A Material Culture and Ontological Perspective of Sisaala Clans' Indigenous Cultural Practices in Ghana

Abstract

This study examines totemism as a material and ontological system through a descriptive single-case study of selected totemic clans in Sisaala East Municipality, Upper West Region of Ghana. Due to the inadequate and inapt documentation of Sisaala Clans' totemic clan compositions, this study, drawing on qualitative fieldwork involving twenty-four (24) participants composed of chiefs, elders, clan heads, opinion leaders, and traditional priests, selected using maximal variation sampling, explored how the Sisaala clan totems operate as material anchors of ancestry, identity, and social organisation. Espousing participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis, the study identifies how totemic material and taboos structure clan composition, regulate social roles, and sustain moral obligations within and across Sisaala communities. Data were analysed using reflective thematic analysis with MAXQDA (v24.4.1). The findings show that Sisaala totemic systems materialise philosophical concepts of kinship, origin, and responsibility, embedding belief within everyday practices and ritual life. By foregrounding indigenous ontologies of material belief, this study contributes to the debate in material culture studies on the agency of Sisaala totemic symbols, the social life of belief, and the entanglement of materiality and cosmology in African societies. To strengthen the documentation and preservation of clan totemism, the study recommends future exploration of diverse dimensions of clan roles and ritual authority in other ethnicities.