Amedzofe
Coordinates: 6 ° 51 ' N , 0 ° 26' E
 
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The location of Amedzofe in Ghana |
Amedzofe , historically also Amedschowe , Amedshove or in similar spellings, is a city in the Volta region in the southeast of today's Ghana . The place is considered the original seat of the Avatime , one of the so -called Remnant Togo peoples , and is located at the foot of the Gemi mountain, a rocky hill that belongs to the Avatime mountain range of the same name, which forms part of the Akwapim-Togo chain . In the past, the Gemi was considered a defensible, natural fortress. In the 1670s and thereafter, Ewe groups immigrated to the area and settled here permanently.
The area around Amedzofe belonged to the German colony of Togo at the latest after the German-British border agreement from 1890 to 1914 . Before that, the Avatime were politically subordinate to the King of Peki.
The name of the village has a religious meaning. In the religion of the avatime, Amedzofe is the name of a place that could be described as the “place of origin” or the “soul home”. It is precisely with this meaning that Amedzofe has found its way into the Ewe religion, because Amedzofe is one of several names that are synonymous with Mawuwe (“Kingdom of God”, literally: “Mawu's home”). Another name for Mawuwe would be z. B. Tsiewe ("Realm of Spirits"). All of these designations identify one and the same thing.
The fact that religious elements of a resident population have found their way into the religious world of the immigrants indicates a more or less peaceful reception, which immigrant groups of the Ewe once experienced in the Avatime mountains.
It was not least due to this religious importance attached to the place and its neighboring mountain that in the past Ashantine armies left mostly mountain towns like Amedzofe unmolested on their campaigns east of the Volta .
The Basler Missionsgesellschaft operated a mission station in Amedzofe in the second half of the 19th century, which was sometimes referred to as the Amedzofe mountain station or Amedzofe health station, as a missionary doctor was also active here. In the basement of the main building of the station, there was also a primary school where lessons were taught in the Ewe language. The station was taken over by the North German Mission Society in the 1880s .
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View from the Gemi to Amedzofe, 1892/1893
Amedzofe, 1892/1893
In front of the mission station, 1892/1893
The chief of Amedzofe and his entourage in the village square, 1892/1893
View from the Amedzofe mission station to the Gemi, 1892/1893
Amedzofe: On the way to the mission station, 1892/1893
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- Martin Probst: Mission and Colonial Policy. The North German Mission Society on the Gold Coast and in Togo until the outbreak of World War I , dissertation University of Würzburg 1987, Munich 1988
- Diedrich Westermann: About the concepts of soul, spirit, fate with the Ewe and Tschivolk , in: Archive for Religious Studies, 8, 1905, pp. 104–113