Toko Atolia: An Anlo-Ewe Cultural Performance of Retributive Justice
Abstract
Most societies throughout history have instituted ways of dealing with criminals, including the penalty of death. How such a penalty is carried out or wherever it ought to be carried out at all is an ongoing discourse. My research provides an understanding of how cultural practices, such as capital punishments, emerge from a people’s worldview by focusing on one particular indigenous African execution practice called Toko Atolia. Toko atolia, now defunct, was practiced by an ethnolinguistic community in pre-mid nineteenth century Ghana – West Africa – known as the Anlo-Ewes. Toko atolia took the form of burying recalcitrant miscreants alive in a ritualized manner. Toko atolia has been judged barbaric by modern externally imposed notions of justice and punishment. I offer an appreciation of the worldview that shaped toko atolia, and argue, contrarily, that this seemingly barbaric practice makes sense within the worldview of the pre-mid nineteenth century Anlo-Ewes. My ethnographic fieldwork and archival research provide a wealth of perspectives from which I have developed an analysis of the relationship people today have with toko atolia. My research seeks to advance intercultural understanding by showing how externally imposed judgments overlook deeper meanings in cultural practices. (For example, how does America deal with external perceptions of its justice system, especially with regard to the now practice of lethal injection behind closed doors?)
Subject
Capital punishmentCultural Performance
Justice
Liminality
Oral literature
Ritual
Worldview
German-Bremen Missionaries
Africa
Ghana
Anlo-Ewe
Toko Atolia
Rev. Dr. F. K. Fiawoo
Citation
Sallah, Edudzi David (2020). Toko Atolia: An Anlo-Ewe Cultural Performance of Retributive Justice. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /191849.