Old Man Awuley was the one who introduced the storytelling segment sessions. Grey-haired with a small pot belly traced to frequent stopovers at Ataa Osei’s nearby palm-wine joint, he used to come to James Town from Swalaba for the panlogo fiesta every weekend. He had lived in James Town for years. Then, suddenly after retiring from his civil service work at Usher Fort, he relocated without notice to High Street, Swalaba, uptown Accra.
A…b…c…d…e…f…g…h…i…j…k…l…m…n…o…p…panlogo alogo logo ligi mao mao, panlogo alogo logo ligi…
The seething seaside scene swinging to this ancient panlogo beats was James Town, a fishing community in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. December’s harmattan dusk gradually swallowing the area wasn’t strong enough to subdue the powerful panlogo blasts of a small gathering of young folks working on make-shift instruments to produce the songs. Fists were the microphones. Steel spoons and nails were knocked symmetrically on cans and bottles and tins that used to house foods, drinks and beverage.
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Together with drumming done on cardboard and wood, untrained voices rendered a thousand and one parts that went beyond the four traditional bass, alto, tenor and soprano musical arrangements. The group churned out panlogo melodies and dance steps and gymnastics that assured the environment that although the sun was departing with its genial heat, there was vibrant throaty artistry to release another kind of friendly glow. There was no vacuum. Nature would always replace the sun with the moon. But poor moon couldn’t give sunlight. It would only offer dusk illumination, under which to tell tales. No more.
Old Man Awuley was the one who introduced the storytelling segment sessions. Grey-haired with a small pot belly traced to frequent stopovers at Ataa Osei’s nearby palm-wine joint, he used to come to James Town from Swalaba for the panlogo fiesta every weekend. He had lived in James Town for years. Then, suddenly after retiring from his civil service work at Usher Fort, he relocated without notice to High Street, Swalaba, uptown Accra. It was only a physical movement; his soul didn’t quit the area by the Atlantic shore. His spirit was knit to James Town. He used to tell his young friends that there was a long story behind his love for James Town.
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‘’Then why did you leave?’’ Akwele asked. She was one of the two dancing female members of the panlogo group.
“I’m going to let you know one of these days.’’
“Family?
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“No, Akwele…Not now. You’re curious. Be careful. Remember, curiosity killed the cat.”
“One of these days, we’ll insist you let us know why you moved. You’d be forced to let us know or we’d not entertain the community. The James Town mantse (king) would hear about our protest.” That came from Korkor. She paired with Akwele in the outfit’s dances. They were a lethal combination if they raised an insurrection; they were unstoppable, even if Old Man Awuley and the other three male components were not on their side. The girls hardly fell apart. Which was odd for two combustible figures.
The ladies now got support from the band leader, Addo. “Numo,” he started as he arranged the musical contraptions for the day’s business. Numo was the deferential name they all used to address their founder. “It’s like we’re all going to be on the side of our women o!”
He turned to Dodoo, the vocalist. “What do you think about the history of Numo and James Town and his operating away from home?”
“I’m for the story. But there’s business tonight. I’ve polished my voice for this hour. I don’t want to squander my investment on talk, please. Let’s handle Numo after we play today.”
“I agree with Dodoo. Let’s resolve Numo’s matter after tonight,” Tawiah said. He was the composer. “If we go into debating it now, I’ll forget all my unscripted masterpieces when it comes to singing them.”
So they gave their leader a reprieve.
But he came up with conditions. The group listened, prepared to accept his terms, if that would finally lead them into a dark past.
“Each of you must tell me two stories. Either about yourselves or your communities, past or present. When you’ve given me ten of them, I’ll release to you all my life…From A to Z. I won’t stop at P as we do in panlogo. Do you even know why we don’t go beyond P? It’s in the luggage I will offload. So, who kicks off? Please also remember that we resolved some time ago that what we get from the public at Xmas season wouldn’t be shared among us. We’re going to be giving it to charity: orphans, widows, the vulnerable, and the needy clan.”
The troupe often had a good day. Passersby stopped to appreciate their Mantse Agbonaa shows. There was an iron box that received whatever amount dropped into your mind to offer: coins and cedi notes. Sometimes you were simply moved to stay and join the dancing ladies as you relished the beats and songs. Others expressed their approval by giving them money or inviting them for lunch at Anti Ama’s chop bar the following day. They were once taken to a tailor for two sets of uniform for shows. On a good weekend, they could earn a thousand cedis.
Southpaw Korkor, who doubled as the treasurer, raised her left hand to indicate she would start the adesan hearing. She first told the story of how she and her twin sister played tricks on men and made merchandise of the pranks. But once, they were exposed and embarrassed and disgraced. In the other tale, the dancer said in school at Adabraka, downtown Accra, she disguised as a boy and found herself in a boys’ hostel. She fled when she eavesdropped on one of the boys who discovered her gender; he was planning a nocturnal raid on her.
