One Hundred and Fifty Years of Christianity in a Ghanaian Town

International African Institute

One Hundred and Fifty Years of Christianity in a Ghanaian TownAuthor(s): John MiddletonSource: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 53, No. 3 (1983), pp. 2-19Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1159973 .

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Africa 53(3), 1983

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF CHRISTIANITY IN A GHANAIAN TOWN

John Middleton

This paper deals with certain aspects of a Christian congregation in a kingdom of southern Ghana, in particular its growth over the past 150 years and the part it plays in the lives of the people of the capital town of the state.' Most studies of the development of Christianity in Africa deal with questions of religious ideology (especially that of the conflict between different systems of belief), of conversion, and of the growth of syncretist and separatist movements. Here I am concerned with the development of a Christian congregation that is neither syncretist nor separatist and with its place as one element of a total local religious system which includes other faiths.2 It is the local congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in the town of Akuropon, the capital of the eastern Akan kingdom of Akuapem, in the Akuapem Hills that lie some twenty-five miles north of Accra, the national capital.3 The state has a resident population of about 70,000 and the town one of some 6000. However, the number of people who, wherever they live, regard themselves as Akuroponfo, 'people of Akuropon', probably amounts to some 20,000. Those who live elsewhere return to the town when they can at weekends, Christmas, Easter, and the great annual purificatory festival of Odwira, held in September or October; and most hope finally to return to their 'home-town' (as it is known in Ghana) to be buried. Although not a large town, it is known widely as the seat of the main educational facilities of the Presbyterian Church since the arrival of the Basel Mission in the then Gold Coast in 1828. Due largely to this fact it has provided more than its share of political, educational and other leaders of Gold Coast and Ghanian society.

The State of Akuapem (Okuapeman) was founded in 1733 at the Concord of Abotakyi, when representatives of the local population formally accepted as their rulers a group from the state of Akyem, to the immediate west, who had driven out the former overlords, the Akwamu.4 The dynasty has been in power ever since, its king, Okuapehene or Omanhene ('state ruler') living in the town of Akuropon.5 The kingdom comprises seventeen traditional towns set along the Akuapem Hills, with many lesser settlements in the valleys below. Each town is the seat of a chief and the centre of its own 'custom' (amanne) that marks its identity and distinguishes it from other towns. Here I discuss only the capital town, to which the Basel Mission came in 1835, seven years after having started work on the coast. The town is about a mile across and has some 700 houses, of varying sizes, ages, and conditions. In the centre is the royal palace, in which is the royal stool-house where are kept the stools (the carved seats in which the souls of the ancestors are believed to reside) of previous kings. It is a place of great sanctity and the traditional ritual centre of both town and state.

The basic principles of local organization are those of descent and rank. The relationship between them is too complex to be discussed fully in this paper, and in this context a brief outline is sufficient. The people of Akuropon are Twi-speaking Akan and are members of the several matrilineal clans (abusua, pl. mmusua) that are found throughout the Akan areas of Ghana and the Ivory Coast. The localized branches of clan that live in the town itself may be called 'subclans', each consisting



CHRISTIANITY IN A GHANAIAN TOWN

usually of several 'houses' (ofi, pl. ef), each based on a matrilineal lineage (yafunu). The 'house' head has responsibility for the stools of the ancestors. Some heads have 'black' stools, awarded by past kings for loyal service: these stools, like those of the palace, are traditionally 'fed' with blood- in the past human blood but today sheep's blood.6 At the top of the traditional system of ranking was the king, elected from one of the three kingly lineages of the royal subclan, Asona, in rotation (the subclan also has non-kingly lineages). Below the king came the heads of 'houses' who had 'black' stools, and then the ordinary citizens, followed by pawns and slaves of various kinds. High rank depends upon closeness to a past or present king, either by kinship or by being granted a 'black' stool, and within this framework personal qualities count for much as far as the exercise of actual power and influence is concerned. This is still considered to be the ideal system according to 'custom', except that today there are no slaves, slavery having been formally abolished in 1875.7

When the Akyem came to Akuapem they found the majority of the local population were Guan, whose form of government was by priests of traditional deities, mystical forces found also among the Akan.8 The Twi word for these deities is obosom (pl. abosom), usually translated in the literature as 'fetish'. They may be seen as representing powers from 'outside' society, in contrast to the ancestors who may be seen as representing its 'inside' life and the perpetuity of subclan and 'house'. Above the deities in traditional Akan religion is God, Onyame or Onyankopon (and there are other terms), andAsase Yaa, the goddess of the earth. This religious system has never been totally static but has continually accommodated new religious movements brought by prophetic leaders from both other Akan and non-Akan areas. It is likely that several non-indigenous cults appeared in Akuropon before the nineteenth century and over time were amalgamated into the so-called 'traditional' religion; but we know nothing of them in detail.9 We may assume that they were associated with the appearance of new forms of external power originating largely in the Sahel region, which was the source of most social innovations until the coming of the Europeans along the coast. These influences took religious form as cults of new deities, a phenomenon that has continued until the present day.

THE GROWTH OF THE CHRISTIAN CONGREGATION IN AKUROPON

The Presbyterian congregation in Akuropon was founded by the Basel Mission which from 1835 until the First World War built up a formidably efficient organization for its work, based partly on its famed linguistic achievements and its emphasis on vocational education. ?0 During the First World War the field was given to the United Free Church of Scotland, and in 1926 the church became the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, independent of, although still closely linked to, its parent missionary bodies in Basel, Stuttgart and Edinburgh. In Akuropon most supervisory posts were held by Europeans until the 1950s.

The history of the Akuropon congregation has largely been determined by its relationship to the changing local society of which it has been part. We may distinguish three main phases: the first, from the beginnings in 1835 until about the 1860s, was one of opposition of interests, if not antagonism, and frequently open hostility on both sides. This was followed by a period of ambivalence and compromise until about the Second World War, since when we may discern a period

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in which the congregation has increasingly become an integral part of local society. During this century and a half its role in the town has changed radically, from that of a new religious movement akin to other prophetic cults of the time to that of being the local 'establishment' church with an essentially conservative role.11

It is still told in Akuropon that when the missionary Andreas Riis first came to the town on 25 January 1835 to ask the then Omanhene Nana Addo Dankwa I for permission to establish a new church, he was taken as one of a series of new prophets, although perhaps an unusual one.'2 His request was granted but he had little immediate success, due mainly to dynastic wars that ravaged the town and its people, most of whom left it for their villages. Riis withdrew from the town in 1838. However, he built houses and opened gardens, and is remembered as osiadan, 'builder of houses', some of which still stand. After a few years it was decided to make a second attempt. A group of West Indian artisans was recruited from the West Indies who, it was thought, might better adapt to the climate, help with building and farming, and show that black men could become Christians. Three missionaries, including Riis, and the new recruits arrived at Akuropon in 1843.13

