Annual Report for the Station of Anum for 1887 (Written by David Asante)
[Archives catalogue]: Guides / Finding aids: Archives: D - Ghana: D-01 - Incoming correspondence from Ghana up to the outbreak of the First World War: D-01.47 - Ghana 1887: D-01.47.VI. - Anum
The Christian quarter in Anum has grown from 13 houses to 22 in the course of the year, although only some of the near ones are completed. Personal changes in the course of the year: Teacher Amaning was posted from Anum to Tschatei and Gyadu from Larteh took his place. Chr. Asiedu from Boso was to go to Amvoi, but because of boundary discussions between the Basel and Bremen Missions this was not carried through and he was taken out of the area, He was replaced by Catechist J. Afari and Teacher J. Okyere. The Assistant Catechist Imm. Boakye from Kibi took over Toseng. The personal of the district had undertaken 67 day's travelling – Asante’s only journey seems- to be the one reported in his report for the second quarter (No. 135 below). The Anum community lost 13 persons through all causes, and gained 2 children born to Christian parents, 7 Christian adults moved onto the station, and 46 heathen and heathen children were baptised. At one stage he had (30 presumably adult) catechumens, of whom some lapsed, and some whose baptism he put off on the ground they were not yet ready for it. As for the ‘inner life’ of the community morning prayers-are not as well attended as Sunday Services. He comments that the members of the community approach the Elders first usually about problems, and without the knowledge of Asante himself. The missionary zeal of the community has especially been concentrated in one woman, now called by the heathen ‘Suku-moni’ - i.e. mother of the Christians. Many of the heathens will not now let her into their houses - a fetish priest in Toseng described her as a 'dangerous person’. Zeal in prayer seems more concentrated among the women also. With a few exceptions married life in the community is satisfactory, but the bringing up of children leaves something to be desired in terms of both clothing and parental control. The women surpass the men in their singing, too, again thanks to the zeal in organising Singing meetings shown by the Mother of the Christians Maria Abena. In the course of the year the order of the community was careful gone through, and dealing in pawns, which was threatening to creep into the community, dealt with. They have been working too in the Anum villages - Dodi, Toseng, Nkwakubew (there are 3 Christians in the latter), Apenkwa, Amoama and Amanforo. Their practice now is to spend the whole second part of Sunday in these, their street preaching being adapted to a whole service. In the Boso community they lost 9 members by all causes, and gained 7. The number of scholars increased by 3. These disappointing results were due to a lack of unanimity among the members – many irregularities in the community have been brought to light. There had previously been only one elder the leading spirit in the community, but he has now been joined in that office by two others. Npalime - increase of 6 by baptism of heathen and birth of 2, but lost by exclusion and death 4, while 25 Christians moved away, though out of these the new community at Tschatei was formed. Tschatei increased by baptism of 2 adults, and 3 Christians moving into the town. Beyond his journey to Nkonya in the second quarter Asante also journeyed 14 times in the year to Boso Kpalime.
Asks for s steel bell for the community at Anum and Kpalime.
Asante's Report for the Second Quarter 1887
Concerned with a preaching journey into Nkonya May-June 1887. The Tsate outstation is led by Ator, a man who had attended services for a long time Akwapim, Boso and Kpalime, before he became a catechumen, and who then in his zeal was able to persuade several of his family members to join him (the Tsate community consists of 4 Christian families, and the Kayera community 3 families). Now he goes out preaching in the villages around, repeating what he has heard in sermons other people have preached - and he is keen to learn Christian songs to minimise the temptation to go back to the heathen songs of his heathen days. He met no people in Abofrom since they were all on their farms - he was disappointed is this because the Tsate people said that there were young men who would join them if they had a teacher. In Botoku an elder told him that it was no good coming to them on journeys --they must have a teacher who would teach them every day. From there he preached in 6 Wusuta villages, Anvoi villages and Atawuranu villages. The latter, especially in their chief town Agbesie pressed for a teacher - they said they could see that this was a religion of power, but the preaching journeys were not enough to convert them. A youth from Agbesie went a long way with Asante on the next day discussing the Word with him. In Nkonya he preached in Ntwutruru, Kagyebi, Atomda, Tepa, Wurupon, Praprawase. Nothing notable seems to have occurred - in several places he was short of hearers because the people were on their farms. In Kpando the chief and elders pressed for a teacher - the chief gave Asante a son to have educated. He was terrified at the thought he was being sold. The same request was made urgently in Anvoi.
