Author: Ephirim-Donkor, Anthony
Title: African Spirituality : On Becoming Ancestors
Description: Trenton [NJ], Africa World Press, (1998). 2nd printing, orig.wrappers. 22x14cm, 181 pp.. Minor rubbing. VG. ¶ Focussing on the Akan people in Ghana as a resource for examining the overall conception of human development, this study is the first of its kind to concentrate on specific developmental processes of an African people from the ancestral world to the mundane and back to the ancestral world. From their beliefs concerning reincarnation, conception, birth, education, ethical existence and generativity, eldership and death, the Akan people have developed a sequence of culturally defined life stages. This paradigm is predicated on a theory of personality that has its ontological basis in God (Nana Nyame) and the primordial woman and her children that formed the original matrilineal community, the ebusua. This structural model utilizes myths and concepts, rites, dreams and elements that form the basis for human development among the Akan people. Applying the work of Erik Erikson and James Fowler, the author examines the vast, systematized and holistic Akan concept of personality" - from rear cover.

Keywords: African Religion, Akan Ethnography, Anthropology, West Africa, Sociology, Social Psychology, Ghana, Ethnology, Personality