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Concepts of the Soul among the Akan of the Gold Coast

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

Eva L. R. Meyerowitz
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Extract

When the bi-sexual deity of the cosmos Nyame Amowia, visible as the moon, gave birth to the Sun god, she gave him her kra, her eternal soul or life-giving power; hence his name, the Only Great Nyame (Nyame; ko- only; pɔn- great) generally drawn together as Nyankopɔn. The kra is also envisaged as bi-sexual; its female aspect is believed to be the substance or body of the moon and sun, i.e. fire, while its male aspect is the spirit, the essence, the spiritual, or that which is truly divine.

Résumé

LES IDÉES CONCERNANT L'ÂME PARMI LES AKAN DE LA CÔTE DE L'OR

L'âme se compose de trois élements: le kra, le honhom, et le sunsum; le kra est la force vitale, une étincelle de la vie divine qui provient de Nyame, la déité cosmique bisexuelle, qui apparaît sous forme de la lune. L'enfant à naître est doté du kra par l'action directe ou indirecte de Nyame, et il existe diverses traditions quant à la méthode précise. Quand un homme meurt, le kra doit subir le jugement de Nyame au ciel et, suivant le genre de vie que l'homme a vécu sur terre, le kra est uni à Nyame ou condamné à être réincarné. Les kras du roi et de la reine-mère sont transmis à leurs successeurs lors de la cérémonie d'intronisation; le roi et la reine-mère ont chacun, en service auprès d'eux, un ou plusieurs fonctionnaires spéciaux, appelés porte-âmes, qui font des offrandes aux kras royaux. Le sunsum est considéré comme l'âme personnelle, et l'enfant à naître en est doté par un ancêtre de la lignée patemelle; il n'est pas divin et ne peut être réincarné, mais à la mort devient fantôme (saman) et retourne au royaume des esprits. Le honhom (souffle vital) est associé avec le kra auquel il fournit le souffle vital. Afin de parvenir à l'immortalité les trois constituants de l'âme doivent être réunis. Ceci est réalisé en entretenant les tombeaux et en faisant des offrandes de nourriture au kra, au saman, et au sunsum. Le culte ntorɔ, qui se concentre autour des forces reproductrices du pére, paraît avoir été greffé sur ces idées générales de la personnalité humaine. L'introduction du culte ntorɔ paraît avoir été accompagné par le mariage patrilocal et une augmentation du statut du père, par l'intermédiaire duquel le lien avec l'esprit ntorɔ est considéré être établi. Le culte ntorɔ provient, d'après la tradition, du culte des dieux des fleuves; il existe une vingtaine de groupements ntorɔ.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , January 1951 , pp. 24 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1951

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References

page 24 note 1 Mr. Kofi Antubam drew my attention to this customary phrase.

page 24 note 2 Information received in Kumasi. See also Danquah, J. B., The Akan Doctrine of God, 1945, p. 113.Google Scholar

page 25 note 1 Believed by some to be situated in the lower regions; others, however, hold that it lies above the heavens and is approached by the Milky Way.

page 25 note 1 A kind of herb used in religious ceremonies for sprinkling water for purification.

page 25 note 3 The information contained in this paragraph, collected in Wasa-Amanfi State, I received from Mr. Kofi Antubam.

page 25 note 4 Information collected in Kumasi. See J. B. Danquah, loc. cit. If one compares the three versions it appears that thefirstversion ignores the role of the male in procreation; the second is consistent with matrilocal marriage and the third with patrilocal marriage.

page 26 note 1 The queen-mother worships the female aspect of the kra, which is lineage, live blood, i.e. the blood of the royal lineage, hence it must be a member of her own lineage who bears her soul. The king's soulbearer may be of any clan.

page 26 note 2 Thursday is the day sacred to the god Yao or Abrao (Jupiter) and ideas of resurrection and rebirthappear to be connected with this day. The king's kra is not his own but that of his predecessor which is restored to life in him, and the choice of this day lends weight to this supposition.

page 27 note 1 Sartre, J. P., Baudelaire, Gallimard, Paris, p. 224.Google Scholar

page 27 note 2 The information contained in this paragraph I received from Mr. Kofi Antubam, who collected it at Akropon in the Wasa-Amanfi State.

page 27 note 3 The stools in the Chapel of the Stools are not the throne stools of the rulers, but those the kings and queen-mothers used when bathing. Since they sit naked on them, it is believed that by this close contact some of their personality is absorbed into the stool. The stool is decorated with gold after their death and blackened.

page 28 note 1 Christaller, , Dictionary of the Asante and Fante Language, Basel, 1933. Introduction, paragraph 1.Google Scholar

page 28 note 2 Ntorɔ is the modern spelling and pronunciation of ntro(ng), a dialectal form of ntono(ng) or nton. ancient word Bono(ng) or G'Bon (with singular prefix) has suffered a similar change in parts of Ashanti where it is now A'Bron, anglice Brong. I have used the word Brong when speaking of the Brong people in general, Bono when speaking only of those of Takyiman since they call themselves thus.

page 28 note 3 Cf. Herskovits, Melville J., ‘The Ashanti Ntro: a re-examination’, J.R.A.I. lxvii, 1937, p. 291. When he sought information concerning the matrilineal descent groups, i.e. the abusua of the Akan, at Asokore the people called abususa (matriclan and kin) by the name of nton. He was not in a position to appreciate the fact of these local variations in terminology or their significance.Google Scholar

page 28 note 4 The term adidi-bosom is not exclusively used for the ntorɔ god by the Brong. It appears that any god to whom a woman appeals if she cannot get a child is referred to as adidi-bosom.

