Tradition, Culture, Religion, and the Basel Mission in Osu and Akropong

From left to right: Christian Awuku-Asabre, Sina Ritter, Theophilus Opoku Addy, and Saleh Mohammed Saleh. (Photo by Marry Akuffo).
From left to right: Christian Awuku-Asabre, Sina Ritter, Theophilus Opoku Addy, and Saleh Mohammed Saleh. (Photo by Marry Akuffo).

During the excursion to southern Ghana, I intended to research how the Basel Mission (BM) evangelists encountered African tradition, culture, and religion and how converted Ghanaians continued practicing their traditional culture alongside the Christian faith. From 16th to 23rd January 2024, my colleagues Catharina Deeg, Sina Ritter, and I conducted four interviews with the Presbyterian Church District Minister of Osu, Rev. Erasmus Mensah Laryea, and two secondary students. We also conducted one group interview in Akropong with descendants of Theophilus Hermann Kofi Opoku. Also, this text is based on my observations and conversations with different people within and outside the Presbyterian Church community.

The BM was one of the major European institutions that sent its missionaries to African countries in the early nineteenth century. Osu was the first place in which they landed. Later on, the BM shifted its activities to Abokobi and Akropong, where more missionaries were able to survive. The interviews with the Minister as well as with descendants of Theophilus.

Picture of Mary Ann Opoku, a granddaughter of Theophilus Hermann Kofi Opoku. The picture was taken in the family house of descendants of Theophilus Opoku (photo by the author).
Picture of Mary Ann Opoku, a granddaughter of Theophilus Hermann Kofi Opoku. The picture was taken in the family house of descendants of Theophilus Opoku (photo by the author).
Picture of Christian Opoku, a son of Theophilus Hermann Kofi Opoku. The picture was taken in the family house of descendants of Theophilus Opoku (photo by the author).
Picture of Christian Opoku, a son of Theophilus Hermann Kofi Opoku. The picture was taken in the family house of descendants of Theophilus Opoku (photo by the author).

Opoku provided insights into popular recollections about the BM’s activities in spreading the message of the gospel, the mission’s role in education and health services, as well as the controversies they became enmeshed in concerning existing traditional beliefs and culture. The purpose of this text is to show the connection between tradition, culture, and Christian religion with regard to the BM and how strong people were in preserving and practicing their culture alongside the Christian faith. Here I may comment that while most people viewed the BM positively, a few raised questions and criticism on its impacts on traditional beliefs and cultures, or even associated the mission with slavery and colonialism.

“We Have to Remember our Roots” – “Ԑsɛ sɛ yɛkae yen ahyase” (PCG District Minister Rev. Laryea, Osu)

Picture for the 195th anniversary: Celebration of Presbyterian Church of Ghana (photo by the author).
Picture for the 195th anniversary: Celebration of Presbyterian Church of Ghana (photo by the author).

The long history of the BM in Osu implies that many people, especially those in leading positions of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG), have developed religious activities by preserving and practicing the Basel Mission’s core values as the centrality of the word of God. Whereas the PCG is currently looking forward to celebrating 200 years since the first landing of the BM in Ghana, its members including the church leaders have also been preserving and practicing aspects of traditional culture and traditional forms of prayers including ‘‘pouring libation’’. Some of the traditional cultural practices will be elaborated below.

Christian Religion and Traditional Culture

“Religion is our culture, but our traditions must be preserved”, the Rev. Laryea insisted. There is a precise historiography of the Basel missionaries’ beliefs about Ghanaian traditional cultural practices. The building of Salems – settlements created by the BM exclusively for its converts or members – served to confine Christians and protect them from temptation; on the other hand, it was a way to force people to leave their culture and isolate them from the community. However, some traditional local practices were gradually accepted by the missionaries and were performed in the church. A very good example is drumming, which was initially forbidden in church, but later accepted.

