Introduction^{Footnote 1}

“May the congregational regulations (‘Gemeindeordnung’) (…) under God’s blessing fulfil its purpose, to contribute to the erection of our mission church on the Gold Coast, to plant and to care for Christian life, Christian mores, discipline, and order (…).”^{Footnote 2} In order to successfully establish a religious option in a context to which it initially is foreign, a missionary enterprise depends on a social group which can put this option into practice. Consequently a mission church can be seen as an institution which intends to act as the framework in the life-world for those individuals who have opted to adopt this new conception of the world, human nature, and God. One aspect of this framework is church law. It is a tangible manifestation of the said worldview, for it is informed by religious concepts and at the same time has a direct impact on the believer’s and his vicinity’s everyday life.

Thus sources documenting juridical practice can be treated as tangible manifestations of “worldviews” and “moral values.” At the same time they bear testimony to the potential collision between theological aspiration and the requirements of everyday life. As John Peel has shown, the latter are crucial in dealing with mission history because “there can be no adequate assessment of a mission’s religious impact without a prior analysis of the political setting in which it operated, and of the negotiations through which it established a local place for itself.”^{Footnote 3} This article argues that the nature of this negotiation process was shaped by the interdependence of the church and the society surrounding it, and that influences were therefore fundamentally mutual.^{Footnote 4} Such an approach shows the history of a mission church to be characterized by processes of transculturation. It aims to shed light on the way in which the church adapted to its surroundings by integrating certain aspects of the context and vice versa.^{Footnote 5}

The realm where these processes are realized is everyday practice at the grassroots level of the church. It is for this basic level of church and society alike that documents on juridical proceedings prove to be valuable sources.^{Footnote 6} I will focus on a document that provides information about case-related judicial practice, where interpersonal conflicts were negotiated, rather than on church law or ecclesiastical jurisprudence, as laid down in congregational regulations and the like.^{Footnote 7}

The case to be studied spans the period from 1911 to 1920. The chronicle of Nkoranza, a newly founded outstation of the Basel Mission on the northern perimeter of the metropolitan region of Ashanti in what today is central Ghana, will be examined in order to describe the juridical procedures in the church. This descriptive approach is warranted because neither this type of source shedding light on everyday practices in the world of local church-agents and adherents nor mission church law have received much scholarly attention,^{Footnote 8} even though reflections upon closely related topics mention it in passing.^{Footnote 9} This indicates a blind spot in academic accounts of the mission and/or colonial experience.

The Source

The chronicle of the Basel Mission outstation in Nkoranza^{Footnote 10} belongs to a genre of source that has hitherto been largely overlooked in African historiography. There are indications that similar documents must exist for many former mission fields within Africa.^{Footnote 11} Some, including this chronicle, have ended up in the European archive of a missionary society; others have been transferred to a university library or national archive,^{Footnote 12} but most are probably still lying in local church offices scattered across Africa.^{Footnote 13}

The “Chronicle of Nkoranza” contains entries of varying length written at irregular intervals between 1911, when the station was founded, and 1920. Besides a range of other topics^{Footnote 14} it addresses legal proceedings.

In the Basel Mission’s extraordinarily elaborate system of documentation, the chronicle was an official diary-like type of document in which “all important changes and events that affect the life of the station [or outstation] are briefly noted.”^{Footnote 15} Contrary to what the term may suggest, this was not to be done in retrospect but as soon as possible after the events.^{Footnote 16} The Nkoranza chronicle falls into the category “station records from Ghana” in the Basel Mission Archive’s repository. Apart from a few other station chronicles this category in the main contains copy-books and correspondence. The Nkoranza chronicle – the only document from this outstation – is one of few documents in this category that contain entries after 1917. It remains unclear how it came to be part of the Basel Mission Archive’s holdings.

The thin hardcover booklet measures about 22.5 by 17.5 centimeters. Although its back and binding are severely damaged and some pages are loose, all of the one hundred manually numbered pages remain complete. The cursive English writing on the lined pages is in most cases easily legible. Regarding grammar, vocabulary, and spelling the entries are written in broken English,^{Footnote 17} which hinders the understanding of certain passages. Here and there words and phrases are underlined in red ink or corrections have been inserted in pencil or in a different ink. It remains unknown who authored these alterations. However, their impact on the meaning of the passages under scrutiny here is only slight. The authors can in most cases be easily identified due to their handwriting and the fact that most entries are dated and signed. Evidently we are dealing with an original source.

