This paper deals with certain aspects of a Christian congregation in a kingdom of southern Ghana, in particular its growth over the past 150 years and the part it plays in the lives of the people of the capital town of the state. Most studies of the development of Christianity in Africa deal with questions of religious ideology (especially that of the conflict between different systems of belief), of conversion, and of the growth of syncretist and separatist movements. Here I am concerned with the development of a Christian congregation that is neither syncretist nor separatist and with its place as one element of a total local religious system which includes other faiths. It is the local congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in the town of Akuropon, the capital of the eastern Akan kingdom of Akuapem, in the Akuapem Hills that lie some twenty-five miles north of Accra, the national capital. The state has a resident population of about 70,000 and the town one of some 6000. However, the number of people who, wherever they live, regard themselves as Akuroponfo, ‘people of Akuropon’, probably amounts to some 20,000. Those who live elsewhere return to the town when they can at weekends, Christmas, Easter, and the great annual purificatory festival of Odwira, held in September or October; and most hope finally to return to their ‘home-town’ (as it is known in Ghana) to be buried. Although not a large town, it is known widely as the seat of the main educational facilities of the Presbyterian Church since the arrival of the Basel Mission in the then Gold Coast in 1828. Due largely to this fact it has provided more than its share of political, educational and other leaders of Gold Coast and Ghanian society.

In the present paper we shall describe the ways in which dreams are regarded by the members of a West African religious sect and explain how dreams figure in the social organization of the sect. Our point of departure will be largely sociological, and in this respect our study differs from most anthropological writings on dreams. The dream narrations which we are considering arise as much out of the social organization of the sect as from the psyche of the individuals. Furthermore, the narrations are public performances and are evaluated by members of the sect for the purpose of situating each other within the community of church members. The narrations are used by church members to demonstrate the depth of their religious commitment and to assist them in competing for key roles within the church. Thus dreams are important as indicators of a person's worth and as instruments of social mobility. Following Charsley's treatment of dreams in a Ugandan independent church we will not focus on the use of dreams as a ‘privileged channel of insight into the culture’ (1973: 244), although the themes and symbols which are described in the narratives can indeed reveal much about the beliefs of church members and suggest ways in which their beliefs might guide their behaviour. It is appropriate to discuss some of these themes and symbols en route to our objective, and in doing so it will be possible to shed some light on the teachings of the sect and on the mentality of many of its members. It is important to state, however, that the primary data of this study are not accounts of dreams such as those that might be told privately to an analyst or an ethnographer. Rather they are mostly accounts which people present in public at church services. They are sometimes retold, embellished and circulated throughout the community of church members. Thus the data are speech events which are often used instrumentally by the narrator, sometimes for the purpose of ennobling the self and sometimes for the purpose of praising the sect. This means that one would have to question the authenticity of the narratives if one were to use them as windows into the minds of church members. We are on safer ground if we view the narratives of dreams as public performances which are patterned in accordance with the expectations of the church community and which have an effect on social action within that community.

Students of Europe's contact with Africa have long regarded the Christian missions in the ancient kingdom of Kongo as a peculiarly potent symbol. For some the conversion and subsequent reign of Afonso I in the first half of the sixteenth century were a momentary aberration, a false dawn quickly to be obscured by the realities of the exploitation associated with mercantile capitalism and the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade. For others, the story of these missions has merely served to illustrate the continuing inviolability of indigenous traditions. Kongo society, it is argued, accepted only a thin veneer of Christianity, while its basic cosmology, practices and beliefs remained unchanged.

L'histoire religieuse de l'Imerina rural, après la réouverture au christianisme qui eut lieu sous le règne de Radama II, en 1861, peut être divisée en trois périodes. De 1861 à 1868, un développement sans caution royale, de 1869 à 1876, un développement précipité, sous l'effet du baptême protestant de la reine et du premier ministre; de 1876 à 1895, un ‘unanimisme’ de façade, cachant mal de nombreuses divergences entre les groupes missionnaires et leurs fidèles, entre les missionnaires L.M.S. eux-mêmes, enfin entre population rurale et notables des églises.

The Ibibio live in the south-eastern part of Nigeria and according to the 1963 census number more than two million. They are patrilineal and patrilocal (Forde and Jones 1950). They are mainly agrarian and petty traders and their main export, palm oil and kernels, is seriously declining, especially as more attention is focused on drilling for crude oil in the area.

Monica Hunter Wilson died on 26 October 1982. Born of missionary parents at Lovedale, Eastern Cape Province, she studied history and anthropology at Girton College, Cambridge. She had early connections with the International African Institute, being one of the distinguished group of scholars whose African fieldwork was sponsored by the Institute in the 1930s (others included Meyer Fortes, Hilda Kuper, S. F. Nadel, Margaret Read and Godfrey Wilson). Her first fieldwork, among the Pondo of South Africa, took place 1931 to 1933; the other major fieldwork, among the Nyakyusa of south-west Tanzania, was done 1935 to 1938, with a re-visit in 1955. In 1935 she married Godfrey Wilson, with whom she collaborated on field studies and publications, until his death while serving in the army, in 1944