The Masque Of Africa Part 6

THIS A ASHANTI religion, if what Kojo said was true, was not too intrusive. The same couldn't be said of the religion of the coastal Gaa people, at one time enemies of the Ashanti. This religion is so encompa.s.sing, so full of signs and portents that the true believer (rather like the devout ancient Roman) might live in a constant fever of anxiety about the messages of the G.o.ds. This Gaa religion is rooted in the spirits of the departed and is at the same time so much part and parcel of the living world that it surrounds us, this world of prophecy and divine messages, even when we are not aware of it. religion, if what Kojo said was true, was not too intrusive. The same couldn't be said of the religion of the coastal Gaa people, at one time enemies of the Ashanti. This religion is so encompa.s.sing, so full of signs and portents that the true believer (rather like the devout ancient Roman) might live in a constant fever of anxiety about the messages of the G.o.ds. This Gaa religion is rooted in the spirits of the departed and is at the same time so much part and parcel of the living world that it surrounds us, this world of prophecy and divine messages, even when we are not aware of it.

If we are walking on a road and we stub our toe on a stone, that has meaning. If we sneeze, that has meaning. To sneeze on the right side is good; to sneeze on the left is bad. Nature itself has been programmed; we have to learn to read it. Even the velocity of the wind is a sign. The high priest will interpret it; so will the elders who guard the properties of the stool, which stands for the ruler, and women seers.

It was Pa-boh who took me into this understanding of his complex faith, where so much has to be explained. He never spelt his name out for me or wrote it down; so I write it according to my phonetic memory. It may be that I have written it wrongly.

The son of an important chief took me to see Pa-boh. I thought that the house we were going to was Pa-boh's house. The house, when we came to it, was in a populous but uncluttered part of Accra, without garbage. I was told later that the garbage here, as elsewhere in Accra, was collected by a private garbage-collecting firm. There was also a system of drainage, and that made all the difference to the appearance of the place.

The houses were small but not hemmed in by garbage or fences; so there seemed to be a lot of openness. Children ran in and out of every free s.p.a.ce and the street sounded like a schoolyard at recess.

At one end of the street there was a small white concrete structure, like a sentry-box; at the top of this strange box two crosses leaned away from each other. I thought it might have been a very small local chapel, with the leaning crosses showing how the imported religion of Christianity had been made to fit into the older African framework. I learned later that the sentry-box was, in fact, the oracle house, important to local belief, and open only to the religiously qualified.

We walked a little way down from the oracle house, past a few parked cars. We turned into a narrow pa.s.sageway between two proper houses. The floor here was of concrete, broken in places. We were joined here by Pa-boh. He was wearing a local shirt-jacket, with a wide flare. I didn't know who he was at this stage. I noticed the stylishness of his dress, and I thought he might only have been an idler, one of those who stare and push themselves forward when strangers come to their place.

At the end of the pa.s.sageway between the two houses we came upon a little area of openness which enabled us to turn and start on a narrow staircase to the upper floor. So s.p.a.ce was cramped again. The narrow staircase was made of roughly sawn timber, not planed or painted, showing diagonal saw-marks. The woodwork upstairs had a similar rough-and-ready quality. Our party edged its way into a small room that overlooked the street. The cries and shouts of the playing children came up to us.

The left side of the room was dominated by a big man who was sitting at a Hewlett-Packard laptop, completely given over to what he was doing. He was of polished appearance, and was sitting, big and chief-like, dressed in white, on a brown-and-white goatskin that was thrown over his chair and came down to the floor. He was told by the chief's son, who had come with us, who we were. He was civil, but no more, not interested enough in us to look away for long from his laptop; and I was puzzled, since at this stage I thought he was the man we had come to see.

We sat down on the cream-coloured leather chairs set against the outer wall. The street was just outside and below, and the children's cries came up sharp through the open window at our back.

Pa-boh began to talk.

He stood beside a high stool, and sometimes he sat on the stool. His shirt-jacket, flaring out from the waist, was in a varied but mainly striped black-and-white pattern. He faced the big man in white working at the laptop, but he, Pa-boh, was talking to us, and the big man continued to look at the screen of his laptop, adding a few words from time to time to those he had written.

