Small Towns in African Development || Home-Town: A Study of an Urban Centre in Southern Ghana

International African Institute

Home-Town: A Study of an Urban Centre in Southern GhanaAuthor(s): John MiddletonSource: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 49, No. 3, Small Towns inAfrican Development (1979), pp. 246-257Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1159557 .

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Africa, 49(3), 1979

HOME-TOWN: A STUDY OF AN URBAN CENTRE IN SOUTHERN GHANA

JOHN MIDDLETON

THE TOWN AND ITS SETTING

SOUTHERN Ghana has for centuries been a region marked by continuous movement of population, both of groups and individuals; by ever-changing

forms of social stratification; by urban centres of various kinds and sizes; and by trade with the outside world. Yet tradition and 'custom' are of great importance for the people. And despite marked economic and political development, kingship, matrilineal descent, and urbanism have remained central in most of the area in both national and local social systems.

In this paper I consider some aspects of one urban centre, Akropong-Akwapim, and try to answer the question of why the town continues to be so important in the lives of its people, who regard it as their 'home-town' (as they say), whether they actually live in it or not. In crude economic and political terms (such as are loved by 'planners') it may appear outdated and no longer an independent unit. Yet it continues to be important, the scene of a great annual festival, and the focus of clan and family life.'

Akropong is the capital of the state of Akuapem, which lies some thirty miles northeast of Accra in the Akwapim Hills some 1,500 feet above sea level, and has a resident population of about 70,000.2 It is usually counted as an Akan state because the kingship is Akan, from Akyem, but most of the population is in fact Guan.3 It was founded in 1733, and the present capital was established some years later. There are 17 'traditional' towns set along the two north-south ridges of the hills. Five, including Akropong, are inhabited by matrilineal Twi-speaking people. The remainder, all patrilineal, include both Guan-speaking and Twi-speaking towns. All these are of ethnically mixed origins. In the lower-lying plains to the west are many villages and several townships; one of these, Nsawam, is the largest town in the state with a population of 20,000, but it lacks the status of the ridge towns.4

Akropong is the seat of state administration under its king, the Omanhene, who is also the focus of the royal cult of the dead. The Omanhene's role need not concern us here in detail. Although his traditional authority has declined, the kingship remains at the centre of town life, the focus of cohesion and sense of perpetuity. Even though today the great majority of the people are Christians, the royal rites are performed regularly, culminating in the annual festival of Odwira. The town is also the seat of the Queen-mother and of the Krontihene, who is the senior divisional chief of the state and who acts as regent during the king's absence.5

The town, of some 700 houses, is about a mile across, although the traditional centre where stand the palace and the more important 'family houses', is only a quarter of a mile square. The houses of the town vary greatly in size and design. Many are large 'family houses', usually of two storeys of 'swish' and plaster built in the great days of the cocoa boom at the beginning of the century; others are of more traditional one-storey design; there are also modern concrete-



HOME-TOWN

0 50 I I I I i I M iles

0 200 I I I M iles

MAP 1: Ghana, showing location of Akropong, other Akuapem towns, and main neighbouring settlements. The ring shows the historic cocoa-growing areas. (From Polly Hill, The Migrant

Cocoa-Farmers of Southern Ghana, 1963)

block dwellings, and many decrepit structures of corrugated iron and wooden planks. Roofing today is mostly of corrugated iron. The main through road and the new by-pass are of tarmac, but most other roads and alleys are of beaten earth. At the highest point stands the Presbyterian church with its tall spire, the large buildings of the Presbyterian Training College behind it. There are several other Christian churches of various denominations, and the town is surrounded by

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church and clan cemeteries. The town is divided into named wards or quarters. Today these have lost much of their former significance and need not concern us here.

The everyday population of Akropong is about 6,000. This number is doubled on most weekends when many Akropong people who live elsewhere come home for family, funeral and other gatherings. During the Odwira festival in September- October and at Christmas it is swelled by four or five times the everyday number, every house being filled by visiting kin. Wherever they may live they regard the town as their 'home-town' and return whenever they can, ultimately at their death to be buried with as elaborate a funeral as can be afforded.

