File:Africa and its inhabitants (1899) (14760465896).jpg

Identifier: africaitsinhabit02recl (find matches)
Title: Africa and its inhabitants
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Reclus, Elisée, 1830-1905 Keane, A. H. (Augustus Henry), 1833-1912
Subjects: Ethnology
Publisher: London : J.S. Virtue
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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the ant is the apra (Jlanis longiceiu-datus), which is completely encased in strong scales, and sleeps like a snake coiledwithin its long tail. For the natives the most valuable animal is a species ofsnail, which is said by Bonnat to constitute the chief staple of food in Ashanti. Inhabitants. The peoples of the Gold Coast belong to two distinct stocks, the conqueredaborigines and the conquerors. The former have held their ground as separategroups in the Upper Volta basin, and especially in the hilly inland districts.Those of the Brong country, north-west of the Ashanti state, are by the Ashantiscollectively called Potoso, that is, Barbarians, and most of them speak theGwang, the Nta, or allied idioms derived from the same original source as thoseof their conquerors ; but nearly all are now also familiar with the Oji or Ga oftheir political masters. Physically, the two races diifer little from one another,except that the aborigines are more robust, and practice peculiar social usages
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o ■£ P H B H H INILiBITANTS OP THE GOLD COAST. 2-)l But even tliese primitive contrasts are gradually being effaced by croBsiiigs, ucommon civilisation, and the spread of Islam on the one hand, and of English andProtestant influences on the other. Besides the more closely allied Ashanti dialects, there arc several others which,although belonging to the same group, are mutually unintelligible. Such are theUbutu of the Fanti district, and especially of the town of Aguna, a name formerlyapplied to the whole region now known as the Gold Coast ; the Kyercpong ofthe Akwapem uplands, and the Akra (Inkram) with its two dialects, the Gaand Adamfi, spoken by over one hundred thousand persons on the Accra Coast amithroughout the province of Adamfi, that is, the triangidar space limited east andnorth by the Volta, and west by the Akwapem hiUs. The Banda, Gyaman, andKong, current north of Ashanti, also belong to the same linguistic family, whichis distinguished by monosyllabic roots and the use

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