The first local converts appear to have comprised three main social categories. The most important, although few in number, were princes, the sons of kings and chiefs who in this matrilineal system could not themselves become rulers. It is traditionally the responsibility of the father to provide for his children's upbringing; the rulers wished the princes to receive the new European education, which they did not care to give their sisters' sons until several decades later. The missionaries on their side were enthusiastic to recruit these young men, gave them a good education and appointed many of them to become pastors and evangelists. However, they never ranked as high in the church organization as did the Swiss and German missionaries themselves.'4 In the very early days the majority of converts were ex-slaves, who became free if they could escape to the mission and who were trained as artisans and married other ex-slaves. Then there were free members of the town's population. At first these appear to have been mostly widows (especially those without children able to help them), divorced and deserted women, orphans, and various kinds of people who had wittingly or unwittingly broken taboos; early reports mention those born with six fingers being saved by the missionaries from starvation or abandonment. Adult male free converts seem to have been few until the later years of the century. However, for the first few years most converts were children, both free and ex-slaves, who were taken into the missionaries' houses as servants and proteges, educated and baptized. After mid-century the number of free adults who joined the mission increased, but it seems that many of these came as runaways of various kinds from Akuapem towns other than Akuropon, and so had no kin in the town itself. Of those who did come from Akuropon many in fact were allowed to keep their own slaves until this practice was stopped on orders from Basel.

It is significant that princes, slaves, widows and other categories mentioned were persons of ambiguous social status. The situations of ambiguity in Akuropon society, as in all Akan societies, are defined mainly in terms of descent, rank and moral and physical characteristics. A person's relationship to his or her father is ambiguous in that they belong to different clans and the father's duties to his children are never very clearly defined; but there is a closer personal, spiritual and mystical link between them than between a child and its mother. The traditional

4




position of a slave was also ambiguous in the sense that he was attached to and part of a 'house' but not of its core descent line. And there were many situations of what local people saw as 'moral' ambiguity, such as being parentless, childless, divorced and unable to remarry, even being very poor or shiftless, or possessing physical features considered only semi-human, such as having six fingers or severe mutilations. Oral tradition holds that such people in pre-Christian times would have had recourse to cults of deities; in this respect, at least in the early years, there were similarities between these cults and Christianity.

The internal organization of the mission was in some ways a replica of that of the indigenous town, which we may assume the missionaries accepted as being 'normal'. The European missionaries were in the highest rank, as 'rulers'; then the princes (and some others) as indigenous pastors and evangelists; then ordinary 'commoners', and then the artisans and servants of slave origin. We might hazard that this strongly hierarchical organization appealed to the king and his free subjects, who would not have relished egalitarianism.

At this period there was marked differentiation between Christian and non-Christian. The Christians lived in their own part of the town, which had been offered to them by Nana Addo Dankwa I and was known as Salem, in their new-style dwellings designed by Andreas Riis. This separation was deliberate mission policy, to remove christians from what the missionaries saw as immoral and 'heathen' townspeople. 5 Converts did not enter the palace and many did not like to walk in the streets of the town outside Salem for fear of ridicule or even attack; they wore European clothing as much as possible in place of indigenous cloth; they did not marry with non-Christians; and the religious distinction was rigidly maintained.

An important question is that of which parts of the traditional religious system the missionaries could accept and which they could not. They found the Akan notion of the High God acceptable: at least they saw no reason not to use the same term, Onyame, for the Christian God, and so whatever differences there were were presumably not important enough to matter. They seem never to have worried very much about the ancestral cult, presumably because the king was at the centre of the royal cult and possibly because they understood little of it since ancestor sacrifices were normally made in private; but they did try strenuously to prevent human sacrifice as part of that cult. What they considered abhorrent was the cult of the deities: their reports of the entire period stress their utter condemnation of these practices.16

On the other side there were several reasons for local fear and distrust of the missionaries. Since the king was both the political and religious head of state, the establishment of a church whose members could no longer accept his religious position would thereby affect his political status. Religious and political affiliation were traditionally inseparable, and the welfare and indeed the continuity of the state depended largely on the proper performance of their religious obligations by both king and subjects. Moreover, subjects who chose another religious affiliation would thereby come under the everyday jurisdiction of the new church and might refuse both the king's authority in jural matters and that of'house' heads in domestic ones. The mission's attacks on slavery were taken as attacks on local 'custom' and the kingship itself, as was the opposition of the mission to the practices of human sacrifice and coffin-carrying. 7 Any abolition of these institutions was seen by the

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mass of the people as striking at the very base of their religious and jural systems. Towards the end of the nineteenth century this mutual opposition began to

crumble. The last king to own slaves was Nana Kwame Fori I (1880-95), and his successor Nana F. W. K. Akuffo had been educated at the mission schools. By this time also the mission's earlier attacks on human sacrifice and coffin-carrying were no longer necessary since both had been forbidden - not always successfully but fairly effectively - by the British colonial government. Thus the missionaries no longer aroused such dislike over their attitudes as they had done originally. We come here to the second phase in the development of the local congregation, one of somewhat uneasy mutual accommodation between church and state. The isolation of the Christians was breaking down, with an increasing number of free adherents, men as well as women and children, so that henceforth local families comprised both Christian and non-Christian members and there was no longer such a gap between educated and uneducated. The intricate network of kinship and residential links between the families of the town cannot be described here, but ties of marriage, friendship and alliance connected to the histories of individual conversion and baptism are clearly traceable in mission records and oral tradition. Influential factors in this regard included the opportunities for social mobility and for new wealth from cocoa and trade. These were closely linked to the development of the new educational and mercantile systems by the Basel Mission. A boys' school was opened in 1843 and one for girls in 1847, both boarding institutions that removed the pupils from the influence of home and family; teaching was in the vernacular for younger children. The seminary for the training of ministers and evangelists was opened in 1848. The mission's educational achievements helped its converts enter trade, acquire capital, and so purchase new lands in the centre and west of the Gold Coast for cocoa growing. Cocoa was introduced into the Gold Coast in 1858 by the Basel Mission and it was Akuapem farmers who created the cocoa industry. 18 These events were followed by the abolition of slavery, and so mission-trained ex-slaves as well as those of free ancestry could participate in the expanding economy.