On the plains between the narrow ridge on which the town stands and the River Densu there are many villages. Each is 'owned' by a particular town, and those attached to Akropong are 'owned' by the particular subclans of the town. Before the abolition of slavery at the end of the last century the villages were largely occupied by slaves, growing food and palm oil for the benefit of the owning subclan. Most villages are small, with only a dozen or so houses. Other plains settlements are larger, having been trading centres during the cocoa boom. Between the two world wars some of them were flourishing places, but since the decline of cocoa in the 1940s most have become little more than straggling villages. Those on the main roads have survived, with populations of several hundred people, mainly traders and farmers. Although these plains settlements are physically separated from Akropong they should be regarded as its satellites, with little independent viability.

Something should be said of the economy of the town. Like most other towns of southern Ghana, Akropong has an electricity supply from the Volta dam, most houses having at least one or two electric bulbs. There is a piped water supply. Drainage of surface water is by drains and gullies, that of sewage being by domestic buckets collected at night by immigrant workers from northern Ghana. There are two private clinics and a private maternity home; but the main governmental health facilities are eight miles away at Mampong hospital.

Transport runs from Akropong to most other ridge towns, to Accra, Koforidua and elsewhere. Besides a regular and efficient bus service to Accra, based on the nearby town of Mamfe where there are garages and mechanics, there are many trucks and taxis that ply along the ridge. The villages are outside this road network and lack piped water, electricity and other services.

Market trade is important. There are two markets. One, on the edge of the town near the neighbouring Guan town of Abiriw, is large, with some hundred women traders, and is held twice weekly. There is also a small daily market near the centre of the town. The town has about a dozen shops, of various sizes and with consumer items of all kinds, and many stalls set outside individual houses, selling foodstuffs and everyday goods. In the evenings many street stalls sell cooked food. There are several bars. Specialist shops and stalls sell pots, fish, bread, drugs and herbal remedies, funeral items, and so on. There are several maize mills, several hairdressing salons, and many seamstresses and cloth sellers.

The important aspect of this trading system is that most goods sold are brought into the town from outside and consumed locally, bought with money that is also brought into the town by its members who work elsewhere. The local population cannot provide all its own food, let alone feed the weekend and other visitors, due to shortage of farm lands on the ridge. Foodstuffs are brought to the main market by wholesalers who buy them from producers elsewhere, in particular the highly

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productive farms of Krobo a few miles to the north. The items are brought by truck and sold to local traders. These sell to local women, who may consume them themselves, sell them from their own petty stalls and houses to other housewives, or sell them to women traders from other ridge towns. Certain other goods and services are available, but they are also from elsewhere (fish, meat, salt, firewood, drinks, etc). And some important services come from outside. These include water, electricity, transport, and undertaking. This last is important: as a 'home-town', weekends are marked by many funerals. The nearest undertaker is at Larteh, some six miles away, and the nearest mortuary is at Mampong; and although a local shop deals in funeral items such as tents and chairs for the mourners, items such as the necessary brass and other bands for big funerals come from outside.

The people of Akropong (except for those of northern and Ewe origin, who comprise under 10%o of the population) belong to the matrilineal clans found throughout the Akan Twi-speaking area.6 The distribution and relative sizes of clans in Akropong differ from those in other towns, reflecting the particular history of historical immigration into the state. I refer to parts of clans found in the town itself as 'subclans'. A subclan is divided into 'houses', there being typically two or three in a subclan. A 'house' is distinguished from other 'houses' of the same subclan by its different immigration history rather than by genealogical segmentation. A 'house' properly occupies a literal 'family house', and this was certainly the residence pattern until some fifty years ago. It is still found today and occupancy of a 'family house' is eagerly desired. The membership of a 'house' includes full members of the subclan by birth, spouses (although customarily spouses reside in their own family houses), resident affines, and the descendants of slaves and pawns. Before the abolition of slavery almost half of the town's population consisted of slaves, and their economic role was a crucial one.7

Each subclan has both a female head and a male head selected from the 'houses' in rotation. Each subclan owns its own lands and houses; is exogamous; takes care of its own inheritance matters; and has its own villages both in the plains and also west of the state in the rich cocoa lands of Akyem and beyond. Although some younger people today think little of subclan affiliation, they are in a minority, and the sense of subclan identity and cohesion is very strong; election to subclan offices is much sought after and the object of perennial discussion and conflict. Each subclan in the town sees its central 'family house' as the nucleus of a web of subclan ties that spreads out across the state and indeed across all southern Ghana.

