Stone Age Pottery from the Gold Coast and Ashanti.

Wild, Regine

doi:10.2307/2843807

Cited by 6 publications

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“…Some scholars have documented that these axe-heads were exploited for their assumed medicinal and magical properties (Field 1940;Ozanne 1962;Rattray 1923;Reade 1874;Shaw 1944;Wild 1927). They have pointed out that, having invested the "thunderbolts" or "God axes" (Nyu ηmo te/Nyame Akuma) with supernatural origins, most followers and priests of indigenous religions and herbalists assign them with various medicinal and magical properties.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…They have pointed out that, having invested the "thunderbolts" or "God axes" (Nyu ηmo te/Nyame Akuma) with supernatural origins, most followers and priests of indigenous religions and herbalists assign them with various medicinal and magical properties. Some of the stones were ground and mixed with water and other concoctions and given out to cure cough and digestive ailments (Wild 1927). They were also sometimes fastened against the body to cure diseases (Rattray 1923: 323).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Material Culture and Indigenous Spiritism: the Katamansu Archaeological “Otutu” (Shrine)

Apoh

Gavua

2010

Afr Archaeol Rev

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Through the integration of oral history and ethnographic and historical data with archaeological evidence, attempts have been made to understand and reconstruct the settlement history of Katamansu, a late eighteenth-century historic town located on the Accra Plains of Ghana. Two seasons of archaeological excavations at the Koowule site of the town yielded some evidence of the 1826 Battle of Katamansu, a battle that was fought on the site between the Asante and the Ga and their coastal allies of the Gold Coast. The excavations also yielded two spectacular features, whose configuration and content appear to be the remains of a shrine of the Ga people. The features correlate well with ethnographic parallels described by Margaret Field, an anthropologist, in her research on the religion and medicine of the Ga in the 1930s. This paper presents the historical and material evidence of the 1826 battle as well as the analysis of the shrine contents. The shrine features provide insights into an archaeological shrine's mundane materiality. They also expose how local (Neolithic and historic) and European artifacts were recrafted and imbued with medicinal, magical, and spiritual properties to possibly cure and impress patients and supplicants in shrine ritual practices.Résumé A travers l'établissement de liens entre l'histoire orale, les données ethnographiques et historiques et les témoignages archéologiques, plusieurs tentatives ont été menées pour comprendre et rétablir l'histoire du peuplement de Katamansu, ville historique du 18e siècle dernier située dans les plaines d'Accra au Ghana. A deux reprises, des fouilles archéologiques ont été entreprises sur le site Koowule de la ville. Ces fouilles présentent des traces de la bataille de Katamansu, bataille qui a eu lieu entre les Asante et les Ga, alliés de la côtière de Gold Coast. Les fouilles ont également révélé des aspects spectaculaires dont la configuration et les implications montrent qu'il s'agit des vestiges d'un lieu de culte du peuple Ga.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Material Culture and Indigenous Spiritism: the Katamansu Archaeological “Otutu” (Shrine)

Apoh

Gavua

2010

Afr Archaeol Rev

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“…This is a remark that tells us a lot about Fortes's own views on technology and material culture in that although he acknowledged the ‘empirical mode that is basic’ (Fortes 1978: 9) to his functionalist approach, he did not want to fill his published volumes with dull empiricism, or ‘vulgar materialism’ (Hart 1978: 206), with descriptive accounts of pots and metalworking, as Wild might have done (and indeed did, as his publications attest [e.g. Wild 1927; 1934]). It may be that if Fortes could not make his accounts of technology or material culture ‘fit’ his way of doing anthropology, then he just left it out.…”

Section: Conclusion: Fortes and Materials Culture In Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Meyer Fortes and material culture: the published image and the unpublished resource

