"Müller's Report for the Year 1888"

There are 6 houses on the mission land at Tosen, 16 at Boso, no figures for the other stations. Personnel of the district: Johannes Müller Peter Hall (Ntwumuru). Chr. Tenkorang (Tutunya) Chr Asiedu (Amfoi) Heinrich Lieb, Nik. Clerk plus the helpers who had been working on the district before the commencement of the year. Schools have been started in Tutunya and Anvoi, and there are demands for schools from Buem and Osman Kato in Kpandu. In Tutunya the 9 boys de not understand Twi however, so there are difficuhties. In Anum and Boso the success of the schools seems small - only with great efforts have the numbers of the pupils in the Boso school been kept up to 20, and in Anum Müller is clearly under no illusions that the scholars have made much progress in their work. Movements in numbers in the community - in Anum a number of women, whose husbands were already Christians have been baptised, while a number of men have been baptised whose wives have refused to follow them into the Christian village. In Tosen and Ananyo several families have joined the church. In Kpalime two old men have been baptised, one was the linguist to the Kpalime chief and had to withstand a lot of opposition from his chief and the Bosohene. In Tsate there are several catechumens, including a fetish priest and the chief of the village. Müller is especially impressed with the eagerness to sing in the community in Anum – singing he feels is a great weapon, and cites an occasion when the women and girls of Botoku sang half the night and when he asked why he was told that a woman had arrived from Anvoi knowing a new song, and they were enjoying it. The Christians live together peacefully and help each other with house building and when there is sickness. But married life shows various heathen traits still - husband and wife have separate purses, eat separately, and thogh their farms may be side by side it is known which belongs to the husband and which to the wife – this so that the wife may have some money of her own. Husbands give wives a little money to buy meat or fish, and the Akwapim masons send back a few shillings to their wives from time to time. He does take over his wife's debt, but she has to pay church and school taxes out of her own resources, and give the schoolchildren their clothes.

22.02.1889

22.02.1889

Text