Across the Prah

Summary

Departure

There is a popular saying: ‘When your neighbours are taking snuff and you do not join them, they say that your finger nails are dead.’ In other words, whenever a new fashion comes in, everybody tries to indulge in it. When cocoa cultivation came, several people embraced it and migrated into the forest belt to make a start. But we Twi know that the starting of a new enterprise is not an easy thing, not the sort of meat an old woman's teeth can chew.

Kwame Antiri also made up his mind that he would go into the forest to try his hand at cocoa and see if he could succeed there. He had a small farm at Krabo, so he decided to wait till after the harvesting season. Besides, the year had not been a good one. His old cocoa trees had begun to die out. The farm had been seriously attacked by akate and swollen shoot. Concern about this alone had forced him to go and ‘eat’ a fetish, in order that he might be protected from any possible enemies with the evil eye and who might be responsible for his troubles. Why, he had not realised that season even 50 loads from his farm! But the previous year his first plucking alone gave him over 400 loads.

One evening in December, Antiri called the head of his clan, his wife, children and other close relatives together, and told them about his plans. He made a long speech indeed. ‘Barima Ofori, listen and pass it on to Nana and the rest of the abusua, that if I call them together this evening, I do not do so for any evil purpose. The elders have said that if you sit in one place you sit upon your fortune; and because of that, the fortune-seeker does not fear travelling. I am sure you all know that this new cocoa industry had made travelling a fashion. I do not need to go far to find you an illustration. Not many days have passed by since our neighbour and friend Kofi Tuo and his family moved to Apragya (the other bank of the River Prah) to start cocoa farming. It is true that no one has followed them there, but it is also true that we have not had any ill reports about them.