A. W. Cardinall - Tales Told in Togoland

Volume 14

A. W. CARDINALL

First published in 1931 by Oxford University Press.

This edition first published in 2018

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1931 International African Institute

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ISBN: 978-0-8153-8713-8 (Set)

ISBN: 978-0-429-48813-9 (Set) (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-49334-6 (Volume 14) (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-351-02322-1 (Volume 14) (ebk)

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By

A. W. CARDINALL

F.R.G.S ., F.R.A.I. , & C.

District Commissioner Gold Coast

To which is added the

MYTHICAL & TRADITIONAL
HISTORY OF DAGOMBA

By E. F. TAMAKLOE

Of the Gold Coast Civil Service

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
1931

By the same Author

NATIVES OF THE NORTHERN

TERRITORIES OF THE GOLD

COAST

A GOLD COAST LIBRARY

IN ASHANTI AND BEYOND

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

I N the following pages I have collected tales told me by peasants and hunters in various parts of Togoland. The final chapter deals with the history of the Dagomba, a history collected by the sole efforts of Mr. E. F. Tamakloe. I have made no attempt at a comparative study of the folk-lore contained in this volume. Such a task is now too great to undertake, except after much study and reading, and in the quietude of some English home. Therefore I have merely recorded the tales and legends and myths as they have been related, contenting myself with the interesting task of their co-ordination.

A. W. C.

SEVENOAKS .

March 1931.

NATURE OF THE COUNTRYDISTRIBUTION OF TRIBESHOW THE ANIMALS OF THE BUSH PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM MANVISITING GODINDIVIDUAL OWNERSHIP OF THE MOONMOONS MARKINGSMARKET OF SALAGATHE DOWNFALL OF SALAGA AND THE GROWTH OF KRACHIRAIN-DRIVING AT ODUMASEA HYENA-WOMAN .

S HORTLY after the war the two Governments of France and Great Britain divided the former German colony of Togoland into two spheres more or less equal in area. To the British Colony of the Gold Coast was allotted the trusteeship of the western sphere which runs contiguous to the formers eastern frontier. It is with the hinterland of that portion of Togoland that these pages deal, but as the tribal boundaries are not the same as the international, reference is frequently made to tribes in the Gold Coast, Ashanti, and Northern Territories.

Nearer to the coastline is a section known as the Southern Section, administered as an integral part of the Gold Coast Colony. It is peopled more or less entirely by tribes of Ewe origin, but there are scattered all over the country remnants of other tribes or relics of an earlier migration by the Ewe. The nature of the country is such that it afforded an asylum almost impregnable for fugitives and refugees from the former bloodthirsty monarchs of Ashanti and Dahomey. Range after range of hills and mountains, thickly wooded and often precipitous, with abundant water and an easily obtained food supply, offered a retreat for many a harassed family or tribe. The people inhabiting this country have been studied and written about several times, notably by the German missionary Spieth, but those who live to the north of this section remain even to this day practically unknown to anthropologists. It is with these that this book is concerned.

Not one volume would suffice for a complete survey of their tribal customs and folk-lore. Scores of volumes would be required. The incompleteness of this present work is fully realized by me, but I venture to think that observations of native life and a record of folk-lore picked up at haphazard from the people themselves must always be of some little worth in these days of rapid development and fast shedding of old-time tradition. Moreover the science of anthropology is daily becoming more and more a collection of highly specialized subjects, and the worker in the field, if untrained, grows discouraged at his own ignorance. It is true that the science of anthropology was founded on the observations of untrained men, but it has almost outgrown those days, and it is only through the fear that the trained worker may not be forthcoming sufficiently soon that this little work has been undertaken.

It has often of late been pointed out how former surveys of native life in West Africa have been compiled by men whose work must have been prejudiced. Missionaries are said to have looked upon native customs as mere workings of a satanic power; others are generally officials whose inquiries have been regarded with suspicion and often accepted as a means of supporting spurious claims or explaining rights which were non-existent but were deemed desirable. That may have been the case; but those compilations have formed the basis of the science of anthropology.

In these pages I have taken especial care to have recorded only the views of the people, the peasantry, hunters, and villagers. Chiefs, and priests possibly, have other views. I know not. But it seems to me that in a survey, say, of England the religion of the peasant is likely to be of more value anthropologically than that of an archbishop; the beliefs of the cottager of more worth than those of the graduate.

The tribes of the Northern Section of the British sphere of Togoland are numerous. In the far north, bordering on the eleventh parallel of latitude, the Bimoba and Mamprussi are to be found. The former are a practically unknown tribe of wild people who still live in the bow-and-arrow stage of vendetta, secret societies, and occasional inter-family war; the latter are a highly-civilized nationthat is to say, for these partsand resemble closely the Dagomba, who are frequently mentioned in the following chapters. Below the Mamprussi are the Chakosi, an interesting tribe of Twi origin, still using that tongue to a very great extent but, unlike their Ashanti relatives, in a state of complete barbarism. South of the Chakosi are the Konkomba, a warlike nation of magnificent savages, who should be studied in detail as they have retained so much of their ancient customs and have remained so unsullied by outside influence. Their neighbours are the Dagomba, a tribe which boasts of a political and religious organization that cannot be characterized as other than civilized.