Abstract
This article addresses four questions. 1) How did the Akan in the 19th and earlier centuries link the divine to wild nature? 2) How did they domesticate it? 3) Was pre-colonial Akan indigenous religion a ʽnature religionʼ (Naturreligion)? 4) If it was, did it inspire conservationist sentiments in the Akan? This paper aims to demonstrate that there is an intrinsic connection between a part of Akan late 19th century indigenous religion and (wild) nature, conceived in modern terms as the uncultivated natural environment of the Akan societies of the Gold Coast, now Ghana. I will present an analysis of the material aspects of Akan notions of ʽGodʼ, or ʽthe divineʼ, i.e. of that part of Akan religious beliefs about unseen realms and beings which modern Westerners as well as modern Africans virtually all, and exclusively, view as transcendent and as purely spiritual, and as such pre-eminently associate with ʽreligionʼ.