"Mohr's Annual Report for 1877"

The report is partially printed as an appendix to the Annual Report of the Basel Mission 1878 (p. 85ff). It is mostly phased in general terms. The Christian community has with difficulty been assembled on the quiet of the mission hill, away from the row of the heathen town. 4 have moved away, three died, the total of the end of 1877 was 28. He describes fetish reactions of a typhus epidemic. Catechist Obeng is having great success in the village round about, though only Fankyeneko is named in this connection. Additional material in the manuscript version: He describes in detail the difficulties experienced in getting the Christians out onto the mission station. One Christian had a very pretty house with all the accustomed comforts - a crude four-poster box bed, hung with ornaments and a large number of mirrors in the room. Another had an elderly father or relatives to look after who were heathens and believed that if they came into the Christian village the fetish would kill them. With others it was mainly a matter of laziness. The latter were simply commanded to move. As a digression to the above paragraph he gives a certain amount of information about furnishings etc. the bed is usually the most important piece of furniture, and often the only one. He has seen a room in Fankyeneko with no less than 13 mirrors in it; the owner must have brought one back with him every time he went to Accra. If the owner of a room has any pretence at education there will also be yellowing pictures out of an illustrated newspaper on the walls. The losses to the community are specified: - 2 carpenters, one mason and a boy who were in Begoro as a result of the building moved away (the boy to Akropong). - The deaths were of Joseph, the head of family baptised in the first group, and one of his children. The other is Johannes Asamoa, another of the first group of baptism and a member of a numerous and influential family. Since both their wives were also baptised (Asamoa’s wife with the name Sophie) the station now has to young widows. A fourth death occurred on the station at the end of the year – a maidservant who was still a heathen, and indeed her grandmother and father-in-law were both fetish priests. The Christians behaved well on the whole, except for one man who drank too much. There have been few baptismal candidates – perhaps because of the deaths on the station, though the epidemic in the town also to blame. The station now has a teacher in addition to Catechist Obeng, and though a fair number of boys have come fairly from the opposition between town and mission during the epidemic. The other villages where Catechist Obeng has worked with success are named as Osino, Dwenase, and Gyampoani.

15.01.1878

15.01.1878

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