The quantifiers and their interpretation

‘(x) Fx’ is usually read long the lines of ‘For all x, Fx’, and ‘(∃x)Fx’ along the lines of ‘For some x, Fx’ or, more accurately, ‘For at least one x, Fx’; ‘(…)’ is generally known as the universal, ‘(∃ …)’ as the existential, quantifier. A variable inside the scope of a quantifier, such as ‘x’ in ‘(∃x) Fx’, is said to be bound, a variable not bound by any quantifier, such as ‘x’ in ‘Fx’, or ‘y’ in ‘(∃x) Rxy’, to be free. A formula with one or more free variables is called a (1-, 2- … n-place) open sentence, a formula without free variables a closed sentence (or ‘o-place open sentence’). So prefixing a quantifier, ‘(x)’ or ‘(∃x)’ to an open sentence, such as ‘Fx’ with just ‘x’ free, yields a closed sentence, ‘(x) Fx’ or ‘(∃x) Fx’; in general, prefixing a quantifier binding one of its free variables to an open sentence with n free variables yields an open sentence with n − 1 free variables.

Some formulations of the predicate calculus have singular terms, ‘a’ ‘b’, ‘c’ … etc. as well as variables; these are individual constants, each denoting some specific individual. By dropping a quantifier and replacing the variable(s) it bound by singular terms, one obtains an instance of the quantified formula, as e.g. ‘Fa → Ga’ is an instance of ‘(x) (Fx → Gx)’.

While the Mossi view themselves as a single ethnic unit when they are in contact with others, Mossi society itself is internally divided into a number of different subcategories, none of which identifies itself simply as Mossi. The unity apparent to outsiders reflects the fact that members of these various Mossi collectivities have more in common with one another than they have with non-Mossi. This unity is the result of a long and complex process of incorporation which has been characteristic of Mossi society since its beginning in the fourteenth or fifteenth century (Fage 1964; Illiasu 1971).

Although the distinctions between ethnic communities within traditional Mossi society are not of great importance to the organization of the immigrant Mossi community in Kumasi, the process of incorporation that has characterized the growth of the Mossi state is relevant. In a number of significant ways the processes of integration taking place in both communities are similar. In the Kumasi immigrant community and in Mossi society in Upper Volta, ethnic communities have increasingly lost their cultural individuality as they have been incorporated into larger sociopolitical units. At the same time, ethnic categories have become elements of the social structure of the larger community, wherein they are a means of expressing status distinctions between groups and allocating distinctive social, political, and economic roles.

In Mossi society, as among immigrants in Kumasi, ethnic categories are perpetuated through patrifiliation.

Although there was a precolonial settlement of Muslim strangers in Kumasi, now incorporated into Asante society and known as the Asante Nkramo, the present zongo community dates back only to the beginning of the colonial period. The development of the zongo community was made possible by the British government's encouragement of the settlement of strangers. Consequently, the growth of the zongo political system must be considered in the context of the development of colonial administration in Kumasi and in Asante, as a whole. Changes in administrative policy, even when these did not refer specifically to the zongo, affected internal political development there. For this reason, it is impossible to discuss politics in the zongo, or in the Mossi community itself, in terms of either the development of political structures, or in terms of specific events, without referring to an external system. For the purposes of this chapter, “external system” refers to all personnel, policies, and actions which form part of or emanate from the larger political system in which the zongo exists. This includes the traditional and modified political system of Asante and the colonial and postcolonial governments on local, regional, and national levels. Political parties, as organizations which affect a wider community than the zongo alone, are also part of the external system. Obviously, the external system is defined from the vantage point of the zongo.

Kinship was considered in the last chapter, but only in terms of the composition of houses and the dispersal of kin. In chapter 9, the political aspects of the metaphorical use of kinship terms within the Mossi group will be considered. Here, links of kinship and affinity are discussed, with the aim of contrasting the way these operate within the ethnic community and between members of different communities. Both internal and external relations of members of an ethnic community are in many contexts conceptualized in terms of kinship and affinity. These categories provide complementary models which are used to contrast two sets of interpersonal relationships - those with one's own people, on the one hand, and those with members of other ethnic communities, on the other.

Before developing this idea, it is necessary to clarify my use of the terms specific kinship, generalized kinship, and affinity. Specific kinship is what the immigrants in Kumasi refer to as “real” kinship. It refers to the relationships which people can describe in genealogical terms, accurately specifying each link between the persons concerned, regardless of whether these links derive from biological kinship or, as they sometimes do, from fictive kinship ties. In Kumasi zongo, specific kinship means close kinship, for it obtains almost always between people who have, at most, a common great-grandparent or, even more often, only a common grandparent or parent.

