The Hammers of Mawu: Ironworking Traditions in the Togo Hills,Ghana

This paper examines ironworking practices and traditions among the Mawu (Akpafu) and Lolobi communities of the northern Volta Region of Ghana. It compares them with other accounts gathered from published sources and observations made during fieldwork conducted in the 1970s. It describes the processes of mining, smelting, and tool manufacturing from reconstructions and oral histories and delineates the transformations that have been worked on the content of the tradition in the past 100 years. The narratives of the migrations of the Mawu, gleaned from their own elders, from ground surface evidence, and from written reports are considered in the context of archaeological and historical evidence from other parts of southern Ghana. The conventional picture of the movement of the Mawu/Lolobi communities is one of displacement by incoming groups, but the conclusion that they have been pushed within the past 150 years into the very district containing the greatest concentration of iron-rich deposits in this whole mountain area is given critical examination. It is likely that the Togo hills have been the site of ironworking for several centuries. It is, therefore, suggested that these communities may represent the distillation of a formerly more widespread set of such communities which existed wherever iron ore was to be found in southeast Ghana.