Rattray , Robert Sutherland , 1881-1938 , colonial official and ethnographer

Identity area

Authorized form of name

Rattray , Robert Sutherland , 1881-1938 , colonial official and ethnographer

Description area

History

Born, 1881; educated: Stirling high school; joined the Imperial Yeomanry at the outbreak of the South African War, 1899; joined Central African trading company, the African Lakes Corporation, 1902; posted Blantyre, Nyasaland and later Lilongwe; joined customs service of the West African colony of the Gold Coast, 1906; studied anthropology at Exeter College, Oxford: diploma, 1914, BSc, 1925, and DSc, 1929; assistant district commissioner in Ejura, in the northern region of Asante, 1913; captain in the Gold Coast regiment, 1914; saw action during the invasion of the German colony of Togoland; called to the bar in 1918; assistant colonial secretary and clerk to the legislative assembly, Accra, 1919; special commissioner and the first 'government anthropologist', Asante, 1920; retired from the colonial service, 1928; died, 1938.

Publications:

Folklore, Stories and Songs in Chinyanja (1907)

Hausa Folklore

Elementary Mole Grammar (1918)

Ashanti Proverbs (1916)

Ashanti (1923)

Religion and Art in Ashanti (1927)

Ashanti Law and Constitution (1929)

Akan-Ashanti Folk-Tales (1930)

Tribes of the Ashanti Hinterland (1932)