Entries concerning journeys to other stations indicate that the chronicle was kept in Nkoranza while documenting the outstation’s impact on the surrounding countryside. The entries of the chronicle were written by Godfrid Nyantakyi, William P. Opare, S. Ammiesch Atta, and Henry Dokyi, the four catechists^{Footnote 18} who were consecutively stationed in Nkoranza. Additional authors were the missionaries Friedrich Adolf Jost, Adolf Lipps, and later on the ordained ministers C.E. Martinson and G. Agyakwa, all of whom were stationed in Kumasi at the time and conducted a visitation to Nkoranza on an approximately biannual basis.^{Footnote 19} Furthermore there were the catechists from the neighboring station of Sekodumase, who likewise recorded their activities while visiting Nkoranza.^{Footnote 20}

The source contains one (unintentionally) wrong date (on page 51), and at least one passage where entries most probably were consciously manipulated.^{Footnote 21} We also find that certain occurrences were purposely left out in the documentation.^{Footnote 22} In addition, some proceedings were only mentioned when the case was already being treated on appeal.^{Footnote 23} Although the outstation chronicle seems to hold the official renderings of cases conducted in church court, the description of most proceedings is patchy: often there is little if any account of the charge and/or deliberations; sometimes nothing but the verdict/decision is stated.

Chronicles served to record events on the station and at the same time as a means to control the local personnel.^{Footnote 24} In the Nkoranza document several resolutions and agreements were recorded. Given that these are referred to in later entries, the chronicle must have been used for reference in negotiations (e.g. with the local authorities or in judicial proceedings). Authored by several persons of various ranks in the church hierarchy, who most probably took note of the previous entries and perhaps also corrected them, the document constituted an inherent mechanism of control. This made it prone to distortion due to the need for an “appropriate” representation of events. Furthermore this implies (as is the case for court records of all sorts) that the cases were recorded as perceived by the officials of the institution that led the proceedings – in this case the Basel Mission church and its successors. Thus in the case against Jul[ius] Kwaku Koko due to his “unchristian behavior,” discussed below, it remains uncertain who raised the accusations, what this person’s motives were and whether the offences really occurred.

Equally we cannot be sure to what degree the testimony corresponded to the actual state of affairs. Rather the chronicle should be understood as one form of recounting, and thus “reconstructing,” that is relating, emphasizing, and omitting, real-life occurrences. Modulations in the account may have occurred either on purpose or as an unconscious reflection of a certain standpoint, both in the oral testimony of the accused and in the way the chronicler wrote it down. The source was entirely authored by mission church officials and therefore needs to be read against the background of a conviction that sees the spreading of Protestant Christianity among the “heathen” to be a righteous and important cause.^{Footnote 25} The financial resources for this task came from the congregations themselves and/or from the Basel Mission and its donors in Europe. In some parts – as was the case for the school in Nkoranza – the local authorities contributed to financing the infrastructure as well.^{Footnote 26} During the whole of the period documented the outstation at Nkoranza was in its early stages. The Basel Mission congregation clearly held a minority position within the Nkoranza population, and the catechists found themselves torn between local authorities and the church, between congregation and church establishment as well as between local religious concepts and Christian worldview.

Further contemporary documents that depict juridical practices on a grassroots level may be found in the surviving chronicles and diaries of other stations.^{Footnote 27} In the “Quartalsberichte” and “Jahresberichte”^{Footnote 28} which mission stations were obliged to send to the “Komitee” in Basel, the missionary in charge of a station reported those occurrences on the outstations under his auspices that from his point of view were of major interest. Lists of persons excluded and the causes may be found in certain parish registers.^{Footnote 29} Social norms of “Christian” behavior and the sanctions that came to be expressed in juridical practice were stipulated in the “Ordnung für die evangelischen Gemeinden der Basler Mission auf der Goldküste.”^{Footnote 30} This ordinance had been drafted by the “Komitee” in Basel, taking into consideration the amendments recommended by the personnel in charge on the Gold Coast. It was then translated into Twi and Ga, and was to be read to the congregations once a year.^{Footnote 31}

However, the following analysis shall describe practices taking place on the outstations, thus relating experiences of the adherents rather than depicting canonical requirements. My aim is to show the implications that legal proceedings had for the establishment of the outstation and its congregation.

Theoretical Framework

As a means to sharpen the structure of the analysis, I will employ the notions of the social group and small-group dynamics as a theoretical framework. This seems appropriate, for the congregation in whose context the document was produced consisted of less than twenty-five members who had a group specific hierarchy. Members cooperated, evinced a collective spirit, shared values, goals, interests and opinions as well as group-specific social norms that were backed by social control and sanctions.

