Ghana Journal: Builsa Slave Resistance Folksongs

I am working with a masters student on his thesis. He traveled to Builsa, in the remote northeastern region of Ghana where there is little contact with the outside world. There, he collected more than 60 slave resistance songs that were never previously documented. These songs, containing powerful figurative language, were sung more than two hundred years ago and have been sung and preserved in the Builsa tribe’s oral tradition every since. The Builsa sung these songs as they fought the Ashanti tribes trying to capture and sell them to white slavers on the coast. Today these songs are sung in traditional ceremonies...