Kasena Riddles

This publication is on the riddles of the Kasena people of the Upper East Region of Ghana. Some of these people can also be found in southern Burkina Faso. For Kasena people riddles have been an important aspect of their cultural existence. Riddles are the means by which knowledge and wisdom, as Kasena saw it, and still see it, were passed down the generations. Riddles, though of anonymous authorship enshrine for these people, the ways of the world, as they comment on human and animal behavior, relationships, and on events taking place in the social and physical environment. Riddles are coined from critical observations of life and of nature itself. This author's objective is to explain the meanings of a collection of riddles by situating the riddles in their appropriate cultural and historical matrices. The argument is that even from apparent nonsense and non-sense, sense and meaning can be derived or distilled. However, to do this requires an appreciation of the people's culture and outlook to arrive at the literal meaning of riddle statements and from there to penetrate the underlying structure.