LAND AND COCOA The most important events of the 19th century following the coming of the Basel Mission in 1835 were the advent of cocoa, the abolition of slavery, and the assumption of colonial overrule. The main developments from 1900 to the present, as far as social process and organisation are concerned, have included change in the power of the king; the growth of new forms of stratification due to differences in wealth and education; an increase in the mobility of people during their lifetimes and in the range of the social region centred on the town; and changes in the composition of the network of settlements in the state and beyond it.

Before the development of the cocoa industry there were many contacts with the outside world: Akropong has never been an isolated settlement. There was much trade, in slaves, palm oil, rubber, cloth and other commodities, with Akwamu, Akyem, Asante, the north, and the Ga, Danes and British of Accra.8 The people who were involved were mostly royals, slaves, Basel Mission adherents, and a few

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important subclan leaders. The system of ranking (royals, chiefs, commoners, pawns and slaves) was both simple and also relatively unchanging.

Cocoa was introduced into Akuapem by the Basel Mission in the 1880s. It became an important crop after about 1890, and until swollen shoot disease in the 1940s was the mainstay of the national economy; it is still of great importance today. Most of the early cocoa farmers and traders came from Akuapem, first opening farms in the plains and then moving westwards into the Akyem states, Asante, and farther west still.9

Akuapem has always been an agricultural area: there are no mines. Before the advent of cocoa, food was produced on farms along the ridge, and palm oil, the main export crop, on village plantations in the plains. The income from oil, grown mainly by slave labour, was considerable and led to a high standard of living for the free population of the town, with large houses, many slaves, elaborate funerals, and so on. The coming of cocoa both increased the income and widened its distribution. The first ventures into cocoa growing and trading were made by men and women who had already amassed capital by trading in slaves and palm oil. The first cocoa farms were opened in the plains on lands belonging to the town-based subclans, but after the turn of the century more farms were opened up west of the Densu. In the case of Akropong, lands were acquired in Akyem with the help of fellow-clansmen resident there. These lands were bought by groups of people known as 'companies' formed from members of a particular 'house'. The 'company' bought the land which was then divided among its members.

After the abolition of slavery most former slaves became tenants or clients on the newly opened cocoa farms, transmitting one-third of their profit to the subclan head in Akropong, a pattern that remains today. A man bought a plot through being a member of a 'company'; he opened and cleared it with the help of his wives and children; he then moved to new farms purchased with the profits of the first, leaving tenants to work the existing one. Many tenants later bought their own farms, working them with migrant labour from the north; but few such men became as wealthy from cocoa as did the 'proper' members of the Akropong subclans. There is not space here to discuss the system of land inheritance, but it is clearly of the utmost importance in the growth of stratification. The principle is that a man owns a farm as the representative of his subclan, and at his death most of it is inherited by his subclan kin. But if it has been developed by his efforts and those of his wife and children, the children are left a portion which is theirs and their children's in perpetuity. In this way people can become landowners independently of their matrilineal kin, and can sell land, which is virtually impossible in the case of subclan lands. Of course, most such men are also members of Akropong subclans, although they tend to live on their farms outside the town rather than in it if most of their wealth comes from a paternal inheritance. This is especially so for those of slave origin who have inherited paternally, since they usually lack any real clan or kin ties with families in Akropong.

