Oral history documents that the Ga-Dangmes [Se, Klo, Ada, Osudoku, Gbugla (Prampram) and Ningo] migrated from Israel through Egypt and Southern Sudan, settling for a period of time at Simeh in Niger and then at Ileife in Nigeria. In the year 1100 A.D. they migrated again to Dahomey, Togo and later settled in Huatsi, where they stayed for a short time.

It is in the area of herbal medicine, however, that the historic Dangme have left a most important legacy for Ghana as well as the world. According to archival records of the late 18th century, two Danish scientists, Paul Isert and Peter Thonning, researched Shai ethnomedicine. They collected some 2000 plant specimens, which were sent to Professor Martin Vaal of the Botany Faculty at Copenhagen University. Annotated samples were distributed to herbaria throughout the world such as Britain, Denmark, France, Holland, Germany and Russia. Many of the wild and cultivated medicinal and nutritional plants collected and studied by Isert and Thonning from the Se in the Accra plains are still well-known and used by present day herbalists and nutritionists.