.
Adotey, Edem. 2021b. “Decolonising Governance: The State and Chieftaincy Conflicts on 
the Ghana-Togo Borderlands.” The Africa Governance Papers 1, no. 1: 6–27. 
Aidoo, G. A., and T . P . Botchway. 2021. “Ethnicity, Religion and Elections in Ghana.” UCC 
Faculty of Law Journal 1, no. 2: 419–444.
Amegago, Modesto. 2012. “The Role of Misego Music and Dance in Ewe Migration and 
the Hogbetsotso Festival: A Study of Performance within the Context of Cultural For-
mation.” Journal of Gleanings from Academic Outliers 1, no. 1: 189–210.
Anyidoho, Kofi. 1982. “Death and Burial of the Dead: A Study of Ewe Funeral Folklore.” 
Master’s Thesis, Indiana University, Bloomington.
Arhin, Kwame, and Arhin Brempong. 2002. Transformations in Traditional Rule in Ghana: 
1951–1996. Accra: Sedco.
Asamoah-Gyadu, Kwabena J. 2005. African Charismatics: Current Developments within In-
dependent Indigenous Pentecostalism in Ghana. Leiden: Brill.
Asante, Nana Susubiribi Krobea. 2018. The Musings of a Chief in Contemporary Ghana . Four-
teenth Ephraim Amu Lecture. Accra: Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Avorgbedor, Daniel. 1997. “Cultural Display and the Construction of Ethnic Identities 
in a Contemporari Ghanaian Church: The Apostolic Revelation Society (A.R.S.) of 
 Ghana.” Paper presented at Conference on Holidays, Ritual, Festival, Celebration, and 
Public Display, May 29–31, 1997, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green.
Avorgbedor, Daniel. 1999. “The Turner-Schechner Model of Performance as Social Drama: 
A Re-examination in the Light of Anlo-Ewe Haló.” Research in African Literatures 30, 
no. 4: 144–155.
Avorgbedor, Daniel. 2004a. “Music in World Shamanism.” In Shamanism: An Encyclope-
dia of World Beliefs, Practices, and Culture, edited by Mariko Walter and Eva Fridman, 
179–186. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   35 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   35 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41

muzikološki zbornik • musicological annual lviii/1
36
Avorgbedor, Daniel. 2004b. “Sources and Processes of Musical Innovation in African In -
dependent Churches.” In African Folklore: An Encyclopedia, edited by Philip Peek and 
Kwesi Yankah, 268–272. New York: Routledge.
Avorgbedor, Daniel. 2013. “Körperliche und nicht-körperliche Expressivität in der afri -
kanischen Performance: Theoretische Perspektiven und Feldevidenz in der Erstellung 
eines interdisziplinären Bezugssystems.” [“Bodily and Non-Bodily Expressivity in Af-
rican Performance: Theoretical Perspectives and Field Evidence in Building an Inter -
disciplinary Framework.”] In Kinästhetik und Kommunikation: Ränder und Interferenzen 
des Ausdrucks, edited by Erik Porath and Tobias Robert Klein, 139–162. Berlin: Kadmos.
Avorgbedor, Daniel. 2020. “Dee Hoo! A Typology of Sonic Articulations in Healing and 
Exorcism Practices of the Anlo-Ewe.” Worlds of Music 42, no. 2: 9–24.
Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The Location of Culture . London: Routledge.
Bull, Michael, and Jon Mitchell, eds. 2015. Ritual, Performance and the Senses. London: 
Bloomsbury.
Chazan, Naomi. 1982. “Ethnicity and Politics in Ghana.” Political Science Quarterly 97, no. 
3: 461–485.
Chazan, Naomi. 2019. Anatomy of Ghanaian Politics: Managing Political Recession, 1969–
1982. New York: Routledge.
Collins, John. 2004. “Ghanaian Christianity and Popular Entertainment: Full Circle.” His-
tory in Africa 31: 407–423.
