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The death of Adumissa: a suicide at Cape Coast, Ghana, around 1800

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 March 2021

John Parker
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Abstract

This article examines the history of voluntary death on the Gold Coast in present-day Ghana. Its focus is the suicide of a young woman named Adwoa Amissa (or Adumissa), who took her own life in dramatic fashion in the town of Cape Coast in the early nineteenth century. Adumissa killed herself in response to the earlier suicide of a thwarted suitor, who declared his own self-destruction to be ‘on her head’, thereby transferring the responsibility to her. These events, which were recorded by Sarah Bowdich, an English resident of Cape Coast in 1816–18, made Adumissa a legendary figure in the Fante region of the Gold Coast and beyond. Despite the interpretive complexities of Bowdich's text, two aspects of the episode reveal themselves as central to an understanding of its cultural context: the impact of the spoken word and the practice of aggressive ‘revenge suicide’ among the Akan and their neighbours. It is within this culturally meaningful and contingent framework that questions about Adumissa's emotional impulses, motivations and agency must be situated.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet article examine l'histoire de la mort volontaire dans la Côte de l'Or, l'actuel Ghana. Il se concentre sur le suicide d'Adwoa Amissa (ou Adoumissa), une jeune femme qui a mis fin à ses jours de manière dramatique dans la ville de Cape Coast au début du dix-neuvième siècle. Adoumissa s'est donné la mort en réponse au suicide d'un prétendant rejeté qui avait déclaré que son autodestruction retomberait sur elle, par là-même transférant la responsabilité sur elle. Ces événements, recueillis par Sarah Bowdich, une Anglaise résidant à Cape Coast de 1816 à 1818, ont fait d'Adoumissa une figure légendaire dans la région fanti de la Côte de l'Or et au-delà. Malgré les complexités interprétatives du texte de Bowdich, deux aspects de cet épisode se révèlent centraux pour comprendre son contexte culturel : l'impact de la langue parlée et la pratique du « suicide par vengeance » agressif chez les Akans et leurs voisins. C'est dans ce cadre culturellement significatif et circonstanciel qu'il convient de situer les questions sur les impulsions émotionnelles, les motivations et l'agentivité d'Adoumissa.

Type
Suicide in Ghanaian history
Information
Africa , Volume 91 , Issue 2 , February 2021 , pp. 205 - 225
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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