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Another Ancient Afrikan teaching within the Dagara (as well with other Afrikan communities) to celebrate children and community, there is an occasion upon which the villagers sing to the child. If at any time during his or her life, the person commits a crime or aberrant social act, the individual is called to the center of the village and the people in the community form a circle around them. Then they sing their song to them.
The tribe recognises that the correction for anti social behaviour is not punishment; it is love and the remembrance of identity. When you recognise your own song, you then have no desire or need to do anything that would hurt another and it goes this way through their life. In marriage, the songs are sung together and finally, when this person is lying in bed, ready to pass away, all the villagers know his or her song and they sing for the last time the song to that person.
The song is always sung at crucial life transitions purely because life is always reminding them when they are at tune with themselves and when they are not. When one feels good, what they are doing matches their song and when one feels negative or down, it does not…in the end that person recognises their own song.