As a tool to analytically arrange and relate the empirical data I will in particular draw on the model developed by Tuckman. This model postulates four consecutive phases in small-group behavior. The forming phase is defined as a phase of orientation. That means a situation where interpersonal and content-related boundaries are identified through testing with regard to pre-existing standards of hierarchy and behavior. In the subsequent storming phase interpersonal conflicts are understood to occur in response to this new group-situation. The model finds these conflicts to then be overcome in the norming phase by the modification of roles and thus to lead to a productive phase of performing.^{Footnote 32}

With regard to juridical issues and the creation of a congregation, the theoretical notions of group-specific standards, norms and sanctions are of particular interest as well as their supposed contribution to the integration and cohesion of the group, namely in situations of internal and external pressures.^{Footnote 33} The formative phase of the Nkoranza congregation in the 1910s can be characterized as such a situation. Yet, the interrelations with the context of the wider society in which it held a minority position are diverse. On the one hand the outstation was linked to its “parent organization,” the Basel Mission on the Gold Coast and its successors, and on the other it interacted with the surrounding society ‒ a context informed by Akan culture and worldviews, local religion(s) and Islam.

To explain the nature of the documented procedures I conceptualize “jurisdiction” and related terms in a rather broad sense. “Law” denotes all rules of action whose infringement leads to negative sanction by an authorized actor. With regard to social groups, sanctions are supposed to increase the effect of norms by reacting to specific actions and thereby creating conformity. For group members they have a regulatory as well as an orienting function.^{Footnote 34} In consequence jurisdiction is used here to designate situations where a person or collective body decides upon the actions of others by way of their authority and seeks to impose this decision through appropriate measures.^{Footnote 35} This in fact encompasses negotiating and resolving conflicts of all kind, taking decisions as well as attempting to prescribe norms and convert them into “morally correct” action.

Used as a theoretical lens, these theoretical tools show juridical practices as instruments to standardize members’ behavior, leading to the creation of the congregation as a small group and later contributing to its stabilization. They can therefore serve as a fruitful analytical framework in order to understand the establishment of the Basel Mission church as a new religious option.

The Basel Mission’s Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in Early Twentieth Century Ashanti

The activities of the Basel Mission on the then Gold Coast date back to 1828. While it met with little success in the early years, it expanded during the second half of the nineteenth century, but did not gain access to Ashanti until the British gained military control of the area in 1896. The Basel Mission’s station in Kumasi, founded in this year, had a total of twenty-two outstations by 1912, the northernmost being Nkoranza.^{Footnote 36} This outstation was founded in 1911, when the Basel Mission opened a school and stationed a teacher-catechist there.^{Footnote 37} By 1917 this outstation counted twenty-one members.^{Footnote 38} About twice a year it was visited by a missionary or minister from Kumasi. Towards the end of the First World War the Basel Mission’s European staff was either interned or expelled by the British colonial administration.^{Footnote 39} What was left behind was transferred to the custody of the United Free Church of Scotland, and during the 1920s gradually developed to become the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast, to a great extent independent of European missionary institutions. The years under scrutiny thus encompass the end of the Basel mission’s presence as well as the beginning of the transition towards the creation of an independent church structure. Apart from the Basel Mission the chronicle mentions only the Wesleyan Missionary Society’s activity in Nkoranza.^{Footnote 40}

The town of Nkoranza is situated 90 kilometers north of Kumasi, located on the old trade-route to Kintampo. Nkoranza was the capital of the state of the same name, which roughly took up the area that eventually became central Brong-Ahafo-Region. In the first half of the eighteenth century it became a tributary to the rapidly expanding Asante Empire and developed to be a dominant actor in the Empire’s northern hinterland.^{Footnote 41} Situated at the border of the metropolitan region, Nkoranza had the status of an inner province for most of the nineteenth century. Nkoranza’s supreme political as well as juridical authority was the Nkoranzahene, whose resolutions were directly subject to the Asantehene’s court as the next and paramount authority.^{Footnote 42} After a long period of close affiliation with the central authority in Kumasi political relations became increasingly tense by the end of the nineteenth century.^{Footnote 43}

