The Kusasis-A Short Histroy (2)

v d APT ~ R
iii.
CONsrrTUTION • PAST AND PRESENT.
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When one reads of the elaborate forma of
Native Government already in existenoe in Mamprussi and
Dagomba at the time Europeans arrived one realizes how
very very primitive indeed -lleople like the Kusasis were
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by oomparison.
An a.tbempt was made in Cha.pter 11 to
show how foreign to their nature was anything in the way
of rule.
In Chapter vii this is demonstrated more
olearly by the account of
the hostility shown to the
various Mamprussi Chiefs who tried to settle in !golle
and in two small areas in Toendema..
The Kusasis"themselves literally had no oonstitution.
Certainly there was a kind of patriarohal organization,
but this can hardly be termed a constitution.
The only
Chiefs were the TindaI:la.s. and the nMe is hardly applicable
even to them. Some were o.i~ greater standi11g than others,
and very often these would be the fetiSh Nabas referred
to in Cha.pter 11.
But they had no power other than the
spiritual authority with whien their position invested
them.
For people in such a. primitive stage of
development, however, this lack of Chiefs
really made