It was not easy for me in the beginning to concentrate on what he was saying. It was too simple, about G.o.d and the spirits; I had heard it before. But then he became more personal and direct. I understood at the same time that the man in white had offered his room as a meeting-place, and had done so as a courtesy, both to me and to the chief's son, and that Pa-boh was the man we had come to see.

I had to look afresh at Pa-boh. I began to be held. There was a shininess to his face which made him hypnotic whenever, to confirm a point, he smiled and pressed his chin down. He was then like an academic lecturer.

One of the early things he had said was that by the time he was twenty-six he had mastered six jobs or disciplines. At the moment he was administrator-secretary to seven chiefs.

The chief's son had told me the day before that whenever we went to see important people about religious matters it was common courtesy to offer them a bottle of schnapps. No beer, no whisky, no wine; only schnapps. I suppose this was because it was a colourless liquid.

I had been told, but I didn't have the schnapps with me. I wasn't expecting a serious religious moment that morning; I was expecting only a preliminary discussion, a discussion about a discussion; and I feared now that we would have to pay a fine to Pa-boh. In everything he had told me about the high priests of his faith this power of theirs to levy fines was important. It seemed to be one of the sources of their livelihood, just as the schnapps was part of a traditional tribute (the babalawo babalawo in Nigeria had required a bottle of gin to pour a libation to the G.o.ds or spirits in his room). in Nigeria had required a bottle of gin to pour a libation to the G.o.ds or spirits in his room).

And then I noticed, on the floor to the right of the big man in white, a half-used bottle of a clear-coloured liquid. Clearly everywhere one went here one should be armed with a bottle of schnapps.

3.

I ASKED ASKED Pa-boh about the oracle house on the street outside. He said that the area at one time was all forest and neem trees. The government recognises these sacred spots, and they should be left alone. The community takes it amiss if these spots are interfered with or in some way desecrated. Pa-boh guessed that inside the oracle house there would be offerings of palm oil or eggs in an earthen pot. But he didn't know for sure. He hadn't been inside. To go inside you had to be invited or chosen by the high priest; and Pa-boh, learned and reverential as he was, didn't have that privilege. Pa-boh about the oracle house on the street outside. He said that the area at one time was all forest and neem trees. The government recognises these sacred spots, and they should be left alone. The community takes it amiss if these spots are interfered with or in some way desecrated. Pa-boh guessed that inside the oracle house there would be offerings of palm oil or eggs in an earthen pot. But he didn't know for sure. He hadn't been inside. To go inside you had to be invited or chosen by the high priest; and Pa-boh, learned and reverential as he was, didn't have that privilege.

This led Pa-boh to give an outline of the traditional religion. He had the academic manner, and he spoke so much like a book that I wondered how much of what he was saying was scholarship, from a university course, say, and how much came from personal experience. Perhaps the two were mixed; or it might have been that Pa-boh had a special gift of language.

The spirits, the lesser deities, and the G.o.ds (Pa-boh said) bridge the great distance between us and the supreme being, who is like Jehovah. The biblical comparison or link is often made when Africans seek to explain their faith; it is done to clarify what would otherwise be hard to describe. This supreme being is very powerful and is not to be used in daily rituals. The others, spirits and G.o.ds and so on, are invoked daily. They have physical representations: they can be trees, stumps, stools, carved idols, rivers and pools. Every community has its own set of deities of this sort, who protect and heal; these deities also settle difficult matters that can arise in communities. These deities have their own spokesmen, who are high priests and prophetesses. They have to be initiated into the cults. Both the high priests and the prophetesses are possessed.

When a difficult issue arises the people seek the prophetesses. If the prophetesses take up an issue they go into frenzy; they tear their upper cloths off and bare their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and start talking in unknown languages. These women normally speak Twi, the language of the Akan people. But when they are in frenzy they can talk other languages.

Religious beliefs and cultural practices go hand in hand. Religious beliefs dictate the culture. When a child is born water and palm wine are poured into its mouth. This links the baby to the earth. At p.u.b.erty the child is covered in ash or a greenish-coloured clay and presented to the village. The villagers sing and dance then. The songs are important. They spell out the history and moral expectations of the community, and the child gets to know what its responsibilities are towards the family and the community. An ancestor is a point of reference for the young. Anyone who behaves well can become an ancestor when he is old or when he dies.