Unfortunately statistical data about this type of settlement is very scarce. For the nineteenth century Wilks estimates for a district of this type a population of up to 100,000 people. Nkoranza town by then presumably had several thousand inhabitants (the number is to be estimated between 5,000 and 15,000).^{Footnote 44} Due to commercial contact with the northern regions a considerable number of Muslims lived in Nkoranza. As in Kumasi and Kintampo they inhabited the zongo, a separate quarter populated by predominantly Muslim migrants. Until 1927 juridical authority in the Kumasi zongo lay with the respective heads of the ethnic groups, who applied a combination of Muslim and so-called customary law.^{Footnote 45}

In the Asante political hierarchy each administrative unit was responsible for its own juridical affairs: “The authorities of the larger units interfered only when the affairs of the smaller unit touched the larger.”^{Footnote 46} Parallel to this, the Asante legal system knew two categories of offences: efisεm (“household cases”) on the one hand, and oman akyiwade (“taboos or things hated by the tribe”)^{Footnote 47} on the other. The first category consisted of offences such as theft (including adultery), slander, assault, debt, and cases regarding property. This type of case was judged by the head of the lineage in question (the elder), who had to settle the matter by arbitration. The basic aim was to reconcile the parties, and restore amicable relations. Compensation was claimed from the culprit, and paid to the injured party. While these cases affected relations between individuals, the second category comprised all those offences that posed a threat to the community as a whole because they threatened to estrange the ancestors or gods. Offences that fell under this category were murder (including suicide), certain sexual offences, treason, cowardice, witchcraft, and offences against the chief.^{Footnote 48} Offenders of this type in theory were sentenced to death. However, except for homicide cases this penalty was transmutable into a fine.^{Footnote 49} The only way to transfer private cases to the chief’s court was by swearing an oath.^{Footnote 50}

In the territories under British colonial rule a dual legal system was introduced which remained in force until 1940. This policy was based upon the Native Administration Ordinance, which had been proclaimed in 1878. Apart from a revision in 1883 this ordinance saw no substantial amendments until 1927. Local authorities (the chiefs and their councils) retained much of their juridical influence due to the division into central and local government. Major crimes such as murder or arson as well as judgments that the British perceived as breaching “natural justice” were to be brought before British officials. Other crimes of violence and offences against property, as well as all cases concerning marriage, birth, death and inheritance were to be treated by “Native Courts,” which were understood to apply “customary law.”^{Footnote 51} This constellation led the British and the “local” juridical systems to become increasingly interwoven, much to the advantage of British authority.^{Footnote 52}

The Basel Mission’s “Gemeindeordnung” of 1902 sees the position and nature of church discipline as follows:

However, in cases (such as murder) that fell under the jurisdiction of both church and state, both were applied independently of one another (§162).

Church discipline distinguished “severe offences” (“schwere Vergehen”) from “sinful habits” (“sündhafte Gewohnheiten”) such as “gluttony, drinking, (...) wastefulness, idleness (‘Arbeitsscheu’), irreconcilability” (§165). Moreover, failing to attend a service, failing to pay church taxes, or improper behavior towards church officials belonged to the second category. Cases of this type were to be treated by the clergyman (“Seelsorger”) responsible – in this case it was the catechist of Nkoranza – and his presbyters.^{Footnote 54} This was done by way of “instruction (‘Belehrung’) in accordance with the word of God” (§152) in order to “better those who stray from the path (‘unordentlich Wandelnde’)” (§166). Catechists had the competence to exercise all tasks of pastoral care and administration of the congregation. This also comprised the issue of reprimands. However, they were not entitled to administer the sacraments, nor to excommunicate offenders from the church.^{Footnote 55} Hence severe cases were to be transferred to the “Lokalpresbyterium.” Apart from the catechist and presbyters this organ comprised the missionaries and/or ordained ministers responsible for the respective outstation (§18, 23). The “Lokalpresbyterium” conducted preliminary investigations, heard witnesses and issued the increasingly severe penalties cited above. In contrast, the category of “severe offences” consisted of cases such as willful participation in local religious practices, witchcraft, infraction of the Basel Mission’s marriage restrictions as well as sexual offences, adultery, perjury, murder, robbery, and the like.^{Footnote 56} After preliminary investigation by the local agent offences of this type were to be brought directly before the “Presbyterium,” and were normally to be sanctioned by exclusion from the church. The latter had to be proclaimed by a missionary or an ordained minister. Readmission was possible, but only after the ex-member was able to prove his righteous life-style, and not earlier than one year after exclusion. Cases were treated by the “Presbyterium” of the member’s congregation, and its sanctions retained validity even if the person moved to another station (§163).^{Footnote 57}

