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The Myth of a State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Jack Goody
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That the distinction between myth and history is a tenuous one hardly requires elaborate documentation. Anthropologists have recorded the way in which accounts of the tribal past, recorded in genealogies, change with the organisation of the social groups to which they refer. In Malinowski's phrase, they serve as the ‘mythical charters’ of the social system. But this is a feature not only of non-literate societies.

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , December 1968 , pp. 461 - 473
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

References

Page 461 note 1 Kimble, David, in his Introduction to A Political History of Ghana, 1850–1928 (Oxford, 1963),Google Scholar was, however, the first to show how early the migration claim was made by Ghanaian writers themselves, e.g. Rev. Anaman, J. B., The Gold Coast Guide (London, 1895),Google Scholar who had probably read several European accounts, including Ellis, A. B., The Tshi-Speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa (London, 1887).Google Scholar

Page 463 note 1 Tait, D., ‘History and Social Organisation’, in Transactions of the Gold Coast and Togoland Historical Society (Achimota), 1, 1955, pp. 193–210.Google Scholar

Page 463 note 2 Balmer, , History of the Akan Peoples, p. 28.Google Scholar

Page 465 note 1 Bowdich, T. E., Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee (London, 1819).Google Scholar

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Page 466 note 1 Ibid. pp. 18, 40–1, and 63.

Page 467 note 1 Williams, , Hebrewisms of West Africa, pp. 319–20.Google Scholar

Page 468 note 1 Meyerowitz, E. L. R., The Sacred State of the Akan (London, 1951),Google ScholarAkan Traditions of Origin (London, 1952),Google ScholarThe Akan of Ghana: their ancient beliefs (London, 1958),Google Scholar and The Divine Kingship in Ghana and Ancient Egypt (London, 1960).Google Scholar

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Page 469 note 1 Akan Traditions of Origin, p. 124.

Page 469 note 2 See Goody, J. R., ‘Ethnohistory and the Akan of Ghana’, in Africa, XXIX, 1, 1959.Google Scholar

Page 469 note 3 Meyerowitz, , ‘The Akan and Ghana’, in Man (London), LVII, 1957.Google Scholar

Page 469 note 4 Ibid. pp. 86–7.

Page 470 note 1 The Akan of Ghana, p. 15.

Page 470 note 2 See Elliot Smith, In the Beginning; Rivers, W. J., The History of Melanesian Society (Cambridge, 1914);Google Scholar and Perry, Children of the Sun.

Page 470 note 3 Meinhof, C., An Introduction to the Study of African Languages (London, 1915).Google Scholar

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Page 471 note 3 Ibid. p. 58.

Page 472 note 1 Cf. Goody, J. R., ‘Death and Social Control among the LoDagaa’, in Man, LIX, 1959, p. 204.Google Scholar

Page 472 note 2 Goody, J. R., ‘The Ethnology of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast west of the White Volta’ (London, Colonial Office, 1954, mimeo.).Google Scholar