Note 9 — INTRODUCTION

“After an intercourse of some years with Europeans, the Tshi-speaking inhabitants of the towns and villages in the vicinity of the various forts added to their system of polytheism a new deity whom they termed Nana-Nyankupon—sometimes called simply Nyankupon. This was the god of the Christians, borrowed from them and adopted under a new designation. The great superiority manifested by the whites in their weapons, ships, manufactures—in short, in everything—convinced the natives with whom they had intercourse that they must necessarily be protected by a deity of greater power than any of those to which they themselves offered sacrifice, since their own deities had not, except very remotely, helped them to attain any such prosperity. They therefore gladly enrolled themselves amongst the followers of the god of the whites, and being informed that he dwelt in the heavens above, they denominated him Nana-Nyankupon, which may be freely translated ‘Lord of the Sky.’ ”9