The name is absent

Oathing across Time and Space

Oathing practices are not unique to Kenya, but are dispersed over time
and pervasive worldwide. The practice of oathing did not originate in any one
particular society or time period but was a process naturally embedded into
civilizations primarily as a mechanism to enforce societal order and control.⁴ In a
1951 article, A. Quamie-Kyiamah reviews the practice of customary oaths in the
Gold Coast prior to the 1950s.⁵ He asserts that oaths were customarily used to
“provide the community with a sacred and harmless weapon with which to protect
and preserve their person and property from unfair and unnecessary interference
or to seal a promise made on their honour.”⁶

In describing the purpose of oaths in the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana),
Quamie-Kyiamah could have been describing any society at any given time
period. The same purpose could be true of the oaths taken by witnesses in
modern-day legal systems in the United States and European countries, as well
as, soldiers during the Roman Empire, pilgrims on the Mayflower in 1620 coming
to the NewWorId, oaths taken by governmental officials in the United States from
the 1700s to the present age, and Gold Coast chiefs in the 19^th and 20^th
centuries. The general belief was that all oaths were taken with the intention of
protecting the state, its inhabitants, its ideals and processes, and its honor.
However, these interpretations of oathing are narrow because they restrict the

⁴ Helen Silving, “The Oath: I,” The Yale Law Journal vol. 68.7 (1959): 1329-1390.

⁵ A. Quamie-Kyiamah, “The Customary Oath in the Gold Coast,” African Affairs vol.50, no. 199
(Aprill951): 139-147.

⁶ Quamie-Kyiamah, “The Customary Oath,” 140.

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