The Ewe people are a Gbe-speaking ethnic group primarily residing in southeastern Ghana and the southern half of Togo. They are also found across the southeastern boundary line in Benin, where they are related to the Fon people. The Ewe consist of several groups based on their dialect and geographic concentration, including the Anlo Ewe, Ʋedome (Danyi), Tongu or Tɔŋu. The Ewe people were formerly known as the Dogbo.
Map of the Ewe region in Ghana and Togo.
Origins and Migration
The Ewe people have not always lived in their present home. Their traditions recall a migration from the east - more precisely KETU, a YORUBA town in modern BENIN. Their traditions recall a migration from Oyo (now Old Oyo), and Ketu in Yoruba as their principal centers from where they migrated to occupy the land they inherit today. KETU is also called AMEDZOFE or MAWUFE in the accounts.
KETU was founded by the YORUBA people by the fourteenth century at the latest. In it lived besides the forebears of the EWE, the YORUBA and the ancestors of the AJA, FON, and GA-DANGME. It was the expansion of the YORUBA people that pushed the EWE and related peoples westward.
The migrants went to live at TADO in present-day TOGO from where they later dispersed in various directions. Some returned east to settle at ALLADA from where they founded the AJA kingdom of ALLADA, WHYDAH, POPO and JAKIN, and later the FON kingdom of DAHOMEY in the early eighteenth century.
Read also: Exploring Ethnic Groups in Ghana
The ancestors of the EWE went to live at NOTSIE, which was walled round. Here, the entire community known as DOGBOAWO lived together, each unit in its individual ward under its own head. All of them were ruled by the king of NOTSIE. The early kings ruled well and the kingdom expanded.
The Reign of Agokoli and the Great Escape
Trouble began when AGOKOLI ascended the throne. It is not clear whether he was the third or fifth king. Because of his harsh and tyrannical, rule the people decided to escape. During the flight from NOTSIE the fugitives divided into three major groups.
Broadly speaking, one group went to settle in the northern part of the new home. It founded the towns of HOHOE, MATSE, PEKI, KPANDO, AWUDOME, ALAVANYO, KPALIME, AGU, VE, KPEDZE and WODZE. The second group founded the settlements of HO, AKOVIE, TAKLA, KPENOE, HODZO, KLEVI, SOKODE, ABUTIA and ADAKLU. And the third group took the southern route and went to settle in the coastal region of the new homeland. It founded TSEVIE, BE - which later gave birth to AGOENYIVE, BAGIDA and LOME - TOGO, ABOBO, WHETA, ANLO, KLIKOR, AVE, FENYI, AFIFE, TSIAME, GAME, TAVIA, TANYIGBE, etc.
Later other peoples from the west, ACCRA, ELMINA, LEKPOGUNO and DENKYERA came to settle near and amidst them. The GA (from Accra) settled around GLIDZI, the ANE or MINA from ELMINA settled at ANEXO, the DANGME from LADOKU settled at ADANGBE, AGOTIME, while the DENKYERA settled among the TONGU, along the river VOLTA.
On the basis of evidence from these other sources it can now be stated that the dispersal into their new home must have occurred sometime during the early seventeenth century. It would appear that the area into which the EWE moved was not completely devoid of human habitation. But the original inhabitants were easily assimilated. The EWE penetrated their new homeland in a series of waves. Later, some groups broke away from the original settlements to found new ones. It was in this way that the area was filled up. The original settlements were few and dispersed. They took the form of villages consisting of small kinship groups.
Read also: Discover Egypt Sherrod's ethnicity
The people settled down and laid claim to all the land in the area. The land was parcelled out among the various families. With the growth of the population the prestige of the leaders increased. Apart from the chiefs that had existed in the days of the sojourn at NOTSIE other chiefs now emerged. These were mostly the original founders of villages.
The kind of chieftaincy that emerged was one of a constitutional head. The chiefs reigned rather than ruled, and their powers were effectively circumscribed by the elders whom they had to consult always.