Cudjoe-Calvocoressi, Dzagbe. 1974. “A Preliminary Investigation into the Du-Legba Cult 
of the Volta Region Ewe.” National Museum of Ghana Occasional Papers, no. 8: 54–63.
Debrunner, Hans Werner. 1967. A History of Christianity in Ghana. Accra: Waterville Pub-
lishing House.
Drewal, Henry John. [n. d.]. “African Art and the Senses.” Sensory Studies, online. Accessed 
July 2, 2022. htt ps://www .sensor y studies.org/sensor ial-in v estigatio ns/afr i c an ar t-and-
the-senses/.
Fagg, William. Divine Kingship in Africa. London: British Museum Publications, 1978.
Feldman, Margaret. 1968. “Eidetic Imagery in Ghana: A Cross-Cultural WILL-O’-THE-
WISP?” The Journal of Psychology 69, no. 2: 259–269.
Fiagbedzi, Nission. 1977. “The Music of The Anlo-Ewe: Its Historical Background, Cul -
tural Matrix and Style.” PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles.
Fiakpornu, Francis. 2013. Alakple: The Evolution of a Modern Rural Settlement . Accra: Reso-
lution Studios.
Friedson, Steven. 2009. Remains of Ritual: Northern Gods in a Southern Land. Chicago: The 
University of Chicago Press.
Fulop, Timothy, and Albert Raboteau, eds. 1997. African-American Religion: Interpretive 
Essays in History and Culture. London: Routledge.
Gbolonyo, Justice Kofi. 2009. “Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Values in Ewe Musical 
Practice: Their Traditional Roles and Place in Modern Society.” PhD diss., University 
of Pittsburgh.
Ghana Statistical Service. 2012. 2010 Census Final Report. Accra: Sakoa Pres Ltd. Accessed 
July 3, 2022. https://www.statsghana.gov.gh/gssmain/storage/img/marqueeupdater/
Census2010_Summary_report_of_final_results.pdf.
Gilbert, Michelle V. 1982. “Mystical Protection among the Anlo Ewe.” African Arts 15, no. 
4: 60–66, 90.
Goodman, Steve. 2010. Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear. Cambridge, 
MA: The MIT Press.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   36 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   36 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41

Daniel Avorgbedor: Ruptures, Junctures, and Difference...
37
Greene, Sandra. 1996. “Religion, History and the Supreme Gods of Africa: A Contribution 
to the Debate.” Journal of Religion in Africa 26, no. 2: 122–138.
Greene, Sandra. 2002. Sacred Sites and the Colonial Encounter: A History of Meaning and 
Memory in Ghana. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Hagan, George, and Irene Odotei, eds. 2001. The King Has Gone to the Village: The Death 
and Burial of Otumfuo Opoku Ware II – Asantehene. Legon: Institute of African Studies.
Haun, William. 2019. “The Christian Chiefs of Northern Ghana.” Posted November 4, 
2019. Accessed July 3, 2022. https://www.imb.org/2019/11/04/christian-chiefs-in-
northern-ghana/.
Hall, Edward T. 1966. The Hidden Dimension . Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Heaton, Tim, Spencer James, and Yaw Oheneba-Sakyi. 2009. “Religion and Socioeconomic 
Attainment in Ghana.” Review of Religious Research 51, no. 1: 71–86.
Hobeika, Lise. 2017. “Interplay between Multisensory Integration and Social Interaction in 
Auditory Space: Towards an Integrative Neuroscience Approach of Proxemics.” PhD. 
diss., L’Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Épinière, Université Paris Descartes – Paris 
V. https://www.theses.fr/2017USPCB116 .
Howes, David, and Constance Classen. 2014. Ways of Sensing: Understanding the Senses in 
Society. London: Routledge.
Ijoma, J. O. 1982. “Portuguese Activities in West Africa Before 1600: The Consequences.” 
Transafrican Journal of History 11: 136–146.
Index Mundi. 2020. Ghana: Religions. Accessed July 3, 2022. https://www.indexmundi.com/
ghana/religions.html.