The period of the United Free Church of Scotland, between the two world wars, was marked by a widening of the educational facilities, an increased emphasis on literary as distinct from the vocational and industrial training that had been so important in the Basel Mission's programme, and a lessening of the earlier missionaries' sense of opposition to local society.

During the second and third quarters of this century there has developed an increasingly organic relationship between church and state. The local congregation is now a major institution in Akuropon, with perhaps three-quarters of the population being baptized Presbyterians, although not all are paid-up members. It is controlled by Ghanaian presbyters and ministers and its sense of exclusiveness is today less than it has ever been. Since the 1960s the Europeans have gone and all offices are held by Ghanaians, although not all are from the town itself or even from the state. This period has seen the appearance of new Christian sects in the town, largely in opposition to the central position of the Presbyterian church. There are now Pentecostalist and many other separatist groups in Akuropon, and many loosely organized and often ephemeral prayer-groups.19 It is perhaps they, rather than the mass of the Presbyterian congregation, who feel themselves obliged to maintain a sense of purity and exclusiveness, although there remains a significant number of

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Presbyterians who continue to emphasize their distinctiveness from, and superiority to, other Christians. In a sense the wheel has come full circle.

THE MULTITUDE OF FAITHS AND THEIR BELIEFS

Many of the townspeople are practising and devout Christians of the local congregation of the Presbyterian Church, paying their dues, attending services, and wishing to see their faith spread to all other members of the town. Others are devout non-Christians, many associated with the palace and regularly attending the rites held there to do with the royal ancestors. Many young men and women are adherents of new sects that have appeared, from Pentecostalist churches and Christian prayer-groups that are concerned especially with the healing of sickness, to cults of newly 'imported' deities, whose main aim is to combat witchcraft. The present king, Nana Addo Dankwa III, was educated at the Presbyterian Training College in the town; on his accession he was required to adopt the religious practices of his predecessors as an essential part of his royal role.20 During my stay there were two former kings still alive who had abdicated and converted to Christianity. The Queen-mother is a practising Christian, although not a Presbyterian; in this respect she is a rare exception, as she is traditionally at the centre of palace ritual. An elder who formerly held important religious posts in the palace, and now is chronically ill, intends to become a Presbyterian so that he may be buried in the Presbyterian cemetery. Many members of the palace singing-groups of women are Christians, and some of these groups have even sung in the Presbyterian church (a matter for some disagreement in both palace and church). Many Christians go to deity shrines to be cleansed from pollution after deaths in their families: I should add that these visits are usually made surreptitiously, at night. I could list many other situations of what at first sight might be thought self-contradictory religious behaviour. Christians and non-Christians are kin, often brothers and sisters and even husbands and wives. Although many on both 'sides' have objections to this accommodation of faith, and presbyters argue among themselves about doctrinal matters and about which palace rites they may attend, there is no doubt that the townspeople include adherents of many faiths who manage to live side by side. In addition, many follow more than one faith in different situations, without feeling any too great inconsistency. This religious system, which I suggest should be regarded as a single religious complex comprising many faiths, merits some discussion. The point that I wish to demonstrate is that there is a complex relationship between the kinds of affliction people consider important enough to be treated by religious means, the means that they use to remove these afflictions, and their social standing in the town.

I first consider the situation from an instrumental point of view. The people of the town believe that their lives, their health, their success and happiness are affected in varying degrees by the workings of many mystical forces. Their effect begins at an early age when a child is given his character or temperament by his agyabosom (literally: 'father's deity'), an element in his make-up that is received from the father's line, while he receives his physical composition and his ascribed social position from the mother's line. The agyabosom is thought to determine his moral character and much of his behaviour throughout his life.21 During his lifetime an individual's health and success may suffer as a consequence of the action of many

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forces. The question arises of the identity of the mystical agents held to be responsible and of the means to remove their influence should it be harmful. There are many alternatives and many factors in any particular situation that may be thought relevant. They include God, who, even though remote, may send punishment on a sinner; many deities, some old and others newly 'arrived' in the town, some of which may harm a person because he has not respected them, often by breaking their many taboos; his agyabosom, whose rules of food behaviour must be followed; ancestors, who may affect him if he ignores his duties as a member of 'house' and family; witches, who may bewitch him through envy, and poisoners who may secretly poison him; and many charms and magical objects.

The means of identifying them is part of the work of custodians (okomfo) of deity shrines, who are able by possession to determine their identity and the reasons for their concern in the case, and of Christian priests and prophets who may invite prayer and introspection. Both a practitioner and 'his' or 'her' deity are believed to cure the affliction, the power coming from the deity and the custodian or priest acting as the deity's spokesman or intermediary. Practitioners and their cults tend to be associated with particular kinds of affliction, although these links are usually rather general and reputations for coping with particular troubles may rise and fall. Those who are successful attract many clients, and if there are enough regular participants on occasions when the practitioners regularly go into possession then a cult of the deity springs up. Some of these cults are persistent, especially those associated with the well-being of towns and villages, such as Ntoa, one of the protective deities for Akuropon itself. Whatever the position today, when the Christians first came to Akuropon they were taken as a new cult-group of this kind; and it is in fact useful to regard them as did most people of the town, as being priests of but one of several faiths.

In brief, most people in the town find out which of these various forces can best help them remove afflictions and then they use the beliefs and rites associated with them in order to remove the troubles. This is, I think, a more accurate way of regarding the situation than the more usual one of defining a person as an adherent of one particular faith to the exclusion of others. There are in Akuropon many highly devout members of each faith who would never have anything to do with others; but many, possibly most, people prefer to go from one to another practitioner seeking cures for their afflictions. Many of these afflictions are considered to have both physical and mystical causes, the latter essentially the concern of religious practitioners. There are also other and more specialized healers and herbalists who use mystically powerful 'medicines'.