In Anum since the beginning of the year 7 families and 2 single persons have entered the catechumenate. They include the chief fetish priest of Anum, a man who had been a pupil in the Anum school and was then taken away by his brother. He said there was peace in his new faith. He was settling his domestic arrangements so as to keep one of his three wives – the one who was going to become a Christian with him. The elders of Anum wanted to set themselves against the new Christians, but the chief would not let them. In Kpalime a member of the royal family with other men, has joined the community. Tsatei is now an outstation with Teacher Amaning – the chief and elder receives hinm in a friendly way and promised him school children. There are now two catechumens and a request for a teacher from the village of Toson between Boso and Anum
In Boso an old man has been converted - Asante remarks that this shows it is not just the young men who are responding to the message. In Tosen the fetish priest claimed he had received no blessing from serving his fetishes, and now wished to serve the Creator. He invited the Christians to break down his fetish 'temple' and handed over the fetishes, which they took in a triumphal procession back to Anum where they burned them on the station, after having been threatened by the Anum fetish priest who was restrained by the Anum chief. Before the catechist the converted fetish priest his hair cut off, and sat down to enjoy the forbidden foods. In Kpalime an old man has become a catechumen, inviting the catechist and the community to visit his house take away his hunting fetish and burn it. The catechist however appointed a certain day for this ceremony when the community would be there in strength and Asante, too, would be visiting. He sons tried to prevent the destruction of the fetish, and the chief insisted that the burning should take place outside the village. In Nkabukew, renowned for his cruelty, there is also a catechumen.
The response in Tosen is sufficient to warrant the money being spent on buying land for a catechist’s house, and the building of a church/school where all the people attending services or the school lessons can be accommodated.
[Archives catalogue]: Guides / Finding aids: Archives: D - Ghana: D-01 - Incoming correspondence from Ghana up to the outbreak of the First World War: D-01.47 - Ghana 1887: D-01.47.V. - Abetifi
This report is mostly printed as appendix to the 1887 Annual Report, pp97ff.
In the organisation of work on the return of the Ramseyers Schmid is made station Präses (Chairman). Ramseyer is assigned mainly to preaching journeys. In subscripts written by (inter al) Eisenschmid it appears that the idea ist that Ramseyer should be free to move one stage into the interior, perhaps to Agogo, though Mohr and Müller are against making Agogo a station at this stage. Eisenschmid evidently regrets the concentration of strength in Abetifi in view of the need of the Volta mission.
En route for Abetifi on their return to the coast they met some of Apeo be injured in the Akim troubles – including Joseph Bosompom, who had worked for Werner in Abetifi. On their return to Abetifi the Abetifihene came to greet them in state (without Ramseyer’s having been to visit him), embraced him, and gave him a ‘magnificent’ present. At the end of January there were two developments in the political sphere. There were messengers from Kumasi to the Kwahus saying that the Asantes wanted to put a new Asantehene on the stool and wanted the Kwahus to be present (i.e. to do allegiance to him again). At the same time an armed party from the Asantes in Akim (there is no mention of the Juabens) came to get compensation for the death of one of their number after he had been wounded in Kwahu. This matter was investigated at Nkwatia – at one stage it looked as if would come to blows, and the Kwahu young men were called in. The Abetifihene appealed to Ramseyer to go down to Nkwatia to help keep the peace – Ramseyer had already alerted Schmid and Kwabi who in fact were went to Nkwatia and advised the case be taken before the courts of the Colony which was in the end accepted. The Kumasi Embassy was sent back to Kumasi with the message that the Kwahus wanted no common dealings with the Asantes. 70 Akim Christians fled to Kwahu in the first half of February – most from Asumafo, the rest from Abomosu. Ramseyer was glad to see how well they were welcomed in Abetifi, and Kwahu Christians sharing their houses with them, and helping with food. They had remained at Ramseyer’s writing two months, and had suffered no want. The Mpraeso chief had been disposed to treat these people as refugees or prisoners, and apparently sent messengers to Kibi to ask what should be done with the Christians, and whether it was true that they would have been killed in Akim. Ramseyer adds that the Kwahus have often appealed to the Akims to assist them in being put under English protection. Meantime the Asantes in Akim (it is clear this time that it was the Juabens) took the opportunity of the uproar to try to put pressure on the Kwahus over the case discussed above, by preventing Kwahu access to the coast. They managed to get a message to the Wesleyan Agent in Koforidua, however, who took the matter up with the chief involved. In Kwahu there has been come backlash from the Akim troubles. The Christians were chased off the land at Nkwatia, and the Nkwatiahene told them to Go to Kibi and learn wisdom. The Mpraeso chief said he did not wish to sell land to the mission in case he later found himself in conflict with them, as had happened in Akim. They hear that among the tribes around Kwahu it is being said that if schools and the Word of God lead to conflicts like those in Akim it would be better to do without them. The missionaries are stressing to the Kwahu Christians that they must behave as Christs's, servants with his attitudes, humility, and obedience, and that they should put themselves under the political authority in all things which were not contrary to the Word of God. He reports that they had decided to give up the idea of someone resident in Nkwatia.