THE NETWORK OF MIGRATION The people who live on farms to the west maintain social, economic, and familial ties with Akropong. Those living in the western parts of the Akyem states and beyond may visit the town only once or twice a year, normally at Odwira, Christmas, and perhaps Easter; they also visit for funerals of close kin. Those living not too far from Koforidua and the plains of Akuapem itself visit much more often. But they use other towns for everyday trading and visiting. The largest are Koforidua, the

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capital of the Eastern Region of Ghana and some 25 miles west of Akropong, Nsawam, Suhum, Mangoase and other relatively recently founded towns on and near the railway line from Accra to Koforidua and Kumasi.

Akropong is thus the nucleus of a complex network of relations between members of its population who are migrants of various kinds who, wherever they move and work, regard it as their 'home-town'. A nuclear town of this kind appears to be important in that role largely because of the nature of the migration. It is not migration such as is found among the northern peoples of Ghana and neighbouring Sahel countries who move to the richer lands of the south: those migrants move mainly because of the poverty of their home areas. But the migrants of Akuapem are educated and sophisticated farmers, teachers, traders, businessmen and others who in the last hundred years have come to take leading economic, political, educational and religious roles in Ghana. The places to which they move, especially the larger centres, the seats of government and business, are seen as the places where individuals may acquire greater wealth than they can in Akropong itself, and where they may become members of various occupations, associations and networks which will give them higher status and in many cases even new identities.

Migration from Akropong is of two kinds. In the first people simply leave the town permanently and become lost. Ultimately they forfeit rights in family houses, land and offices. There are many known cases of this migration but it is regarded as improper and is always a subject of adverse and often distressed comment. Many (though not all) cases of this kind of migration are people of slave ancestry who find that they can make a new life without the stigma of that ancestry. They are soon forgotten.

The second kind is a period of migration as the central part of an average life career. Due to lack of opportunity to acquire either a money income, a high social status or political office in the town itself, most people work outside it. This means either working as a farmer in the plains or farther west, or as a labourer, teacher, trader or businessman in Accra, Koforidua, Kumasi, Nsawam or more distant places that can offer opportunities. Most people spend much or all of their earning lives working elsewhere, but returning to Akropong at regular intervals. They are typically married during this period, the women also bearing children. Spouses living in Akropong have the choice of following the traditional pattern of separate residence for spouses, or the modern 'elite' one of co-residence. When living outside the town, whether in a city or in a village, spouses tend to share residence; but when visiting Akropong they may choose the traditional pattern instead. Which is chosen depends on many factors. The more important include having enough wealth to obtain living space for co-residence, level of education and ability to be accepted as members of a modern elite, the nature of subclan and family affiliation (those of high family status being more likely to select the traditional pattern), and religious affiliation (those who are active in the Presbyterian Church being more likely to follow the modern pattern).

During migrants' working lives outside Akropong, most try to send their children back there to school, under the care of the mothers' kin. The schools of the town are famous throughout southern Ghana and an education there is a good investment for a child's future in the modern world of government, business and education, as well as giving him or her a reputation as a potentially influential member of the subclan if he behaves well when at home.

After a normal working life, whether in a city or on a farm, but especially the

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former if in a well paid position, a migrant retires to Akropong. If possible he will occupy the room in his 'family house' which has been allocated to him during his working career for his visits to the town, and his wife will be given a room in her own natal 'family house'. If there are no such rooms available, or if he has made much money, he may build himself a new concrete house. During retirement he may acquire high prestige by taking a responsible part in subclan affairs, and will try to do the same politically by taking part in palace affairs. Or he may do the same within the Presbyterian Church, the Order of Oddfellows, or some other association of which there are several in the town.

HOME-TOWN, 'CUSTOM' AND MORAL COMMUNITY

Akropong itself is in many ways an important and flourishing centre. Building materials have been scarce for several years, and corrugated iron for roofs and paint for walls and doors virtually unobtainable by ordinary people. But the dinginess and air of dilapidation in much of the town are misleading: behind them a vigorous and wealthy social life continues.

Economically Akropong is hardly viable as an independent unit. It can produce some of its food, but certainly not enough to feed its normally resident population, as I have shown earlier. Weekend and more irregular visitors and the large schools must import most of theirs, a situation which has always existed within living memory. The visitors bring a great deal of money to the town, distributed through their kin by the many customary gifts made at visits, funerals, and other family occasions. And those who do not visit often send remittances which are similarly distributed.

