Ashanti

...to be vital in Africa today is, as far as I am aware, found in a book written by a Christian missionary. 1 His chapter on "Christianity in Africa" is, in my humble opinion, a classic. His argument supports everything I would like to advocate myself, if I possessed the eloquence or the theological knowledge original: "erudition" that would qualify me to do so.

"Our ideal," writes Mr. Edwin W. Smith, "is not a Christian world made of a uniform pattern throughout, but one that preserves within its unity all the diversity that the Almighty has given to different peoples. In the essential things let there be agreement, but in the forms that express them, let there be variety."

Again: "What can be done, then, to naturalize Christianity in Africa? . . . It is necessary to insist that our religion be presented to Africans, not in opposition to their aspirations, but as a fulfillment of them. . . . It does not mean making Christianity more pagan to make it easier for Africans; rather, it means Christianizing everything that is valuable in the African's past experience and recorded in their customs."

With a few more advocates like this, I feel that the campaign, which has hardly begun, will eventually be won. I believe that an anthropologist anthropologist: a scientist who studies human societies and cultures will find the most interesting and productive field for research along these lines—the interpretation of "the idiom of the soul" of the people among whom he works. It is to the anthropologist that the administrator administrator: a government official responsible for policy and management, the educationalist educationalist: a specialist in the theory and practice of education, and now the missionary will look for information. His responsibility is therefore great, and it is with a full awareness of it, and of my own shortcomings, that I now present this, my final report.

In one sense only is it "final"; in another, I view the information contained here and in my previous reports 2 as only the framework upon which I hope others will now begin to build. In this kind of work, it is almost a cliché original: "platitude" to state that once a particular custom or belief is identified and details about it are secured, it becomes much easier to obtain further information. The initial difficulty lies in breaking new ground and building a solid foundation, upon which the success of all future investigation depends.

I hope, therefore, that my methods will prove to have been justified. I am now fulfilling the promise I once made 3 and call upon my—

1 The Golden Stool, by the Reverend Edwin W. Smith.
2 Ashanti, published in 1923; Religion and Art in Ashanti, published in 1927.
3 See Ashanti, preface, p. 7.