At death traditional religion comes into play. There are different rituals for different deaths. If someone dies in childbirth there is one kind of ritual. When both the mother and the child die, all the pregnant women in the village go to the sea and bathe, to wash away the bad omen. (The Gaa are a coastal people. The sea is always present for them.) So from birth to death the supreme being, through his appointed deities and spirits, protects the people.

Chiefs are embalmed. In some cases, depending on the status of the dead chief, the rituals can go on for a year and longer. The elders and the high priests know what they have to do. At this time of death, a time of horrible taint, so to speak, a special kind of language has to be used, to protect people. It wouldn't do to say that the chief is dead. It is better to use the language of life and say that the chief has travelled, or he has turned round against life, or he has gone to pluck a leaf, or he has gone to his forefathers' village. The coffin is to be called "a dead house."

Since life (and death) are so full of snares, there are many ablutions to be done and many taboos to be observed. It is better to be barefoot. For the high priests especially it is taboo to have the soles of their feet covered; these important people must always have a link to the earth. If they are caught wearing shoes they can be fined. Full shoes are allowed in some shrines, but not slippers. Wherever the high priest walks becomes holy, because he is the physical representation of the spirits, and is possessed by the spirits. The high priest wears white and carries a broom in his hand. The broom stands for his cleansing function.

THE G GAA (Pa-boh said) migrated from the east with their high priest. In those days they did not have a king. Rather like in the days of Jesus, the high priest was both king and priest. (Again, this need to refer an African story to a biblical or Christian model.) When the Gaa reached the coast, they found the Portuguese. Later the Dutch and the British came. All these people saw African religion and its high priests as demonic. They preferred to deal with the war lord. So the war lord became the king or chief. (Pa-boh said) migrated from the east with their high priest. In those days they did not have a king. Rather like in the days of Jesus, the high priest was both king and priest. (Again, this need to refer an African story to a biblical or Christian model.) When the Gaa reached the coast, they found the Portuguese. Later the Dutch and the British came. All these people saw African religion and its high priests as demonic. They preferred to deal with the war lord. So the war lord became the king or chief.

This downgrading of the high priest can create difficulties. Some chiefs nowadays are Christian; they don't like offering libations to the shrines or oracles. And modern laws can affect traditional practices. Slavery, for instance, is now outlawed, and parents can no longer sell or give their children to a shrine, to pay off a debt.

Chiefs get money from the government for administering government land. They fine people for breaking taboos, and that money belongs to them. They can also act as arbitrators, and then they are paid by both sides. So the function of the chief changes.

Pa-boh said, "Traditional religion in Ghana is dying slowly. It started to die when the Europeans and Muslims came and saw us as pagans. Their superior technology killed us. We have witches who fly in the air. But when we saw aircraft we came to abhor what was our culture. I think the modern African is in a very difficult situation. He should look at it and modify it. He should not condemn it."

4.

IT WAS hard to believe that Pa-boh, who spoke with such pa.s.sion about the traditional religion, was formally a Christian, with a Christian grandfather who ran a church in a village. Sixty years before, this grandfather had had his house and church burned down by the villagers whom he wished to serve (he wanted them to repent, to leave their African G.o.ds and lesser spirits and come to Christ), and he had been pushed with his family into the bush. His sister had been a.s.saulted, her head split open. hard to believe that Pa-boh, who spoke with such pa.s.sion about the traditional religion, was formally a Christian, with a Christian grandfather who ran a church in a village. Sixty years before, this grandfather had had his house and church burned down by the villagers whom he wished to serve (he wanted them to repent, to leave their African G.o.ds and lesser spirits and come to Christ), and he had been pushed with his family into the bush. His sister had been a.s.saulted, her head split open.

Strangely, Pa-boh spoke of this with pa.s.sion too. Probably he was a man of pa.s.sion; perhaps he needed to live at a certain pitch.

He said, "I cried when I saw how my grandfather and my father had suffered."

And then, to complete the cycle of pa.s.sion, he said, "But this cannot happen today even if people feel angry or outraged because there is a law, and they cannot go beyond a certain level." Moving now with almost equal fervour from religion to something quite apart: the virtues of civil society.

When he was a child Pa-boh lost his parents (he didn't say how), and he had to shift for himself. He did odd jobs; and, in order to work in the school office, he learned to type. He also became an electrician, picking up the skill from older men who in the beginning saw their eager boy helper only as a joke. He joined a musical band and by the time he was sixteen he was a vocalist for them. He was rowdy and wild, a big fighter.

