there were bloody clashes between the Kusasi and the Mamprusi in Bawku. If this news were not disturbing enough, one can also read time and again in Ghanaian newspapers about clashes between the adherents of the Ahlus-sunna and the Tijaniyya all over the country. Are these incidents mere episodes on the political landscape in northem Ghana or can they be seen as significant signs of societal changes as part of an unstable political-economic structure? Is the political geography the only cornmon

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... denominator of the various bloody succession disputes that have shattered Dagbon especially throughout the twentieth century? Further, are the quarrels about land ownership that have haunted much of the recent past of the relationship between various ethnic groups in northern Ghana also an expression of the political geography ofthe country? Last, but not least, are intra-religious clashes connected with the political geography of independent, postcolonial Ghana? For a historian, it seems as if the political geography-the fact that all of these elements ofunrest and concern are located and occur in specific geographical locations-is but one factor, and not even an explanatory one. Rather than limiting one's investigation to a narow analysis of time and space, a historian (or any other person inclined to appreciate a wider perspective) will stress the cumulative factor of history, the carry over of political and economic-societal-patterns if not structures and, most importantly, ideas, habits as well as mentalities, from one historic period, era or reality into another-perhaps even more than only the succeeding one. Thus, as I will argue in this article, that the present political instability in northem Ghana, be it the Yendi Conflict, the Northern Conflicts or the intra-religious clashes, has to be put in historical perspective. Put briefly, I see Studia Orientalia l0l (2007), pp. 461-483