Religion and art in Ashanti http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.CH.DOCUMENT.sip100068 Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka’s Terms and Conditions, available at http://www.aluka.org/page/about/termsConditions.jsp. By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education. The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law. Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org Religion and art in Ashanti Author/Creator Rattray, Robert S. Date 1927 Resource type Books Language English Coverage (spatial) Volta-Tano Watershed, Ghana, Asante Temples, Patakro Temple;Besease Temple Source Smithsonian Institution Libraries, DT507 .R23r Description Preface. I: Religion. Lower graded spiritual powers; souls of trees, plants, and animals. II: Religion. The fetish (Suman). III: Religion. fairies, forest monsters, and witches. IV: Religion. The training of medicine men and Priests. V: Rites de Passage. Introductory. VI: Rites de Passage. Birth. VII: Rites de Passage. Puberty. VIII: Rites de Passage. Marriage. IX: Rites de Passage. Atopere dance of death. X: Rites de Passage. Marriage (continued). XI: Rites de Passage. Funerals of Kings. XII: Rites de Passage. The Odwira ceremony. XIII: Rites de Passage. Other burial places for Kings and Queens. XIV: Rites de Passage. Funeral rites for ordinary individuals. XV: Rites de Passage. Carrying the corpse. XVI: Rites de Passage. Widows and In-Laws at funerals. XVII: Rites de Passage. Funeral rites for a Priest. XVIII: Rites de Passage. Funeral rites which possibly show some trace of contact with an external culture. XIX: Rites de Passage. Funerals for certain animals and trees. XX: Rites de Passage. Conclusions. XXI: Dreams and dream interpretations. XXII: Oaths. XXIII: Technology. Introduction. XXIV: Technology. Weaving. XXV: Technology. Stamped cloths. XXVI: Technology. Religion, art, and anthropology in wood carving. XXVII: Technology. Pottery. XXVIII: Technology. Cire perdue metal casting. XXIX: Cross cousin marriages. XXX: Cross cousin marriages. The biological significance. XXXI: The Aesthetic of Ashanti. XXXII: Wari. XXII: Some general aspects of Ashanti religion. Format extent 548 pages http://www.aluka.org (length/size) http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.CH.DOCUMENT.sip100068 http://www.aluka.org RELIGION & ART IN ASHANTI v I -D , I 4-. LIBRARY M SEJM OF AFRICAN AR' 318-A STREET, NORTHEASI R E LI G I0 N ¥W~m D.C.20oood RELIGION &AwTTDC- OO IN ASHANTI BY CAPT. R. S. RATTRAY WITH CHAPTERS BY G. T. BENNETT, VERNON BLAKE H. DUDLEY BUXTON, R. R. MARETT C. G. SELIGMAN OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS Oxford University Press, Ely House, London W.i GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON CAPE TOWN SALISBURY IBADAN NAIROBI LUSAKA ADDIS ABABA BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI LAHORE DACCA KUALA LUMPUR SINGAPORE HONG KONG TOKYO FIRST PUBLISHED 1927 REPRINTED LITHOGRAPHICALLY IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, OXFORD BY VIVIAN RIDLER PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 1969 PREFACE IN the preface to Ashanti, published in 1923, I endeavoured to explain the raison d'etre and the objects of the new Anthropological Department which had recently been set up in that country by the Colonial Government, and I pointed out that the book was the firstfruits of the policy to which it owed its inauguration. It is unnecessary therefore to repeat here what I wrote in that preface, except to state that further experience has tended to strengthen the views I then held and expressed. In this volume I have attempted to complete the general survey of Ashanti religious beliefs which 1 began in my first book. The student who makes careful and sympathetic study of the social institutions of a so-called ' primitive ' people, sooner or later finds himself, almost unconsciously, writing what is virtually a book or treatise on primitive religion ; for religion, in the sense of the late Sir E. B. Tylor's definition, seems almost inseparable from every action and thought of such peoples. In Ashanti ' to divorce religion from any of these would be wellnigh impossible and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that any such estrangement would lead to an illegality'. Religion, indeed, in this sense, runs like a silver thread, even through their arts and crafts, and thus tends to become the real inspiration of the craftsman. I have striven throughout this volume and in Ashanti to make them as purely objective as the