Juridical Practices I: Overview of Church-Internal Jurisdiction

To begin with, accounts of “juridical practices” had to be identified in the source. In accordance with the concept described above, I built up a corpus consisting of passages where a person or collective body passed judgment on the actions of others or sought to impose their decision by virtue of their authority. On the one hand the entries of this corpus were encoded according to a code-system which specifies the organs responsible for conducting the case, the “aims,” “topic or problem” in question and the “sanctions/decisions” taken. This code-system and its terminology were derived from the material itself, while the focus of this process was roughly guided by a small set of preliminary questions, such as: Who decides? About whom? Based upon what sets of knowledge? What are the consequences? Where does this authority derive from? On the other hand the entries were grouped according to the person in question to form “cases” that sometimes extended over a period of several years.

This approach eventually laid bare three political spheres of influence: (1) Church and congregation; (2) Church and local authority; (3) Church and British administration. The first – the inner ecclesiastical – sphere is concerned with members’ or prospective members’ behavior and church internal questions or conflicts. Most of the corpus’ relevant content can be attributed to this sphere, and it will be the focus of this article. The second sphere (that of local jurisdiction) took place at the “Omanhin’s court”^{Footnote 58} when church members or officials were concerned.^{Footnote 59} This sphere is instructive in order to characterize the scope of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, its relations with and dependence on local jurisdiction.^{Footnote 60} The third sphere is concerned when church members were affected by decisions within the realm of the British administration’s juridical authority or when the church objected to verdicts pronounced by the local jurisdiction, and filed a complaint to the British officials concerned.^{Footnote 61}

To gain an overview of the content of church-internal jurisdiction and to bring out the changes within it the twenty events reported between 1911 and 1915 were compared to the thirty-six entries from 1916 to 1920. Even though concurrent with a leap in the number of official church members this caesura is an arbitrary, purely heuristic one. Content-wise there is no rupture but rather a gradual change in focus.^{Footnote 62} However, the growth may be seen to account for the increasing number of entries in the second five years: more people were affected by church law and the growing congregation may have yielded potential for additional conflict.

During the first five years “proper” marriage was the most prominent question. After 1915 the absolute number of marriage-related entries stayed approximately the same and hence the topic decreased in its relative importance. This fact might be accounted for by the assumption that after a period of some years the congregation comprised a “stock” of families formed in accordance with the church regulations. Consequently divorce/dissolution of polygamous or “improper” marriages would affect new members only.^{Footnote 63} In contrast, cases that directly touch upon a member’s absence during church services and other church activities were marginal before as well as after 1915. However the lack of financial support for the church in terms of church taxes, Sunday offerings, and labor increase in the second five-year period. They are mentioned about as often as marriage-related questions. What increases, however, are interpersonal conflicts. They come to form the most prominent topic documented in the five years after 1915. The change in focus becomes even more explicit if we analyze the aims of the cases, where two topics are prevalent: (re-)acceptance to or exclusion from the church on the one hand and labor for or financial support of the church on the other. The first was mainly pursued by (potential) members, the latter mainly by church officials.

The increasing number of finance- and labor-related entries occurs at the same time as the effects of the First World War forced the congregations on the Gold Coast to become financially self-sustained, and caused the Basel Mission’s withdrawal from the Gold Coast. Apart from the school – for the financing of which the church and the local authorities were jointly responsible – the growth of the congregation brought with it the need for further, strictly church-related and more elaborate infrastructure. Enterprises such as the transformation of the chapel from a temporary structure to a clay-walled building demanded additional financial resources. Both of these developments increased the financial pressure on the congregation and thus may have become an additional source of conflict.

A comparison of the sanctions (negative as well as positive) that were applied before and after 1915 shows that the absolute number of exclusions and (re-)acceptance stays the same in the first and the second five-year period.^{Footnote 64} Therefore they both decline in relative importance. In about one third of the entries the final taking of a decision is postponed, usually in order to transfer the case to the next stage (staffed with ordained personnel). In the second five-year period new sanctions were applied: deadlines and suspension from the Eucharist^{Footnote 65} were imposed, the latter being a soft version of excommunication. Additionally the code “further sanctions” becomes more relevant. These findings indicate a tendency towards a more nuanced and diversified set of sanctions. Further, the payment of fines and damages is also documented more often during this period.

The chronicle reports catechists, missionaries, ministers, and assemblies or “meetings”^{Footnote 66} to be decisive in inner-ecclesiastical legal debates. In the years after 1915 the meeting becomes ever more important, and is mentioned as often as catechists, missionaries, and ordained ministers. In this later period two conferences held in Kumasi in 1916 and 1920 as well as the post of the “elder” or presbyter appear in the decision-making structure.