On a day in May 1970 his life changed. He became possessed by the Holy Spirit. It happened like this. He was singing with his band that day, and at midnight they had a break. He went to the midnight service and his behaviour was strange. He became noisy and disruptive. When the minister asked the congregation to pray for the betterment of their lives, Pa-boh insulted him. After the service Pa-boh went to see the minister. He wasn't at all sorry for what he had done, but he began to cry, and his crying didn't stop. He went to his dormitory but he felt very guilty and he couldn't sleep.

He felt a hand on his wrist. The hand led him to the dining room. There he saw a flashing signboard in the air, lit up with episodes from his life. A voice told him to go outside to the school ground. He said he couldn't do that because he was afraid of snakes. The voice then told him to go to the dormitory. He did so, and found some seniors who said he was late and wanted to punish him. They asked him to kneel to receive his punishment. Normally he would have knocked these boys down and given them a good thrashing, but now he fell on his knees and waited for his punishment. The boys were bewildered. They thought Pa-boh must have been affected by something the minister had said.

A little while later a senior monitor came running with a bible to Pa-boh's bunk. The monitor said a voice had told him to do that. Pa-boh opened the bible and then, he said, he saw the light, just like Saint Paul.

After that day many things began to happen to him. By chance one day he met a paramount chief and for some reason began telling this chief the whole story of the Gaa people since the sixteenth century. At the end the paramount chief put his hand on Pa-boh's shoulder and blessed him for a full fifteen minutes. He said to Pa-boh, "You carry the peace of your people in you."

After this Pa-boh was guided to do many wonderful things. For one chief he solved in days a dispute that had dragged on for seventeen years. At first this chief had no faith in Pa-boh as arbitrator, but Pa-boh pleaded with him, and the chief gave Pa-boh money for the arbitration (this money being the arbitrator's fee), and Pa-both went to the main Ashanti town of k.u.masi and spoke to the a.s.sembled chiefs, and won. In this way Pa-boh became a witness and spokesman for his Gaa people, and a lecturer on their cultural practices. In time he set up his own church, conducting a service there every Sunday.

He was bringing up his five children as Christians. He kept them away from traditional religion because traditional religion had no book and was not codified or written, and this could lead to trouble.

5.

KOJO THOUGHT I should go to k.u.masi, the Ashanti "citadel," which was his birthplace. He had a house there and he offered it for the night. Accra was on the coast. k.u.masi was in the interior, to the northwest. When Kojo went to k.u.masi, on business, he took the aeroplane. I thought a car would be better for me, for the sake of the long drive and for the landscape. Richmond, Kojo's a.s.sistant, came along as a guide. I should go to k.u.masi, the Ashanti "citadel," which was his birthplace. He had a house there and he offered it for the night. Accra was on the coast. k.u.masi was in the interior, to the northwest. When Kojo went to k.u.masi, on business, he took the aeroplane. I thought a car would be better for me, for the sake of the long drive and for the landscape. Richmond, Kojo's a.s.sistant, came along as a guide.

We went through the hills of the eastern region, and past the botanical gardens of Abrui, small but beautiful, wonderfully mature now. Some of the trees had very thick trunks, with b.u.t.tresses that were like mighty tendons. The British had laid these gardens out a hundred years before. Here in Ghana, as in other places of the empire, these British botanical gardens, their founders often unknown, had become a gift for later generations.

The villages seemed to lie just outside forested areas. The land was always choked with vegetation; when you put your head out of the air-conditioned car you felt yourself driving through waves of humid heat that caused things to grow. This suggested that the forest ruled. But Richmond, Kojo's a.s.sistant, who had a nice line in cynicism, said that the impenetrable forest was an illusion. One or two chain saws could in a short time open up big clearings.

And the landscape, for all its luxuriance, was a disappointment: endlessly small and jumbled, like a tropical cottage garden, no attempt at a plantation, never anything ordered or big: small patches of banana or plantain growing absolutely between stands of teak, big-leaved and apparently always in flower. There were no paths or tracks in the bush, or there appeared to be none; so it would have been hard to cultivate these small patches commercially.