Politically, Akropong is not of great national importance, although as the seat of the ruler of a state it is nationally represented and has great local importance. During the colonial period the administration of the state (then a district) was from Mampong, eight miles south, and not at Akropong, the seat of the kings (who often opposed colonial overrule). This choice has always annoyed Akropong as being traditionally incorrect, but Mampong is still the seat of many governmental agencies. Recently, however, due largely to the ruler's efforts, the new offices of the Akwapim Local Government have been established in the town. Although the judicial roles of king, queen-mother and chiefs have been weakened in past years, they still have important jural roles. The king today is rarely formally concerned with cases other than those to do with chiefship and the kingship itself. Chiefs carry out a great deal of largely informal judicial work but their sanctions are slight compared to those of the past. But the chiefs, queen-mother and the king are highly regarded: they are all powerful people and respected by their subjects.

In what ways, then, does Akropong remain significant to its residents and those (far greater in number) who do not live there continually but regard themselves as 'Akropong people'? There are three main factors that are relevant: the sense of tradition, loyalty and cohesion offered to a dispersed population; the fact that it is a largely Christian town; and the fact that the subclans of the town continue to play centrally important roles in the lives of their members, wherever they may live.

Akropong is for its people the place where they and their ancestors have come from. In the past, this was a basic way of distinguishing free people from slaves, who were not free members of the 'home-town' even though partially absorbed into their owners' subclans. Today this aspect has fallen into desuetude. But Akropong is also the place of origin of 'custom' (amanne) which marks it off from other towns. Mere residence is not enough (northern immigrants and spouses from

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other towns may never be regarded as real citizens even if born in the town), the essential factor being willing acceptance of a particular body of 'custom'. Allegiance to this 'custom' (which includes complete mastery of the prestigious Akropong dialect of Twi, an important factor)10 is the most obvious and effective means of defining individual and group identity, especially since the same clans, personal names, and language are found throughout the whole Akan area of southern Ghana.

The second factor refers to the Presbyterian Church and its schools, from primary level to teachers' college, for which the town is famous. Most townspeople have been educated in these schools and their parents and even grandparents may also have been educated there and connected with the church. This factor distinguishes Akropong from most towns of similar size in Africa.

The third factor merits some discussion. It is often claimed, in Ghana and elsewhere, that the matrilineal clan and lineage are in some rather ill-defined way outmoded groupings in the modern world of trade, industry and large scale population movements, and that the family group based on them are fragile and ineffective, with high divorce rates and great instability." Apart from there being a high divorce rate, none of these claims are justified by the evidence. There are two questions here: what is the persistent role of these descent groups, and is the fact that they are matrilineal significant or not?

The 'house', a constituent part of the subclan, is a corporation in which is vested responsibility for allocation of land and houses, the determination of succession to offices concerned with this allocation, the settlement of internal disputes, the inheritance of rights in these forms of property, and the arrangement of marriages and funerals. The history of original immigration and settlement of subclans and their 'houses' is a central aspect of their sense of continuity. In addition, the fact that most modern wealth (from cocoa and business) has sprung from investment in land and trade made many years ago by subclan representatives using 'house' capital, adds to the sense of importance of the 'house', which may be likened to a business corporation whose shares are held equally by its members. With the high degree of movement of their members throughout southern Ghana the persistence of 'houses' enables a sense of identity and cohesion to be maintained among their members, who would otherwise face ever-changing modern conditions as isolated individuals without effective support for their efforts being provided by subclan kin.

The second question is that of matriliny per se. I suggest that a matrilineal descent group is fully as effective as is a patrilineal one, and that, indeed, since under this particular matrilineal system filial inheritance is permitted and indeed expected, so that the interests of spouses and children as well as of siblings and sororal kin are fully recognised, matriliny is flexible as a basis for activities of many kinds.