Legal practice corresponded to the two stages of appeal formally prescribed by the “Gemeindeordnung.” The roles of catechists, missionaries/ministers and meetings (including presbyters) must be seen as an ensemble and their decision-taking understood as a process. Yet Nkoranza was such a small congregation that we may assume that the decisive organ on second stage, at least until 1915, comprised the catechist and the visiting missionary only. Along with the structural transformation in favor of the Presbyterian system implemented by United Free Church of Scotland this would explain the rapid rise in the number of “meetings” after 1916.

Juridical Practices II: Three Illustrative Cases

“Marriage,” “exclusion,” and in-group “conflict” will now be illustrated by exemplarily discussing three of the more extensively documented cases.

(1) Marriage palaver:^{Footnote 67} On 20 April 1916 Catechist Samuel Oko^{Footnote 68} notes that he has settled a “marriage palaver”^{Footnote 69} between Alice Akosua Begyei and Boakye. Further he writes that although it was “well arranged” by the family, “this marriage cannot be allowed” by the church. Being a Christian, Alice is forbidden by the Church Regulations to marry Boakye, because he is a “Mohammedan.” Three months later the case is examined anew, this time by the Minister C.E. Martinson when he passes through Nkoranza on his visitation journey. It appears that, despite the prohibition, the two have become engaged in the meantime. Martinson states, however, that this occurred against the will of the bride,^{Footnote 70} and that “she is not yet of age to live with her betrothed husband as a man and wife.” Therefore he allows her and her uncle Joseph Badu “time to think about this case” until the next visitation. Only after that may further measures be taken. This occurs on 8 December 1916, when Missionary Jost issues an ultimatum: “I gave [Joseph] Badu 3 months and 3 weeks (...) to settle everything to our satisfaction, otherwise he and [Alice] Begyei will be excluded from the congregation.” In the meantime the restriction on possible spouses is discussed in the Presbyterian Conference in Kumasi.^{Footnote 71} During Jost’s next visit on 23 April 1917 Alice Begyei and her uncle Joseph Badu are excluded because he has taken no action to prevent her marriage, which was held in January 1917.

Stretching over a period of more than a year, this “marriage palaver” shows the successive stages of appeal. The case starts with the catechist’s complaint and warning and passes in a second step, to the minister, who first attempts to attain an arrangement in conformity with church regulations in a more or less peaceful manner by the issue of an ultimatum. The case then culminates in the exclusion of those “convicted” by the responsible missionary after the ultimatum has run out. This is one of the very rare cases in which a written corpus of regulations is explicitly referred to.^{Footnote 72} The events described here also contrast with a case where a Christian man married a “heathen” woman “according to native custom”^{Footnote 73} which did not lead to exclusion. On the contrary, three and a half years later, the wife was enrolled as a candidate for baptism.

(2) “Christian” and “unchristian” behavior:^{Footnote 74} One of the most extensively documented cases is the proceedings leading to the exclusion of Jul[ius] Kwaku Koko:^{Footnote 75}

This entry shows how the proceedings were conducted.^{Footnote 83} To start with, a meeting had to be announced and the necessary witnesses had to come from their place of residence to Nkoranza. Charges were then pressed. In this case the charges mainly concern “deliberate participation in idolatry and participation in heathen celebrations and ceremonies,”^{Footnote 84} but nothing is mentioned about the identity of the prosecutor(s). After that follows the comment of the defendant and the witnesses. In this case a partial confession of guilt could only be extracted after declaration of the potential penalty (exclusion). The available sources do not permit us to assess how justifiable the charges were. But it is clear from Jul[ius] Kwaku Koko’s confession (b) that an individual’s attempt to behave in accordance with the group-specific requirements became problematic when these contradicted what was expected in the broader social context.^{Footnote 85} In this case restrictions specific to the church affected practices necessary for the appropriate handling of a given situation in terms of local religious practice. The defense Jul[ius] Kwaku Koko offered suggests that the Christian tried to avoid sacrificing a sheep, being aware of the fact that doing so was prohibited by church regulations. He is depicted as being knowledgeable about other characteristics of “Christian behavior” (He “knows [how] to speak the language of the scripture”). Nevertheless, it seemed important enough to him – and probably even more important to his social environment – to ignore these restrictions. This stands parallel to the funeral rites he conducted and the medicine he resorted to. The attempt to reconcile the “forbidden” with the “necessary” failed, provoked negative sanctions and thus was recorded for posterity. We may suspect that this is just the tip of the iceberg and that a number of attempts were more successful, going unnoticed.

