The main occupation of these people is farming.   They cultivate grain crops and legumes and might keep cattle, the southern Grusi grow tubers.   In the case of the Kasena-Nankana the compound farming practices of other Upper Easters are the norm.   The family farms are cultivated permanently and the use of household refuse and manure makes this sustainable.   The compound comprises, as elsewhere in the Upper East, a collection of mud huts connected by a wall into a circular structure with a gateway opening to the east.   The huts are either roofed with tall grass or thatched with mud.   The dwelling units encircle an open space in the centre where livestock (Cattle, sheep, goats and poultry) are kept in the night.   Other native speakers of Grusi languages depart from this, the huts are usually mud-thatched.   In the latter case the dwelling units are connected in such a way that people walk from rooftop to rooftop.

 

It would appear that traditionally the Grusi peoples did not have chiefs as we know them today.   Their languages do however have words for chief or chieftain and these words are by all accounts ‘native’ rather than borrowed words.   The idea of chieftaincy cannot therefore be said to have been unknown among them.   It may be that their traditional notions of chief were different from those of the Mamprusi-Dagbomba peoples.   These societies did have chiefs who occupied offices that tradition suggested had been introduced from outside the community in pre-colonial times.   A powerful individual with many wives and children passed for a chief.   However, some of such people were made chiefs and they now have the necessary paraphernalia for the office.   Elders and heads of lineages were influential in the past and some seem to have retained their influence among their kingroups.   The elder and the   earthpriest both had and still have ritual and secular duties.

 

Grusi peoples such as the Kasena-nankana and the Sisala, perhaps all of them, are patrilineal in their ways.   The individual belongs more to his father’s lineage, although he or she may have residual claims on the mother’s people.   Marriages are formalized through the transfer of bridewealth to the wife-givers.

 

Guan peoples are usually perceived to be southern Ghanaians.   In the south they constitute minorities surrounded by Akan speaking communities.   As a linguistic group Guan is a member of the Volta-Comoe sub-family of Kwa languages and closely related linguistically to Akan.   However, Guan linguistic communities are also found in Northern Ghana where we have languages like Gonja, Nawuri and Nchumburu (Nchummuru)

 

The Gonja are the largest of the Guan groups in Ghana.   Their language is one of the few officially sponsored Northern Ghanaian languages and the only Guan language to enjoy that status.   The Gonja are found in the Southern parts of the Northern Region where they control a vast territory which had been conquered from weaker peoples like the Vagala, Tampulma, Mo, and other Guans etc.   Even today Gonja chiefs rule over villages where the people are non-Gonja.    In the past they contested with the Dagomba for control of territory.   Today Gonja and Dagomba maintain friendly relations; they seemed to have made common cause in the ethnic conflicts that pitted formerly acephalous peoples against the centrally organized peoples who were once their overlords.   Gonja had very brutal encounters with the Nawuri people and the Konkomba who had settled in land traditionally belonging to the Gonja.

 

The rise of the Gonja Empire owes to the arrival of a band of Malian or Mande horsemen in the 17^th Century who conquered the surrounding lands of the Black Volta basin.   These people were not originally Guan language speakers, however, they intermarried with the local people and their descendants adopted the Guan language that all Gonjas now speak today.   The society is structured on the bases of three estates – commoners, who may well be of autochthonous origin, Moslems and princes.   These estates are perhaps no longer easily distinguishable due to years of inter-marriage among them.

 

Though the Gonja language is a Kwa one belonging to the Volta Comoe sub-group, and individuals can be found with Akan type day names, their culture is perhaps more akin to that of the northern peoples.    They are predominantly farmers and they specialize in the cultivation of root crops especially, yams and maize.   They are also traders and artisans.   They control the salt trade with their northern neighbours.    Daboya is still famous for its production of native cloth and smocks (northern gowns).   As warrior groups, in the past a predation may have suited them.    The principal Gonja towns include the old market town of Salaga in the East and Damango and Bole in the West.

 

Among the Gonja as in the case with the Dagomba, chieftaincy occupies an important place in their lives.   All Gonjas acknowledge one paramount who resides in the village of Yabum, the Yabumwura.   Succession to chiefships is based on patrilineal descent.   Such offices circulate among the descendants of Ndewura Jakpa, the reputed founder of the state.   The process involves rotation and circulation between village gates.   Gonja society is not however exclusively patrilineal.   Patrilateral and matrilateral norms are at play in the affiliation of individuals to kin-groups.   Kinship fosterage was practiced in the past and may continue to some extent.