Riding on the back of a motorbike – racing the dusty red-dirt road towards Sirigu.
It’s blazing hot.
Kids wave from the shade of enormous baobab trees.
CONTENTS
We’re near the Burkina border and I’ve come to see village houses brightly-painted by women.
Sirigu: Ghana’s Painted Houses
Sirigu is the most well-known of Ghana’s painted villages, and traditionally, it’s been the women’s job to decorate their homes.
The painted designs are abstract geometric and stylized animal figures, either painted on a flat surfaces or molded into relief across the hard-mud walls.
They limit colors to black, red, and white.
Natural local materials are the source of the colors — like red rock, which is crushed to powder to make the paint used on the housing.
Sirigu Folk Art
The folk art designs and meanings of these painted houses:
DESIGNS OF SIRIGU ¹
Stylized animals:
Cattle: the symbol of wealth.
Python: totem symbol of clan and protection.
Crocodile: totem symbol of saving life of a clan.Abstract geometrical forms:
Broken calabash: the expression of ever useful.
Male symbols: show masculinity.
Cows: symbols of prosperity
LEFT: While many people are animist, many have converted to Islam (or Christianity) but still keep aspects of the earlier beliefs.
UPPER RIGHT: Rashid — friend, guide, taxi-motorbike driver around the area. He stands inside his grandmother’s painted house. LOWER RIGHT: Interior shrine (made from plastered mud) inside Grannie’s house.
Pottery
Pottery is another traditional skill of the local women.
The containers are for storing water, locally-made beer, food, as well as cooking.
Sirigu pottery also plays an important role in marriage and funeral celebrations.
At the NGO pottery workshop, the women were surprised and applauded when they were told – via Rashid – that my country, New Zealand, had a female leader (Prime Minister Helen Clarke, at the time).
Women in a Patrilineal Society
“The man is the head of the family, who may have one or more wives.
The senior wife has the central room of the compound. The other women may have their own rooms joined to the senior room by circular walls.
The head of the family may have other brothers and their wives and children living in the compound.
Traditionally, women are regarded the property of their husbands after the dowry has been paid.
Women cannot own land, but may borrow it for farming purposes.
They cannot take part in decision making for the family or themselves and have no right to their biological children in case of divorce or decease of their husband.” ²
Notes: ¹ + ² Sirigu cultural info from: www.swopa.org
Travels in Ghana – 2007