The Kwahus make mattresses of the cotton wool from the silk-cotton tree. In Bepease they saw a Dente shrine - there was another notable shrine in the middle of the town, too, a rifle stock stuck into the ground. He summaries his preaching in Bepease on the base of c4.12: Everyone wants to live and be happy – naturally because God gave life, and wants people to live with him eternally. Men were driven away from God after the first sin, however, and made subjects of sin – especially people who serve the fetishes. Death is the thing that shows this, because death is the wages of sin. And so are illness hetred quarrelling and crimes. Fetish priests make gods which have no life, and worldly riches (he cites slaves inter al) are subjects to sin's results. The Christology is presented normally without a trace of the substitutionary atonement. Judgement is offered fairly vigorously as a reason for making the right decision, especially as his hearers ipso facto had less excuse new than before. Bepease seems to be a place where preaching is not unknown, because he mentions that they preached in the usual place. The gathering was not large because so many people were out on the farms. It was attentive on the whole, although some people including the chief went away before the preaching was over. In the woods between Sadan Kama and Nkwatanag they passed a neat row of three houses where there were ‘European flowers’ in the garden – it belonged to the fetish priest of Bepease. Sadan Kama was composed of 4-6 groups of houses, and Nkwatanag about 20 houses. The latter partly a hunter settlement – Tschopp also saw a woman spinning cotton, and quantities of cotton packed up in banana leaves. Many people with swollen limbs a result of Guinea worm – the water is very dirty (His sermons here was more on the classic model than above as far as preaching about sin is concerned - no hidden sins before God, and eventual punishment). Preaching was not very often done in that town. At Sadan Kuma they saw a caravan of 8-10 men resting en route to Salaga. They were taking cloth, cola nuts, and spirits.
A letter partly devoted to announcing the birth of twins, partly to arguing against Ramseyer’s being posted to Begoro to replace Mohr whom the English Government do not want to have in Akim. Schmid thinks that it was on account of the wives that Ramseyer would not leave the Abetifi station during the troubles with the Juabens in February. This he did in the face of repeated requests by the Kwahu chiefs that he should be there to help them. According to Schmid the key point in the discussions came when he threatened that if the Juabens did not accept the proposal to take the case to the Englisb Government, then Ramseyer would write to the Governor. The chief Juaben said ‘Ramseyer bekum yen nyinaa’. Another point is that it was not simply the Juabens who were turning back Abetifi Christian messengers to the coast, and indeed all Kwahus – such events were also occurring Osino and Nsutam.
Continuing the history of Amma Tanowa (see the in the volume 47 from 1886 letter No. 85 above). She was in fact proving a considerable worry, knowing nothing about neatness and not being very zealous in the work which was given to do, nor very obedient. She had attempted to run away once, getting as far as Nkwatanang. The man who held her wanted a reward of £l, and Schmid found her in a filthy condition with irons on her feet and one wrist chained to a block as large as herself. He turned out, however, to be a man who had responded very positively to Schmid's preaching in Penease shortly before, and Schmid had no difficulty procuring her release in return for a present of silk handkerchiefs which he tried to make clear was a gift intended as a return for feeding her. After that she contracted Guinea Worm, and another disease which made it impossible for her to feed herself. She had also been involved in a situation in which it became necessary to dismiss the Schmid’s cook. Schmid says this was a bad blow in view of his wife’s preoccupation with their twins. She is extremely unpopular on the station, having shown no scruple about reporting who had stolen one of Schmid’s hens. She was showing little response to Christianity having to be called personally to morning and evening prayers.