Quite early chieftaincy became hereditary patrilineally either in two clans as in ANLO or two or three lineages as in PEKI, HO, NOTSIE or in individual lineages, which is the more widespread practice. Though the office was hereditary, yet within the particular lineage or clan it was elective. In course of time the original settlements expanded to become the individual states of present-day Eweland, some of which encompassed a number of towns and stretched over substantial land areas.
The names of the original nuclear settlements came to be applied to all the area occupied by the people originating from them. For example ANLO derived from ANLOGA the nuclear settlement and WATSI from NOTSIE. These states or DUKOWO varied in size from WODZE, which is a single city state to ANLO, which had 36 towns. In 1906, the North German missionary Jacob Spieth counted 120 of these.
The DUKOWO were independent of one another except by way of trade. Each DUKO considered itself an autonomous unit, however all acknowledged that they were all essentially one people. Some of these DUKOWO are the following. Along the coast going east away from the river Volta, are ANLO, BE, GE. Inland behind the coastal DUKOWO are PEKI, ADAKLU, TOVE, HO, KPANDO, WATSI etc.
Read also: WhatsApp Group Links - Morocco
Political Structure and External Relations
The EWE penetrated their new homeland in a series of waves. Later, some groups broke away from the original settlements to found new ones. It was in this way that the area was filled up. The original settlements were few and dispersed. They took the form of villages consisting of small kinship groups.
The EWE did not evolve a single all - encompassing state. A number of reasons account for this. Some were geographical, others were economic. Another crucial reason was that no single EWE DUKO was able to permanently impose its authority on the others and thereby create a unified state. For example, ANLO and GE tried to expand to attain boundaries that would ensure their political and economic survival, and also confer on them prosperity and political power. But both were operating at the same time and in the same restricted area, that is, the EWE coastal belt.
Foreign political and military intervention in the EWE territory also contributed to the inability of the EWE to evolve a single political unit. This contributed to the inability of either ANLO or GE to completely dominate the other and possibly the rest of EWELAND. The consequence of foreign intervention was generally to disorganise the territory and accentuate the division of the states.
In the period before the imposition of colonial rule over the EWE, the states that intervened in EWELAND were GRAND POPO, AKWAMU, DAHOMEY and the European state of Denmark. The intervention by GRAND POPO and DAHOMEY was inconsequential while that of the other two had a greater and more enduring impact.
From the late seventeenth century AKWAMU began to help ANLO in its wars with GE and more importantly those with ADA and other states west of the river VOLTA. A number of writers like WILKS, KEA and more recently GREENE and ACHEAMPONG have claimed AKWAMU hegemony over ANLO.
The AKWAMU-ANLO relationship was one of a politico-economic alliance. Through its alliance with ANLO AKWAMU was assured of regular supplies of salt and dried fish and the coastal markets to which she could take its slaves for sale. For its part ANLO was assured of military assistance. Since the late seventeenth century (1682) various witnesses and writers have testified to the persistence of this alliance. Despite the linguistic difference and the geographical separation between the two peoples, the AKWAMU-ANLO entente was to endure into the nineteenth century.
As a riposte to the ANLO-AKWAMU alliance, GE also found allies in the enemies of ANLO and AKWAMU, to wit, ADA, GA, AKWAPIM etc. The ANLO-GE conflicts occupied the closing years of the seventeenth and the best part of the eighteenth centuries. These conflicts derived from a clash of competing political and economic interests. They came to an end by the close of the eighteenth century. Neither state had succeeded in expanding permanently at the expense of the other, nor in absorbing it.
On the other hand it would appear that ANLO was generally more involved in its conflicts with its western neighbours. ANLO’s quarrels with these people - ADA, GA and AGAVE were mostly due to a clash of economic interests, squabbles over salt and fishing right in the VOLTA estuary and occasionally actual slave raiding. The economic rivalry aided and abetted by other factors led to a number of battles in which the ADA, AGAVE and GA were usually ranged against ANLO.
It was the signal defeat that ANLO inflicted on ADA on 26 October 1780 when it surprised ADA, defeated it and burnt the town that provided the background to a subsequent mobilization of forces against ANLO by the DANES in 1784. This was because the ANLO victory threatened the DANISH company which had built a commercial lodge at ADA and which was now trying to dominate the entire coast east of Accra.