It is as the nucleus of networks of subclan and 'house' links that the town-or more accurately, perhaps, the 'family house' situated in the town-retains its significance. It is only within the town that the relations between 'houses' of a subclan, and between subclans, are easily ordered and controlled, largely by the observance of subclan ties and obligations at funerals and family meetings.

At a death messages are sent to the heads of all family branches throughout Ghana and even beyond, and their members converge on Akropong for the funeral and inheritance ceremony. Funerals are held on Saturdays so that those working elsewhere can attend; and an agreed distribution of property of the deceased between the 'house' and the children is made on the following Monday. These meetings are extremely important. Although there is in one sense a break in

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'custom' between Christians and non-Christians, it is not generally considered important in the context of family 'house' meetings-or perhaps more accurately they are temporarily forgotten at them. The Christian Presbyters attend the funerals and the meetings to determine inheritance in the case of the death of a Christian, and confirm it by its public recording in a Church record book. By this means the subclan and 'house' are assured of continuity; disputes over succession and inheritance are dealt with formally (though not always finally, as disputes may fester for years); and the identity and cohesion of the family and networks of kinship of all kinds are reconfirmed and reinforced.

Finally there are meetings held during the week of the Odwira festival, when the subclan and 'house' elders account for their stewardship during the past year and when discussions are held on the groups' future welfare and advancement. These meetings are held in private and are regarded as extremely important: not to attend is tantamount to opting out of 'family' concerns.

One point should be made here: it is that although Akropong acts as a centre for the settlement of family and subclan disputes, including those over chiefship and related matters, this does not mean that it is thereby in some way 'backward looking' or 'bound by tradition' in any negative sense. Although most people consider themselves bound by 'custom' it is in fact very noticeable that at family meetings to settle matters of succession and inheritance both traditional rules and personal wishes as expressed in testaments are carefully considered and accommodation made between them. As people say, 'it is the living who matter', and the known wishes of the deceased as well as traditional rules may be disregarded if it is considered that they would result in injustice to the interests of any one category of kin. The essential aim is always to make for personal equity within the framework of family and group continuity. This is exemplified particularly in the interests of widows and children being balanced against those of matrilineal kin.

So far I have discussed only Akropong, but it is, of course, only one of the seventeen ridge towns, although politically the most important. Most of its features are shared by the other towns: each is the seat of a chief, three of whom are divisional chiefs; each has its own set of subclans and 'houses', some those of the Akan and others being Guan; each has its own lands and its own farms and villages; each has its own annual festival and is the 'home-town' for its members who use it in the same way as do the people of Akropong; each has its own pattern of succession and inheritance; each has its own distinctive immigration histories, its own spirit cults and priests, and its own dialect of either Twi or Guan. There are, in short, seventeen town-centred networks of relations, of which Akropong is only one.

Akropong differs from the others in two important ways. It is the seat of the king and the main Christian and educational centre. As the seat of the king, the court is of great importance: chiefs and subchiefs are expected to assemble there on many occasions. These include regular state councils, individual visiting to pay respect to the ruler, and especially the great 'Durbar' of the Odwira festival, when they pay public homage to the king. But little of this affects the internal organisation of local subclans and the settlement of their internal disputes. The facts that the Twi-speaking groups of Akyem ancestry are in a minority and that the state was founded only as late as the early 18th century, have meant that there is always great political fluidity. From the viewpoint of other towns, especially those that are large and remote, such as Larteh, Akropong is of little everyday importance. This is expressed in the almost continuous efforts to achieve autonomy and even secession that have featured in Akuapem's history. 12

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Reference must be made here to the ritual or moral topography of Akuapem culture. Like all peoples, the people of Akropong hold a particular view of their moral universe. All the people in Akuapem hold that the state is a single moral unity, maintained by the proper ritual behaviour of the Omanhene and his subjects: it is at the centre of the world. Each of the seventeen ridge towns, even the smallest of two hundred people only, is a 'town' of the same order in cosmological terms as all the others. Each town sees itself as at the centre of this 'map', with the sixteen other towns and its own satellite settlements close to it, with the satellites of other towns and the surrounding non-Akuapem towns lying beyond this closely linked and morally bounded circle. For example, even though Nsawam is by far the largest settlement in all Akuapem, it is new and is regarded as merely one of the satellite settlements of Aburi. In a very real sense, it has no proper inhabitants but only members of other 'home-towns' who happen to live and work in it. Few of its members wish to bear their children or to die there: these are proper only in one's 'home-town'. This moral or ritual topography gives a sense of historical unity and persistence to the ever-fluid actual population of the state, and helps to explain the importance in both cultural and structural terms of the ridge towns.

