Lecture on ‘Tallensi Divination’ by Meyer Fortes

Professor Fortes gives a lecture on the fieldwork he did in Ghana among the Tallensi, and in particular on the large role of divination in their culture. He speculates on divination, oracles and magic more generally and the role of the ancestors in Tallensi life.

The lecture was given in March 1982 before an invited audience of students with Jack Goody in the chair. Included in the lecture were short extracts from a film which Fortes took when he returned to the Tallensi 30 years after his first fieldwork there. The lecture lasts for about an hour.