ABSTRACT
Social cohesion, or some equivalent concept, has gained an honourable place in anthropological literature as a labour-saving device. The Tallensi are well-known to their neighbours for the ritual festivals which they celebrate. The Tallensi, being anciently settled agriculturalists, are inexorably bound to place. Local group and kinship group tend to be coterminous, hence the social classification of people is primarily in terms of the settlements. Intra-clan social relationships are of a uniform type all over the country. Relations between settlements, that is political relations, however, are of a different order. Ritual and dance are the two components of every festival; the former usually esoteric, the latter public though exclusive. The sacrifices are carried out immediately, and ritual then sinks into abeyance for a time. The nightly dance occupies the centre of social interest, until the moon begins to wane.