The idea of smallness continued when at dusk we reached the outskirts of k.u.masi. Weak electric lights showed outside the small houses-it might have been a munic.i.p.al requirement: to prevent the big trucks smashing into them-and sometimes only oil lamps flickered, bright yellow, a real flame, a real colour, more pleasing than the dim, eye-straining fluorescent tubes in the little shops. It went on like that, for mile after mile, k.u.masi delaying and delaying its promise.

And there was trouble when we arrived at the town. Neither Richmond nor the car-driver could work out where Kojo's house was. That was not too surprising to me. Kojo gave instructions in a strange way; he could telescope distances. When he first sent me to the Abrui botanical gardens his directions abolished many miles. It seemed that now something like that had happened again. But it was important for us to know where the house was, because Kojo had arranged for an Ashanti chief to be there, to help us with the visit to the palace in the morning. Richmond telephoned Kojo. Kojo appeared to repeat his instructions. There was a big hotel on a main road not far away. When Richmond said it would save a lot of trouble if we all put up at the hotel, Kojo lost his temper. He said it was nonsense to talk about a hotel when we were almost at the gate of the house.

There were quite a few houses nearby. We knocked at the gate of one. The house was asleep. A ragged watchman came and spoke very softly to Richmond. He was speaking softly because he didn't want to disturb the woman who was his employer and was sleeping. Richmond, without being too loud, knocked at the door. The woman whose house it was, not showing herself, merely told Richmond that the chief who had been waiting for us had got tired and gone away. And that was that. So we at least had this tender of Kojo's good faith.

Many minutes later, and a longish distance away, down a curving road, we found the house. Richmond's idea then was that I should have dinner at the hotel, while he and the driver prepared the house for me. When, after a good long time, they came for me, Richmond said that, apart from the bed mattress, which sank a little low, the bedroom they had got ready for me would have been of five-star quality.

There was some trouble about the lights-some bulbs had gone, and for some time after I had gone to bed, sinking low on my mattress, quite close to the floor, I could hear Richmond knocking against things in the corridor. But he was devoted to his master; he had done wonders in the uncommissioned house; and then in the morning he got up early and went with the driver to buy milk and coffee and bread.

Kojo didn't want me to stay in a hotel. He wanted me to see his house, which was in an Ashanti royal enclave, and though it was only the guest pavilion, as he described it, it was indeed s.p.a.cious and fine.

Next door to it the morning light showed the beginnings of a palace. It was Kojo's; but the money had run out. All his instincts were princely.

At breakfast facing the garden (Kojo liked flowers wherever he lived) I saw a pretty little near-black hummingbird feeding off the red-and-yellow flowers of the flamboyant flamboyant.

IN DAYLIGHT the lady we had disturbed during the night, a large lady in a splendid grey and white dress, was as firm as she had been in darkness. Kojo's chief had got tired of waiting for us. So there would be no privileged viewing of the palace for us. We decided we had to live with that. It was, besides, a cleaning day at the palace; so there would be no visitors, and for us no burden of a palace visit. the lady we had disturbed during the night, a large lady in a splendid grey and white dress, was as firm as she had been in darkness. Kojo's chief had got tired of waiting for us. So there would be no privileged viewing of the palace for us. We decided we had to live with that. It was, besides, a cleaning day at the palace; so there would be no visitors, and for us no burden of a palace visit.

The first impression of k.u.masi, a royal town, was that of a British colonial settlement at the time of the conquest. The colours of official buildings were ochre and red, the architecture in the st.u.r.dy manner of the Public Works Department. The palace rails reminded me of the made-in-England rails of my own school in Trinidad (built in 1904); and the open green areas were like police grounds of the period. The treasures of the museum were small-scale, the little pieces of furniture unpolished. Ashanti was not a literate kingdom, in spite of its gold and glory. To see it as more it was necessary to be Ashanti oneself and (with the absence of spectacular remains) to consult the stirrings of one's heart.

It was a hilly, up-and-down town, in the great heat fatiguing to explore, but with oddities that were all its own: a street of coffin-makers in the bazaar area, with the painted coffins-grey, white, lilac, silver and gold-pushed out on to the pavements and creating a festive effect (abolishing the idea of grief, introducing the idea of shopping, and suggesting at the same time one kind of plot possibility for a thriller writer). Begging women had their own area in the market, and that too was cheerful. Below bright parasols the women (packed a little too tightly) sat on little stools with their begging cups, avoiding eye-contact with the alms-givers, who moved among them in a matter-of-fact way; so the business of giving and receiving involved no strain.

