XX. And a Little Child Shall Lead Them

By the year 1925 a mighty change had come over the thought of the nations, and it was due to some extent to the work of the Gold Coast Nation and Ethiopian Review, promoted by Kwamankra just before the close of the first ten years of the century in the interests of Gold Coast national conservancy; but as time went on it had broadened out in sympathy to embrace the needs of the entire race. During the preceding fifteen years the Nation had freely circulated throughout the Ethiopian world, and the promoter and the Editors were in constant communication with the leading thinkers of the race throughout the world.

Moreover, it had gradually dawned upon workers and thinkers alike that the way of material argument — the argument of bomb and shell — was not the Ethiopian's way, and, in the world of progressive thought, the lamb was, after all, as the seer had foretold, leading the wolf and the lion instincts of the nations into right channels. It was a moral force with’ a moral persuasiveness which, like the wind, blowing whence men know not, yet was moulding the spiritual atmosphere of the world. For what was to have become a great race war had become a mighty truce. The black races had at length learnt to run along their own natural lines of development, and the white needed the black and the black needed the white. The work of Cain had given place to the grace of conciliation, and the West had called to the South and the South had responded in the thundering words of the great thinker, who said : “ But if we fail in this? — If blinded by the gain of the moment we see nothing in our dark man but a vast engine of labour; if to us he is not a man, but only a tool; if dispossessed entirely of the land for which he now shows that rare aptitude for peasant proprietorship for the lack of which among their masses many great nations are decaying; if we force him permanently in his millions into the locations and compounds and slums of our cities, obtaining his labour cheaper, but to lose what the wealth of five rands could not return to us ; if uninstructed in the highest forms of labour, without the rights of citizenship, his own social organisation broken up without our having aided him to participate in our own ; if unbound to us by gratitude and sympathy and alien to us in blood and colour, we reduce this vast mass to the condition of a great, seething, ignorant proletariat — then I would rather draw a veil over the future of this land.”

To sentiments such as these, ringing with deep sincerity and earnestness, workers and leaders on the Ethiopian platform could not but respond with equal sincerity and earnestness; and, in the mutual respect and confidence which resulted, the black man could call to the white man and say :

“ Lofty I stand from each sister land, patient and wearily wise,

With the weight of a world of sadness in my quiet passionless eyes,

Dreaming alone of a people, dreaming alone of a day

When men shall not rape my riches and curse me and go away ;

Making a bawd of my bounty, fouling the hand that gave —

Till I rise in my wrath and I sweep on their path and I stamp them into a grave.

Dreaming of men who will bless me, of women esteeming me good,

Of children born in my borders, of radiant motherhood,

Of cities leaping to stature, of fame like a flag unfurled

As I pour the tide of my riches in the eager lap of the world.”

Yes, it was a holy truce, and it was the spirit of humility which sealed it. It was one of those startling truths of life which men scarce realise when they hear it uttered. The late Henry Drummond emphasised this lesson in modern times in a way few had done before. And yet he taught nothing new in this respect. To toil and moil for reputation, fortune, or position, and, when gained, to wonder at one’s folly at having wasted so much energy and so much precious time is as old as the days of King Solomon who, in the plenitude of his power and might and dominion, wrote all down as vanity. And the converse way of life is as old as Socrates and the Pyramids; and Ethiopia can afford to take her part ungrudgingly in the arduous task of advancing humanity. The wonder is that, twenty centuries after Christ, the leading nations have not yet learnt this great, yet simple, truth. And so it happens that they still toil and moil to make proselytes of other nations only to fill them with the unrest from which they suffer and to weary them with the burden which they bear. After years of patient waiting and discipline, Japan has at length shaken herself free from ancient conservatism, and China is following suit. As for India, she is even now in the grip of a great delirium. The lion and the bear are being threatened in their lair, and men can hardly believe their senses. And yet this is not the better part of Japan which wise men would wish to see perpetuated. Perhaps no one person, living or dead, did more to reveal the East unto the .West than the late Lafcadio Hearn; and nowhere did the master-hand wield the magic wand more powerfully than in the living pages of that remarkable work, KoJcoro, which “ treats of the inner rather than of the outer life of Japan.” And herein lay the power of our author. He treated of the inner things of life. He belonged to that band of men who force their fellow-men to think. They are not always popular; but whether or not, they are the saviours of the race.

