"Clerk's Report on the First Half Year's Work in Buem"

They met a Christian family in Worawora who were of great help in settling the Clerks, but 6d a day was too little for the Worawora people to work on the building of a new house, and Clerk had to have workers sent up from Anum. There has been a scanty response to the request for scholars - the 'first elder' in Worawora is a firm enemy of Christianity and his influence overrules the interest which most people have. 3 of the 5 catechumens are satisfactory – they want to read and attend the school. The 5 schoolboys, however, are simply heathen boys - disobedient, unreliable and something rarely met in the interior, liable to thieve things. In Worawora itself they are reguarly getting large and attentive crowds who are apparently beginning to understand what is involved in Christianity. In the Worawora village at the bottom of the hill, however, the people are not receptive. A special report on the Kwahu affair. Clerk recognises three Kwahu groups - Kwahu-Kodiabe (the well-known Kwahu), Kwahu-Asabi (west of the Volta, north-west of Anim), and Kwahu-Dukoman. All three were allied with the Asantes. The Kwahus here must have called over the Asantes about 20 years ago, when the Buems were trying to disperse them. After the defeat of Asante Kwahu-Dukoman was destroyed by Buem, one part of the remnant fleeing into the interior, the other - three villages - returning to their lands. The latter made peace with the King of Buem, and became his subjects, but there was still a spirit of revenge in Buem, and much talk of revenge plans. Because they were good subjects the king of Buem could not act easily, but he took the occasion offered by an attempt by a Kwahu-Dukoman elder to have him settle a case to start the war. On hearing of the outbreak (which seems to have happened from the first imprisoning of the elder very quickly) Clerk travelled to Kagyebi in hopes of meeting the Kwahu king. There his resolve was strengthened by meeting captives being brought back from Kwahu-Dukoman, and he went on into Kwahu-Dukoman and interviewed the king. He apparently called the king a coward to his face for breaking the oath made between him and Kwahu-Dukoman. people. Over the next two days he had at least three more interviews with the king and the king and elders. His object was to prevent further bloodshed, and the elders admitted that they had plans to attack Akposo as well. His report implies that he was successful - on the the day the elders returned to Buem, the army following some time after. In Worawora is the father of a Kwahu-Dukoman family - his wife is somewhere else, and children elsewhere again. Clerk writes that in his time in Buem he will do all possible for these poor people

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