Dagara Cultural History: Cardinal Peter Poreku Dery

One Day Workshop Date: 10th April, 2010 Place: Wa Pastoral Institute Registration Fee: Two Ghana Cedis Abstract Cardinal Peter Porekuu Dery Picture Collections is part of an action research study focusing on the cultural history, individual as well as social biographies of religious and cultural life in Northern Ghana. It aims to focus particularly on the dynamic interchange and tensions between religion, culture, the economy and society as they evolved since the time of slave raiding in the mid 19th century and the subsequent planting of Christianity in Northern Ghana. The main objective is to identify and document the tangible and intangible archival institutions and materials of the societies of Northern Ghana in order to build a comprehensive and integral heritage movement of cultural and philosophical discourses within the global context of religious and social formations and transformations. As an action research project, the focused activities are based on three axes, na

BLESSED POPE JOHN XXIII CENTRE FOR INTEGRAL HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ABOUT US The Blessed Pope John XXIII Centre for Integral Human Development is the brainchild of Most Rev. Peter Porekuu Dery, the Archbishop Emeritus of Tamale. Ordained the first bishop of Wa by Pope John XXIII in 1960, Most Rev. Peter Porekuu Dery was to draw much inspiration from the life and leadership style of the Pope who ordained him. Long before Vatican II, Pope John XXIII granted permission to bishop Dery to bring the local music into the liturgy within his diocese. This was symptomatic of the reforms this Pope was going to bring into the church’s life and ministry through Vatican II. It is to continue the pastoral image of Blessed Pope John XXIII whom Archbishop Dery affectionately refers to as his father that Most Rev. Peter Porekuu Dery has decided to set up the Blessed Pope John XXIII Centre for Integral Human Development. As a pastor, archbishop Dery has always had a special concern for the youth. In his inter

CARDINAL DERY MEMORIAL DAY 8TH MAY, 2009 A year ago, on March 6, 2009, our beloved pastor, mentor and spiritual leader, Peter Cardinal Porekuu Dery, was called to eternal blessedness with the Lord. To mark the first anniversary of his death, the Bishop of Wa, Most Rev. Paul Bemile, and the entire Wa Diocesan Family, are organizing a Cardinal Dery Memorial Day. The Day shall first and foremost be a thanksgiving to God for the very fruitful life and work of Peter Cardinal Dery, and to continue to pray for his peaceful repose in the Lord. The day shall also be used to initiate a yearly remembrance of the Cardinal, by the institution of the Cardinal Dery Memorial Lectures. The Bishop is therefore inviting all and sundry, in Ghana, and beyond, all those who love the Cardinal, and all those who have been blessed by his warm and loving pastoral care, to be part of the Cardinal Dery Memorial Day celebrations. The details of the Memorial Day Celebrations are as follows: Day: Friday, 8th May, 20

Dery, Peter Porekuu:- The significance of Dery’s birth narrative is partly embedded in both his personal given name and family names and partly in the recent historical experiences of his kinship group and the Dagara people as a whole. The Dagara people of northern Ghana and southern Burkina Faso of West Africa assign the personal name Dery to a male spirit incarnate who has already experienced a brief moment of human life and death at an early age. This happens when a male child of a couple dies before he is weaned. He is buried with a mark on his body and would be identified as the same individual if the next immediate child born to the same couple and after a few years, is also a male child and is carrying this mark. A similar process but within the context of the birth of a female child would produce a female spirit incarnate and the name Derpog will be assigned to the individual. Porekuu Dery was born into a kin and family group that had, over generations, maintained a great measu

A DAGAO WITH THE DAGARA, A SISALA WITH THE SISALA "I have heard it said of me that "as for Archbishop Dery, he has no fixed identity. He has brothers and sisters everywhere, in Tizza, in Ko, in Zemuopare, in Konguol and even among the Sisala. He is related to everybody". For many, it is only a pious pretension on my part to try to appropriate the words of St. Paul who claims to be a Jew with the Jews and a Gentile with the Gentiles. But there is more to the matter than mere spiritualism. I grew up to learn from my elders that my people originally moved from Dagbong to Mossi country (Moo-tenga). How long they stayed there, I do not know. What I gather is that there was fission in the family after some time and a large portion of it moved away from there. They are said to have moved South. None of those of us still living remembers ever having been told the reason for the move from Moo-tenga. Was it due to a quarrel or some family disagreement? I do not know. As th