Abstract
DR. M. J. FIELD, the author of two valuable works on the Ga people of the Gold Coast territory, was employed by the Gold Coast Government in 1938 to investigate the native system of State finance and of allegiance and jurisdiction in one oi the confederations of the Western Akim peoples. She builds on the work of Rattray and others, who have described the political and legal system of the Akan peoples to the south-east of the Akim area, who have similar customs ; but her own study is an intensive investigation of particular areas written from personal observations made in some seventy towns. She writes clearly and well, and her work is always stimulating. She has valuable material to give on the origin of these towns, their finances and their system of land tenure. She also gives accounts of kinship usages, marriage, inheritance and succession, and some of the traditional ritual, as well as new cults at fetish shrines. The result is a very useful extension to our knowledge of the peoples of the Gold Coast. It is a pity that the material was held up from publication for so long and has been apparently so severely censored by the Government, particularly the sections on health.
Akim-Tokotu
An Omen of the Gold Coast. By Dr. M. J. Field. Pp. viii + 211 + 23 plates. Accra Government Printing Department. (London : Crown Agents for the Colonies.)
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Akim-Tokotu. Nature 163, 934 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/163934d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/163934d0