Kutuku: Anthropological Insights into the Nzema Gin.

Based on fieldwork in south-western Ghana, this paper provides new perspectives on the contemporary socio-economic role of kutuku, a “gin” distilled from palm or raffia wine. It seeks to update and supplement the numerous historical studies which have focused on the liquor policy of the British Gold Coast (Ghana since 1957), and which have demonstrated the importance of alcohol during the struggles for independence. Kutuku is here analysed in its trading organization, one that is based on the systemic involvement of women in the role of intermediaries, and in its applications to the medical-therapeutic sphere through the mediation of local priests and priestesses and healers. The final section examines the future of the kutuku business through the eyes of distillers. It argues that the ongoing industrialization of this “gin” does not have only detrimental effects, but that it also presents new and unforeseen potentialities.