The Akan Doctrine of God

At first sight there is nothing remarkable about this book and it has certainly not gained great notoriety or even, as far as I can see, much of a position in the history of African thought. Danquah is better known for his political opposition to Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana. However, as an anthropologist who has written about the Dogon this book about Akan thought raises all kinds of rather interesting questions.

Marcel Griaule published his most famous book, Dieu D’Eau, or as the English translation titles it, ‘Conversations with Ogotemmêli; An Introduction to Dogon Religious Ideas’, in 1948. This book is well known and is almost always referenced, usually alongside Placide Temples La Philosophe Bantoue (1949) as being among the first texts to present an African philosophy (although both Griaule and Temples were, of course, European). These two works have, interestingly, often been regarded as the starting point for an approach to African philosophy that is based on proverbs, what is often considered in the literature as the quintessential form of African thought.

Griaule’s work is also critiqued for developing the mythic thought of one elderly, blind, hunter, and passing this off as the ‘deep thinking’ of the Dogon people, that which is only ever achieved through many years of initiation. This is not what Griaule was doing, or what he ever said that he was doing. In the text Griaule simply presents the ideas as those developed spontaneously over a series of nightly conversations with the blind hunter Ogotemmêli. Griaule never claims that these are anything more than the reflections of one man, what he refers to as the equivalent of a theologian in Western society. Reflections that are certainly rooted in the traditional thought of the Dogon, but not in any sense a definitive statement of that thought.

Some five or six years earlier, however, another African philosopher was setting out, in a written text of his own, the religious, philosophical, and primarily the ethical thought of his own people, the Akan of Ghana. There is a world of difference between Ogotemmêli and Danquah, and between their texts, but the two men were reflecting on the deeper things in life at much the same time and only 1000km apart. Many young men among the Dogon at the time also travelled regularly down to Ghana, or the Gold Coast as it was then, looking for work. The two worlds are not all that far apart.

There are probably many reasons why Danquah’s work has not had the reception that perhaps it should. Dixon in his introduction suggests some, including the fact that Danquah does not present a very recognisable version of Akan religion, ignoring the important role of lesser deities and placing the emphasis on a monotheistic high god, who is known in three aspects. This suggests that Danquah may have been trying to make Akan religion sound like Christianity. Although, if he had wanted to do that, I think he would have made more effort to do so. He understands Christianity and highlights many similarities, as well as many differences. It is the ancient Arcadian religions of Iraq and Iran that Danquah looks to as the closest relation to Akan religious thought, but that might also be another reason why his work has lost its credibility.

More significant, I think, is the way in which Danquah places Akan thought alongside and in dialogue with Western philosophical traditions. He was educated at University College London and his own writing is deeply rooted in the Western tradition, from Aristotle to Hegel to more recent English philosophers. This is the language that he draws on to present his understanding of Akan religion, its understanding of God, and its ethics. This is a highly intellectual tradition. Danquah is clear that just as there is a tradition of Greek thought, and a tradition of Hebrew thought (which are not the same in his view) so there is also a tradition of Akan thought, and each of these has something significant to offer to the wider, overall, thought of humanity. In his presentation the contribution of Akan thought is primarily its rejection of original sin and the working of humanity towards the goal of goodness, as exemplified in the nana, or head of the family, tribe, nation or people.

Danquah is also not afraid, or embarrassed, to use the writings of earlier anthropologists working on the Akan as important sources on the thinking of the Akan. He does question some of their conclusions, particularly the derivation of words and their understanding of language, but he does not question their right to attempt to present Akan thought and welcomes the fact that they have provided an important starting point for his own thinking.

What is also interesting, however, is that Danquah’s own ideas are firmly rooted in proverbs, far more so than Ogotemmêli’s ever were. Proverbs are a core carrier of ideas and values among the Akan. This is one reason some Western commentators believe that they are important across Africa, which is not the case. However, it is often the same commentators who are desperate to build ‘African religion’, most clear expressed in the Ubuntu tradition (more of which, perhaps, at another time), on the ‘traditional thought’ or African peoples, traditional thought that is often generated, perhaps even created, by Western anthropology. E. E. Evans Pritchard is often credited with offering the first full presentation of ‘African religion’ in his book on Nuer Religion (not published till 1956) but once again this is worlds away from Danquah’s presentation of the religion of the Akan.

So yes, this is a very interesting book, even if much of its content would not be entirely relevant today (Danquah does not recognise a world in which religion has no place, whether in Africa or the West!). It is certainly a book that should be remembered and celebrated for what it is.