Traditional Governance and Democracy

Indigenous governance has no written “rules.”  Governance was kept through customary laws, sustained through proverbs/ poems/songs/oral literatures that encode ancestral information about how the People were best governed as the traditional chiefs organized community life.

WIACT documents the policies of traditional governance historically and in contemporary life, and collects/translates the proverbs/ poems/songs that inform governance. We compare traditional governance ideas to modern democracy to find the divergences & correspondences.

We can provide visitors with opportunities to see traditional chiefs in action….settling community disputes and presiding over festivals and events.

enskingment of yagbonwura

indigenous governance

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*Dispute Resolution
*Organizing Village Life *Succession Models
*Training to Be Chiefs

maiden damba
cropped jira and rashid
new yagbonwura riding horse2
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yagbonwura smiling

If you want to help during your visit to Savannah region, you can participate in any of our ongoing projects:

•  Interview chiefs about the issues that community members bring to them for resolution

•  Record chiefs telling the proverbs they have used in working to resolve disputes

•  Document succession rules of Savannah Region's tribal leadership

•  Record a community meeting with the Paramount Chief presiding

•  Log the number of visits of community members to traditional chiefs over a month

•  Collect qualitative data about succession rules and succession histories/disputes

•  Document the role of women in traditional governance systems

WE WELCOME VOLUNTEERS INTERESTED IN THESE TOPICS, INCLUDING UNIVERSITY RESEARCHERS, so send us an email explaining your interests to: visitwiact@gmail.com