Insoll¹

2010

Royal Anthropological Inst

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Meyer Fortes and material culture: the published image and the unpublished resourcej rai_1640 572..587 Timothy I nsoll University of ManchesterMaterial culture is almost entirely absent in Fortes's writing on the Tallensi, presumably a correlate of his structural functionalist position. In contrast, his unpublished notebooks compensate for this apparent gap and have been of significant use for interpreting aspects of past material culture use and materiality in the archaeological record of the Tongo Hills of northern Ghana. This point is discussed with reference to Fortes's descriptions of iron and stone in Tallensi lifeways and the materiality of festivals and shrines. Thus Fortes's unpublished archive indicates the potential offered by the anthropologist's notebook as a multi-disciplinary resource which perhaps might be paralleled in the notebooks of other anthropologists of the period.The flaws of structural functionalist approaches within anthropology have been extensively discussed and include, for instance, ahistoricism, a localized focus, static presentation, and a lack of interest in material culture (e.g. Fardon 2005: 74-5; Hart 1978: 202; 1985: 247; Janzen 1992: 2). Conversely, kinship and the political structure of the societies studied, primarily acephalous ones, or a concern with male ideologies was often given undue prominence (Allman & Parker 2005: 24;Kuklick 1984;Moore 1994: 34; Tonkin 1990: 141;Verdon 1984). Equally, the project of functionalist anthropology as part of colonial ideology has been discussed (Kuklick 1991: 25,213; Kuper 1996: 107-14; Rowlands 2007: 66), and counter-challenged (Fortes, Prah & Bujra 2004: 6-7; Goody 1995: 153-5).Meyer Fortes was implicitly linked with functionalist approaches, as evident in the titles of his two most important works on the Tallensi of northern Ghana, The dynamics of clanship among the Tallensi (Fortes 1969(Fortes [1945) and The web of kinship among the Tallensi (Fortes 1967(Fortes [1949). Allman and Parker have described the net result of Fortes's research for the Tallensi as meaning that they 'were enshrined in ethnographic discourse as the archetypal stateless society, marooned on the margins of a distant hinterland in a timeless ethnographic present ' (2005: 16). Since 2004 a collaborative archaeological research project has been ongoing in the Tongo Hills (Insoll, Kankpeyeng & MacLean 2004;2005;Insoll, MacLean & Kankpeyeng 2008), home of the Re-use of this article is permitted in accordance with the Terms and Conditions set out at

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“…Both the archaeological study of Ghana's past and the preservation efforts of some monuments began just prior to World War II, although the amateur archaeologists (e.g., Junner, 1940Junner, , 1939Kitson, 1916;Wild, 1927Wild, , 1934aWild, ,b, 1935a who conducted much of the initial work sent the material excavated to England leaving little in Ghana (Kense, 1990, p. 138;Shaw, 1945, p. 470). Modem archaeological heritage management in Ghana started with the appointment of Thurstan Shaw in 1937 as a part-time curator of a tiny museum at Achimota College that housed collections of colonial officials and amateur archaeologists (Kense, 1990, p. 141).…”

Section: This Is An Author's Accepted Manuscript Of An Article Publismentioning

confidence: 99%

Ghana's Vanishing Past: Development, Antiquities, and the Destruction of the Archaeological Record

Kankpeyeng¹,

DeCorse

2004

African Archaeological Review

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Ghana's past is being destroyed at a rapid rate. Although the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board has in some instances successfully intervened to stop the illicit trading of antiquities, the destruction of archaeological sites as a consequence of development over the past two decades has been staggering and the pace is accelerating. The potential of the legislation that established the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board and empowered it to manage and preserve the country's archaeological past has not been realized. The lack of political action, limited relevant public education, insufficient funding, and the poverty of the majority of the Ghanaian populace have allowed for the widespread destruction of both sites and historic buildings. Conspicuously, both the absence of integrated development planning by the Ghanaian government and the inability of development partners (both foreign and domestic) to recognize the potential value of cultural resources have contributed significantly to the continued loss of the archaeological record. While the antiquities trade is a continuing threat to Ghana's cultural resources, it is, in fact, tourism and economic development that pose the major menace to the country's archaeological past. This article reviews the history of cultural resource management in Ghana, including both traditional attitudes toward preservation and current legislation. Case studies are used to illustrate the problems faced.Actuellement le passé matériel du Ghana disparaît très rapidement. Le Conseil des musées et des monuments du Ghana a réussi à intervenir dans certains cas pour arrêter la traite illicite en antiquités. Toutefois, la croissance rapide du développement urbain au fil des derniers vingt ans a entraîné une énorme destruction de sites archéologiques qui ne fait qu'accroître. Les lois établissant le Conseil des musées et des monuments du Ghana lui ont en même [end of page 89] temps accordé les pleins pouvoirs en mesure de la gestion et la préservation du passé archéologique du pays, malheureusement les possibilités de cette législation n'ont jamais été réalisées. Plusieurs éléments contribuent à la destruction très répandue de sites et de bâtiments historiques, dont le manque de prises de mesures politiques, d'éducation publique pertinente, de fonds, et la misère dans laquelle vivent la plus grande partie de la population ghanéenne. Il est évident que l'absence d'une planification intégrée pour le développement de la part du gouvernement ghanéen et l'incapacité des partenaires en développement (nationaux ainsi qu'internationaux) de reconnaître la valeur potentielle de ressources culturelles sont deux éléments supplémentaires clés qui contribuent de façon importante en la perte continue de vestiges archéologiques. La traite en objets antiques présente toujours une menace pour les ressources culturelles du Ghana. En fait le tourisme et le développement économique représentent une menace encore plus importante à la préservation du passé archéologique du pays. Cet article revoit l'histoir...

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Stone Age Pottery from the Gold Coast and Ashanti.

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Material Culture and Indigenous Spiritism: the Katamansu Archaeological “Otutu” (Shrine)

Material Culture and Indigenous Spiritism: the Katamansu Archaeological “Otutu” (Shrine)

Meyer Fortes and material culture: the published image and the unpublished resource

Ghana's Vanishing Past: Development, Antiquities, and the Destruction of the Archaeological Record

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