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Prosopographical Approaches to Fante History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Augustus Casely-Hayford
Augustus Casely-Hayford*
Affiliation:
London
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Extract

Some of the earliest books written by Gold Coast writers were about then-own family histories and stool institutions. These writers took advantage of the established oral tradition and the authorized stool histories. Such works represent a form of written history that was designed to transcribe and incorporate systematically as much oral tradition as possible. It is only when the oral sources are deficient or are ambiguous that the early European traveler's accounts are used to check or verify the oral sources. There are many reasons why much of the first generation of indigenous literature is by and about a small group of Fante. One undoubted reason is that these early books combine an academic pursuit with a family responsibility to the position of Linguist or Okyiame.

The word Kyiame is commonly translated “linguist,” but this is unfortunate because it conveys the impression that the Kyiame is no more than an interpreter. In reality the Kyiame is the spokesman or mouthpiece of the Chief, who, being held sacred, must neither be addressed by, nor address another person directly. According to J. B. Danquah, the word means “He who makes it perfect for me”: the Kyiame repeats and perfects what the Chief, who cannot always be an eloquent speaker, may have to say in public. He is a confidential officer whose place is at the Chiefs right hand; in the Council and Court of Judicature it is he who sums up and declares the Chiefs will. He preserves in his memory and passes on the tradition of the Stool. Deeply versed in the etiquette of the court, he instructs a newly appointed Chief. He can often turn the scales of war and peace since the issue of dispute between contending tribes may depend on whether he presents his Chiefs case in a bellicose manner. When he rises to speak in public he leans upon the gold cane or staff of his office, or a subordinate holds it in front of him. He may be sent by the Chief as a plenipotentiary or legate. What he says binds his Chief. There are two of the office. The superior grade is hereditary and is termed Omankyiame, i.e. the Kyiame of the whole Oman or Council.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 18 , 1991 , pp. 49 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1991

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References

Notes

1. In this essay I shall look mainly at the Fante writers.

2. Also spelled Okeame, Kyiame, and Keame; the ‘O’ is inferred.

3. Smith, E.W., Aggrey of Africa (London, 1929) 22Google Scholar, and Danquah, J. B., Akan Laws and Customs (London, 1928), 42.Google Scholar

4. Sarbah, John Mensah, Fanti Customary Laws (London, 1897)Google Scholar; idem., Fanti National Constitution (London, 1906).

5. Hayford, J. E. Casely, Ethiopia Unbound (London, 1969), 71.Google Scholar

6. Johnson, Joseph de Graft, Toward Nationhood in West Africa (London, 1928)Google Scholar, introduction. See also Royal Gold Coast Gazette, 18 March 1823, 1.Google Scholar

7. At Cape Coast there were several societies that were set up at the turn of the century to establish forums for writing down as much of the oral tradition as possible.

8. By advocates I do not just mean trained lawyers, but also politicians and petitioners.

9. See Sarbah and Casely-Hayford especially.

10. Gold Coast Leader, 2 December 1911.

11. As for footnote 9.

12. Although most of the works that I refer to appeared after the Victorian era, the writers nevertheless wrote in a style that harks back to that tradition.

13. Such as a mouse or a joystick.

14. I use Grand as it is used by Skinner, Quentin, Return of Grand Theory In the Human Sciences (Cambridge, 1985).Google Scholar

15. This includes work that encompassed the Fante people within more general studies.

16. Gold Coast Leader.

17. Boahen, Adu, UNESCO History of Africa , VII (London, 1985), 628Google Scholar; Priestley, Margaret, West African Trade and Coast Society (Oxford, 1965), 187Google Scholar; Kimble, David, A Political History of Ghana (Oxford, 1963), 135-40.Google Scholar

18. Boahen, , UNESCO History, 632Google Scholar; Asante, S. K. B., Pan African Protest: West Africa and the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis, 1934-1941 (London, 1977), 20.Google Scholar

19. Boahen, , UNESCO History, 634Google Scholar; Langley, J. A., Pan Africanism and Nationalism in West Africa, 1900-1945 (Oxford, 1973).Google Scholar

20. Macarthy, Mary, Social Change and the Growth of British Power in the Gold Coast (Lanham, 1983), 125Google Scholar, taken from Kaplow, S., African Merchants of the Nineteenth Century Gold Caost (Michigan, 1971).Google Scholar

