The Ewe-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa

Record summary

A. B. Ellis’s The Ewe-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa records religious concepts, deities, origin traditions, ritual specialists, and social customs in the late nineteenth century. The work is relevant to folklore comparison because it documents traditions later discussed under names such as Vodun and explores links and distinctions across communities divided by colonial borders. It also illustrates the period’s tendency to arrange living religious systems as mythology. The geographical reach of Ellis’s informants and the accuracy of his translations are uncertain and should be tested against Ewe-language research.