² Champion, S. G., Racial Proverbs (New York, 1931), 365.Google Scholar

³ For Saxo Grammaticus, chronicler of early Danish ‘history’, see Inge StovgaardPetersen, ‘Saxo, historian of the patria’, Mediaeval Scandinavia, II (1969), 63, 65,Google Scholar and Campbell, A., ‘Saxo and the Scandinavian Historical Tradition’, Saga-Book of the Viking Society, XIII (1946), 20–1.Google Scholar For Snorri Sturluson., see Gurevich, A. Y., ‘Space and Time in the Weltmodell of the old Scandinavian peoples’, Mediaeval Scandinavia, 11(1969), 47.Google Scholar

⁴ See, e.g. Simmons, D. R., ‘A New Zealand myth: Kupe, Toi, and the “Fleet”’, New Zealand Journal of History, 111 (1969), 14–31;Google ScholarMitchell, Roger, ‘Oral tradition and Micronesian history’, Journal of Pacific History, 5 (1970), p. 40 n.;Google ScholarBarrére, Dorothy B.,‘Revision and adulterations in Polynesian creation myths’ in Highland, Genevieve et al. (eds.) Polynesian Culture History (Honolulu, 1968), 103–17;Google ScholarMonberg, T., ‘Ta'aroa in the creation myth of the Society Islands’, Journal of the Polynesian Society, LXV (1956), 253–81.Google Scholar

⁵ Cohen, Ronald, ‘The Bomu King Lists’ in Butler, Jeffrey (ed.), Boston University Papers on Africa. II, African History (Boston, 1966),47;Google ScholarBerger, Ruth, ‘Oral traditions in Karagwe’, a paper given at the East African Institute of Social Research, Makerere University, July 1963, p. 6.Google Scholar

⁶ Kimble, David, A Political History of Ghana, 1850–1928 (Oxford, 1963), pp. 462–9;Google ScholarAgbodeka, Francis, African Politses and British Policy in the Gold Coast, 1868–1900: a study in the forms and force of protest (London, 1971), 113–22.Google ScholarFor a contemporary British view of the problem, see Gold Coast, Legislative Council, Sessional Paper No. of 1917/1918, ‘Report of a Commission of Enquiry… into the relationship between the Stools of Nkusukum and Commendah’ (London, 1918), 12–14.Google Scholar

⁷ Commissioner, Central Province, to Secretary for Native Affairs [henceforth CCP and SNA], 29 July 1929, NAG/CC, RAO 155, p. 106A.Google Scholar

⁸ In the nineteenth century both Henry Meredith and Brodie Cruikshank, long resident on the coast, emphasized this aspect of Fante character. Meredith, , An Account of the Gold Coast of Africa (London, 1812), 106;Google ScholarCruikshank, , Eighteen Years on the Gold Coast (2 vols.: London, 1853), I, 272–6. Meredith thought that ‘to behold a Fantee to advantage he must be seen pleading his cause’. See also comments of William Mollan, Commandant at Sekondi, in answer to a questionnaire submitted by the Company of Merchants trading to Africa in 1810, NAG/A, ADMI/2/418.Google Scholar

⁹ I recognize that I am using the term ‘Fante’ in this paper in a wider connotation than is customary, but I do so only for the sake of convenience. Of the four stools discussed here, probably only Komenda would be accepted by all authorities as being quintessentially Fante.Google Scholar

¹⁰ See especially Feinberg, H. M., ‘Who are the Elmina?’, Ghana Notes and Queries, XI (06 1970), 20–6,Google Scholar but also Datta, A. K. and Porter, R., ‘The asafo system in historical perspective’, J. Afr. Hict., XII (1971),287, 288–9, 291–2.Google Scholar

¹¹ The fullest traditional account of this episode is in a memorial of the supis (captains) of 7 of the 10 Elmina asafo companies, dd 6 June 1915, NAG/A, ADM II /I/IIII, box 2. These companies wanted to abandon patrilineal succession to the paramount stool in favour of matrilineal succession, since under the former all amanhin were chosen from No. 7 Enyampa Company. The petition was signed by seven of the nine other companies. For a fuller discussion of this and other aspects of early Elmina history, see my ‘Kingship in Elmina before 1869: a study in “feedback” and “traditional stability” in Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines (forthcoming).Google Scholar

¹² Elmina Journal, 27 Nov. 1732, FC 1731–1757, 1731–1939, p.26 [WIC 98]. Citations in brackets are to the classification in the Dutch archives as noted in the Furley Collection.Google Scholar

¹³ Feinberg, ‘Who are the Elmina?’, 24; Henige, ‘Kingship in Elmina’.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Coombs, Douglas, The Gold Coast, Great Britain, and the Netherlands, 1850–1874 (London, 1963), 14–16.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Warfare between Elmina and the Fante was almost incessant. For one of these conflicts see Feinberg, , ‘An incident in Elmina-Dutch relations, Ghana (Gold Coast),1739–1740’, African Historical Studies, III (1970), 360–1, 371.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Petition from ‘the King of Elrnina and Native Chiefs’, dd 24 Oct. 1853, NBKG544, Rijksarchief, The Hague.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Ilfracombe [1951], and London, 1952.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Wartemburg, Sao Jorge, 87.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Ibid. 18, 87.