The 'home-town' is thus a ritual centre, the nucleus of a 'moral community': but how can it be defined with greater precision and with greater comparative reference? We may discern two ideal types of town, at least in Akuapem (and I suggest elsewhere also). They mark the ends of a continuum and perhaps of an historical process of growth. These two types may be represented by Nsawam and by Akropong.

Nsawam is not a 'home-town', but a 'centre of articulation'. Such a centre is a meeting place, typically founded as a trading or administrative settlement. It is a centre of articulation between two systems or modes of production or of two levels of government. Its population-or most of it-is recently immigrant, changing by continual in- and out-migration, and of mixed origins, whether in ethnic, clan or other terms. There is no need to enlarge on its other qualities, but they include such features as the possibility of rapid individual mobility and change of status irrespective of descent and family ties; landlordism in place of house ownership by descent group; often an imbalance in the 'normal' demographic ratios of sex and age; and the beginnings, at least, of an urban proletariat.

In contrast, we have the 'home-town', the centre that has developed an organic solidarity and a single structure. In the words of the people of Akropong, it is a place of 'custom' (amanne), the seat of ancestors. The 'home-town' has developed an internal authority structure which is centred upon the royal or chiefly 'stool', with its ordered succession and its control of hierachy, and its many symbols of corporateness. We return here to the notion of 'custom'. 'Custom' not only identifies a stable population, it first creates it; and it is never static but is always developing so as to incorporate further population elements and to include them in the common identity. The populations of the 17 'home-towns' of Akuapem are each of disparate ethnic origins, but each has been welded into a single urban community by observance of the town's 'custom'. It also enables its adherents to accept and use historically changing opportunities without internal disruption, by permitting new organisations to appear with new aims but with existing and effective sanctions for their achievement: it is surely significant that the people of Akropong and Akuapem have been among the most adaptive, innovative, and risk-taking entrepreneurs in West Africa, despite holding traditional 'custom' in such high regard.

Part of the welding of a diverse population into a structured community involves

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economic and political patronage, forms of protection for incoming groups. I suggest that a 'home-town' is always one in which there is social stratification and hierarchy: there is not space to discuss this here but this development is a crucial one. Competition between subclans, ethnic and other elements, and between strata in the system of hierarchical differentiation, leads to conflicts and contradictions in the structure. These are controlled, inhibited or resolved by the operation of periodic and other rituals in which 'custom' is reaffirmed. In the case of Akropong this is achieved particularly by the annual performance of the Odwira ('purification') ritual cycle. It is largely for this reason that such towns may be known as 'ritual centres'.

A final distinction is in the context of growth. Rapid growth-in crude terms of size-would seem to occur mainly in the centres of articulation; in the 'home-towns' the 'growth' is rather in complexity of structure, and indeed the everyday population may often decline over time (although balanced by the 'real' total population, as in the case of Akropong). We may therefore distinguish two processes of urban growth: in the case of centres of articulation, growth is by a process of incorporation of discrete elements into a single settlement bound only by mechanical solidarity; in the case of 'home-towns', it is by a process of structuration and concomitant ritualisation. We may suggest that the former may develop over time into the latter, but there is no space in which this may be discussed here. It leads to problems of the nature of the socio-economic region of which a 'home-town' such as Akropong is the nucleus or node. We cannot fully understand the functions and development of the latter without consideration of the former. This consideration is crucial, but must be made elsewhere.

