Dagara Cultural History: Cardinal Peter Poreku Dery

Out from Euphoria and Charisma to the reality of Catholicism The “mass conversion” and religious movement of the Dagaaba people into Catholicism in 1929 was euphoric in action and expectation. The tempo of the movement could only be sustained for a period of time by the over enthusiasm of the first missionaries to realise an eschatological hope in an African society combined with an unusual charisma of the first prelate who, also being a Dagao, was able to lead the people along this path of euphoria. The enthusiasm of the missionaries enabled them to find the appropriate material and human resources, mostly from outside the region and within the shortest possible time, to build a model church on earth that will take care of the material and spiritual needs of the people. The charisma of the local prelate, who was also extraordinarily gifted in ritual performance and church liturgy, perpetuated this euphoria as divine reality that could not be sustained.    I pay tribute t...

  Colloquium Abstract : Pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial events in Africa have all combined to give a certain image and role religion and culture play and should play in social and human development and progress. In the first place the narrow western definition of religion as an abstract phenomena focusing on believe in a subjective and empirically unverifiable notions of the spiritual world and the constant recourse to a dualistic thinking that pitches nature against culture have heavily poisoned the thinking frames via which scholars tend to understand and deal with religion and culture as integral part of human development and progress. This is particularly the case when it comes to indigenous African religion and culture. The situation is made worse with the persistent grounding of the philosophical notion that only one truth relating to religion and science exists and that this truth can only be found in the supposedly “more advanced and developed” systems. Though ma...

  Colloquium Summary : On Monday, 23 April 1906 the Missionaries of Africa also known as the White Fathers, arrived from Upper Volta, today known as Burkina Faso, to begin their missionary activities in northern Ghana. The small group consisted of Rev. Fathers Jean-Marie Chollet and Brother Eugene Gall from France and Oscar Morin from Canada as missionaries and a contingent of about 20 Africans as helpers. Socially and culturally, the region was still suffering from the consequences of the just outlawed slave raiding and the coming to end of terror regimes by war-lords initiated by such Zabarma generals as Samouri and Babatu. The populations were still to come to terms with the European (French, British and German) use of military forces to try to establish their colonial rule. Many of the ethnic populations and groups residing in what is today called the Northern Region of Ghana and also those in semi-urban trading centres such as Wa and Bawku had, over the past century, fo...