(3) We find an illustration of conflicts that seem to arise primarily from negotiating hierarchies and competences within the group in Reverend Agyakwa’s entry dating from 30 May 1920.^{Footnote 86} It states that Johanes Adamu was appointed to act as presbyter by the church but the congregation did not accept him as such. He complains about two members, Imm[anuel] Appia and Emm[anuel] Kw[a]k[u] Koko, who prevent him from carrying out his duties as a presbyter and do not acknowledge his authority.^{Footnote 87}

Apart from the conflict about status and hierarchy, two further aspects deserve our attention: if “revealing the secret[s?] of the congregation” to the non-Christian outside world is sanctioned, this at least indicates the explicit demarcation of group-specific knowledge. The formulation, however, also hints at an interesting parallel to Akan concepts of secrecy. It may well document a form of transculturation in which the Christian church, in the process of establishing a local congregation, implements and thus integrates aspects of Akan politico-religious strategies of control.^{Footnote 92}

Another instance of transculturation can be observed in the application of fines. We find here a complex and tense relationship between imported Protestant and local concepts, in which the former eventually adapted to the latter. While in the (non-Christian) context penance was regarded as an appropriate sanction, the “Gemeindeordnung” explicitly denounces it. This was not merely a question of proper and/or effective legal practice within the church but was intrinsically linked to the discussion of what was to be seen as the proper understanding of Christianity. Thus four years earlier in his annual report about Kumasi and its outstations Missionary Jost complained to Basel “that even the best staff tended towards legalism in their understanding of Christianity.” He illustrated this by an incident at the outstation Sekyedomase where during their visit Minister Martinson and Presbyter Karikari found an “entry in a notebook – not, be it noted, in the station chronicle” that listed fines for the consumption of schnapps, public and domestic quarreling, violation of secrecy, slander, and the like.^{Footnote 93} For 1918 the “Chronicle of Nkoranza” documents the payment of compensation in personal conflicts between church members^{Footnote 94} and as compensation in the case of “divorce”^{Footnote 95} in 1915. As an exception to the church’s general disapproval, the 1902 revision of the “Gemeindeordnung” incorporated the payment of compensation in cases concerning the termination of polygamous spousal arrangements, which was a prerequisite to become a church member. This amendment was justified in terms of conforming to “local custom” (“Landessitte”).^{Footnote 96} However, the mere existence of the list, Minister Agyakwa’s report on the conflict, as well as the fact that Catechist Opare in 1917 mentioned fines for neglected congregational labor (asafo dwuma)^{Footnote 97} indicate that de facto they were part of the church’s juridical practice, at least on the first stage. Furthermore, by the later years they seem to have been applied officially to sanction directly church-related infringements. Apart from the intensified monetarization experienced in these years this suggests that with the church’s growing independence from Basel Missionaries this type of sanction increased. Or else, it had been practiced all along but was (wilfully) omitted in the chronicle entries of the earlier years. The fact that the list of fines was found in a separate notebook may lend credence to the latter hypothesis.

The Social Function of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction – An Interpretation

The analysis shows that the church’s juridical practice at the grassroots level did not consist of the application of a written corpus of rules;^{Footnote 98} nor did it quote precedents. Instead, the regulation of a Christian lifestyle seems to have been anticipated implicitly in practice. In consequence the chronicle does not provide (theological) arguments or explanation of the content of church-law or church-jurisprudence. However, the content and development of the jurisdiction described above can be understood as a process of the formation of a small group: behavior is regulated and standardized by law, which thereby demarcates a group. Thus church law could act as a mechanism that identified the Basel Mission Christians as a distinct social entity. The following interpretation of the findings uses the model and terminology suggested by Tuckman.

