The Éotilé: An Open Book

First Person
By Claude-Hélène Perrot
English

In November 2008, Claude-Hélène Perrot returned to the south-west of Côte d’Ivoire to give the É?otilé a copy of her latest book, which was greeted with much enthusiasm. To date, the book is the only record of their history. What she observed included the appointment ceremonies for two village chiefs, in which she describes the changing relationship between the State and traditional chieftainships, and an ancestral religion that is alive and well and coexists with other religious identities with greater tensions than in the past. With the book, the Éotilé now have a fully acknowledged past, with a revival of the disappearing É?otilé language, and a determination to be recognized and integrated into the present despite their overall impoverishment.

Keywords

  • Éotilé
  • Côte d’Ivoire
  • chieftainships
  • traditional authorities
  • state
  • Akan
  • Asante
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