Lest the temper of the people of the Gold Coast may be misunderstood, let it be premised that it is a remarkable thing that the date of Japan’s political awakening has been noted to synchronise with the political awakening of the Gold Coast. Had the fates been propitious, the development of the latter might have been equally remarkable in its way. It is a curious fact, but one worth recording, that those who had the guidance, or, to use a more correct phrase, the protection of the budding aspirations of Eanti nationality, noted early the symptoms of latent national possibilities, and, acting on the principle of divide et impero, scattered the fragments to the winds. But the voice of the Creator has gone forth, and, even as the sea gives up its dead, so will the four winds blow back the hopes that were well nigh lost, and fan them into action. For, remember, that the Gold Coast people were contemporaries and brethren in institutions, language, customs, and practices, in the far interior, of the Ashantis whose polity, prowess and moral backbone have aroused the admiration of the world. For quite a century they were a martial power to reckon with, though without arms of precision ; and when measures of repression have been removed, it is quite conceivable that their inherent virility will be turned into healthy channels of statecraft and race development.

It is, perhaps, not generally known that the Denkiras in the Gold Coast, occupying the country this side of the Offin River, whose capital town Gwikwa is close to Cape Coast, were once the masters of the Ashantis. The names of Amponsaim and Intsim Gakiri of the royal line of Denkira are well-known in the history of Ashanti. There was a time when they inspired terror in the breasts of the Ashantis, and it was the haughty demand of Intsim Gakiri that the Ashanti tribute for a given year should be accompanied by a tooth of the king and his “ best ” wife that roused the Ashantis to the deadly struggle with the Denkiras which ended in the submission of the latter and their subsequent immigration to the Gold Coast, punctuated by a series of other political events.

And if you turn to the Fanti portion of the Gold Coast, you find this, that they were one mighty host who broke away — if a wa atsiw, hence their name Fanti — from their brethren, the Ashantis in the hinterland and made their way to the coast. Now, when Boribori Fanti came from Takieman, the A bura Tuafus led the van ; but they were then not known as Aburas, no more were the Anumabus or Akumfis known by their present designations. They were all, as it has been explained, one mighty host under several great leaders who sat upon ancient stools in the interior. Their first care was to secure a suitable habitat for their gods, Nanamu. The god of rain, for example, was, and is, known as Nana Yankum. ,The first great centre of the Fantis was Mankessim, meaning, the great city. As it was impossible for the hosts of Boribori Fanti to abide together, soon a dispersion took place. It was reported among those who remained behind of those who went in the direction of Abura : “ Wo dzi hwon tsir abura mu nu hu ,” that was to say, “ they have taken some direction unknown,” the name A bura attaching to the people from the verb abura. Likewise the Akumfis were so called from the density of the multitude, Kumkumfi, which separated from the main body and settled in the district now known as Akumfi.

The polity of these people has been eloquently described by competent Fanti writers, and in the pages of their works is seen a system of government at once harmonious, progressive, and sympathetic — a system capable of infinite development.

Moreover, in the language of these people are certain characteristic root ideas. It is the language of poetry, and their unrecorded songs are full of the deep meanings constituting the soul of life. Take, for example, the word “ wireh ,” meaning heart affection, in the phrase “ miwireh akitawu ,” that is to say, “ my heart is firmly knit to your heart.” So familiar are they with the essence of the Godhead that you have ascriptions such as Onumankuma, meaning “ Onu a oibotum de oka de Madaku ma ,” that is to say, “ he who can say, I alone am the giver,” clearly corresponding to the eternal Giver of all good. Take another ascription, Kwerampon, meaning “ ekwerina ebira pun wa onye ,” that is to say, tc if you lean against him, none can sever you,” clearly carrying the idea of “ none can pluck you out of my hands.” Now, whence these root ideas ? They cannot be merely fortuitous, traceable, as they are, to the innermost consciousness of the people.

Thus it will be seen that the Gold Coast people are as good an Eastern type in some respects as those of whom we have written. Yet, to-day,

“ Lofty she stands from each sister land patient and wearily wise.”

with a patience that marks for leadership in the spiritual realm. Undoubtedly the highest form of character development attainable in any religion is that set forth in the graphic portraiture of Paul of Tarsus, where he makes true humility the door to the highest honour. And who can doubt it that, in this respect, Ethiopia, among the nations, typifies this aspect of the developed character to-day more than any other ? In order to carry on her mission of peace what is wanted is the opportunity of inter-communication; and it is conceivable that some day it may be possible to reach Lake Chad from Northern Nigeria, and Kumasi to become a great centre for converging lines of the Cape to Cairo railway. When that eventuality happens, and Ethiopia will have entered upon her universal spiritual mission, then, hoary with age, and freed from the trammels of so-called world progress, aims, and ambitions, she shall pursue her onward path to God in the way of humble service to mankind ; and, so, the saying of the seer shall become true that “ A little child shall lead them.’’