²⁰ Meyerowitz, Akan Traditions of Origin, 73.Google Scholar

²¹ Thus Wartemburg said that he consulted ‘Balmer, Bosman, Claridge, and lists of papers published relating to affairs on the coast (handcopied) accidentally discovered in a rubbish heap’, Sao Jorge, 10. As head of one of the Elmina clans, Wartemburg probably relied heavily on traditional information. Certainly his kinglist bears a marked resemblance to one submitted at the 1934 Hearing.Google Scholar

²² Basel, 1895.Google Scholar

²³ Reindorf, History, 14.Google Scholar Reindorf's own source is unclear. It was probably Ellis, A. B., A History of the Gold Coast of West Africa (London, 1893), 18, or Cruikshank, Eighteen Years, 1, 17, although the latter rather inexplicably referred to Caramansa as ‘Camaianca’. The second edition of Reindorf, published in 1951, called this ruler Kwamina Ansa, although still referring to him as ruler of Fetu.Google Scholar

²⁴ Thus when the Jmanhen Condua III was destooled in 1918, one of the charges against him was that he insisted on using ‘foreign [i.e. English] language… unremittingly during the daily sessions of the ‘Native’ Tribunal' and that few Elminans could understand it. NAG/A, ADMII/,/IIII, box 1. Today no one in Elmina can speak Dutch.Google Scholar

²⁵ NAG/A, ADMII/I/IIII, box I, Minute Paper 20/99.Google Scholar

²⁶ Notes of Evidence of the 1934 Enquiry, 39, 43, 96, 102, 107, 140, 150, 174–5, 177, 202–3, NAG/A, ADM 11/1/1692. Another (?) Kwamina Ansa had briefly appeared in Shama traditions during the 1922 Enquiry (see below) as the founder of that state.Testimony of Kwesi Warabai, Linguist of Shama stool, NAG/A, ADMI 1/1/1464, p.22.Google Scholar

²⁷ Interview with Vroom, S. M., Elmina, 11 May 1971.Google Scholar

²⁸ Ellis, History of the Gold Coast, 18.Google Scholar

²⁹ Sarbah, John Mensah, Fanti National Constitution (London, 1906).Google Scholar

³⁰ Ibid. 57–62. Sarbah's source, like Claridge's [see nfl. 31 and 32] was obviously Clarke, James S., The Progress of Maritime Discovery from the Earliest Period to the Close of the Eighteenth Century (London, 1803), 322–4.Google Scholar

³¹ Claridge, , A History of the Gold Coast and Ashanti (2 vols.: London, 1915), I,44–7 Claridge's source, as seen in n. 30, was Clarke. Clarke nowhere referred to Caramansa as anything but ‘the native chief’ or ‘the African chief’. Clarke's account in turn was drawn from Joeo de Barros's Da Asia, published in Lisbon in several volumes between 1777 and 1788. Barros called Caramansa ‘Senhor daquella aldea’ or ‘Lord of that village [protoElmina]’, Da Asia, 1, 155. Actually the term ‘Senhor’ could admit of several translations into English but certainly does not equate with ‘rei’ or ‘king’. Rui da Pina, writing thirty-five years before Barros, referred to Caramansa as ‘a que os negros chamavam Rei’ (‘he whom the blacks called king’), Crónica de El-Rei D. Joāo II (Coimbra, 1950), 9. But ing of what? The evidence of the sources on this point is contradictory. Eustache de Ia Fosse, who visited proto-Elmina in 1479, spoke of the ‘manse et caramanse qui sont le roy et le viceroy…’, ‘Voyage à Ia côte occidentale d'Afrique, en Portugal et Espagne (1479– 1480)’, Revue Hispanique, IV (1897), 182. An English edition of Manuel de Faria e Sousa, a seventeenth-century Portuguese historian, was published in 1695 and was also utilized by Clarke, but Faria e Sousa's account of the Portuguese arrival at proto-Ehnina merely repeated Barros. If Caramansa was a king of any place, he probably ruled the state of Fetu.Google Scholar

³² Claridge, History, I, 44. It is ironic that in all probability quite the reverse is true.Google Scholar

³³ Minute 31 of SNA Case 2/1913, dd 6 May 1913, NAG/A, ADMII/IIII, box 2.Google Scholar

³⁴ See, for instance, a long letter from J. Rhule of Elmina dd 31 Aug. 1903 in the Archives of the Society of African Missions, Rome, No. 19712/1903. Rhule had many interesting views on the origins of the Asante, Fante, and Elmina, but seemed to know nothing of Kwamina Ansa.Google Scholar

³⁵ I plan to take up the origins and early history of the Komenda paramount stool in greater detail at a later date.Google Scholar

