Le strutture del valore, i limiti delle negoziazioni. Ancestralità, genere e anzianità nei registri funerari akan

Abstract

This paper compares the indigenous conceptualisation, as expressed in ledgers recording the collection of funeral offerings, with academic knowledge with regards to the classification of kinship ties and social distribution of value in the Akan area of West Africa. Donors are inserted in social circuits defining their residential belonging (in villages and households), parental affiliation (with specific offerings for matrilineal, patrilateral kin and in-laws), as well as gender and seniority. Funeral offerings, moreover, vary proportionally to value: the amount provided by the donor expresses his/her value while the total cost of the funeral, indicates the value of the deceased and of her/his family. The intricacies of mortuary offerings reveal shared and structured taxonomies that enable to affirm and negotiate the value of the deceased and that of the donor as well as the relation between the former and the latter.