Cultural History Month: Ewes were Originally Known as ‘Weme’ –Historian

The name ‘Ewe’ is a colonial creation and an adulterated form of the original name of the people in the Volta Region of Ghana, a historian, Kweku Darko Ankrah has said.

Speaking on the Cultural History Month radio series on Happy FM’s ‘Epa Hoa Daben’, Mr. Ankrah disclosed that, ‘Ewe’ is the adulterated form of “WEME” which is the authentic name of the tribe we know and have come to accept in Ghana as ‘Ewe’.

According to him, this adulteration was made by a German colonial missionary who visited the village of the ‘Weme’ in 1854.

“When the German missionary visited the ‘Weme’ village, he wrote down ‘Eweme’ rather as the name of the village, which means ‘people of the valley’,” he narrated.

He added that along the line, the last two words of ‘Eweme’ were dropped leaving the village’s name as ‘Ewe’.

By: Joel Sanco