Beginning from the 1780’s the DANES took advantage of the ANGLO-DUTCH war of 1780, which had weakened the DUTCH position on the GOLD COAST, to initiate a plan to establish their commercial dominance in the area east of Accra. This policy very quickly brought the DANISH company face to face with ANLO which, following its defeat of ADA, now controlled the VOLTA river.
In March 1784 the DANISH Governor of CHRISTIANSBORG secured a force among the GA, ADA, KROBO, AKWAPIM and GE all of whom had by then become traditional enemies of ANLO. An army of 4,000 troops heavily defeated ANLO. The people had to flee and seek refuge with WHETA and KLIKOR in turn. A number of ANLO towns were burnt. ANLO was made to sign a peace treaty which was initialed on 18th June 1784.
Under its provisions the DANES secured the right to build a fort at KETA and a free passage through ANLO. They also obtained the permission to set up a trading post at ANLOGA, the ANLO capital which had to be rebuilt. ANLO was made to give an undertaking not to trade with any European nation other than DENMARK, and not to take its canoes to sea. These stipulations amply demonstrated what the war had really been about. The terms of the treaty aimed at one thing - namely to make DANISH commerce predominant in the ANLO area. The construction of the fort began almost immediately afterwards.
The military defeat of ANLO proved to be a blessing in disguise politically because it served to bind some of the neighbouring EWE states to ANLO. The lessons of the war were not lost on them. The result was that other DUKOWO like DZODZE, KLIKOR, FENYI and WHETA began to identify themselves with ANLO and to regard it as their champion against foreign imperialism.
The beginnings of what emerged more clearly later as the ANLO Confederation or Greater ANLO can be dated to this period. The Danish victory of 1784 did not lead to any effective imposition of DANISH authority on ANLO. The invasion did not achieve a complete pacification of the country. In less than a decade the fragile DANISH position at KETA was made untenable.
The people of KETA were forced to flee to settle on land given them by the people of KLIKOR. Here they founded the state of SOME with its capital at AGBOSUME. From this time on the former people of KETA now the SOME ceased to be part of ANLO. BLEKUSU, about five miles east of KETA became the eastern boundary of ANLO. This secession of the former residents of KETA constituted one of the permanent political set-backs that ANLO suffered during the pre-colonial period. If ANLO suffered some loss of its territorial integrity during this phase, what happened to its rival to the east, GE was even worse.
Cultural Aspects
The Ewe people are notable for their fierce independence, and they have supported a decentralization of power within a village or through a large state. Decisions have been made by a collection of elders, and they have refused political support to wicked kings or leaders, after their experience with the powerful 17th century despot named Agokoli. Despite all their internal conflicts, they come together in times of war and external conflicts.
While the Ewe are patrilineal, women are traditionally the major merchants and traders, both at wholesale and retail level. Another notable aspect of Ewe culture, as stated by ethnologists such as Rosenthal and Venkatachalam, is their refusal to blame others, their "deep distress and voluntary acceptance of guilt" for their ancestors' role in the slave trade.
The Ewes have developed a complex culture of music, closely integrated with their traditional religion. This includes Ewe drumming.
MISAGO PERFORMED BY LEVEL 100 STUDENTS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EWE EDUCATION, UEW, AJUMAKO CAMPUS
Music and Dance
Ewe music has many genres. One is Agbekor, which relates to songs and music around war. Cross-rhythm drumming is a part of Ewe musical culture. In general, Ewe drums are constructed like barrels with wooden staves and metal rings, or carved from a single log. They are played with sticks and hands, and often fulfill roles that are traditional to the family.
Lyrical songs are more prevalent in the southern region. The Ewe have an intricate collection of dances, which vary between geographical regions and other factors. One such dance is the Adevu (Ade - hunting, Vu - dance). This is a professional dance that celebrates the hunter. Another dance, the Agbadza, is traditionally a war dance but is now used in social and recreational situations to celebrate peace.
