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1 Notsie Narratives The town of Notsie (located in south-central Togo) evokes quite speci¤c memories among the Anlo and other Ewe-speaking peoples of southern Ghana and Togo. To most, the town is remembered as the common home of their Ewe ancestors, a place where a king ruled with tyrannical power, a location where this tyranny led to the great dispersal of Ewe-speakers throughout what is now southeastern Ghana and southern Togo. Ewe and non-Ewe alike draw upon these memories for a range of purposes. Historians study them as one of the few indigenous sources of early local history.1 Others have explored the importance of this exodus narrative as a charter for delineating what is deemed to be socially and politically acceptable behavior.2 Some argue that these memories explain why Ewe-speaking peoples have historically eschewed centralized political power,3 while still others deploy them to demonstrate the notion that the Ewe once were and could again be a power to be reckoned with. In the nineteenth century, however, Notsie meant something quite different . To the German missionaries who had begun working in the region after 1847, Notsie was a convenient way to conceptualize as simply as possible the historical origins of a very diverse collection of communities. To those Ewe and non-Ewe in the region who had to deal with these German conceptions , however, this understanding of Notsie was only vaguely familiar, for they had their own understandings of their individual histories,languages,cultures , and origins. Most recognized that the town had been important historically , especially as a religious center, but it was only one of many such centers. Equally signi¤cant is the fact that these local nineteenth-century notions obscured , in their own way, an earlier history that identi¤ed Notsie as a major economic center within the region not only for local residents but also for European traders operating on the coast in the mid-sixteenth century. Of particular interest in this chapter is the fact that despite these shifts in meanings and memories, Notsie has de¤ed the erosion of time.4 Its decline in political, economic, and religious signi¤cance by the eighteenth century; its colonization by Germany and then France in the early twentieth century; its post-colonial economic and geographical marginalization as a poor upcountry 14 town in the impoverished nation-state of Togo5 have done nothing to displace the cultural signi¤cance of Notsie in the minds of many in the region. This chapter explores the extent to which Notsie has served as a geographical site through which many Anlo and many others in southeastern Ghana and southern Togo de¤ne themselves. It examines the way memories and meanings associated with Notsie have been shaped by political, religious, and economic agendas. But perhaps more signi¤cant, it seeks to explain why this site has proven so powerful to so many for so long. I argue that Notsie existed in earlynineteenth -century Ewe memories as a ritual trace, a site of religious signi¤cance , but one of limited importance in the lives and imaginations of those in the region. It was this quality that made the site attractive for continuous rede ¤nition as a place of memory and meaning. PRE-COLONIAL NOTSIE NARRATIVES: FROM THE FIFTEENTH TO THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES Archaeological studies and the few documentary sources that mention the town indicate that Notsie was of major regional signi¤cance from at least the mid-¤fteenth century. During this period, the political leadership of Notsie began the construction of a wall that ultimately measured, even though it was never ¤nished, 14,450 kilometers at its perimeter and enclosed 14 square kilometers. It was not built for defensive purposes but rather was designed to symbolize the town’s status as a major economic power and ritual center within the region.6 Serving as a center of pottery production from the sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries, Notsie operated as a regional site for economic exchange.7 More important,Notsie was also where the shrine for the regional god Mawu existed and where its priest served simultaneously as political and religious head of the community. From the sources currently available , we cannot know how the people of Notsie conceptualized Mawu—as male, female, androgynous, as a lesser deity or the Supreme God.We do know, however, that others in the region believed Mawu to have great power. European traveler accounts from the seventeenth century indicate, for example...

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