I suggest that the most serious afflictions are those whose moral content is associated with situations of ambiguity, anomaly and indecision. As might be expected the situations in which people, both Christians and non-Christians, find most difficulties are the basic areas of social transition, those of conception, marriage and death. These have great significance both for individuals and for the 'houses' to which they belong, and it is here that much of their importance lies. Barrenness is a serious problem throughout Ghana, and women wishing for children are likely to make use of the practitioners of many faiths in attempts to remove whatever mystical causes they think are preventing pregnancy. The physical reasons for barrenness are of course several, a very common one being venereal disease; since this is not curable

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by mystical means, sufferers may go from one practitioner to another (and may also consult different kinds of non-religious healers as well).22 The stability of marriage is a perennial problem in Akuropon, as in all Akan societies. In this matrilineal society divorce is both simple and frequent. There is little traditional stigma about it as such, but there are problems associated with inheritance and distribution of property which affect especially divorced people and their children; and since elite Christian families approve of stable monogamous marriage as a Christian ideal, divorce can lead to many difficulties for practising Christians.23 Death is regarded as a serious disturbance in family life and is marked by the only important rites of transition found in this society.24

There is a contrast between continuity, prosperity and peaceful relations, on the one hand, and notions of danger, misfortune, disorder and even pollution, on the other. The former are linked with definite statuses in 'house' and town and so are seen as complete, proper and normal; the latter are linked with statuses which are either temporarily marginal (such as that of a young widow) or permanently so (such as that of a perennially barren woman). All societies have notions about mystical danger and taboo, which mark boundaries between categories of experience and behaviour. In Akuropon, as in other Akan groups, these are highly marked. Besides being a consequence of death (the most important situation) threats of mystical danger are thought to follow the non-observance of many conventions of social behaviour. These include deference that should be made to the persons of king, chiefs and holders of 'black' stools; the wearing of correctly patterned cloths and sandals in the presence of king or chief; other forms of behaviour all of which have to do with the expression of respect by a junior to a senior; as well as the observance of taboos such as those against working in the fields on 'forbidden' days or carrying 'forbidden' objects through the town. The traditional way of removing threats of danger is by offerings of sheep and fowls to pacify deities and ancestors.25 This is forbidden to Presbyterians, and is a situation of difficulty for all Christians. Some may in fact perform the rites of pacification; others may use Christian prayer; others may try to change the situation by more publicly recognizing Christian allegiance, thereby altering their general status in the town. For example, those who cannot remove the stigma associated in traditional belief with barrenness by going to deity cults may adhere to Christianity, since by so doing they may partly remove it by acquiring the new social status of a Christian woman removed from indigenous notions of moral marginality. The same solution to situations of ambiguity was found during the last century, as I have mentioned. On the other hand, the Presbyterian Church strongly condemns adultery, which appears to be common, and suspends the guilty from church membership. However, the deity cults and many of the new Christian groups may pay little or no attention to adultery, so that a known adulterer or adulteress may join one of these groups to avoid stigma in the eyes of the Presbyterians. In these particular contexts the main distinction between various faiths may not be that between Christianity and traditional religion, but rather between Presbyterianism (with Methodism, Anglicanism and Catholicism, all of which are weak in Akuropon although strong elsewhere) on the one hand, and some forms of Pentecostalism and the deity cults on the other.26 The former are concerned especially with sin and its removal by atonement and prayer; whereas the latter are more concerned with mystical dangers from the breaking of taboos or the

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mystical actions of impersonal forces, and with forms of purification where factors of guilt and conscience play little part.

BELIEF AND THE REPRESENTATION OF POWER

Ancestors and deities are symbols of particular forms of power and constraint over people. The notion of ancestors would seem to represent (at least partially) the perpetuity of the descent line and the legitimacy of the constraint that it exercises over its living members. The subclan and the 'house' are the basic units of social structure within the state. And just as the state (oman) is a mystical concept as well as a political one, so the 'house' (ofi) is a mystical concept as well as a domestic one. The 'house' is a microcosm of the state, although there is a qualitative difference between the head of a 'house' and the head of state, the latter being attributed features of sanctity that are not given to the former. The 'house' is dependent on the goodwill of the subclan ancestors, the state on that of the royal ancestors. Deities are very different, in that they represent other realities, those associated in this culture with forces external to the society but which continually impinge upon it. Whereas ancestors represent the perpetuity of the group and order within it, deities represent both innovation and change in social relations and the incursion into them of the powers of the 'outside' and of nature.

Innovation and change apply at two levels of experience. One level is that of the 'house' and state, at which level ecological and historical change and innovation have come from outside Akuapem, from the forests of Ghana south of the savanna zone and from the savannas of the Sahel. In the former have dwelt the Akan peoples, especially the Asante and the Akwamu who have so influenced Akuapem. From the latter have come elements that have deeply influenced Akan culture in general: the impact of the great mediaeval empires such as Mali, of which the Akan formed successor-states, the slave trade, and Islam (even though relatively few Akan have ever embraced the faith itself). Much that is new has always come from the north, as may be seen from the continual appearance of new cults whose prophets have been northern people.

Christianity has been regarded in analogous terms. It is seen as coming from outside the society, in this case from the south and the ocean. The impact of Europe has been felt directly or indirectly for at least two hundred years. Christianity came with the Europeans, and was for long associated in local thought with Europeans and their at one time apparently unlimited power. This power was expressed both by force of arms and also in the skills of various kinds brought by the early traders and missionaries, which appeared to be based not only on knowledge of reading, writing, arithmetic and foreign languages, but also on a knowledge of a High God who was the ultimate force behind them. Although the missionaries used the term Onyame for God they discussed this traditional concept in new categories. All these skills and powers came from across the sea, and the pictorial representation of Christ has shown him as a fair- or brown-haired white man. It is hardly surprising that Christ and God have appeared to be part of a wider and European-controlled world, and since to control a force one needs first to understand it then religious knowledge seemed one obvious way to worldly success.

As well as representing power that came from the sea and Europe, God was, and

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perhaps may still be, regarded as at least analogous to the deities, abosom. Traditionally the deities, under Onyame, were the most powerful and ubiquitous of all mystical forces, in the sense that they were approachable directly by living people whereas Onyame was remote and not in close contact. Although God is ultimately the source of their power, the deities act as his messengers or soldiers. The missionaries said that God was all-powerful and also in direct contact with living people - an important divergence from indigenous belief - and so cut the deities out of this schema altogether: thus they made clear their view that God is supreme and their condemnation of the lesser deities. But this intention has not always been successful. Traditionally a slave could seek sanctuary at a deity shrine and thereby be freed from his owner by becoming an adherent of that deity, and he could also do so by entering the Christian church. We may say, therefore, that the Christian God came to represent something of the same power as that of the deities. Indeed, the ocean from which came Christianity is itself considered to be a very powerful deity, and in the early days it was said that the missionaries were themselves deities, as the holders of immense and new external power.

The other level is that of the individual and his experience which distinguishes him from others and is associated with such factors as self-will, initiative, ambition, success and failure. There is not the space here to discuss the Akuropon concept of the person, but essentially it may be considered an aspect of the interplay between the sense of responsibility as a 'house' member and the son of a certain father, and his sense of individual identity.27 This is given to him through his agyabosom, as I have mentioned, and also through his individual relationships to various deities who are thought to cure some of his troubles and thereby create a special personal tie with him which is expressed in his adherence to their cults. There is also the factor of the Presbyterian Christian belief that God communicates directly with the individual, who may in turn communicate directly with God. God is thus the sole force to know the individual's inner thoughts and wishes and may reciprocate in ways known only to him. The Church tells him that his moral actions are of his own making and that he is responsible for them; he is presumably then responsible for his own worldly success provided that he can keep a proper relationship with God and not allow it to be destroyed by actions that lead to sin or moral separation.