Kallinen, Timo. 2021. “‘I don’t See Anything Satanic in It’: Dilemmas of Christian Chiefs 
in Ghana.” Paper presented at the Third SIAC National Conference Future: Anthropolo-
gies of the Future, the Future of Anthropology. Rome, September 2021.
Kea, R. A. 1971. “Firearms and Warfare on the Gold and Slave Coasts from the Sixteenth to 
the Nineteenth Centuries.” The Journal of African History 12, no. 2: 185–213.
Langer, Armin, and Ukoha Ukiwo. 2008. “Ethnicity, Religion, and the State in Ghana and 
Nigeria: Perceptions from the Street.” In Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict: Under-
standing Group Violence in Multiethnic Societies, edited by Frances Stewart, 205–225. 
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Laplantine, François. 2015. The Life of the Senses: Introduction to Modal Anthropology . Lon -
don: Routledge.
MacLeod, Erin C. 2014. Visions of Zion: Ethiopians and Rastafari in the Search for the Prom-
ised. New York: New York University Press.
McCauley, John F. 2014. “Pentecostalism as an Informal Political Institution: Experimental 
Evidence from Ghana.” Politics and Religion 7, no. 4: 761–787.
Meyer, Birgit. 1998. “‘Make a Complete Break with the Past.’ Memory and Post-Colonial 
Modernity in Ghanaian Pentecostalist Discourse.” Journal of Religion in Africa 28, no. 
3: 316–349.
Meyer, Birgit. 1999. Translating the Devil: Religion and Modernity among the Ewe in Ghana. 
Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press.
Meyer, Birgit. 2002. “Christianity and the Ewe Nation: German Pietist Missionaries, Ewe 
Converts and the Politics of Culture.” Journal of Religion in Africa 32, no. 2, 167–199. 
DOI: 10.1163/157006602320292906.
Meyer, Birgit. 2012. “Religious and Secular, ‘Spiritual’ and ‘Physical’ in Ghana.” In What 
Matters? Ethnographies of V alue in a (Not So) Secular Age, edited by Courtney Bender and 
Ann Taves, 86–118. New York: Columbia University Press.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   37 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   37 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41

muzikološki zbornik • musicological annual lviii/1
38
Meyer, Birgit. 2015. Sensational Movies: Video, Vision, and Christianity in Ghana. Oakland, 
CA: University of California Press.
Meyerowitz, Eva Lewin-Richter. 1960. The Divine Kingship in Ghana and Ancient Egypt . 
London: Faber and Faber.
Montgomery, Eric, and Christian Vannier. 2017. An Ethnography of a Vodu Shrine in South-
ern Togo. Leiden: Brill Publisher.
Olupona, Jacob. “Sacred Authority: Divine Kingship, Priests, and Diviners.” In Afri-
can Religions: A Very Short Introduction, 105–122. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 
2014.
Olupona, Jacob, and Anthony Chiorazzi. “The Spirituality of Africa.” The Harvard Ga -
zette. Posted October 6, 2015. Accessed July 1, 2022. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/
story/2015/10/the-spirituality-of-africa/.
Pink, Sarah. 2009. Doing Sensory Ethnography. London: Sage.
Platvoet, Jan, and Henk van Rinsum. 2003. “Is Africa Incurably Religious?” Exchange 32, 
no. 2, 123–153.
Platvoet, Jan. 2004. “Does God Have a Body? On the Materiality of Akan Spirituality.” In 
Unterwegs: Neue Pfade in der Religionswissenschaft; Festschrift für Michael Pye zum 65. 
Geburtstag / Unterwegs: New Paths in the Study of Religions; Festschrift in Honour of Mi-
chael Pye on his 65th Birthday, edited by Christoph Kleine, Monika Schrimpf, and Katja 
Triplett, 175–195. München: Biblion Verlag.
