Word: ofori
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...white-hot matter of the five ebony-black men who were to go to the gallows next day at Accra, in Africa's Gold Coast Colony, for a voodoo murder-the sacrificial killing of a friend to provide companionship in the spirit world for the late Sir Ofori Atta, high chief of the state of Akim Abuakwa (TIME, Aug. 26). Beefy Leslie Hale, a Laborite, related that four times in the last two years the five men had missed the gibbet by last-minute postponements of execution; that itself was a terrible punishment. Winston Churchill growled that the five...
Naturally, proper names are one grand mal de tête. Unfamiliar names of newsmakers erupt into the headlines almost daily-Marshal Fevsi Çakmak. Princess Sukhodhaya, Sir Ofori Atta. And rare is the week that strange place names don't pop up, as the news shifts around from earthquakes in the Caribbean to incidents in the air over Yugoslavia. For months now the research librarian in charge of the Biography files in our Morgue has been working on a great continuing project to assist researchers in checking the proper names and titles of foreigners...
Africa was enjoying a rash of ritual murder. Three years ago jet-complexioned Sir Ofori Atta, Paramount Chief of Akim Abuakwa, died (of natural causes) in the Gold Coast Colony. Soon his friend and secretary, Mensah, Chief of Apedwa, disappeared from view. After long investigation by the British authorities, eight natives were convicted of murdering Mensah, and sentenced to hang (TIME, Dec.11,1944). Mensah, the Crown contended, had been sacrificed to provide blood to daub a ceremonial stool which represented the late Sir Ofori; or to provide Sir Ofori with a companion in the spirit world; or both...
...witness said he had seen the Odikro entering the late Sir Ofori's ahinfie. Another claimed that he had seen him offered a drink, then bludgeoned on the head from behind. A third had seen the Odikro, unconscious, tied in a chair with a long knife thrust between his jaws. The Odikro's blood trickled down the knife, dripped into a wooden bowl. A fourth said he had been handed the bowl of blood, ordered to paint Sir Ofori's stool with it. As the jurors could see, the stool had been painted. Fitted together, these bits...
Last week, in Accra, eight zealous followers of Sir Ofori were sentenced to be hanged for seeing to it that he was buried with all the honors they deemed due to a man of his position...