Confronting the consequences of centuries of massive migration all over the globe, anthropologists are now recognizing that their task is not only to study culture, but also, and perhaps more urgently, to study how people with different cultural backgrounds behave towards one another: how they attempt to preserve, annihilate, exaggerate, or ignore their similarities and differences. One aspect of this concern, amply demonstrated in the literature in the past few years, is an interest in ethnicity - that is, in the ways in which people conceptualize and utilize symbols of cultural distinctiveness.

This book is about the changing meaning of ethnicity among first- and second- generation Voltaic immigrants in Ghana. It is an attempt to study ethnicity independently of the processes of migration and urbanization. As valuable as many studies of ethnicity in Africa have been, their wider applicability has sometimes been limited by a lack of analytic separation of these variables. In hindsight - having written the rest of this book before completing this introduction - the distinction between the study of migration and the study of ethnicity has enabled me to reconsider the relationship between ethnicity and cultural variation. Models of ethnicity based only on the study of first-generation migrants - as are many derived from Africa - tend to obscure important aspects of ethnicity, because they confuse the consequences of migration and urbanization with the nature of ethnicity.

In descriptions of migration among the Mossi a distinction is often drawn between short-term, seasonal migration and the permanent emigration of individuals or families for the purpose of settling in new areas (Deniel 1968; Izard and Izard-Héritier 1959; Kohler 1972; Rouch 1956). The first involves the migration of labor, and is primarily a consequence of European colonization, while the second is a more traditional movement of population which occurs as people redistribute themselves according to the availability of resources. Seasonal and short-term migration mainly involves young men working for wages in the towns of Upper Volta or in the cocoa farms, coffee plantations, and industrial centers of Ghana and the Ivory Coast. Permanent emigration involves resettlement of families in response to poor soil fertility, dense population, and a relatively underdeveloped agricultural technology. As noted in chapter 2, this type of migration has been part of Voltaic life for centuries.

There are numerous differences between these two types of migration, including differences in the motivations and intentions of the migrants, the sex and age profiles of the two groups, and the effects of these two types of movement on the development of the economies of the Upper Volta, Ivory Coast, and Ghana. The incentives leading to both types of migration are economic, but the seasonal migrant is entering the urban or rural wage-earning economy – usually at the lowest level – while the permanent emigrants are resettling, in order to continue subsistence farming.

The emergence of a sense of community and a common set of values among zongo people results from multiple processes of sociocultural integration which take place in all fields of social life. In politics, economics, in their marriage and kinship relationships, immigrants from varied cultural backgrounds learn to cooperate, accept each other's differences, and discover areas of common interest. Frequent interaction in these different domains leads to the development of new values which characterize and guide life in Kumasi zongo, and which differ from the traditional values of each immigrant group. The dynamics of these processes of integration are most easily observed in the domestic field, which is also the primary context for the development of a sense of common identity among the immigrants in Kumasi.

The typical dwelling unit in Kumasi zongo can be regarded as a microcosm of the zongo community itself, for each house is composed of unrelated individuals from many ethnic communities, who live together in a confined area. In this chapter the factors which affect household composition, the kinds of relationships that develop between coresidents, and the ways in which these contribute to social integration are described. Because very few dwellings are self-contained social units in any sense, it is also necessary to consider relationships which link individuals who live in different houses and different neighborhoods – links of kinship and common ethnicity.

There are two complementary processes which contribute to integration in the domestic field.

From the point of view of outsiders - government officials or members of other ethnic groups - the Mossi often appear to be a corporate unit represented by their headman and other leaders and capable of acting as a political faction in alliance with, or in opposition to, other ethnic groups. However, when the internal organization of the Mossi community is studied, differences in values and social organization between generations are such that it is difficult to describe simultaneously the communities of Mossi migrants and Mossi 'yan k'asa. This has been shown in the discussion of kinship, where most statements apply to first-generation immigrants or to 'yan k'asa, rarely to both. Here, the internal political structure of the community is described, and these variations again must be considered.

The Mossi community

The use of the phrase, the Mossi community, presents problems when one looks at the question of participation. Mossi live all over Kumasi, as Table 5 suggests. The main headman of the Mossi community has always lived in the Zongo. That is, there have been four headmen, and these have always lived in the same area of Zongo Extension. Meetings of most of the main Mossi associations take place in the Zongo, sometimes in the mosque known as the Mossi mosque, which was built by the former headman. The present and past headmen have held informal courts in this neighborhood.