The Creative Process and Context

This chapter is in two sections. The first, rather longer, section provides an ethnographic description of an Akan funeral, one of the most important occasions for the performance of nnwonkorɔ; an eighth-day royal funerary ceremony provided the data. I shall then examine the role of context in the creative process in order to explicate the creative response to variables at Akan social events. In the context of funerary rites the dynamic interplay between the audience and the performing group has a bearing on the outcome of songs performed on such occasions. In the second section I discuss the practice of praise singing in Akan societies to demonstrate the manner in which social hierarchies are reflected and reinforced by processes of recomposition at a state event honoring the Asantehene.