In an initial phase, marriage in conformity with church regulations is found to be of central concern to the inner-church jurisdiction. Apart from theological concerns we may assume that by controlling marriage, the church hoped to gain influence over what was potentially a Christian family.^{Footnote 99} The preoccupation with monogamous marriage and the restriction of potential spouses to a specific group of persons marked a contrast with the practice in the non-Christian context and thus indicated a demarcation. Marriage thus constituted a practice of formally creating Christian groups and at the same time performing “Christianness” by putting prescribed moral values into practice. Juridical proceedings regarding marriage can be read as the individual testing of behavioral standards which in the theoretical model characterize a group’s forming phase.^{Footnote 100} This concerns marriage-related obligations of the Christian realm on the one hand and of the broader non-Christian social context on the other.^{Footnote 101} The church aimed to achieve conformity by exclusion in cases of infringement of the set boundaries and by inclusion where the standards were lived up to. Thereby a person’s status with regard to the Basel Mission community was unambiguously defined and symbolically enacted.^{Footnote 102} This led to the creation of a distinct group that was discernible from the outside as well as from within. The case of a bigamist Wesleyan who was regarded by the non-Christians as a Basel Mission member^{Footnote 103} shows that perceptions on both sides were of importance: he was sent away so that he would not set a bad example to the congregation. Still, only after there is an existing group can one really attempt to implement group-specific moral values and norms by imposing such sanctions.

My analysis has shown that after a while a different set of questions becomes pressing: How is the group that had been built by now to be organized? Those responsible for the control of practice in conformity with the group’s regulations gain their authority from their specific role within the group: the power of the catechist stems from his in-depth knowledge about members’ everyday life and habits, while by contrast itinerant missionaries and ministers seem to gain theirs from the symbolically effective acts of inclusion (baptism), participation (administering the Eucharist), and exclusion. With regard to the organs that are part of decision-taking the results imply that the growth of the congregation went along with a growth and differentiation in infrastructure – not only in facilities but also in terms of personnel.^{Footnote 104} Negotiation about status, roles, and responsibility for this infrastructure went along with severe political and economic changes and constraints within the church. All of these factors seem to have fuelled personal conflicts. Correspondingly the content of juridical proceedings shifted towards financial issues and a refusal of work.^{Footnote 105} Towards the end of the period under scrutiny the Basel Mission congregation of Nkoranza thus shows tendencies that characterize a storming phase where theory understands the group to negotiate its internal structure and to start to develop new forms and standards as a transition towards a norming phase. The consolidation of the application of fines may be understood in the light of this concept.

Influence and Dependence – Some Tentative Thoughts

Compared to the population of Nkoranza town and its surrounding settlements, the Basel Mission congregation was a very small and rather dispersed minority. Still the findings in the chronicle indicate that the catechist enjoyed privileged access to the Omanhene. The reasons for this may well be similar to the ones given by Peel with regard to the Yoruba: first, gaining allies in regional struggles for power, in the case of Nkoranza as allies against Asante.^{Footnote 106} Second, the search for “cultural enhancement,” here the establishment of a school. And third, gaining access to a “source of white man’s power.”^{Footnote 107} However, let me end with some observations on the need for more detailed examination of the law-related inter-dependence between mission stations and their context.

In second-layer cases (church and local authorities) the source refers to the Omanhene, his council, and the Queen Mother rather than some subordinate authority. At the same time the areas of inner-church jurisdiction seem to correspond to the content of the “household cases.” Structurally presbyters, catechists, missionaries, and/or ordained ministers would thus for Basel Mission members fulfil the role of the corresponding officials in the local jurisdiction.^{Footnote 108} By contrast, the “oath matters” indicate that in offences concerning the Omanhene Christians were as accountable to him as was anyone else.^{Footnote 109} This fact suggests that Christian law was to a great extent obliged to operate within the framework of the context’s juridical concepts. These in turn are closely linked to concepts of the community and thus affect the small-group identity and its relations to the wider society.^{Footnote 110} In such a setting only more severe restrictions (prohibit what had hitherto been allowed) and/or additional demands to be observed by members could be used as markers to identify the group. The marriage restrictions fall into the former category, while the Sunday offerings and church fees, participation in church activities and church labor belong to the latter.^{Footnote 111} This may explain why this document contains only a relatively small range of topics of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.^{Footnote 112}

A second form of dependence has already been indicated in the conflict concerning secrets and the fines: inner-church practices are formed according to pre-existing (non-church) concepts. To what extent this was the case can be traced by an analysis of where terms and practices applied at the grassroots of ecclesiastical jurisdiction originate from – or by illuminating in which context and under what circumstances projects to amend an ecclesiastical juridical corpus, such as the 1902 revision of the “Gemeindeordnung,” were undertaken.^{Footnote 113} Reactions to the changes perceived by European Basel Mission staff who were allowed to return to the Gold Coast after 1923 would equally be of interest. Furthermore the mission church and its successor were linked to their context by the mere fact that church members were in one way or another involved in non-group practices and conceptions: There were structural links, as in the “oath-matters,”^{Footnote 114} and Christian and local worldviews seem to have been effective simultaneously.^{Footnote 115}