I suggest that two linked effects of the missionaries' teaching in this regard were to confuse the Akan distinction between the High God and the lesser deities and their relationships with living people, and also to lessen the religious importance of the local group in favour of that of the individual as someone responsible for his own destiny. This argument is perhaps a somewhat rarefied one in the eyes of most of the local population, but is indicative of the problems that beset the missionaries and of the effects that their teaching has had on at least some part of the local population.

FAITH AND SOCIAL STATUS

I have so far said nothing about individual conviction, mainly because I am not competent to do so. However, one can consider overtly observable behaviour such as attendance at churches, at non-Christian shrines, and at events that are controlled by the Presbyterian congregation such as baptisms, weddings, and funerals.

Besides the instrumental aspect of religion there is also the expressive one, in

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which people speak of their beliefs and perform ritual acts, and by so doing make statements (usually implicit but occasionally explicit) about their own and others' moral identities and social positions. After all the townspeople are not only concerned with disaster and ill-health but in most cases live lives in which from day to day they may not think of these mystical forces. But they may perform or attend recurrent rites which remind them of their existence and fortify the faith held in their powers. People in Akuropon attend such rites: they may go to Sunday services in the Presbyterian church, or to services held by other Christian groups, to the regular forty-day adae rites held in the palace,28 to rites concerned with 'house' ancestors, or to rites to do with the deities. Many, and perhaps most, people of the town go to more than one kind of rite, just as they might when sick or in trouble.

By observance of rites people mark their adherence not only to a superior or constraining power, but to a way of seeing their society and their experience of the world. Few people anywhere ever understand their experience very clearly, and it is little wonder that the people of Akuropon may appear to the observer as indecisive or even insincere, by attending rites of different faiths which are in many ways opposed to one another. Rather than indicating indecision or insincerity, their behaviour is a function of moral and cosmological complexity and of a need for ritual protection. This last factor is a central one to Akuropon thought. Throughout life it is essential to have supernatural protectors against dangers that beset people, just as in all highly stratified societies it is necessary to have political and familial protectors and patrons. In both spheres it is advisable not to limit oneself to a single source of protection but if necessary to change protectors from one situation to another.

Let me turn to attendance at Christ Church, the Presbyterian church at Akuropon. This is a large and internally beautiful building that can hold many hundreds of people. Although when built it was on the edge of the town it is now close to the centre, as the town has grown greatly in the past years. Throughout the week there are many regular activities run by presbyters and'other church workers and attended by members who are stalwart and well-reputed Christians. They are mostly women. Funerals are held on Saturdays, with a series of short services for fully paid-up members. On Sunday morning is the main rite of the week, the morning service, sometimes with a visiting preacher, the full choir and organ, and several hundred worshippers, again mostly women, mostly dressed in fine clothes. The first Sunday of each month is the occasion for major speakers and collections, and attendance is then greater. Baptisms are held about three times a year. Communion is held every six weeks, attendance being limited to those in good standing (that is, up to date with their dues). There are many people who would like to attend but who cannot afford to do so, and since it is considered shameful for a woman to go to two services in succession wearing the same or old clothes, many women attend services only very occasionally. Marriages rarely occur in church today: they are very expensive and divorce from church marriages is difficult and costly, so most people continue to be married according to traditional custom, from which divorce is easy and costs little. Funerals, on the other hand, are important, and lavish expenditure on them is expected.

There are two immediate questions. Why do so many more women attend church services and activities than do men? And who are the regular attenders apart from the nominal adherents who are often owing dues? There are several answers.

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Far more men than women are at any time absent from the town as cocoa farmers and urban workers. Those women who attend the church tend to be the older women, or younger ones visiting their families in Akuropon from their husbands'

places of residence elsewhere. It is said that in the first quarter of this century the church was filled to overflowing, but that since then the exodus of younger married couples has severely lessened the size of the regular congregation. I think that another factor here is the changing roles of the ministers, whose message has become stale: I return to this point below. Men tend to spend Sundays, when many people return to Akuropon, discussing 'house' affairs at 'house' meetings, whereas women do not do so to the same extent. Men are considered to be more concerned with their ambitions and business successes, which are not seen as concerning the church. On the other hand, women are thought rather to be concerned with the status of their families, so that they are expected to attend the prestigious Presbyterian church to show their meritorious behaviour and to represent their families.29 Men in Akuropon are ideally or traditionally polygynous, and those who are so are less likely to attend church; they may do so but may not attend communion nor hold church office, and only their first wives may attend. Attendance shows that a person is a member of the town recognized to be of good social and moral standing, of a fair or good standard of education, and generally of a family of reasonable wealth, social responsibility and reputation.

On another level to attend church is to feel oneself a member of a congregation and community, and to acquire the sense of personal security brought by it. To this end the symbols of church attendance are important: the regular and carefully organized ritual of the service, beginning with the slow entry of ministers and choir to the processional hymn, which is the same week in and week out, continuing with sermon, prayers, hymns and collection with an ever-heightening emotional atmosphere that is usually expressed during the collection (when people move up the aisle to the collection table, often exhorted to compete in generosity) by women dancing up the centre aisle. The sense of community and of a shared power- that of a congregation rather than of a mere gathering of people3 - is then very high.

If people on other occasions appeal also to non-Christian mystical forces, this is seen more as their own personal concern and is normally made at shrines in the villages below the hills, that is, in places that are socially 'invisible'. Those who do not attend the Presbyterian church but go to others and to deity shrines, even if they have been educated at Presbyterian schools, mostly include those who cannot afford dues, fees, and the required standards of clothing, or who are illiterate and generally of low social position (I refer here to the newer churches, rather than to the handful of other long-established ones such as the Methodist or Anglican, both of which have churches in Akuropon but very small congregations). With ever-increasing differences of wealth and social standing between top and bottom of the local social hierarchy attendance at the Presbyterian church has become an increasingly important criterion for measurement of class differences.31 In addition to church attendance, burial in one of the Presbyterian cemeteries, following a funeral service in the church, is greatly looked forward to by those who have increased their standing in the community, and their worldly success while alive is then reflected in the prestige that this will bring to their kin. With ever-increasing social mobility this is an important reason for conversion to Presbyterianism in later life. This is not an

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egalitarian church but, as might be expected, one that reflects the society in which it is placed. Today many younger and poorer men and women tend to go to Pentecostalist churches and to prayer-groups, perhaps as a sign of rebellion against their elders. These churches may also be visited by non-Christians if they think attendance at them may help solve their difficulties.