³⁶ Letter from Ohene and Chiefs of Komenda to CCP, dd 12 Apr. 1913, NAG/A, ADMII/I/III4, box 2.Google Scholar

³⁷ Bosman, William, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea…(London, 1705), 33–40;Google ScholarThompson, Thomas, An Account of Two Missionary Voyages (London,1758), 34.Google Scholar

³⁸ Rather remarkably, this pastiche of miscellaneous data from printed sources approximated in its ‘dating’ to the true establishment of the paramount stool of British Komenda. This is due, of course, to the fact that this event was connected with the ‘Komenda wars’ of the 1690s, about which Bosman wrote as a contemporary observer.Google Scholar

³⁹ Notes of Evidence of 1913 Enquiry, 6 [Nkusukum], 26 [Komenda], NAG/A, ADM II / 1/1114, box 2.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ The role of kinglists in this dispute, as well as in similar ones in many other places, can be seen in the argument of Edu V, Cmanhen of Mankessim: ‘That the stool of Akatakyi [Komenda] is superior and senior to that of Yamuransa [Nkusukum] as it could be clearly seen that including the present holder thirteen Kings have been reigning [in Komenda], but that in Yamuransa only three, including the present holder.’ Edu V to Ag. SNA, 4 Sept. 1917, NAG/A, ADM 11/1/1685, P. 90.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Sessional Paper No. of 1917/1918, p. 22.Google Scholar

⁴² The best available account of Kabes is in Daaku, K. Y., Trade and Politiss on the Gold Coast, 1600–1720 (London, 1970), 115–27.Google Scholar

⁴³ Sessional Paper, 23. Harper also asserted, correctly, I think, that ‘the stools in some of the most important coast towns [were] parasitic growths clinging to the forts’.However, his further assertion that their founders were ‘headmen appointed by the Commandants of the forts’ is more arguable, particularly in the case of Kabes, who was clearly the dominant figure in Komenda during his lifetime. Sesnonal Paper No., p. 10.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ NAG/CC, RAO 1305, unpaginated.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Ibid.

⁴⁶ Sessional Paper No. 5, pp. 22–3.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Mackay to CCP, 21 May 1940, NAG/CC, RAO 1305.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Extract from the Confidential Diary of the Cape Coast District Commissioner, 6 05 1940, NAG/CC, RAO 825.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Komeh V to CCP, 11 July 1931, NAG/CC, RAO 514, p. 108.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ CCP to Komeh III, 15 July 1918, NAG/CC, RAO 282, p. 129.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Bosman, New Description, 30–1.Google Scholar

⁵² NAG/A, ADMI/1211, p.38.Google Scholar

⁵³ Barros, Da Asia, 1,162.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Pen and Contract dd 10 July 1781, FC 1781–1816, 1781–2, p. 156 [WIC 989]. Jabi is now Ya[r]biw, and a part of Shama paramount stool, where the chief of Yabiw serves as benkumhen. In a vague way the Shama traditions recognize this early relationship between Jabi and Sharma by claiming that the founders of Shama paused briefly at Yabiw on their way to the coast. Meyerowitz, Traditions, 7.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Petition dd 4 April. 1922, NAG/A, ADMII/I/1464.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Bowler, Louis P., Gold Coast Palaver: Life on the Gold Coast (London, 1911).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Ibid. 147.

⁵⁸ Bosman, New Description, 23.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Welman, C. W., The Native States of the Gold Coast, II, Ahanta (London, 1930), 55–6; Crowther Memorandum of 1912 Commission of Enquiry, 1–2, NAG/A, ADM II /1/1703.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Report of the Furley Commission of Enquiry of 1920, p. 4, NAG/A, ADM 11/1/1469; Welman, Ahanta, 68.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Ibid.

⁶² For Boa see Huydecoper, W. to West India Company, 14 Sept. 1763, FC 1760–1764, 1767, p. II [WIC 115]. Cf. genealogy submitted at Apollonia [the official name of Nzima before 1927] Enquiry of p. 28a, NAG/A, ADM 11/1/1699.Google Scholar

⁶³ Among these would be the stool traditions of several other coastal stools, including Dixcove, Anamabu, Oguaa, and Winneba.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ It would be an interesting and perhaps enlightening exercise to collate all the printed sources Reindorf used to determine how much of his ‘traditional’ material come from these sources.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ For this aspect of Asante stool traditions see my ‘Quest for a Chimera: the chronology of oral tradition’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1972, chapter 6.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ An excellent illustration of this is discussed in Vail, H. L., ‘Suggestions towards a reinterpreted Turnbuka history’ in Pachai, B. (ed.), The Early History of Malawi (London, 1971), 148–67. See also Henige, ‘Kingship in Elmina’ and idem., ‘K.W.’s Nyoro kinglist— the result of oral tradition or applied research?’, a paper presented at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 8–11 1972.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Welinan, Ahanta, 68.Google Scholar