Tema traditional leaders announce ban on drumming, noise making

Tema Manhean, May 6, GNA - The Tema Traditional Council (TTC) has imposed a three-week ban on drumming and noise-making in the Tema Municipality as a prelude to this year's Homowo celebrations scheduled for August.

Osonga Nii Adjei Kraku II, Chief of Tema, who announced the ban said it includes no wailing at funerals and prohibits shoeshine boys from making noise with their toolboxes.

Relatives are advised to either bury their dead without noise or keep the body in the morgue until the ban is lifted, Nii Kraku told newsmen at his palace on Thursday.

He said the ban would provide quiet time for traditional elders to pray and perform rituals for abundant food production against the lean season.

He said it was not for nothing that their ancestors planned the period to coincide with the rainy season and so the ban must be respected to the letter. "This is the reason why shoeshine boys have been included because they make so much noise by beating their boxes especially at dawn," Nii Kraku held.

The ban took effect from Friday, April 29 and will end on May 20. To ensure peace in the area, Nii Kraku urged those affected by the ban, including the churches, to observe the period in order to achieve absolute silence for the attainment of the stated objectives. In a letter to the churches, the traditional authorities described the period of the ban as a "solemn occasion of traditional religious worship by our Chief Priests and Priestess, essentially to seek communion with God for soul cleansing and spiritual direction and uplifting".