Reporting the stationing of Assistant Catechist P. Tieko in Nkwatia - the work there must go forward, while in Abetifi it has not proved possible to run a worthwhile school actually in the town. His duties will include the bringing forward of the community and the leading of the work in the mission land.
Tschopp to Basel - Report on the Boarding School in the first half of the year
The pupils all returned on time at the end of the Christmas Holidays (except one who was ill in Bepong), and were early in the term joined by 3 further scholars. There was no diminution of numbers during the course of the year, so that the year finished with 16 pupils. The new pupils were: - Charles Martin Odame who had previously been at the school and then left. - Charles Kwaben Awurae, son of the elder of the church in Asunafo who fled to Abetifi with the other 47 Akim Christians. His father left with the rest on 9th May, leaving his son in the Boarding School. - Kwadro Nkansa The latter is the subject of a long story. His mother had been a slave in Akropong (with an aunt of the current Abetifi catechist Boateng) and had married a man from Nkwatia who had been pawned to the same woman (Tschopp remarks en passant that pawning to an Akwapim is common, .since being nearer the coast they have more money). They ran away to Nkwatia 9 years ago, and though the earlier in Akropong sent messengers to Nkwatia to get the woman back, the husband refused to let her go because the English law did not allow slavery in Akropong. However about 18 months ago the master had given the two children to Bowi in Nkwatia – thoug again the father refused to give them up and the boy in fact stayed for a time on the station with Catechist Boateng, though later returned to Nkwatia. In January the mistress sent someone to fetch the children by force, hence they fled to the mission Station. After discussions with the missionaries they went to their relatives in Abetifi, but the boy was seized and taken to Nkwatia, where next day Tschopp found him and released him from his bonds. Since then he has been in the school, and Tschopp is very pleased with his progress. He certainly looks better than he did when he first came covered only by a tattered cotton cloth. Several days after (the boy entered the school) when the danger was over, the parents returned to Nkwatia. He reports in outline a trek to Peteko on the Afram plains, undertaken to preach. They passed two villages quite empty because the people had gone to the Afram to catch fish. He reports hippopotamus in the Afram, and at the far bank the white painted tempel of the Afram fetish, On the whole the audiences were large and attentive.
Asks for a grant of £1 p.a. to each of their catechist/teacher families on the grounds that salt is not only necessary for the preparation of food, but also for the purchase of food at some times, e.g. in May-June and November-December 1886. The explanation offered is that when the Akims or the Asantes in Koforidua are in conflict with the Kwahus they simply close the route to the coast and take away not only loads but also people, at which the Kwahus refuse to sell foodstuffs except against payment of salt. 1 load of salt per year is not enough for one family under these circumstances, therefore the request for £1 (carriage for two loads of salt.)
Schmid's Report to Basel on Poverty, Illness and Accident in the Social Life of Kwahu
Akwapim he remembers as a place of no evident poverty and one where one never saw crippled or blind people. In this respect it could be favourably compared with Europe, but in Kwahu both poverty and illness is often seen. He describes the general level of life along the lines that the primitive tribes (“Naturvölker”) have a simple pattern of needs because they know no other. Inter al he remarks that the best crossing places for rivers are often marked only by a creeper which has been stretched across between two trees. Their food is sometimes of scanty quality, but they are hardly ever in a real state of hunger. Describing the illnesses they have seen, he says that smallpox, measles, whooping cough are epidemic. In addition most people suffer from a skin infection at some time in their lives, and at the foot of the Kwahu hill there is a lot of leprosy. People are only isolated during the last stages of this disease, and then only in the sense that they are given a separate room in the compound. Fever is common, and dysentery because of the cold, and the lack of clothing and bedding rheumatism in all its varieties causes much suffering. There are frequent accidents too, coming from sleeping around the fire, and the insecure stands for the cooking pots at the fire (Tschopp had been in the first—aid part of the Swiss army and Schmid describes his treatments as often having good effects). Reciting all this perhaps does not give one a sense of a people in great need and indeed the difference with Europe is that whereas in Europe poverty, illness and accident is treated in a tradition which has been taught the virtues of Christian love, in Kwahu there is some natural love, it is true, but also much lack of feeling, cruelty, and lust for gain in the way these things are handled. Extending his exploration of this difference he argues that polygamy, slavery, pawning, nephew inheritance, and the dark power of superstition are the elements which hide even the remnants of natural love among the people. On the other hand in a Christian country Christian faith enables the sufferer to bear his sufferings calmly and hopefully, partly (not exclusively in this presentation) because of his knowledge of the ‘Homeland above'. The heathen does not know any of this, instead of removing hindrances and letting the natural processes of healing take effect, the heathen either lapse into complete apathy or on the other hand interfere with them forcefully. The plant-world of the tropics offers a large number of medicinal materials which are indeed known 'by rote' to many local people. But they use them impatiently, large quantities of substances with dramatic effects are given. He has seen a woman in a faint being treated with a mixture of lemon juice and pepper in the eyes and nose, and her name shouted in her ear. They are not impressed with European medicines, at least not until they have seen them successfully used. (These they offer at the station at cost price). He repeats the point made during the Afwireng illness that local doctors only charge when the patient is cured (he described these as mostly fetish priests and soothsayers) and offers the proverb ‘Oyare nsae a, wonnye ayaresade’.
