The beliefs associated with days: The case of Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday among the Dagbamba of Northern Ghana

Abstract

The study focuses on how the Dagbamba linguistically encode the culturally embedded beliefs crucially associated with Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to determine the vitality and morale values of these beliefs at the instance of Islamisation, formal education and modernity in general.  The Dagbamba (PL) or Dagbana (SG) speak the language called Dagbani and they constitute the largest ethnic group in the Northern Region of Ghana. Data for this paper was gathered through interviews, our intuition as insider linguists, and digital ethnography. Even though most of the native speakers believe in foreign religions such as Islam and Chrisitianity, they still ascribe to some of these beliefs imposed on them by the African Traditional Religion ( ATR). One such belief is based on the enigmatic nature of Wednesdays and Saturdays, and  Thursday prohibition of some events among the Dagbamba people. It was shown that Dagbamba prefer pleasant events such as marriages and childbirth to be observed on Wednesdays or Saturdays. However, they do not wish for any calamity or  death to occur on days like Wednesdays and Saturdays. Planned events such as funeral rites that would have fallen on these days are either shifted a day forward or earlier to avoid a repeat of a similar unfortunate circumstance. It is also revealed that Thursday is regarded as a day banned from performing any form of thatch work. This is because thatch work done on that day has a tendency to catch fire, thus it is prohibited to do any form of thatch work on that day.