THE CHRISTIAN CONGREGATION IN THE CHANGING TOWN

I mentioned above the final phase in the growth of the Christian congregation in Akuropon as that of an organic relationship with the remainder of town society. I now return to this point.

The church plays many roles in the town that are not formally religious in the sense of being directly part of worship. One of these is educational. Akuropon is a famed educational centre, with schools run by the Presbyterian Church from primary to college levels, and it has been so since the middle of the nineteenth century.32 Education is one of the keys to social mobility in Ghana, as elsewhere, and the church in Akuropon has for long provided education necessary for those who wish to increase their social status. Citizens of the town who live elsewhere are proud to send their children back to it for education, to live in the care of grandparents or other kin.

The roles played by the church are also associated with central jural functions of Akuropon as a 'home-town', the town that is regarded as home and the seat of traditional custom by the many thousands of 'people of Akuropon', Akuroponfo.33 As I have mentioned people living elsewhere return to it as often as they can. Their visits include taking part in family discussions on property, succession and inheritance, the stewardship of 'house' affairs by the elders, and the like. This factor makes Akuropon the 'home-town' of the many widespread networks of members dispersed across southern Ghana and beyond. Discussions about succession to family office and inheritance of family property also take place, publicly, a few days after the funeral of a family member. At these meetings the heirs are named, the children (who are not of the same lineage as their father) are formally recognized to receive a portion of the inheritance, and witnesses and executors are appointed to ensure that all will be carried out properly and justly. Although this is a traditional pattern, when the deceased has been a church adherent, these meetings are supervised by the presbyters, who attend and control the formal proceedings, which are recorded by the presbyters' clerk. Over time the presbyters have succeeded in modifying traditional rules so that today widows' and children's interests are cared for to a greater extent than they were a century ago. In this way one of the 'dilemmas' of matriliny is at least partially resolved and the pattern of succession and inheritance, as a central 'custom' of the town, maintained in a world of change. The presbyters also play an important although more informal role in the settlement of disputes over use, sales and inheritance of land within and between Presbyterian families.34 Land disputes are perennial, long-drawn out and expensive, and the presbyters have here also succeeded in making precedents for their settlement when the parties are so disposed. The church thus plays an important jural role in the central issues to do with relations between and within constituent 'houses' of the town, and with their perpetuation as effective groups. There are only a few families

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that are not affected to some degree by the church in these ways. For several years now the Odwira festival, the annual non-Christian cycle of royal

purification centred on the cult of the royal ancestors, has ended with the king taking part in a special harvest thanksgiving in Christ Church. This would have been unthinkable only a few decades ago. Even though conservatives on both sides have misgivings this meeting of church and state has become a regular part of Odwira, a sign of the near-complete acceptance of the church as an organic part of town society. Christians also observe essential parts of Odwira such as the ban on eating new yam until after the proper rites and attending the public parts of the festival.35

CONCLUSION

I have presented one view of the present religious situation in this town. In my view it should be considered as a single religious complex, just as the town is a single community. One implication of this view is that any detailed figures purporting to show proportions of converts or adherents of the church are misleading in that they usually imply that people accept one only of several available faiths. There are of course other views which may see the situation very differently, but I think that the one I have suggested may reflect that of most ordinary townspeople. They accept the Presbyterian Church as being 'there' just as they see the king and his ritual officials as being 'there'. All are seen as 'belonging' and central to the town, unlike let us say the members of the Ghana Police stationed in the town, who are regarded generally as outsiders to be avoided as much as possible. A century and a half ago people regarded the Basel missionaries much as today they regard the police, as dangerous newcomers ignorant of local 'custom'. But since that time the life and structure of the town have developed and the Presbyterian congregation is accepted as an integral and valued institution. None the less there are, as might be expected, many conflicts of religious principle and practice between segments of the population: belonging to a single religious system does not necessarily lead to harmony and mutual respect. I am suggesting only that many areas of conflict and competition for rank, wealth and power are played out largely in religious terms, and that acceptance by and adherence to the Presbyterian congregation is a widely accepted way of validating status in an over-developing system of ranking that is today based as much if not more on achievement than on traditional modes of ascription.

At another level this development is that discussed by Max Weber, from the prophet to the priest. The prophetic movement, as Christianity was originally considered when it first appeared in Akuropon, has become routinized until it is the 'establishment' church within the town. Whereas originally it was associated with those members of society who were mostly marginal members of corporate descent groups, over the past century it has become particularly linked with the maintenance and the perpetuation of these very groups. The local congregation is, indeed, a corporate group in its own right, as well as being a segment of the larger corporation known as the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. It has a name, a 'charter', a structure of internal authority, a presumption of perpetuity, and its own long history that validates it. Its adherents remain members of their own subclans and 'houses', and the church is thus linked to these other corporate groups by kinship ties and alliances of many kinds. In many parts of Africa what were originally Christian missions

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either became atrophied and isolated from the local communities in which they worked, or were overcome in power struggles by separatist movements that superseded them.36 In Akuropon neither of these has occurred. Instead the original prophetic and innovative role of the mission has become routinized and conservative, a jurally important institution in the town. It has done this by developing new economic, jural and class-linked roles in the particular social and historical context of southern Ghana.

NOTES

I carried out field research in Akuropon for fourteen months during 1976 and 1977. The research was financed by the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and the Social Science Research Council, London. My stay in Ghana was under the sponsorship of the Department of Sociology, University of Cape Coast. I wish to express my thanks to these bodies.

Many people in Akuropon helped me with information, hospitality and encouragement. I should like here especially to thank Nana Oseadieyo Addo Dankwa III, Okuapehene; Nana Boafo Ansah II, Kurontihene; Mr Ofori Owusu-Ansah; Mr Benjamin E. Ofori; Rev. S. K. Aboa, Rev. Daniel Kwapong; Rev. H. O. Ansah; and the Presbyters of Christ Church, Akuropon. I am well aware that they may not all agree with my views as set out in this paper, in which an outsider has the temerity to discuss some aspects of their and others' beliefs and behaviour. I ask that they will understand that I write what I do with respect and affection for them.

