"Lehmann's Report"

Includes a report of an incident-in which he apologised to a man for failing to return a visit in the customary way - and a report of locusts in the Anum area not dated but almost certainly during the preceding quarter. He describes a visit to a sick woman in one of the farming hamlets. Her brother was wearing a necklace of teeth which people told Lehmann were the teeth of Asantes he had killed when he stayed behind in 1869 ambushing individuals and killing them. He constrasts the situation of the woman and a sick person in Europe - the inheritance of Christian love makes the great difference - a loving hand would have cleaned out the hut, and would have gathered dry foliage to make a comfortable bed. The woman's brother and her husband had cared for the sick woman, but it was a love without geniality, or ingenuity, it was more of a well-wishing. What they had done was what they forefathers had probably done for a thousand years, without reflecting whether it was good for the woman or not. In this context Lehmann asked the woman's heathen relatives why the body liked eating, but not dying? His explanation – it was not designed for the latter. (The woman was of course, a Christian, Maria Abena, who had once been Müller's cook. She died shortly after)

24.02.1894

24.02.1894

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