Brazilian and African sources for the study
of cultural transferences from Brazil to Africa321The situation in Togo is better than in Benin. While the absence of a
central archive is a serious problem, possibilities do exist for substantial oral
data-collection with Afro-Brazilian families located in the capital, Lomé, and
in the small coastal towns of Porto Seguro and Anécho. As familial connections
between Dahoman and Togolese 'Brazilians' are extensive, information not
secured in Benin might be possible in the neighboring Togo.^33
Ghana and Nigeria present different problems and possibilities. The
Nigerian national archives located on the campus of the Federal University
of Ibadan present a well-organized system and for the researcher with a fair
amount of research time, the archive is a useful source to delineate the social
mobility of the Afro-Brazilians during the final decades of the nineteenth cen-
tury and the early part of the twentieth century in British-ruled Nigeria. For
the cultural and social historian, the various Nigerian-Brazilian descendant
friendly societies present varied and useful data: these organizations, while
the majority are to be found in Lagos, can also be located in western Nigerian
Yoruba cities such as Abeokuta, Ijebu Ode and Ibadan—their collections of
old newspapers, manuscripts, programmes from anniversary meetings of the
1920s and 1930s, lists of memberships all aid the process of re-constructing
the cultural history of the Afro-Brazilians.^34
The Ghanaian archives, while well run and well staffed, yielded less
concrete information about the Ghanaian Brazilians, or so-called Tabon
people. Researchers with adequate research time might do well to check
through all the series dealing with the Keta region (on the border with
Togo and home of the Ewe ethnic group, which becomes Mina in Togo and
Benin, and a major component of Afro-Brazilian culture in West Africa),
might prove a valuable source. The Tabon or Brazilian society in Accra,
Ghana, is fragmented and subject to serious social class divisions. When com-
pared with Benin, Togo or Nigeria there is a lack of historical sentiment among
the Ghanaian Brazilians which forces the researcher in turn to have a more
one-to-one relationship with each Ghanaian Brazilian family. The research
would probably be more effective in the Keta region and in the Ga ethnic
regions to the west of the capital, as there was an interesting and as yet unex-
plained massive integration of returning Afro-Brazilians into the Ga group
on the Gold Coast during the middle of the nineteenth century.^35
Also of interest is the ethnographic work being conducted by the Ghana
National Museum, whose assistant director is very interested in Brazil (having
visited the country in 1974), and who is tracing historical and cultural connec-
tions between his country and Brazil. The museum has some interesting occa-
sional papers which can be put at the disposition of the researcher. The exper-
ience of the writer was that the museum, the families themselves all proved
more helpful than the moribund Institute of African Studies at Legon, the
University of Ghana. Cape Coast University would be recommended over