Rev. Laryea continued to argue that if a person adhering to traditional religion comes to accept the Christian faith, he or she might leave the “fetish” but not the culture. In this regard, Ghanaian traditional culture and religion encompass much more than just practices but constitute a vibrant element of social organization in its widest sense. To take a few examples of existing traditional practices, the Odwira in Akropong mentioned by the Opoku descendants, and the Homowo Gã people’s festival mentioned by Rev. Laryea are annual social gatherings in which the ancestors are remembered, the harvest is celebrated, and the town is cleansed – all being aspects that are not associated with Christianity. The minister continued to argue that Ghanaian cultural beliefs are deeply embedded with the people’s identity, serving as a fundamental aspect of Ghanaian society. These cultural practices exist distinctly from religious practices, reflecting a clear demarcation between cultural and religious domains, rather than a blending or syncretism of the two.

Based on an interview with the Opoku descendants and my observations during a visit to the chief’s palace in Akropong as part of our excursion, I had the opportunity to witness the traditional practice of pouring libation. Additionally, on the day I was preparing to leave Osu, my host family performed a traditional prayer. They took water and the senior brother invoked the names of their ancestors, asking for blessings and protection. The water was then poured in four directions, and finally, I was asked to drink a portion of it. What I found was that the most common traditional practice is pouring libation and calling the ancestors – “dead souls are living with us,” as the Opoku family members told me . Here what caught my mind was that, of course, I witnessed pouring libation, but the ambiguity is the power of ancestors to respond with blessing and protection.

The “Fetish”, Culture and Religion

I found it very interesting to talk about the concept of “fetish” in relation to traditional Ghanaian culture and religion, as it came up in our interview with the minister Rev. Laryea. According to William Pietz, the concept of the “fetish” emerged in the context of different cross-cultural contacts, with European and African traders struggling to understand one another in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In the Christian context, the “fetish” has been linked to interpretations of witchcraft linked with sacred objects. Rev. Laryea associated the “fetish” with traditional religion whereby one could attend the church and might practice traditional spiritual beliefs, but finally “a person can leave the fetish but not the culture”. He continued to argue that when the European missionaries came, they conflated traditional culture and traditional religion. For the Basel missionaries traditional religion and culture were the same thing. The way people lived was wrong and they should live according to the rules of the Christian religion. Fetish was something that the people should also abandon. According to Rev. Laryea lumping traditional culture, traditional religion and fetish together was a mistake of the Basel missionaries. People cannot leave behind their culture because culture is what makes them who they are. Rev. Laryea insisted that when you convert to the Christian religion you should leave fetish practicing behind, but not your culture. Traditional culture stays a part of an individual, even if they start to practice a different religion.

Slavery, Basel Missionaries, and Colonialism

A view of the eastern part of the Salem building, Osu. This part of the roof has collapsed (photo by the author)
A view of the eastern part of the Salem building, Osu. This part of the roof has collapsed (photo by the author)

Several of my interlocutors who were not associated with the Presbyterian Church also linked the BM to aspects of slavery and colonialism. On the way to the Presbyterian Senior High School in Osu, we passed the Salem and met two secondary students who were having a break. We had a very short conversation with them about the BM and missionaries in general. Although neither of them knew anything about the BM, they did know about missionaries because they were history students. I was shocked when they said that missionaries had come to Ghana to enslave their grandparents, killed people, took their lands, and brought colonialism. When we asked them what other things the missionaries brought to Ghana, they lost confidence and did not want to continue the conversation. This encounter twisted my previous impression that the BM is recognized and remembered positively by all Ghanaians regardless of their religion. It seems that the BM is well known by the Presbyterian Church members, especially those who are in leading positions, but not much really outside the church community. The PCG leadership is familiar with almost 200 years of BM activities in Ghana, and they are proud to be associated with the BM. Sometimes, members seem not to differentiate between the BM and their current Presbyterian Church.

Portrait Saleh Mohammed Saleh
About the author:Saleh Mohammed Saleh

I am a student of African Studies at the University of Basel. I am very interested in political history and medical anthropology based on bottom-up research. I have a particular interest in exploring the intersection of ordinary, marginalized groups and society.