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296 out by 1920. When gold remonetisation occurs there is likely to be a shortage of the metal, and its appearance in actual circula- tion may be long delayed. It will probably first be used, as far as money is concerned, for international transactions and as a cover for notes. (J. K.) GOLD COAST, WEST AFRICA (see 12.203). In spite of the fact that the Gold Coast forms a British Crown colony (to which Ashanti and the Northern Territories are the adjoining protec- torate) it consists (1921) of an agglomeration of small self- contained and mutually independent native states, each of which is under the immediate management of its own tribal organiza- tion. This consists of a paramount chief, variously called Omane- hene by the Akans and by the people who have come under the Akan influence, Manchi by the Gas and all kindred peoples, Konor by the Krobos and Fia by the Ewe-speaking folk in the neighbourhood of and beyond the Volta. These paramount chiefs are in each case chosen for the offices they fill by the tribes- men concerned, the candidates belonging to one or more families from among whose members alone a chief can be selected. The Akans trace descent exclusively through the female line and among them a chief can only be succeeded by the son of a female relative and never by one of his own sons. The non-Akan peoples of the Gold Coast recognize descent through the male line; but with Akans and non-Akans alike, men are selected to fill the office of chief, nominally by popular suffrage, in reality by the principal sub-chiefs, counsellors and elders of the tribe or section of the tribe concerned, care being taken to choose the most suitable of the eligible candidates. All chiefs are liable to " de- stoolment " at the decree of their people if they fail to give satisfaction. Every paramount chief is the occupant of a stool, which is reputed to be the seat of office of the original founder or leader of the tribe; and in this often fragmentary wooden relic the spirits of his ancestors are believed to abide, and to them, through it, sacrifices are offered, and libations of blood (formerly human, to-day that of fowls or goats) are poured over it on all ceremonial occasions. Each paramount chief is assisted in his office by a number of sub-chiefs of varying rank, whose jurisdiction, until quite recently, was personal rather than territorial. These sub-chiefs, with certain counsellors and elders of the tribe, jointly deliberate with the paramount chief upon all matters of impor- tance. All evidence is given before them in public; but all in authority retire to consider their verdict, which is subsequently announced to the tribesmen by the Linguist, who is the mouth- piece of the paramount chief on all formal occasions. The bulk of the population, no matter what their age, are collectively classed as " young men " and, in spite of the democratic prin- ciples upon which the tribal organization is theoretically based, they ordinarily have very little voice in public affairs.

Until the spread of permanent, as opposed to shifting, cultiva- tion was brought about by the extensive planting of cocoa, the territorial limits of the numerous tribal areas were very roughly denned, but as the value of land has appreciated, boundary questions have come into ever greater prominence and have given rise to interminable litigation, the cost of which has well- nigh ruined several of the tribes concerned. The judicial powers of the chiefs of all ranks are defined by the Native Jurisdiction Ordinance, appeals lying to the provincial and supreme courts, and ultimately to the Privy Council.

So far as it is possible to trace local history prior to the incursion of Europeans, it would appear that the Twi- or Tschi-speaking people, who to-day form the predominant native race, and to which the Akan tribes of the colony, and Fantis and the Ashantis alike belong, were expelled from the open country of the upper Volta valley by Arab or Fulani Mahommedan invaders, probably about the loth or nth century A.D., and were forced to seek a new home in the tsetse-fly infested forest country, whither their mounted assailants could not follow them. The country which is now Ashanti and the Gold Coast colony appears at that time to have been inhabited by a number of negro tribes possessing a culture far more primitive than that of the Twi-speaking folk, who it is probable were in some in- stances still in the neolithic stage. The newcomers rapidly overran the forest country, subdued 'or absorbed the autochthonous inhabi- tants, and established mutually independent tribal units alike on the coast and in the interior. It is probable that the original invasion of the forest area was undertaken almost simultaneously by a number of separate bands of fugitives; and that, as these communities suc-

