The Sociological Significance of Ancestor-Worship in Ashanti

Abstract

Opening ParagraphThe Institute has laid down its policy in ethnological matters in the Report of the Executive Council held in Berlin in December, 1928. The Council then came to the conclusion that ‘there was a gap between anthropological science on the one hand and the practical work of education and administration on the other, and that the Institute could render useful service by attempting to bridge this gap’.The following resolution was passed unanimously:‘The Council reaffirms its resolution to encourage studies of African life and institutions, more particularly with reference to such subjects as the family, law, economic life, ideas of land tenure, systems of education, phenomena of change and similar subjects which have a direct bearing on practical work and administration in Africa.It was, I presume, due to an accident of omission that religion does not appear in the list of subjects the study of which is to be encouraged. In Africa, above all ethnographic areas, religious dogma and practice lie at the very core of all aspects of culture, and no study of ‘the family, law, economics, ideas of land tenure, systems of education’ could be adequate that did not start off with an account of native belief. In giving an analysis of Ashanti religion I shall show that this is especially true of that culture.