The Atsiagbekor is a contemporary version of the Ewe war dance Atamga (Great (ga) Oath (atama) in reference to the oaths taken by people before proceeding into battle. The movements of this present-day version are mostly in platoon formation and are not only used to display battle tactics, but also to energize and invigorate the soldiers. The Atsia dance, which is performed mostly by women, is a series of stylistic movements dictated to dancers by the lead drummer. Each dance movement has its own prescribed rhythmic pattern, which is synchronized with the lead drum.
Agahu is the name of a dance as well as one of the many secular music associations (clubs) of the Ewe people of Togo, Dahomey, and in the south-eastern part of the Volta Region. Each club (Gadzok, Takada, and Atsiagbeko are other such clubs) has its own distinctive drumming and dancing, as well as its own repertoire of songs. A popular social dance of West Africa, Agahu was created by the Egun speaking people from the town of Ketonu in what is now Benin. From there it spread to the Badagry area of Nigeria, where inhabitants of the Ewe Settlement, mostly fishermen, heard and adapted it.
Gbedzimido is a war dance mostly performed by the people of Mafi-Gborkofe and Amegakope in the Central Tongu district of Ghana's Volta Region. Gota uses the mystical calabash drum of Benin, West Africa. Tro-u is ancestral drum music that is played to invite ancestors to special sacred occasions at a shrine. Sowu is one of the seven different styles of drumming that belong to the cult of Yewe, adapted for stage.
Religion
The sophisticated theology of the Ewe people is similar to those of nearby ethnic groups, such as the Fon religion. This traditional Ewe religion is called Vodun. The word is borrowed from the Fon language, and means "spirit". The Ewe religion holds Mawu as the creator God, who created numerous lesser deities (trɔwo) that serve as the spiritual vehicles and the powers that influence a person's destiny. This mirrors the Mawu and Lisa (Goddess and God) theology of the Fon religion, and like them, these are remote from daily affairs of the Ewe people.
The Ewe have the concept of Si, which implies a "spiritual marriage" between the deity and the faithful. It is typically referred to as a suffix to a deity. Christianity arrived among the Ewe people with the colonial merchants and missionaries. About 89% of the Ewe population, particularly belonging to the coastal urban area, has converted to Christianity.
Proverbs
A key aspect of Ewe culture is a philosophy about how to interpret and educate oneself through life's events. The Ewe traditionally pass on generational wisdom through proverbs, many of which aim to contextualize the cultural reverence of life-long education.
In the post-colonial era, the Ewe people have acquired renown among Africans for their pursuit of academia and higher education. Many Ewe people travel across the world to pursue their education at leading institutions, following the aforementioned cultural motivations to enhance their knowledge base, and status among other Ewes.
Language
Ewe, also written Evhe, or Eʋe, is a major dialect cluster of Gbe or Tadoid spoken in the southern parts of the Volta Region, in Ghana and across southern Togo to the Togo-Benin border by about three million people. Ewe belongs to the Gbe family of Niger-Congo.
Ewe dialects vary. Groups of villages that are two or three kilometres apart use distinct varieties. Nevertheless, across the Ewe-speaking area, the dialects may be broadly grouped geographically into coastal or southern dialects, e.g., Aŋlɔ, Tɔŋú Avenor, Watsyi and inland dialects characterised indigenously as Ewedomegbe, e.g., Lomé, Danyi, and Kpele etc.
Speakers from different localities understand each other and can identify the peculiarities of the different areas. Additionally, there is a written standard that was developed in the nineteenth century based on the regional variants of the various sub-dialects with a high degree of coastal content.
Ewe People: Key Facts
Here's a table summarizing key aspects of the Ewe people:
| Aspect | Description |
|---|---|
| Location | Southeastern Ghana, southern Togo, and parts of Benin |
| Language | Ewe (Gbe language family) |
| Origins | Traced to Oyo (Nigeria) and Ketu (Benin) |
| Religion | Traditional Vodun religion, with a significant Christian population |
| Political Structure | Decentralized, with independent communities and chieftaincy |
| Culture | Rich in music, dance, proverbs, and traditions |
Popular articles:
tags: #Ghana