Richmond said (though I couldn't understand why he brought in Islam here) that Islam encouraged people to give alms, and so there had to be alms-receivers.

Away from the palace area the town had a repet.i.tive smallness. Its crowded little streets never developed into something more interesting, an older section of the town, a fort, a famous temple. It hurried us away, and then, past the outskirts of k.u.masi, yesterday's country smallness began to tire us afresh on the way back: teak amid the plantains and bamboo in the trackless bush. Though there was something else in the bush this time, which for some reason we had missed on the way out: the grey and often frail-looking concrete of unfinished buildings. There were any number of them: so many that a couple of days later, when I was driving along the Atlantic Cape Coast, I thought that some of the ancient white castles and forts were repeating the unfinished motif of the interior.

Richmond said that what looked like unfinished buildings would soon be finished. If I came back in two or three years I would see what he meant. I didn't believe him.

We talked after this of the wildlife of Ghana. There wasn't much of it left. The people of Ghana had eaten much of it out. From this talk of wildlife we turned to the cats and dogs that people were now eating with a will. In the north they ate and loved dog; they called it "red goat." In the south they ate cats and had almost eaten them out. Richmond knew someone who bred cats in order to eat them.

The trouble with cats was that they were tricky to kill. Cats knew when they were going to be killed and eaten; they fought for their lives and they could be dangerous for a few minutes. The best way of killing a cat, a.s.suming you had invited someone to dinner and didn't want to create a scene, was to stretch the animal's neck, the way people in England killed a rabbit. But when you did that you could be badly scratched. The surest way-if you or your guests didn't mind the racket-was to put a cat in a sack and beat it with a stick until it was dead. Another good way was to drown it. You used a sardine as bait to attract the cat to a container with water, and then you poured and poured water. The cat swallowed a lot of water and the virtue of this method was that it was much easier afterwards to tear the bloated cat's skin off.

With this talk of local food-breaking off from time to time to look at unfinished concrete pieces in the bush-we beguiled many miles. And then, as if this talk of food had called them up, there appeared at the roadside local men holding up smoked animals, offering them for sale, the surrounding bush combed and combed for these survivors-the agouti, together with a big rat known here as the gra.s.s-cutter, baby armadillos, long-snouted baby ant-eaters, and a few other creatures that just weren't fast enough to get away from these idle fellows.

The smoked creatures were usually split down the middle, to make for easier smoking, and they looked as though they had been run over by a motorcar. They were a strange shiny pale-brown colour-the colour looked as though it had been applied in a semi-liquid state with a brush-and were not at all like the thick black crusts of fish, monkey and crocodile that were being offered for sale on the Congo River thirty years before. Those black crusts had to be cracked open.

The bush was almost barren of wildlife, but these people were managing to squeeze out the last remnants, while their fertile land remained largely unused.

6.

RICHMOND'S GRANDFATHER on his father's side had been in the police, and high up. He was given a police funeral when he died, with a one-gun salute. Beyond that was a Danish ancestor, whose surname Richmond still carried. on his father's side had been in the police, and high up. He was given a police funeral when he died, with a one-gun salute. Beyond that was a Danish ancestor, whose surname Richmond still carried.

It sounds strange. What were the Danes doing so far from home? But that is only a modern prejudice. In fact, the Danes, though their numbers were small, were active gold-buyers and slave-traders in their time, and were known to the chiefs of Ghana. The big fort near Accra was built by the Danes in the 1660s. (At the same time they also had territory in India, in Tranquebar, south of Pondicherry, half a world and many weeks' sailing away.) The abolition of the slave trade at the beginning of the nineteenth century more or less put an end to the Danish slave business, but it wasn't until 1850 that they left Ghana, after selling out whatever they still had to the British.

Richmond knew the name of his Danish ancestor, but had done no research on him. I don't think it was prejudice that kept him back; it was more likely that he didn't have the time and wouldn't have known how to go about researching the matter. "Just out of curiosity" he would have liked to know more.