Akwele was next, relating how she once pretended to be pregnant. At home in the morning hours, she would dash to the toilet several times, and locked away from her parents, she’d feign throwing up in the manner of women in early pregnancy.
“I always enjoyed watching all the household speak in hushed tones. They would say, ’Who’s fathering the baby? How did she get it?’ As if they didn’t know how babies are made.”
Her second story was how she was almost arrested and prosecuted when, upon discovering that her horserace-betting ticket lost, she altered the figure to a winning one. The cashier she presented the disfigured slip to raised an alarm; but she was fleet-footed, disappearing swiftly into the crowd.
Dodoo’s tales weren’t about himself, but his parents’ love for the Church and children. They began preparing for what to give the poor and the Church at Christmas as soon as one was over. “So, from January of every year,” he said they’d, “begin skipping meals every day to save to enable them give to the Church, the deprived in the neighbourhood and the children whose parents couldn’t afford new clothes and food at Yuletide…From them l learnt the virtues of saving and giving sacrificially.”
In his second adesan, Dodoo said his elder sister ran away from home on the day two men came for her hand in marriage. She confided in Dodoo that she didn’t know how it happened, swearing she had no prior arrangements for the men to bring their elderly kinsmen for the ceremonies on the same day. “Because I was the closest to my sister and everybody was coming to me for her whereabouts, which I wasn’t aware of at the time, I also fled home.”
In his first tale, Addo said when he was a schoolboy, he was at the Black Star Square in Accra during one of Ghana’s Independence Day anniversaries. He was allowed to shake hands with JJ Rawlings, Ghana’s legendary revolutionary leader. It was televised nationwide. “When I got back home at Kokomlemle, parents had lined up their children in kilometre-long queues to shake my hands so they could tap from my contact with JJ. They said they wanted the kids to be like the Ghanaian hero.”
In his second tale, Addo said he ceased eating dog peppersoup when they brought a man to a herbalist for healing. The man’s wife complained that she couldn’t sleep because in bed her man barked like a dog, instead of snoring. The herbalist’s remedy: first, they should look for one of the puppies mothered by the dog that found its way into the belly of the barking man. The medicine man would make a concoction with the small dog to cure the man’s malaise. Thereafter he must stop taking canine meals.
Finally, it was Tawiah’s turn. “Once upon a time, I dreamt that I was a millionaire. When I woke up, I realised I had slept for five years. Many Christmases had gone past me. But I didn’t bother about that. I was asking everybody, ‘Where are my millions?’ They said a man came to them saying I gave him a signed authority to cart away the money so I can use it in the future.” He said he was looking for the man who took his dream fortune. He was also waiting for the arrival of the future storing his riches.
Tale Number Two also had to do with a dream. Tawiah saw himself installed a king. There was unimaginable grandeur, splendour and glamour around him. It surpassed anything he had ever seen on earth. So he refused to return to reality. His people feared he had died. But the doctors said he was alive. It was a sorcerer who unraveled the mystery. “The young man is enjoying life in another world. He won’t come back to this world unless you threaten him with live burial. Go get a coffin and make preparations for his interment. He’d fear to be buried alive.” It worked. “I scrambled out of bed, accusing my parents and the sorcerer, ‘You’re wicked…It’s you who would go into the coffin for denying me my reign as a king.’”
Numo Awuley had his ten tales. He called for a palongo stage to precede his own story.
A small group of the public was forming around them, expecting a performance. It must be special, to rhyme with the Yuletide. They started. A…B…C…D…E…F…G…H…I…J…K…L…M…N…O…P…palongo alogo logo ligi…
The whole scene erupted into ecstasy and electric euphoria that the area hadn’t experienced for ages. The dancing women gyrated, joined by some in the crowd. The vocalists and the drummers and whoever had a part to play put up acts as if it was an Olympic Games competition with lucrative awards for the best participants.
Suddenly, there was a tumultuous eruption of big brass band music of Christmas carols that seemed to have come from across the street, close to the Atlantic beach that overlooked where Numo Awuley’s group was reaching its feverish peak. This new entry of beats, complete with a large army of trumpeters, saxophonists, percussionists, flutists, pianists, vocalists and dancers, all numbering about one thousand mounted on a long multi-tyre wagon, snaked along the street, followed by thousands more people, who were now being joined by the panlogo fans and the entire James Town population.
It was a new sensation in the neighbourhood: mobile music machine meandering the roads, and taking a whole community, especially children, with them. They were all abandoning their beloved panlogo.
Where were they following the new beats to? Was this a replay of Pied Piper?
Old Man Awuley and his group were still asking questions as the Xmas songs from the mammoth trailer blared in the street.
Banji Ojewale, a author and journalist, sent this story from Accra, Ghana.
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