VERSCHUIVINGEN IN EEN WEST-AFRIKAANSE GODSDIENST

Abstract

SUMMARY This study starts from the assumption that, in view of the rapid changes which take place in all societies of men at present, the study of religions should move away from the ‘wholistic’, i.e. static and system-centered, approach to a dynamic one that focuses on the changes and shifts which take place in the religions, on the interactions and interdependencies which in a specific place-time context develop between the religions that co-exist in that context, and on the functions, oppositional, complementary or otherwise, which they fulfil in the religious life of the individual believer in that total context. A study on these lines is then attempted of the shifts that have occurred in the religion of the Ashanti since the beginning of the colonial era, as is exemplified in especially the upsurge of the belief in, and fear of, witchcraft and sorcery, the rise of the new cults of the ‘drinking-medicine’ gods and the ‘executioner’-gods who fight mystical aggression, and the apparent shriveling of the place of the Supreme God in this religion.

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