Tschopp's Report for the Third Quarter 1887
Devoted to a report of his preaching journeys in the first three days of September. In the introduction he reports that Schmid has taken over the boarding school and he is now to devote himself to preaching journeys. He is thankful that he has the health for this, and feels a joy in it. In the quarter he has been able to visit all the 26 towns of Kwahu at least twice. Remarking the Abetifi midden, Tschopp writes that when a town expands the midden becomes surrounded by houses - and he has seen many places where this has occurred. On the Abetifi houses - clearly doors and shutters are not rare, though the majority of the houses are without. There are very few houses with pure earth wall, most are earth plastered on wattle, and their thickness then is only about 2 decimetres thick. The white earth used for the final decorative plaster is to be found near Abetifi- though many houses are not decorated in this way. En route out of Abetifi he passed a grave marked by a framework made of sticks, on which stood a broken brandy bottle. Aduamoa he describes as a new town, not yet completely settled from the old one. In it he came across the end of a process of which he had previously heard in Abene - a man (tribe not stated) had sworn the Ewahuhene's oath against an Ashanti; the case was heard in Aduamoa, but since the chief of the Asante town involved was demanding £800 the Kwahuhene could not settle; it, the man was sent to Asante, and the Kwahuhene's fetish pacified with the blood of 3 sheep. The Kwahuhene suggested the case should be taken to the governor, but this was not done. (The Kwahuhene Tschopp describes as a man of few gifts, who has done nothing to enlarge the authority of his office, but he is friendly to the mission, and regularly appears at street preaching in Abene). Most of the people at the palaver did not wait to hear Tschopp's preaching, those who did were attentive. He offered happiness and holiness, offered the post-resurrection signs as proof that Jesus was the Son of God, and forecast a bad end for people who did not desert their gods. He also spoke with a group of men making cloths - one weaver, and one sewing the strips of cloth together, remarking en passant that this was a very common sight. The subject of the conversation was polygamy, for one of the men said that he would become a Christian if he did not have to have one wife. Tschopp's way of persuading that one wife was right was (a) to appeal to the story of Adam and Eve and (b) to suggest that he loved one of the wives best, and did not having too many cause strife? The man agreed with the latter, but apparently said it was too hard for him to give up the others. Tschopp calls this remaining subject to fleshy lust, and the joys of this world, and that many people were thus easily persuaded to avoid responding to the call of the Word of God for an alteration of their attitudes, and self-denial. In Odumase he was not able to preach, being interrupted by the Twenedurasehene en route for the obsequy festivities of the mother of his predecessor in Pepease. (There is a description of the scene in this village when he arrived, and the first signs of the coming the Twenedurasehene). The Twenedurasehene is no friend of the mission. Obo was very empty, the people - being mostly on- the Akim plains, partly because it was very dry and food was scarce, partly to dig gold. He mentions the grain stores which you see in all the Kwahu villages (used for ground-nuts too) though the Obo fetish forbids rice. Evening prayers were attended by several Christians from Abetifi workings as carpenters in Obo, also people from the town, and several boys for whom they must open a school later (Catechist Mensah has recently been sent to live in Obo). Twaneduruase has a Dente shrine at both ends of the town. Akwasiho -plenty of people there the whole of Kwahu is supplied with pots from this town and Mpraoso. The pots are made in two stages - first the mouth and neck is formed and left to dry while the bottom remains a shapeless mass - then the pot is completed. The whole operation is carried on with bare hands, except that they use a snail shell to rub the pottery down, and to decorate it. They use the fruit of a tree with lines engraved on it. There was also a carpenter's shop in the town making European-style stools, doors, shutters, and boxes. In Kodum the people seemed rather poor, and the place was 'narrowly' built, the people friendly. From Kodum there were other small villages after 3 minutes, after a further 4 minutes, and after a further 5 minutes. The