This article has grown from a paper that I was invited to give in Basel and Tiibingen as part of the celebrations of the Basel Mission for the 150th anniversary of their arrival in the then Gold Coast. I am grateful to all those who discussed it with me, and should like especially to mention Mr Paul Jenkins, Archivist of the Basel Mission, Dr J. Rossel, President of the Basel Mission, Professor H. Ott, Professor M. Schuster (and the members of his seminar at the Ethnological Institute of the University of Basel), and Mr G. Schlettwein, all of Basel; Dr J. Schnellbach and Dr W. Ringwald of the Evangelische Missionswerk Siidwestdeutschland, of Stuttgart; and Professor H. P. Riiger, Dr M. Laubscher, and Professor P. Beyerhaus, of the University of Tiibingen.

I am grateful also to Miss M. Baehler, Professor J. H. M. Beattie, Professor T. 0. Beidelman, Dr M. V. Gilbert, Professor J. R. Gray, Professor L. P. Mair, Professor D. Parkin, and Rev. N. Smith for reading drafts of this paper.

I hope later to enlarge this preliminary account as part of a wider study of the development of forms of stratification in Akuropon-Akuapem.

2 I use the term 'congregation' in the sense of a local church, its office-holders and its membership as a single social unit, and the term 'faith' for a set of beliefs and rites held and practised by a particular congregation, cult-group or regular clientele.

3 I use the term 'Presbyterian' in the way that it is generally used in Ghana, to include the present-day Presbyterian Church of Ghana and its predecessors in the mission field, the Basel Mission and the United Free Church of Scotland, neither, properly speaking, Presbyterian. This also distinguishes it from the Methodist, Anglican, Pentecostal and other non-Catholic churches in Ghana.

There are several general accounts of the state of Akuapem: see especially Kwamena-Poh (1973), Brokensha (1972) and Hill (1970). Smith (1966) has a very full account of the growth of the Presbyterian Church and the missions.

4 The populations of most of the towns of Akuapem are Guan-speaking and patrilineal, the indigenous occupants of the area who came under the overrule of Akwamu and Akyem, who are Twi-speaking and matrilineal. The populations of all the towns recognize many diverse origins, dialects, and modes of succession and inheritance that need not concern us here. The history and effects of Christianity have also been somewhat different from one town to another; in this paper I discuss only the situation found in Akuropon.

5 I use the word 'king' advisedly. During the colonial period local rulers were referred to as 'chiefs' of various kinds. But the head of a state such as Akuapem is a 'king' by any proper anthropological and historical usage.

6 The traditional non-Christian religious system of Akuropon has been studied by M. V. Gilbert (1981). See also Rattray (1927), Ringwald (1952), Smith (1966) and Minkus (1980) for more general accounts.

7 There were several kinds of slaves in Akuropon before the abolition of slavery, but details need not be given here. Pawns were servile persons pawned by debtors to their creditors until the debt was repaid. See Rattray (1929) for Asante, although there were many differences between the states of Asante and Akuapem.

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8 The only published account of Guan religion is by Brokensha (1966) for the town of Larteh. M. V. Gilbert has worked on the religion of the Guan town of Abiriw.

9 I use the term 'traditional' here to refer to the non-Christian and non-Islamic elements of the total religious system. I do not imply that it has ever been unchanging. 10 The Basel Mission established its first post in the Gold Coast in 1828 at Christiansborg, then controlled by the Danes, who included Akuapem in their sphere of influence. After seven years during which many missionaries died of sickness it was decided to establish other stations at more healthy sites inland, which would also be less influenced by the cosmopolitan and 'immoral' town of Christiansborg. One obvious place was in the Akuapem Hills, which are clearly visible from Christiansborg.

The linguistic work of Christaller (1881) and other early missionaries was outstanding; their dictionaries and collections of proverbs are still among the standard reference works for Twi.

l Some of those who generously helped me in Akuropon were former adherents of the Basel Mission who were then in their eighties and nineties and whose parents and other kin had earlier held church positions. This corpus of oral tradition about the development of the church in the town therefore goes back for at least a century, and the memory of the 'Germans' is still a vivid one. In addition the archives of the Basel Mission provide an impressively full body of material.

12 Riis was not the first European to have lived in Akuropon. This seems to have been the Danish doctor and botanist P. R. Isert, who in 1789 had been allowed to open a plantation there; it was abandoned after five years (see Smith (1966); Hill (1970)). Europeans were also known from visits of Danish administrators, but not missionaries.

13 See Kwamena-Poh (1973, ch. 5) and Smith (1966, ch. 2) for accounts of the West Indians; most of them came from Jamaica. Their descendants still live in the town and are still among the firmest members of the congregation.

14 For example they did not perform marriage rites for the missionaries' own marriages but only for those of local converts. The marriage and other registers are in the Presbytery at Christ Church, Akuropon, and begin with the marriage of Andreas Riis in 1838. I am grateful to Rev. H. O. Ansah and the Presbyters for permission to see these documents.

15 This separation was deliberate mission policy. The reason was different from that reported from many other missions in Africa where converts were ethnically strangers to the local population and placed in distinct Christian villages. In Akuropon there were no ethnic differences in that sense, the missionaries perhaps seeing Salem more as a bridgehead from which to convert local society than as a Christian community that would develop independently of the non-Christian communities surrounding it.

The Swiss and German missionaries (some 80 per cent of them came from Wiirttenburg) may have held views as to the egalitarian nature of the Christian communities they hoped would develop, but more research is needed on their views of differences based on social hierarchy.

16 N. Smith quotes a mission statement of 1857 that 'The three fronts of heathenism are fetish worship, polygamy and the power of chiefs'; see Smith (1966: 88-9) for similar quotations. This statement shows that the missionaries were aware of the intimate relationship between indigenous politics and religion.

17 The practice of carrying the coffin of a person suspected of having been killed by witchcraft through the streets of the town: the lurching of the coffin on the shoulders of the bearers indicated the house of the guilty witch.

18 A detailed account of the introduction of cocoa is by Hill (1970). 19 For wider accounts see Baeta (1962), Pobee (1976), and Smith (1966: 256ff.). I have not mentioned

Islam but it is of little importance in Akuropon. It adherents are virtually all among the few northern immigrants who live largely apart from the main population, and only a small handful of non-immigrants have ever become Muslims. The situation is very different from that in Asante.

20 I refer here of course only to Nana Addo Dankwa's 'official' adherence and not to his personal convictions. It is required that the king and the holders of 'black' stools practice traditional rites and formally cease to practise those of Christianity.

21 In Asante the word ntoro refers to the same factors: see Fortes (1969). There are several minor differences between Asante and Akuropon in this respect which need not be mentioned here.