subject and scope seem to demand ; here I only crave permission, before leaving the subject of religious beliefs, to state that I sometimes like to think, had these people been left to work out their own salvation, perhaps some day an African Messiah would have arisen and swept their Pantheons clean of the fetish (suman). West Africa might then have become the cradle of a new creed which acknowledged One Great Spirit, Who, being One, nevertheless manifested Himself in everything around Him and taught men to hear His vi PREFACE voice in the flow of His waters and in the sound of His winds in the trees. Fetishism is singularly difficult to elucidate and define. I have endeavoured to do both, and I can only hope that what I have written in Chapter II on this subject may throw some fresh light on an obscure and somewhat debatable problem. As West Africa has been termed 'The Land of Fetish ', it seems only right and proper that we should try to discover what this term conveys to the mind of the West African himself. I am afraid that some of the following pages may be repellent to some of my readers. I have considered it to be my duty to set out the details of many of the horrors of the old regime. I have done so in order that the motives and reasons for them may be better understood. In olden times, and in times not so long past, the Ashanti people may seem, to the superficial observer, to have been merely bloodthirsty men and women unworthy of any sympathy whatever, and yet more than one hundred years ago, when these orgies of blood were at their height, one who knew them well 1 placed the following statement on record : ' It is a singular thing that these people-the Ashanteeswho had never seen a white man nor the sea, were the most civil and well bred I have ever seen in Africa. It is astonishing to see men with such few opportunities so well behaved.' If such praise could be bestowed on a people who were at times guilty of the deeds that have been recorded by many travellers, I thought I would try to find out how these apparently opposing characteristics could be reconciled. Ashanti Arts and Crafts have been dealt with in the present volume in some detail, in the hope that a certain commercial advantage to Ashanti may possibly result from our knowledge of the skill and ingenuity displayed by its craftsmen. I also venture to draw special attention to the chapters on Cross-Cousin Marriages and to the hypothesis which is suggested with regard to these. The first full account of the Burial of the Ashanti Kings, the description and photographs of Bantama and of other important sites in Coomassie and elsewhere, have a certain historical value, Mr. James Swanzy, given before a Commission of the House of Commons (Parliamentary Paper No. 5o6, p. 32, 20 June 1816). PREFACE vii and also the description of the Odwira ceremony, with its deeply interesting account of the deliberate violation of a sacred object with a view to its cleansing and ultimate resurrection. The suggestion appears important, and seems borne out by facts, that taboos of all kinds in Ashanti (and possibly elsewhere) are really certain things, or actions, or words that are ' hateful ' to particular gods, to human ancestral spirits or to lesser supernatural powers, and must therefore be avoided in order to prevent the particular supernatural power concerned 'turning its back ' upon those who look to it for help and protection, and thus leaving them unprotected' and vulnerable to all the unseen evil influences with which mankind is beset. Customs relating to births, puberty, marriage, and deaths are also here dealt with, and attention is drawn to funerals of animals and to the somewhat analogous rites over trees which may be worthy of our consideration.' I am afraid, although I have endeavoured to make this volume and Ashanti as detailed as possible, that probably many of my descriptions are even now incomplete. When the library of the inquirer has been village, swamp, and forest, and his reference books human beings who have to be handled delicately; when the inquirer is often working under considerable physical discomforts, or physical disabilities, there are bound to be omissions. Serious faults of commission are less excusable, and it is hoped that there are not many in these pages. As a field worker who has endeavoured to investigate and record rapidly disappearing rites and customs, and as a student of anthropology from its practical and applied rather than its academic standpoint, I have had little opportunity to make deductions or elaborate theories.