people were all occupied in the woods collecting rubber from a creeper. In the fourth village more pots were being made. 30 minutes further on they came to Asonna where they were attentively listened to, and Tschopp noticed sick people with swollen limbs - no rarity on the Kwahu hills, but more common on the plains. En route home in Aduammoa someone had recently died, and he saw a part of the ceremonies. A long line of women marching through the village with their foreheads bound, shrieking out the dead person's name, and some with red painted bodies (children); some with white painted bodies and face (grandchildren), and some had bunches of pal-twigs tied to their elbows (the close relatives). The chief visited the house of the dead person and gave a piece of cloth for the corpse. The chief was accompanied by his orchestra - horn-blowers, drummers and dawuro-players are cited.
Report of his first quarter's work in the Boarding School. In spite of a special attempt to advertise the school and attract pupils there was very little response. Of the 16 pupils be inherited one stayed away (Darefo from Tweneduruawe). A further 11 were registered - most of these had previously been at the Bepong or Abetifi town schools. The excuses given by chiefs etc. for the small number of boys they were prepared to send were the same as usual - Schmid attacks nephew inheritance as one more mechanism making it difficult for children to attend school. You have to get the consent of the senior uncle as well as the parents.
Report on the purchase of land in Nkwatia and Obo. The Nkwatia land purchase went through smoothly in the end - the key stratagem on the part of the missionaries seems to have been to send Kwabi to a meeting of all the Kwahu chiefs and ask them the meaning of their promise at the beginning of Basel Mission work in Kwahu that they could settle where they liked. The first reply was a request to make an exception of the meeting place of the chiefs. The missionaries responded by replying that they were commanded to preach everywhere including Nkwatia. Eventually a new site was agreed on, and bought at 18 Thaler. Ayiripe, Ramseyer thinks was a relative of the Okyenhene, which helps to explain the hostility he showed at the time of the Akim persecutions. In Obo Ramseyer had to visit the town 6 times before the settling of the mission land was really in hand. The piece of land which had long ago been bought belonged to Afari, the chief of Akwasiho (and one of the mild complication at this stage was that this man was in Krakye at the time of the further development of the purchase). Four years ago they had effectively been driven off the land by the threats of the chief of Tweneduruase and his people, who claimed it was too near the chief's fetish 'Sasabi' - a piece of rock lying nearby. The chief of Pepease whose subordinate the Twenduruase chief was could not persuade him to change his mind and indeed was angrily driven away when he tried to intervene, and the Kwahuhene told the missionaries there was nothing he could do. Ramseyer remarks, that all would have been easy had they been in the Protectorate. This year when they installed Catechist Mensah the chief of Tweneduruase welcomed him, but said that his people stood firm on the idea that the mission land was too close to Sasabi. The missionaries then said that as men of peace they would be interested to know how far away from Sasabi they would have to be to satisfy the Tweneduruase people. And they found that they would only lose the use of 1/8 of the land. At this point they ran into complications from the Obo side. Firstly the Obo chief claimed that the man who sold the land had not been the proper owner - instead an absent under-chief of his was the man from whom the land ought to have been bought. Secondly in Ramseyer’s absence after this was cleared up (by a compromise consisting of the Obo chief's dropping this scruple, and the mission promising to buy some land from him to extend the station), the Obo people inserted in the purchase agreement a prohibition against the taboo plants and animals on the mission land. The mission seems to have won a clear victory over this as wells (How, is not too clear unless one assumes that the Obo chief quite badly wanted a mission presence, because Ramseyer’s only resource on both occasions except his wrath against being messed around was that when he threatened to withdraw the catechist if the points were not satisfactorily cleared up he achieved fairly quick results). The chiefs' names were Darefo in Tweneduruase, Afari from Akwasiho, and Asiama in Obo.
