Note 3 — INTRODUCTION

Throughout the Gold Coast Colony and Southern Ashanti the stories as given by the various tribes are essentially the same. It may be that further and more detailed investigation in the domain of folk-lore will help to solve a very important ethnic problem, namely, whether the coast tribes are or are not of the same stock as those of the hinterland. It is generally accepted at present that “these people of the West Coast were for the most part the broken fragments of races that have been driven to the sea by the stronger races of the interior.”3 If this were so, then one would expect to find differences in the folk-lore of the stronger and weaker races similar to those between the folk-lore of the Celts and Anglo-Saxons. Actually, this does not appear to be so, though at present the data is not sufficient to enable one to form a definite opinion.