Pobee, John Samuel. 1975. “Church and State in the Gold Coast in the Vasco da Gama Era, 
1492–1947.” Journal of Church and State 17, no. 2: 217–237.
Potočnik, Mitja. 2017. “A History of Death and Funeral Rites: A Case Study of The Ga in 
Jamestown (Ghana).” MPhil thesis, University of Ghana, Legon.
“Rare Act: Female Pallbearers at Tafi Agome.” 2022. The Spectator, February 19, 2022: 5. 
https://www.thespectatoronline.com/rare-act-female-pallbearers-at-tafi-agome/ .
Sasu, Doris Dokua. 2012. “Religious Affiliation of the Population in Ghana in 2010 and 
2021.” Statista. Accessed July 3, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1172414/
religious-affiliation-in-ghana/.
Schechner, Richard. 2022. Performance Studies: An Introduction. New York: Routledge.
Shaw, Rosalind. 1990. “The Invention of ‘African Traditional Religion.’” Religion 20, no. 4: 
339–353.
Shaw, Rosalind, and Charles Stewart, eds. 1994. Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism: The Politics of 
Religious Synthesis. London: Routledge.
Stewart, Charles. 1999. “Syncretism and its Synonyms: Reflections on Cultural Mixture.” 
Diacritics 29, no. 3: 40–62.
Terpenning, Steven. 2016. “African Musical Hybridity in the Colonial Context: An Analy -
sis of Ephraim Amu’s ‘Yɛn Ara Asase Ni.’” Ethnomusicology 60, no. 3: 459–483.
Thompson, Marie, and Ian Biddle, eds. 2013. Sound, Music, Affect: Theorizing Sonic Experi -
ence. New York: Bloomsbury.
“Tribal Chiefs in Ghana Coming to Christ.” 2019. Missions Box. Posted No-
vember 13, 2019. Accessed July 3, 2022. https://missionsbox.org/news/
tribal-chiefs-in-ghana-coming-to-christ/.
Turner, Victor. 1968. The Drums of Affliction: A Study of Religious Processes among the Ndembu 
of Zambia. Oxford: Clarendon.
Turner, Victor. 1974. Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. 
Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Van Gennep, Arnold. 1909. Les rites de passage. Paris: Librarie Critique Emile Nourry.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   38 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   38 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41

Daniel Avorgbedor: Ruptures, Junctures, and Difference...
39
Venkatachalam, Meera. 2015. Slavery, Memory and Religion in Southeastern Ghana, c. 1850–
Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Verdon, Michel. 1982. “Typology of Deaths and Eschatology among the Abutia Ewe.” An-
thropos 77, nos. 5–6: 875–879.
Wee, George Sundagar Moses. 2014. “Chieftaincy and Christianity: A Religio-Cultural 
Dilemma Facing Ghanaian Christianity.” Open Science Repository Religion and Theology . 
Accessed July 3, 2022. http://www.open-science-repository.com/religion-and-theolo -
gy-45011814.html.
Wijsen, Frans. 2017. “Are Africans Incurably Religious?” Exchange 46, no. 4: 370–397.
Wiredu, Kwasi. 2011. “Introduction: Decolonizing African Philosophy and Religion.” In 
Decolonizing African Religions: A Short History of African Religions in Western Scholarship, 
edited by Okot P’Bitek, xi–xxxvii. New York: Diasporic Africa Press.
Y eboah, Samuel. 2016. “Christian Chiefs and African Indigenous Rituals in Ghana.” MPhil 
thesis, University of Ghana, Legon. 
Zielińska, Katarzyna. 2013. “Concepts of Religion in Debates on Secularization.” Approach-
ing Religion 3, no. 1: 25–35.
Videography
Agbayanou, Gerard Richard. 2019. “What Is Zangbeto and Who’s Inside It? W/ Gerard 
Richard Agbayanou.” YouTube video, 19:24. January 25, 2019. https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=1XT-iEjnO2s&t=1043s.