Ramseyer's Annual Report of the Abetifi District for 1887
Abetifi at the beginning of the year they had to exclude from the station four people including Johannes Wiredu who had earlier been sent away from the Bekoro Middle School because of laziness, and Rosina Gyemfa, the wife of, the late elder Nathaniel Beko. The former for sexual irregularities, the latter for approaching a fetish in her home town Mpraeso, though she had never been a satisfactory member of the community, except perhaps when she was treating her husband harshly (one piece of circumstantial evidence of her use of fetishes was the discovery of three hidden pots in her house - this was taken to mean that she had hoped that they would be means to protect her). The other two excluded were men -they hoped by this to have purged the station of the wicked elements. The school is attracting little support - the scholars are teased for sitting with their books for a mere 2 marks a month, though there are some heathens who see more what the school is for, and what it is aiming at. Concerning the married life of the community, the question of 'ayefare' has come up due to the influence of the Akim Christians who told the Abetifi Christians that in Akim if a heathen wife committed adultery, the Christian husband sought ayefare. Ramseyer (as Schmid had to in the previous year) explains that this cannot be, and that although a weapon of defence against the habits of their heathen wives, the best weapons are love by which she realises what a stroke of luck it is to marry a Christian and prayer. They are trying to repair the problem of the lack of suitable girls for marriage by starting a school for small children on the station to which some heathens are sending their daughter. During the year 4 adults have been baptised - one of them the 'quiet and friendly' wife of the elder Moses, another a 'friendly’ and ‘industrious’ carpenter - his industry is greatly to be prized. (They have now 7 carpenters in the community). In addition one child has been baptised, and 4 boys from the school. Evaluating the latter point Ramseyer says that although there have been scholars who have been baptised and are now lost and forgotten, nevertheless 'a good number' of the members of the community are young married men who were baptised while at the boarding school. 2 other members of the community were re-accepted after being excluded from Communion for 2 years. Ramseyer also thinks there has been a step forward in the atmosphere of the community, evidencing partly better attendance at weekday services, and the fact that again more Christians have moved onto the mission land (a feature of the exclusion of Rosina Gyemfa was that she thereby lost the use of her farm on mission land). Outstations. The Nkwatia conflict was regarded as Atia Yaw versus God. In Nkwatia at the end of the year 4 adults were baptised – although the Nkwatia people were, on the whole, out on their farms, Ayiripe and his court were present. One was a 22 year old man, brother of one of the Christians, another an elderly mother, who received the name Hanna. She was able to learn little from the baptismal instruction, and there was some doubt as to whether she should be baptised, but Ramseyer writes that on her examination she said she wanted to be holy and only belong to Jesus and that she didn't want to have anything more to do with fetishes which were always troubling her and doing nothing for her. The other two were youths from Aduammoa. One of them is actually from Kumasi. In addition 2 Christian children were baptised, and the community was also strengthened by the reception of one Peter Asare, his wife, his mother, and a child. He had been driven from Nkwatia by the persecutions of the priest of Atia Yaw, fled to Anyinam, and was baptised there. Asare is a hunter. In Obo things are not progressing. Ramseyer reports that the greater number of the Obo people in fact spend 10 months of the year in their farms at the foot of the scarp. Only in the Adae festival are large numbers present. Nevertheless three youths have attached themselves to Mensah, and are receiving instruction from him and helping him to build his house. Mpraeso remains stony ground - 4 adults and 2 children were baptised in the course of the year, but one youth had to be excluded, and Christians moved away (including two to Nkwatia) so the total increase was only one. Nevertheless two elderly men have come into the catechumenate late in the year. In Bepong in August 2 men, three women, and a boy who later came into the Abetifi Boarding School were baptised, and they have 5 more attending baptismal instruction. The school has not been very successful - there are 4-6 pupils. In Bukuruwa 2 men of mature age are taking baptismal instruction. Since Kwahu is an area with a small compass they have not only been able to care for the progress of the outstations by frequent visits - they have had 5 conferences for all the Christians of Kwahu in the course of the year.