Coma (ethnicity)

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The Koma (Komba) are an ethnic group in the north of present-day Ghana , which is located in the area between the Kulpawn and Sisili rivers northwest of their confluence to about the northern latitude of 10 ° 30 'N. Administratively, their core settlement area belongs to the south-eastern Upper West region of Ghana. The Koma speak a language called Konni (alternative names: Koma, Komung) and which belongs to the Gur group of the Niger-Congo languages.

The coma

With 3,800 people (estimate from 2003), the coma are a numerically very small ethnic group in Ghana, which is primarily located in the Upper-West region in the north of Ghana. Their settlement area is mainly divided into the villages of Yikpabongo, Tantuosi, Wumobri (Wuntubre), Nangruma, Senta / Tinggala and Bayeba Tiging (in the latter case, however, there are only three homesteads that are inhabited by Koma). However, Tantuasi is already located in the Upper East region of Ghana. The settlements of Barisi, Zangbieri, Gubong and Walemanya (Walimija) are abandoned Koma villages. In the case of Barisi, for example, in 1993 the coma population there moved completely to Yikpabongo. The Koma settlement area is surrounded by villages of the Sisala , Bulsa and Mamprussi . There are also a few Fulani nomads in the coma area.

The ethnicity was not scientifically studied for the first time by British linguists until the 1960s. This very late discovery was due on the one hand to their small size as a group, and also to the geographical isolation of their settlement area. Even in the 1980s there were neither bridges over the Kulpawn and Sisili in their sections, between which the Koma settlements are located, nor paved roads to and in the Koma area. In the rainy season, the country is very difficult to drive even with modern off-road vehicle technology.

Linguistically, the coma are closely related to the bulsa, from which they differ in other areas, so that both ethnic groups are differentiated from each other and above all from the neighboring Sisala and Mamprusi. For example, the Koma farms of Yikpabongo are not surrounded by farmland belonging to the farm, as is the case with the Bulsa, but rather the Koma cultivate agricultural fields on so-called bush farms far outside the village. The cattle are not driven into the kraals' cattle yards for the night, as with the Bulsa, but in large, fenced cattle kraals in the open space between the farms. Furthermore, in the case of the Koma, for example, the large earthen ancestral shrines known from the Bulsa are not found in front of the homesteads, but these are much smaller in the Koma, mostly have the shape of a hemisphere and are located on the inside of the walls of each residential courtyard.

Coma terracottas

Coma figure, terracotta

Coma became famous far beyond the country for the so-called Koma terracottas, which, after an accidental discovery in the 1960s, have been found in large numbers in Komaland and in neighboring Bulsa, both by the local population and by also through official archaeological excavations that began in March 1985. In many cases, the figurines were unintentionally found in the construction of houses, but since there has been an international market for them, they have also been deliberately and illegally excavated. These terracotta figures are interpreted, at least by the neighboring Bulsa, as stone images of ancestors representing grave goods. As the coma themselves say, they do not come from their ancestors, but from the people who settled in their area before the land left by their predecessors was occupied. For example, today's place name Yikpabongo is said to be derived from “Dzikpiebongo”, which translates as “ruins in the forest”, since the place was built on the ruins of an older population. An age determination on one of the terracotta finds, which was carried out by means of thermoluminescence dating , showed an age of 405 ± 135 years. Thermoluminescent dates on other pieces indicated an age between 400 and 800 years. The time of creation of these figures, which can be set between 1200 and 1600, overlaps with the time of creation of the terracotta figures of the Niger Inland Delta. The depictions of people and animals from both cultures show remarkable similarities.

It is not known why the area was abandoned before the coma arrived. Tropical diseases probably contributed to this, as the area is a. known as the region where onchocerciasis (river blindness) is endemic . The causative agent of river blindness, a parasitic micro- nematode ( Filaria ) of the species Onchocerca volvulus , is transmitted to humans (especially in the regions of northern Afghanistan) by the females of the black flies ( Simulium damnosum ), which carry the parasite. Tropical diseases may also be one of the reasons for the small size of the coma people.

In the religious cult of the coma, the old terracotta figures do not play a special role, although in many coma there is a certain reverence for the figures, which is shown by the fact that these figures are mostly kept in special places that also serve the practice of religious cult. The rule that can otherwise be found in northern Ghana that one may only approach important religious sanctuaries with one's upper body bare does not apply to comas.

Although they are not works of art of the coma, these ceramic figures have found their way into the scientific community under the term "coma terracottas". In Germany, some of the Koma figures are on display for the public in the Hetjens Museum (German Ceramic Museum) in Düsseldorf .

International sales ban

Coma terracottas are on the red list of the ICOM (International Council of Museums) and are protected by law, so that they cannot be exported without the consent of the government of Ghana. Old coma terracottas are still offered to tourists in many places in Ghana today.

Article sources

  • Franz Kröger, The terracotta finds of the Koma area (Northern Ghana) , Paideuma, 34 (1988) 129-142

further reading

on the ethnology of coma:

  • Franz Kröger & Ben Baluri Saibu: First Notes on Koma Culture. Life in a Remote Area of ​​Northern Ghana. , Lit, Berlin 2010, ISBN 3643105436

about the Konni language:

  • Tony Naden: Première note sur le Konni , Journal of West African Languages, 14 (2) (1986) 76-112

on the subject of river blindness in Northern Ghana:

  • John M. Hunter: River blindness in Nangodi, Northern Ghana. A hypothesis of cyclical advance and retreat , The Geographical Review (New York), 56 (3) (1966) 398-416

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The examination of the sample material was carried out in April 1984 at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg .
  2. ^ Terracotta from Northern Ghana (Komaland) and the Côte d'Ivoire ( English ) ICOM. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  3. ↑ Stolen Works of Art ( English ) Interpol. Archived from the original on April 22, 2011. Retrieved June 13, 2019.