Nomi, Taylo. 2015. “African Magic.” YouTube video, 1:41. December 20, 2015. https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=baX849Ug9EM .
“The Most Feared Drum on Ewe Land – Adabatram in Volta Region, Ghana.” [2022]. Y ou-
T ube video, 15:07. Krelov Pictures. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nmQ4g-CcG0 .
“Togbe Dzokoto Anyako Funeral Part 7.” 2021. YouTube video, 1:34:12. Eweland TV. July 
26, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szqI1DLoM0s .
“Tribute from the Drum Goddess YAA GADOGBE to the Late Togbegá Gabusu VI of 
the Gbi State.” 2021. YouTube video, 2:48. December 8, 2021. https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=hmK1Q_j4RDc&t=97s.
“Zangbetos, Magia o Presencia Paranormal?” 2020. YouTube video, 9:15. June 18, 2020. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7dVUUgGjr0 . 
“Zangbeto’s Part 2 of 2.” 2020. YouTube video, 3:42. June 19, 2020. https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=TyBJHVEVMn0&t=21s.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   39 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   39 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41 28. 07. 2022   12:07:41

muzikološki zbornik • musicological annual lviii/1
40
POVZETEK
Prelomi, spoji in razlika: vloga glasbe in obredne 
performativnosti pri določanju »tradicije«  
v sodobnih kraljevskih slovesnostih v Gani
Prispevek se opira na primere izbranih kontekstov kraljevskih pogrebnih in umestitvenih 
slovesnosti in performativnosti v skupnostih ljudstva Ewe v južni Gani, pri čemer so v ospred-
ju raziskave dogodkov v letih 2021 in 2022. Analize teh dogodkov temeljijo na mnogih, a 
medsebojno tesno povezanih analitičnih perspektivah: zvok (zlasti zvočni afekti), senzorične 
študije, študije performativnosti, avtohtoni estetski konstrukti in prakse, postkolonialne kri-
tike in določanje hibridnosti ter fenomenologija religije in duhovnosti. Primeri poudarjajo 
perspektive, ki preizprašujejo sakralno-sekularne binarnosti.
Avtor meni, da sodelujoči obredne dogodke nadvse skrbno načrtujejo in izvajajo, ob tem 
pa še dodatno dajejo prednost izraziti ustvarjalnosti in združevanju različnih oblik izvedbe-
nih praks ter mnogim simbolom s področja multisenzoričnega in hiperrealnega, da bi tako 
dosegli največji afektivni učinek doživetega dogodka. Analiza nadalje proučuje izrazito kre-
ativnost (ter njen končni cilj), ki jo povezuje s spreminjajočo se prostorsko-časovno sestavo 
udeleženih v dogodkih, z njihovim izkustvom zvočnih in gibalnih manifestacij, ter jo opazuje 
kot poudarjeno na osnovi udejanjanja domačnosti, izjemnega, grotesknega, eksotičnega ipd. 
Premise preloma, zanosa, razdora, razlike in zbliževanja so nepogrešljive pri razumevanju tega, 
kako udeleženci določajo vmesnost in multisenzoričnost izvedbe, pa tudi, kako medsebojno 
delujejo, da omogočijo cilje obredne učinkovitosti in odličnosti izvedbe. Pri identificiranju 
sodobnih avtohtonih obrednih in performativnih tradicij ljudstva Ewe so pomembni sledeči 
vidiki ustvarjalnega pogleda in sodobnosti: soočanje krščanskih in avtohtonih verskih vre-
dnot, opuščanje in nadomeščanje obrednih ter izvajalskih konvencij ter njihove specifične 
vsebine. Prispevek razpravlja o različnih značilnostih, mehanizmih in izvajalskih strategijah, 
ki utelešajo in razkrivajo napredne in prožne pristope k vprašanjem spola in pripadnosti celo 
v obrednih ali svetih kontekstih, ki so sicer poznani kot zelo konservativni.
