Akan Of Ghana Research Articles

Kofi Appiah-Kubi, Man Cures, God Heals: religion and medical practice among the Akan of Ghana, Totowa, N.J.: Allanheld, Osmun & Co.1981, 187 pp.

Kofi Appiah-Kubi, Man Cures, God Heals: religion and medical practice among the Akan of Ghana, Totowa, N.J.: Allanheld, Osmun & Co.1981, 187 pp.

Man Cures, God Heals: Religion and Medical Practice among the Akans of Ghana. KOFI APPIAH‐KUBI

<i>Man Cures, God Heals: Religion and Medical Practice among the Akans of Ghana.</i> KOFI APPIAH‐KUBI

Myth and Metrology: The Early Trans-Saharan Gold Trade

Coins and weights provide evidence which can throw light on the origins of the trans-Saharan gold trade. Such a trade does not seem to have existed before the end of the third century a.d., but from 296 to 311 an irregular gold coinage was issued at Carthage, and by the end of the fourth century there were significant changes in the North African tax system to enable more gold to be collected. The solidus, a coin first issued in 312, provided the standard used for weighing gold-dust in the trans-Saharan trade, while copper, a major item of merchandise in that trade, was being imported to Jenne-Jeno by a.d. 400. This strongly suggests that the gold trade first assumed significance in the fourth century. The trade was evidently flourishing before the Arab conquest, for the Byzantine mint of Carthage produced a copious output of gold between 534 and 695. For weighing gold-dust, the standard based on the Roman ounce and the solidus was retained by the Arabs, and survived until the nineteenth century in the Western Sudan. It was also adopted by the Akan of Ghana and Ivory Coast, who made it the basis of their weight-system from about 1400 to 1900.

BEATITUDES, BEASTS, AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL BURDENS

Man Cures God Heals: Religion and Medical Practice among the Akans of Ghana. Kofi Appiah‐KubiHuman Spirits: A Cultural Account of Trance in Mayotte. Michael LambekEcstasy and Healing in Nepal: An Ethnopsychiatric Study of Tamang Shamanism. Larry Peters

The Social Impact of the European Liquor Trade on the Akan of Ghana (Gold Coast and Asante), 1875-1910

The Social Impact of the European Liquor Trade on the Akan of Ghana (Gold Coast and Asante), I875-I910 Research into patterns of alcohol consumption and related social problems in nonWestern transitional societies provides a challenging area for application of the interdisciplinary approach in history. The scope of alcohol research is broad. Beyond doubt, the major contributions have been made by biological scientists, who have dealt extensively with the physiological effects of alcohol on the digestive and nervous systems, and by sociologists and psychologists, who have concentrated on attitudinal and behavioral patterns of problem drinkers in various ethnic and social groups, chiefly in Western industrialized, urban settings. Similar work on alcohol consumption in developing countries has lagged far behind. But pioneering case studies of drinking patterns in traditional and transitional societies in Africa are beginning to be undertaken by social anthropologists who have already advanced a number of important hypotheses and conceptual models based on ethnographic data and cross-cultural analysis.I Africanist historians have rarely ventured into this field. When compelled to bring it within their

The Aboakyer of the Effutu: A Critique of Meyerowitz's Account

Opening ParagraphIn her book, The Akan of Ghana (1958), Eva L. Meyerowitz examines some of the religious beliefs and practices of the Akan in an attempt to show that they are of Libyo-Phoenician origin and that Akan civilization is essentially pre-Arab North African in character. As an example of an Akan New Year festival she describes the annual Aboakyer (lit. ‘the catching of an animal’) ritual of the Effutu people of southern Ghana and interprets it in a manner which supports her theory of Akan origins (Meyerowitz, 1958, pp. 38–42). This research note subjects Meyerowitz's treatment of the Aboakyer to critical analysis. It is concerned with her theory of Akan origins only in so far as it results in misinterpretation of the Aboakyer. The note does not provide a full account of the Aboakyer, but a brief outline showing the sequence of ritual events. The field-work upon which it is based was conducted among the Effutu in 1964 and 1965 and included the study of the Aboakyer rituals of these years.

Ethnohistory and the Akan of Ghana

Opening ParagraphMrs. Eva Meyerowitz's book, entitled The Akan of Ghana, is the third of a four-volume work on the Ashanti and their neighbours. The first to appear was The Sacred State of the Akan (1951), the second Akan Traditions of Origin (1952), and the fourth, not yet published, is to be entitled The Akan Divine Kingship and its Prototype in Ancient Egypt. They are the fruit of Mrs. Meyerowitz's researches in Ghana which began in 1943 when, as Art Supervisor at Achimota College, she was commissioned by the Burlington Magazine to write a series of articles on Ashanti gold ornaments. Since then she has engaged in field research among the Akan-speaking peoples, which has been supported by the Royal Anthropological Institute, by the Colonial Research Council, and, in her latest studies, by the University College of Ghana.