Volume 29 Number 1 March 1998 23 The Kassena-Nankana people of northern Ghana have no word for the supernatural; boundaries between real- ity and imagination do not exist. Mortals and ancestral spirits can readily communicate through the medium of soothsaying. Every lineage is headed by a patriarch who employs soothsayers for contacting ancestral spirits to explain the past, interpret the present, and forecast the future on matters of current concern to his lineage. 1 An experimental program of family planning services is be- ing introduced among the Kassena-Nankana. 2 Because soothsaying guides the most mundane decisions of daily life, it is reasonable to expect the custom of soothsaying to guide community reactions to this family planning pro- gram. 3 This article reports findings from an investigation of ways in which soothsaying affects responses of lineage heads to the introduction of family planning services in this setting. Achieving an understanding of the role of tradi- tional religion in fertility regulation is relevant to the more general research program of the Navrongo Health Research Centre. 4 Located in an isolated rural area of Ghana’s northernmost region, the Navrongo Centre conducts research on the determinants of health, sur- vival, and demographic dynamics in a traditional popu- lation. 5 In 1994, the Community Health and Family Planning Project (CHFP) was launched to develop a cul- turally appropriate approach to providing primary health care and family planning, and to test the impact of experimental services on fertility and mortality. The communities’ use of public health services is known to be infrequent. Fertility and mortality remain high and pretransitional; at the beginning of the Navrongo ex- periment, Western contraceptive-use prevalence was about 4 percent (Debpuur et al., 1994). Making family planning information and services freely available thus involves introducing the concept of hormonal contra- ception into a traditional society that has not practiced contraception previously. The Influence of Traditional Religion on Fertility Regulation among the Kassena- Nankana of Northern Ghana Philip B. Adongo, James F. Phillips, and Fred N. Binka Philip B. Adongo is Social Scientist and Fred N. Binka is Director, Navrongo Health Research Centre, Post Office Box 114, Navrongo, Upper East Region, Ghana. James F. Phillips is Senior Associate, Population Council. This article presents findings from a study of the influence of traditional religion on reproductive preferences of Kassena-Nankana lineage heads in northern Ghana. Seven reproductive preference questions were administered to nine lineage heads who are primary practitioners of the cult of sooth- saying. With the assistance of soothsayers, interviews were repeated in conjunction with the invo- cation of religious rites in order to determine the views of ancestral spirits on the seven questions. Pairs of lineage head and ancestral interviews are compared to determine the role of traditional rel- igion in shaping male reproductive preferences. Interview pairs reflect a shared preference for sons, large compounds, and a growing lineage. Findings nonetheless show that some ancestral spirits want small families, some even wanting fewer children than corresponding lineage heads. Spiritual consultations are nondogmatic and open to external ideas and influences, suggesting that family planning introduction will not encounter systematic religious opposition among the Kassena- Nankana. (STUDIES IN FAMILY PLANNING 1998; 29,1: 23–40)