NOTES 1 This paper is a revised version of that

presented to the conference on small towns in Africa. For inclusion in this volume it has had to be shortened considerably, and one section, on the place of the town in social development, has been omitted entirely. A much longer account of the town is in preparation. I am fully aware that this article is essentially a paper presented to a seminar and as such is merely an outline statement offered as a basis for discussion. Many points in it merit much longer consideration than can be given in the space permitted here.

I carried out research in Akropong for a total of 15 months during 1976 and 1977. The work was financed by grants from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and the Social Science Research Council, London. My stay in Ghana was under the auspices of the Department of Sociology, University of Cape Coast. I wish to express my gratitude to these institutions. I owe thanks to many people in Akropong. Here I mention only Nana Addo Dankwa III, Okuapehene; Nana Boafo Ansah II, Krontihene; Oheneba Ofori Owusu-Ansa and Mr B. E. Ofori; the many others who helped me so gener- ously will be thanked in my forthcoming book on social change and stratification in Akropong-

Akuapem. The term 'home-town' is that used by Ghanaians

when speaking English when referring to the Twi word kurom and the complex set of meanings of that word. It has already been used in reference to the Akuapem towns by Brokensha (1972).

2 I use the spelling Akuapem for the state, as being that generally adopted in the standard orthography for Twi; but I retain Akwapim for the geographical area, as the conventional orthography used in maps.

3 The Akan include the Asante (Ashanti), Fante and many other groups in Ghana and the Ivory Coast (see Manoukian 1950). The Guan, the indigenous occupants of southern and central Ghana, are today represented by various scattered populations of which the Guan of Akuapem and the Gonja are numerically the most important.

4 For the history of Akuapem, see Kwamena-Poh 1973. For a general account of the state, see the collection of essays by various authors edited by Brokensha (1972).

5 A recent study of the royal rituals of Akuapem has been made by Michelle V. Gilbert; it is as yet unpublished. An earlier study, of the value system, was made by Helaine Minkus (also unpublished).

6 The best account of Akan clans (abusua, pl.

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mmusua) is by Fortes (1969). The clan system in Akropong and Akuapem differs from that in Asante as described by Fortes and, earlier, by Rattray (1923, 1929).

7 Akuapem slavery differed in many important respects from that found in Asante and other Akan areas, but details need not be given here.

8 See Reynolds (1974). 9 The astonishing story of the Akuapem cocoa-

farmers has been told by Hill (1963, 1970) and Johnson (1964/5).

10 The Akropong dialect of Twi was that adopted by the Basel Mission in the 19th century and so has become the standard dialect in the literature.

11 See Douglas (1969) and also, for a somewhat contrary view, Fortes (1971).

12 See Brokensha (1966).

REFERENCES

Brokensha, D. 1966 Social Change at Larteh, Ghana. Oxford: Clarendon Press. -- (ed) 1972 Akwapim Handbook. Accra-Tema: Ghana Publishing Corporation. Douglas, M. 1969 'Is matriliny doomed in Africa?,' in M. Douglas and P. M. Kaberry (eds)

Man in Africa. London: Tavistock Publications. 121-35. Fortes, M. 1969 Kinship and the Social Order. Chicago: Aldine; London: Routledge and

Kegan Paul. - 1971 The Family: Bane or Blessing? Accra: Ghana Universities Press.

Hill, P. 1963 The Migrant Cocoa-Farmers of Southern Ghana. Cambridge: University Press. - 1970 Studies in Rural Capitalism in West Africa. Cambridge: University Press.

Johnson, M. 1964/5 'Migrants' progress,' Bulletin of the Ghana Geographers' Association 9(2): 4-27; 10(1): 13-20.

Kwamena-Poh, M. A. 1973 Government and Politics in the Akuapem State 1730-1850. London: Longman; Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

Manoukian, M. 1950 The Akan and Ga-Adangme Peoples. London: International African Institute.

Rattray, R. S. 1923 Ashanti. Oxford: Clarendon Press. - 1923 Ashanti Law and Constitution. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Reynolds, E. 1974 Trade and Economic Change on the Gold Coast, 1807-1874. London: Longman.

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Documents

Small Towns in African Development || Home-Town: A Study of an Urban Centre in Southern Ghana