page 28 note 5 The Wasa-Amanfi people, whose ruling class is of Twifo origin from Akwamu, relate ntorɔ to wohonsu, ‘the water of yourself’, i.e. semen; its principal attribute is recognized to be ahokeram, ‘self-quickening’; it has ahooden, ‘a strong self’ and its colour is hyiresu ‘chalky white’. Information given by Mr. Kofi Antubam.

page 28 note 6 In Wankyi (Wenchi) the state god Ntowa is asked in a ceremony ‘Are you the kra of Wankyi?’ (Wankyi be kra nni?) and the god is expected to answer in the affirmative.

page 29 note 1 This taboo is held always to have been in force for the kings because loss of blood meant the loss of some of the kra's power. It is an extension of the death taboo. When the husband through his ntorɔ spirit became a spiritual or sacred power, the taboo became valid for him also.

page 29 note 2 Rattray, R. S., Religion and Art in Ashanti, 1927, deals in his chapter (xxix) on ‘Cross-Cousin Marriages in Ashanti’ with the importance of crosscousin marriage for the ntorɔ cult.Google Scholar

page 29 note 3 In Ashanti it is usually the infant's own father, paternal grandfather, father's brother, father's brother's son or, rarely, the father's sister who names the child.

page 29 note 4 The ntorɔ cult in its most developed form may be found among the Twifo, who, before they founded the Twifo-Heman, Akwamu, Doma, and Wasa-Amanfi states in what is now the Gold Coast Territory, lived until 1500 in the Banfora-Bobo-Diulasso region and along the Camoe River (French Ivory Coast Colony). In that region their capital had been Kong, a town said to have been situated near the source of the Black Volta River. In the traditions of the Bono-Takyiman we find that they established trade relations with Kong about the time of Takyi Kwaame and imported so much iron from there—they had a surplus of gold—that they themselves gave up the smelting of iron. It is possible, therefore, that through this contact with the Twifo the ntorɔ cult was either revived or introduced. The king Takyi Kwaame himself was renowned as a great traveller before he succeeded to the stool.

page 29 note 5 J. B. Danquah, Discipline and Inheritance, the dual Family System of the Akan People, manuscript.

page 29 note 6 The Mulattos on the coast (Dr. Danquah, manuscript; he omits, however, to say in which region) founded, probably in the last century, a ntorɔ. They selected the vulture as totem—the vulture is a symbol of self-creation; its taboo is gin; Sunday is its sacred day and day of observance. Bosom-Tano is another probably founded by refugees or emigrants from Bono-Takyiman in Akwamu and Nzima, who were unable to worship the river god so far from home but were able to worship him in the guise of ntorɔ. Tano is the state god of Takyiman; there exists, however, the Brofia-Tano ntorɔ, which is attached to the Asona clan stool in Takyiman.

page 30 note 1 Bosommuru is actually Bosom, or god, Buru; the mm is an assimilation of mb. Burn, or Buru-kung, Great Buru, was the god of the great river in the north, the Niger, on the shores of which the Ayoko once lived. When the Ayoko royal lineage founded the Bono state, they sheltered first in a cave near Amowi about 30-35 miles from Takyiman. The stream in this cave they called Biakuru, which is a praise name of the god Buru, whom they had brought-with them. Some of the Ayoko kings of Ashanti, those descended from Osei Tutu's lineage (the Ashanti royal house has two lineages, known as the red and black Ayoko) also had the Bosommuru ntro (in Ashanti the ntorɔ is not attached to the stool). According to Dr. Danquah the legend there goes that the Bosommuru River cannot be found on this earth but it is with Adu Gyamfi, god and king of the nether world. An Adu Gyamfi ruled as acting chief of Kumasi before he enstooled Osei Tutu in 1699; in 1701 Osei Tutu made himself king of Ashanti. Adu Gyamfi's mother's family worshipped the god of the Bosommuru stream near Bodwesango, some 20 miles south of Kumasi. I regard this legend as an invention to cover up the fact that these Ayoko, the who imposed themselves on the peoples of the Kumasi region, were, although Akan, strangers. They had lived until 1600 in Bona (French Ivory Coast Colony), then, after a lost war, sought refuge in Bono and from there emigrated to Akyem, where they settled at Asiakwa. Rattray mentions in Ashanti, 1923, P. 47, a Bosommuru River in Akyem; unfortunately he omits to mention the exact region.

page 30 note 2 The great Pra river which traverses the forest region of the Gold Coast appears to have been given its name by those emigrants from Bono, Eguafo and Djabi people, members ofall seven clans, who settled first at its mouth on the coast.

page 30 note 3 It is no longer known by whom the now nearly dry Bosomtwe Lake in Bono (about 10 miles from Takyiman) was worshipped. Today the rites for the Lake are performed by the Tuobodomhene, the priestof the Tano river god at Tuobodom. The Lake, named Bosomtwe in Ashanti, was called thus, it appears, by the Denkyira kings, since they attached the Bosom-Twe ntorɔ to their stool. They were of the Agona clan and emigrants from Bono.

page 30 note 4 Information received in Takyiman. Cf. Rattray's, R. S. list of ntorɔ: Ashanti, 1923, p. 47.Google Scholar

page 31 note 1 Rattray, R. S., Religion and Art in Ashanti, 1927, p. 136.Google Scholar