cessively outgrew the food-supply yielded by the lands which they had occupied, further emigrations took place, the section of a tribe separating itself from the rest sometimes electing to form a wholly distinct political unit, and sometimes continuing to recognize an actual allegiance to the tribal organization under which it had once lived, or at any rate a perpetual alliance with it. In many cases, no doubt, the aborigines were exterminated, but in others they sur- vive to this day, the Efutu tribe in the central and the Gwangs and Cherepongs in the eastern province of the colony, for instance, still retaining their identity, their languages and some traces of a dis- tinct tribal organization. In the western parts of the Gold Coast the aborigines appear to have come under Akan influence, but to have avoided actual conquest; while on the eastern side the Akan in- vaders came into contact with such people as the Gas, the Krobos and the Ewe-speaking people beyond the Volta, all of whom, it is probable, are descendants of invaders who pushed westward into these coastal dfstricts from the neighbourhood of the Niger estu- ary. In quite recent times one Akan tribe, the Akwamus, established themselves in lands which they still occupy on both banks of the Volta, at a point some 60 m. from its mouth; but with this exception, the Akan or Twi-speaking peoples of Ashanti and the colony form a dis- tinct ethnological wedge sandwiched between different stocks.

Sir William Brandford Griffith was British governor of the Gold Coast from 1886 to 1895, in which year he was succeeded by Sir William Maxwell, Colonial Secretary of the Straits Settle- ments, who first started the colony upon an upward grade. Under his administration some very important boundary disputes were settled with the French; Kumasi was occupied by an expedition- ary force, which met with no resistance, and Prempeh, the Ashanti king, was deported, first to Sierra Leone and subse- quently to the Seychelles. On Sir William Maxwell's premature death he was succeeded by Sir Frederick Hodgson, under whose administration a search for the " golden stool " the throne of the Ashanti kings caused an extensive rebellion in Ashanti, which led to the final conquest of the country. Sir Matthew Nathan succeeded to the governorship in 1900, and under his administration Sekondi was converted from an insignificant fishing village into an important seaport, and the railway from that place to Kumasi was constructed. In 1904 Sir John Rodger became governor and held the post till his death in 1910. During his term the waterworks both at Accra and Sekondi were inaug- urated, though he did not live to see them completed. He was succeeded by Mr. Thorburn, the Colonial Secretary of Southern Nigeria, formerly a member of the Ceylon civil service, who in 1912 was followed by Sir Hugh Clifford, the Colonial Secretary of Ceylon. During his administration, which lasted till July igfg, the railway extension from Mangoase via Koforidua to Tafo was completed, and the whole line from that place to Kumasi was surveyed and demarcated. Numerous public works of importance were constructed, in spite of the World War, e.g. the up-to-date railway workshops at Sekondi, with the electrical installation which supplies lighting for the town; the Govern- ment offices, general post office and headquarters police barracks at Accra; a very large number of bungalows of modern type which, with the segregation areas in which they arc situated, have rev- olutionized the living conditions of the official population in most of the principal centres alike in the colony and in Ashanti; and some 600 m. of motor-road. Sir Hugh Clifford was succeeded by Brig.-Gen. F. G. Guggisberg in Sept. 1919. By him extensive harbour works at Sekondi were projected and an extension of the railway from Tafo to Kumasi was being made in 1921.

On the outbreak of the World War the adjoining colony of Togoland was invaded by the Gold Coast Regt. under the command of Lt.-Col. Bryant. Lome, the capital, was abandoned without a struggle, the enemy retiring up the Lome-Atakpame railway in the direction of Kamina, the place in the interior where a gigantic wireless installation had been completed in the preceding July. On Aug. 28 the German force, after destroying the wireless installation, was compelled to surrender, their defeat being accomplished by the Gold Coast Regt., which had been joined a few days earlier by a platoon of French native troops. A larger French force arrived at Kamina a few days later. A provisional agreement for the immediate partition of Togoland between Great Britain and France was negotiated by Sir Hugh Clifford and by M. Nouffland, the lieutenant-governor of Dahomey, at Lome on Aug. 30, and was confirmed by their