22 The importance of venereal disease as a factor in the spread of healing cults has been emphasized by Field (1960).

23 This is not the occasion to discuss marriage patterns in Akuropon; see accounts by Fortes (1969, 1971) for material from Asante, and Smith (1966, chs. 5 and 11). Traditionally husbands and wives lived in separate residences, those of their natal 'houses', but Christians today often live with spouses in the same residence, so that divorce adds a difficulty in this regard that was lacking traditionally.

24 Formerly girls' puberty rites were important but have lapsed in recent years. 25 See Gilbert (1981) for a detailed account of these matters. 26 I realize that I am here using the term 'Pentecostalist' very loosely. 27 A person's 'destiny', decided by his kra, is also important. See the essays in Dieterlen (1973) for

comparative material on the notion of the person. See also Minkus (1980).

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28 See Gilbert (1981) for a detailed account of adae and odwira rites. 29 By 'family' here I am referring mainly to the natal families, rather than to their conjugal ones. 30 This was suggested to me by Dr Walter Ringwald. 31 The prestige linked to the Presbyterian Church in this situation is linked to that of the church's

schools and college: the sense of an 'old-boy network' is very strong. There is thus a very loosely organized age-grading system within the local congregation based on one's education.

32 Today most funding is by the central government, which inspects the schools and sets national standards. But the church exercises everyday control.

33 See Middleton (1979) for a discussion of Akuropon as a 'home-town'. 34 I am grateful to M. V. Gilbert for information on this point. 35 This might be seen partly as an attempt by the church to 'Christianize' the kingship. It is customary

for a Presbyterian minister to begin the proceedings of State Council and other palace meetings with prayers.

36 See, for example, Sundkler (1961) and Beidelman (1982).

REFERENCES

Baeta, C. G. 1962. Prophetism in Ghana. London: S.C.M. Press. Beidelman, T. 0. 1982. Colonial Evangelism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Brokensha, D. W. 1966. Social Change at Larteh. Oxford, Clarendon Press.

1972. Akwapim Handbook. Accra-Tema, Ghana Publishing Corporation. Christaller, J. G. 1881. Dictionary of the Asante and Fante language called Tshi. Basel,

Evangelical Missionary Society (Second and revised edition, 1933). Dieterlen, G. (ed.). 1973. La Notion de personne en Afrique noire. Paris: Centre National de la

Recherche Scientifique. Field, M. J. 1960. Search for Security. London: Faber and Faber. Fortes, M. 1969. Kinship and the Social Order. Chicago, Aldine.

1971. The Family: Bane or Blessing? Accra, Ghana Universities Press. Gilbert, M. V. 1981. 'Rituals of Kingship in a Ghanaian State'. Unpublished PhD thesis,

University of London. Hill, P. 1970. Migrant Cocoa-Farmers of Southern Ghana. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press. Kwamena-Poh, M. A. 1973. Government and Politics in the Akuapem State 1730-1850.

London: Longman. Middleton, J. 1979. ' "Home-town": a study of an urban centre in southern Ghana', Africa

49: 246-57. Minkus, H. K. 1980. 'The concept of Spirit in Akwapim Akan philosophy', Africa 50:

182-92. Pobee, J. S. (ed.). 1976. Religion in a Pluralistic Society. Leiden: Brill. Rattray, R. S. 1927. Religion and Art in Ashanti. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

1929. Ashanti Law and Constitution. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ringwald, W. 1952. Die Religion der Akanstimme. Stuttgart: Missionsverlag. Smith, N. 1966. The History of the Presbyterian Church in Ghana 1835-1960. Accra: Ghana

Universities Press. Sundkler, B. G. M. 1961. Bantu Prophets in South Africa (2nd edn), London: Oxford

University Press.

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Resume

Cent cinquante ans de Christianisme dans une ville ghaneenne La ville de Akuropon, capitale de l'etat Akan d'Akuapem au Ghana, a connu la presence chretienne au cours des derniers cent cinquante ans, centree au debut sur la Mission de Bale, puis sur l'Eglise libre d'Ecosse, et maintenant sur l'Eglise presbyt6rienne du Ghana. De nos jours presque toute la population est presbyt6rienne, bien que le culte royal ancestral et beaucoup de cultes des esprits fleurissent encore.

De 1835 au milieu du dix neuvieme siecle l'Eglise etait en opposition avec la religion traditionnelle. Mais avec l'abolition de l'esclavage, l'introduction du cacao, et le systeme scolaire efficace de l'Eglise, elle est devenue peu h peu l'Eglise de l'elite sociale. Elle joue aussi un role important dans l'organisation des heritages a l'interieur des "maisons" matrilineaires et de ce fait exerce une influence du point de vue juridique.

Bien que la plupart des gens soient presbyt6riens ils peuvent egalement consulter les cultes des esprits et autres, pour la plupart mouvements chr6tiens et de Pentec6te, pour trouver des remedes aux maladies et au manque de succes en ce monde. Un plus grand nombre de femmes que d'hommes se rendent k l'eglise, et les pratiquants les plus strictes tendent a etre plus riches et d'un statut social plus eleve que les moins pratiquants ou les non presbyt6riens. II arrive que certaines personnes se convertissent A la fin de leur vie afin d'etre enterr6es dans le prestigieux cimetiere presbyt6rien. L'Eglise presbyt6rienne a depuis longtemps accept6 des compromis avec les pratiquants des cultes royaux et son r6le innovatif et prophetique des premieres ann6es est devenu plus conservateur.

Contributors

DAVID BROKENSHA teaches Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has carried out field research in Ghana and Kenya.

RICHARD CURLEY teaches anthropology at the University College of California, Davis. In addition to carrying out field research in Cameroon he has worked in Uganda and has published Elders, Shades and Women: Ceremonial Change in Lango, Uganda.

RICHARD GRAY is Professor of African History at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He edited the Cambridge History of Africa IV c. 1600-c.1790, and with E. Fashole-Luke and others he edited Christianity in Independent Africa.

JOHN MIDDLETON is a Professor of Anthropology at Yale University. He has done field research among the Lugbara of Uganda, the Shirazi of Zanzibar, the Igbo of Lagos, Nigeria, and the Akan of Akuapem, Ghana.

DANIEL OFFIONG took his Ph.D. (Sociology) at Purdue University, Indiana, where he also taught. He is currently Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Calabar. He is the author of Imperialism and Dependency: Obstacles to African Development and Organized Labour and Political Development in Nigeria.

FRANCOISE RAISON-JOURDE now teaches history at the University of Paris VII but taught at the University of Antananarivo from 1968 and 1973. She has published several articles on the religions and political history of Madagascar.

ANNICK LAITE translated the resumes.

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Documents

One Hundred and Fifty Years of Christianity in a Ghanaian Town