He wasn't too agitated about the slave-trading past of Ghana. But this might have been only bravado. It was said that visitors to Elmina Castle from the United States and the West Indies often broke down and wept when they saw, below the official quarters, the stone dungeons, smelling of damp (easy to imagine them crowded and airless), where slaves (already captive for many weeks) were kept before they were taken out in rowing boats to the slave ships for the Atlantic crossing. But Richmond would have seen the ocean rollers beating on those white slave forts and castles all his life; they would have been stripped of emotion for him; and so when we went to Elmina he strode about like a guide, no more.

He said: "The colonial masters came here for business. Slave trade was a business. Maybe bad, but it was purely business. They took, but they gave us the church. That was a death knell to traditional religion. In the traditional religion, every king had his chief priest and elders to consult. It was a democratic system. It promoted sanity. People did not cross boundaries. The church came and overturned this. They brought in Jesus."

There were so many clashing ideas there it was hard to disentangle them and to know what Richmond really felt. But perhaps the fault was mine, looking for my own purposes for a clear reply to what, for Richmond, was a complicated and messy matter: a past dying, a new way coming.

Richmond said, "In my area in the Volta River [to the east of Accra] we all have a shrine. My father told me that in the old days we owned things, but we needed someone to own us, and so we had the G.o.ds. We were good herbalists. We had new herbs and drugs, and we used them to talk to the ent.i.ty. You created the ent.i.ty to rule over you, and you can misuse that ent.i.ty too."

Richmond had a story about the misuse of an "ent.i.ty."

"My mother told me this story. Her mother-that is my grandmother-was Nkrumah's cook. Apart from Nkrumah's house in the mountains, he had a bungalow at Half Asini in the western region. Whenever Nkrumah came to visit this bungalow my grandmother and her cousin Aunty Afua would look after him and cook for him."

That was the first part of the story: the presentation and verification of the witness.

"My grandmother told my mother that the Ivory Coast president and king, Houphouet-Boigny, went to the high priest and asked for eternal power." Ivory Coast was next door to Ghana, and similar in many ways. "You should know that the Ivoirians believe that leaders are subject all the time to psychic attacks and have constantly to be purified and strengthened spiritually. So Houphouet was not behaving unusually. The high priest said to Houphouet, 'All right, you want eternal power. You will have eternal power.' He gave certain instructions. So in the shrine they chopped Houphouet into small pieces and placed him in a pot of herbs and potions and boiled it. The condition of that chopping and boiling was that Houphouet's sister had to stand guard by the pot, until the pieces of Houphouet in the pot turned to a snake. Houphouet's sister did as she was asked, and stayed by the fire until a big snake emerged from the pot. She grabbed the snake with both hands and they struggled so hard, snake and woman, they both fell to the ground, and Houphouet became a man again."

This was Richmond's comment on the story: "The strange thing is that it worked. No one ever challenged him. He owned the whole country. So you see how he misused the power. Now with civilisation catching up with us we are not keen to pay homage to the G.o.ds."

The comment was puzzling to me because Richmond appeared to be saying two or three different things at the same time: misusing the power, civilisation, paying homage to the G.o.ds.

I wanted to know whether he had relatives who had grown up in a time without education. He gave me much more than I had asked for, and what he said now was not mysterious at all.

He said, "I have such relatives still. They are myopic in their thoughts. Reasoning and delivery is limited. They are guided only by their own experiences. Their line of reasoning is always guided by what others say or do. Everything is laid out for them, what they see or have been told, or what is traditionally done. Knowing to read and write is not enough. It is only a tool to get out there. If in our setting we are limited we can never be smart. When I was in the USA I saw how limited the average small-town American was. He was as 'smart' as his Ghanaian counterpart. Reasoning is limited by your setting. I am sure of that."

In a few words he appeared to define the dead-end of the instinctive life. So he had, after all, a gift of a.n.a.lytical thought; and though it might not have been fair to say so, this had perhaps come down to him from the Danish ancestor, who might have been an engineer or a military man or an administrator, a man living by logic, full of internal resources, creating a life for himself in a hard setting far from home.

Richmond explained why the Christian church had caught on. "It was new. It had a policy of a.s.similation, like the French in the Ivory Coast, but the English did it in an indirect way. They offered a faith that also brought education. It weakened the traditional religion; in that way it was like Islam. The only thing that has remained intact is the chieftaincy."

A day or two after coming back from k.u.masi he had been sent by Kojo to look for a hotel site on the east-west Cape Coast, where all the ancient forts and castles were.