Zbrani terenski podatki postavljajo izzive sodobnim tehnologijam, perspektivam in pra-
ksam v vizualnih in senzoričnih etnografijah, obenem pa razjasnjujejo in potrjujejo dinamike 
in vzajemno delovanje religije in duhovnosti v afriških kontekstih. Raziskava dodaja sveže 
podatke in osvetljuje rastoče polje zvočnih študij, poleg tega pa poziva k večji pozornosti, 
globljemu razumevanju ter ovrednotenju lokalnih kozmologij, znotraj katerih se udejanjajo 
obredne in izvajalske tradicije. Obenem prepoznava omejitve konvencionalnih paradigem in 
orodij pri raziskovanju sveta religije in duhovnosti.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   40 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   40 28. 07. 2022   12:07:42 28. 07. 2022   12:07:42

Daniel Avorgbedor: Ruptures, Junctures, and Difference...
41
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DANIEL KODZO AVORGBEDOR (perazimm@gmail.com) completed his PhD degree 
at Indiana University (Bloomington) in 1986 and is a retired Associate Professor who cur-
rently teaches and conducts research on a contractual basis in the School of Performing Arts 
and the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. Previous positions include 
a joint appointment in the School of Music and the Department of African-American and 
African Studies at The Ohio State University, Columbus (1995–2010) where he also served 
as coordinator of the Ethnomusicology program from 2004–2008. Professor Avorgbedor is 
past President of the Midwest Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology and was recently 
appointed as Vice-Chair of ICTM’s Study Group on Sacred and Spiritual Sounds and Prac-
tices, and Editor-in-Chief of a new journal, Analytical Approaches to African Music. Professor 
Avorgbedor has received major grants from the H. F . Guggenheim and Wenner-Gren Foun -
datons; Carnegie-Mellon (team), and the National Endowment for the Humanities (team). 
He guest-edited a special issue of The World of Music devoted to Cross-Cultural Aesthetics 
(2003) and his research focuses on urban ethnomusicology, African Diaspora studies, and 
bodily expressivity and the multisensory in Anlo-Ewe performance practices.
O AVTORJU
DANIEL KODZO AVORGBEDOR (perazimm@gmail.com) je doktoriral leta 1986 na 
Univerzi Indiana (Bloomington) in je upokojeni izredni profesor, ki trenutno poučuje in 
raziskuje na Šoli za uprizarjajoče umetnosti in Inštitutu za afriške študije na Univerzi v Gani 
(Legon). Predhodne zaposlitve vključujejo poučevanje na Fakultetni šoli za glasbo in Oddelku 
za afroameriške in afriške študije Državne univerze Ohio v Columbusu (1995–2010), kjer je 
bil med letoma 2004–2008 tudi koordinator programa etnomuzikologije. Profesor Avorgbe-
dor je nekdanji predsednik Srednjezahodnega oddelka Etnomuzikološkega društva (Midwest 
Chapter of Society for Ethnomusicology) in je bil pred kratkim imenovan za podpredsednika 
Študijske skupine za Sakralne in duhovne zvoke in prakse, delujoče pod okriljem Mednarodne-
ga sveta za tradicijsko glasbo (ICTM), ter glavnega urednika nove revije A nalytic al  A ppr o a c hes to African Music (Analitični pristopi k afriški glasbi). Profesor Avorg bedor je prejemnik večjih 
štipendij fundacij H. F. Guggenheim in Wenner-Gren ter štipendij za raziskovalne skupi -
ne Carnegie-Mellon in National Endowment for the Humanities. Bil je gostujoči urednik 
medkulturni etiki posvečene posebne številke revije The World of Music (Svet glasbe, 2003). 
Njegovo raziskovalno delo se osredotoča na urbano etnomuzikologijo, študije afriške diaspore 
ter telesno izraznost in multisenzoričnost izvajalskih praks skupnosti Anlo-Ewe.
MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   41 MZ_2022_1_FINAL.indd   41 28. 07. 2022   12:07:42 28. 07. 2022   12:07:42