Ashanti Proverbs; (The Primitive Ethics of a Savage People)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1916. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER I A; Belief In A Supreme Being, Onyame, Onyankopon, Animism, Fatalism, Minor Deities And Charms, Tutelary Deities, Fetishism And Fetish Priests, Manes And Ghosts, The Soul, Death And Burial, Evil Spirits, Witches And Wizards, Soothsayers And Medicine Men. It Asase terew, na Onyame ne panyiii. (2787) Of all the wide earth, the Supreme Being is the elder. Asase. Deriv. possibly ase, down, beneath, as opposed to osoro, above, the heavens (asase reduplication of ase). Here means the world, the earth, which is also expressed by wiase-=-owia ase, under the sun; owia being again derived from root tip, seen in wim=.wimu, in the firmament. Terew. May be either taken as an adjective, or, if the pronoun e is understood, as a verb, 'is wide '. Na. This particle can often be rendered by the conjunction 'and ', but is often used to give emphasis to a word or clause. Onyame. The late Major Ellis in his The Tshi-Speaking People s of the Gold Coast of West Africa, writes as follows: 'Within the last twenty or thirty years the German missionaries, sent out from time to time by the mission societies of Basel and Bremen, have made Nyankupon known to European ethnologists and students of the science of religion, but being unaware of the real origin of this god, they have generally written and spoken of him as a conception of the native mind, whereas he is really a god borrowed from Europeans and only thinly disguised. . . To the negro of the Gold Coast, Nyankupon is a material and tangible being, possessing legs, body, arms, in fact all the limits and the senses and faculties of man. , . For this reason no sacrifice was offered to him, . . There were no priests for Nyankupon . . . consequently no form of worship for Nyankupon was established. . . All the rites and p...