SOCIO-CULTURAL STUDY OF THE KUNDUM TRADITIONAL FESTIVAL IN GHANA

ABSTRACT

This research work provides information the socio-culture study about Kundum festival. The festival is a main annual festival of the Akan Nzema and Ahanta in the Western Region of Ghana. Across Ghana, festivals mobilize different modes of ritual speech. These include liturgical pronouncements, invocations, mythological narratives, singing, fundraising speeches, satirical comments, interfaith sermons, and political speeches at festival durbars. This paper also attempts to examine the potential of using traditional festivals as platforms through which rural communities can dialogue with duty bearers and make demands for development projects. Hence, analyses were made using a case study of a traditional festival in the kundum traditional area of Ghana. The findings established that the traditional role of festivals purported to preserve and maintain culture, remember, honor and give thanks to God, the gods and the ancestors for their help and protection is increasingly been influenced by government policies and programmes that call for community self-development initiatives. Prominently, traditional festivals are been used all over Ghana as platforms to plan and advocate for development projects and programmes. The study recommended that: local government use these fora to collect views on development actions; government policies recognizes and incorporate the celebration of festivals into development action plans; and the need for inter-festival sharing of best practices.