21. Hodgkin, Thomas, The African Middle Class (London, 1956), 86–87.Google Scholar

22. Busia, K., “The Present Situation and Aspirations of Elites in the Gold Coast,” International Social Science Bulletin, 8.Google Scholar

23. Asante, , Pan African Protest, 115.Google Scholar

24. Boahen, , UNESCO History, 626.Google Scholar

25. Gocking, , “The Historic Akoto: a Social History of Cape Coast, 1843-1948,” (Ph.D, Stanford, 1985).Google Scholar

26. Kaplow, S., “African Merchants,” 242.Google Scholar

27. Kaplow, “African Merchants.”

28. Busia, “Present Situation.”

29. Reynolds, Edward, Trade and Economic Chagne on the Gold Coast, 1807-1874 (London, 1974), 118.Google Scholar

30. Kaplow, , “African Merchants,” 242.Google Scholar

31. Busia, “Present Situation.”

32. Ward, W. E. F., History of Ghana (London, 1966), 351.Google Scholar

33. I have added twenty years to Stone's original estimation since his article was written twenty years ago.

34. Stone, Lawrence, “Prosopography” in Gilbert, F. and Graubard, S. R., eds., Historical Studies Today (New York, 1972).Google Scholar

35. Although the first microprocessors were available from 1975, the personal computer did not reach our desktops until 1981.

36. Bullock, Alan, Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought (London, 1980).Google Scholar

37. The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought calls it one of the most important forms of quantitative analysis, yet traditionally it was not so. See Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought (London, 1980)Google Scholar, s.v. “Prosopography.” Also Wilks, and MacCaskie, in Asantesem, (March 1975Google Scholar).

38. Medieval Prosopography, Vol. 2, No. 2, p. 2.Google ScholarA Missing Persons Look at the Prosopogrpahy of the Later Roman Empire. Barry Baldwin described Prosopograpy of the Later Roman Empire as a “boon for students” in search of sources.

39. Medieval Prosopography, Vol. 7, No. 1, p. 22 (1986).Google Scholar

40. Medieval Prosopography, Vol. 6, No. 1, P. 1 (1985).Google Scholar

41. See Prosopograpy of the Later Roman Empire, Vol. II, AD 395-527 (Cambridge 1980). P. V.Google Scholar

42. E.g., 1/Medieval Prosopograhy, Vol. 7, No. 2, p. 55 (1986).Google Scholar A Report on the DomesdayBook Database Project at University of California.

2/Genet, J. P., “Medieval Prosopographical Research at the University of Paris,” Medieval Prosopography, 1 (Autumn 1980), 5.Google Scholar

3/Medieval Prosopography, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1982) Cluniac Charters.Google Scholar

4/Booton, H. in Denley, P. and Hopkins, D., History and Computing (Manchester, 1987), chapter 4.Google Scholar

5/Keven Schurer in Denley, P. and Hopkins, D., History and Computing (Manchester, 1987), chapter 5.Google Scholar

43. Genet, , “Medieval Prosopographical Research,” 5.Google Scholar

44. Many of these are presented in percentage forms.

45. A card index system held on a computer, it can be sorted by criteria that are set up by the user.

46. A field is the term given to one of the subsections of the database and could be a name or date.

47. Standard method of sorting and finding information in a database.

48. Asantesen, no. 1 (March 1975).

49. This was done by feeding information from the database FilemakerProfessional into HyperCard II.

51. The Fante name for the Cape Coast area.

52. This was done by feeding information from the database MacGene into HyperCard II and Excel.

53. This was done by feeding inforamtion from the database MacGene into MacDraw 2.

54. This was done by feeding information from the database MacGene into MacDraw 2.

55. This was done by feeding scanned information from the scan software into Omnipage and then into word documents that are accessed by Gofer.

56. This was done by feeding information from the Graphics package Swivel 3D Professional into Macromind Director II.

57. Circuit boards usually designed by third parties that fit into the interfaces, or connect to the motherboard of a computer—e.g., Aaps Micro TV board and the Orange Micro Board for the Macintosh, Video Charley for the IBM, and the plethora of genlock boards for the Amiga.

58. Most genlock boards display images at twenty frames a second rather than thirty, which is really “real time.”

59. See Byte (February 1990).

60. This was done by feeding information from the Statistics package Statview II and the spreadhseets Excel and Wings into Macromind Director.

61. This was done by feeding enalrged photographs from scanning software into Digital Darkroom and ImageStudio.