Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-03T19:19:58.193Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

KonnurokusΣm: Kinship and Family in the History of the Oyoko KɔKɔɔ Dynasty of Kumase

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

T. C. McCaskie
T. C. McCaskie
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This paper is concerned with a vitally significant – but hitherto largely unrecovered – feature of the pre-colonial African past. Historians of Africa commonly pay conventional lip service to the idea that the structural and affective dimensions of kinship are of great, and even shaping, importance in the past of many of the societies that they study. However, such acknowledgements remain in the realm of generalization, and hardly any scholarship exists that seeks to historicize kinship in any detail. This paper tries to redress this situation. It goes beyond synchronic ethnographic commonplaces, and offers a historically documented analysis and interpretation of the operation of kinship within a specific pre-colonial context.

The subject matter is the West African forest kingdom of Asante (Ashanti), now located within the Republic of Ghana. In specific terms, the paper addresses the structural characteristics and the interpersonal dynamics of kinship within the history of the Kumase Oyoko KɔKɔɔ abusua (the ruling dynasty of Asante) between, very broadly, the 1760s and the 1880s. The discussion is centred on the evolving history of relations between individuals – most centrally the Asantehene Kwaku Dua Panin and the Asantehemaa Afua Sapon – within a particular ɔyafunu koro (uterine group or stirp; ‘family’) that was a componential part of the royal dynasty. The core of the paper is an analytic reading of the konnurokusΣm, a complex dynastic conflict that involved the individuals named and that occurred in the 1850s.

In sum, this paper argues that the reconstruction and analysis of the field of kinship relations within African societies – such as the example of pre-colonial Asante discussed here – places an extremely important, if hitherto neglected, tool in the hands of historians. The interpretation of events, the understanding of actions and motives, and the overall deepening of comprehension are all enriched by the use of this tool. The enrichment thereby attained – it is argued – pays appropriate and overdue attention to specifically indigenous readings of the Asante (and African) past.

Type
Kinship and History in West Africa
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , November 1995 , pp. 357 - 389
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 This paper testifies to the vigour of scholarship on Asante, for its writing was enabled by the work of many contributors to that field. I have specific obligations: to the late Meyer Fortes, and to Kwame Arhin, Wilhelmina Donkoh, Paul Jenkins, Robert Steel, Ivor Wilks and Larry Yarak. I thank Otumfuo the Asantehene Opoku Ware II for allowing me continuing access to the records held in Manhyia and at the Record Office in Kumase. I am also grateful to those many Asante who, for nearly three decades, have led me to some understanding of kinship relations. A broader treatment and contexrualization of the matters discussed here is in McCaskie, T. C., State and Society in Precolonial Asante (Cambridge, 1995).Google Scholar

2 For example, Rattray, R. S., Ashanti Proverbs (Oxford, 1916);Google ScholarAshanti (Oxford, 1923);Google ScholarReligion and Art in Ashanti (Oxford, 1927);Google ScholarAshanti Law and Constitution (Oxford, 1929);Google ScholarAkan-Ashanti Folk-Tales (Oxford, 1930);Google Scholar Mss, Royal Anthropological Institute, London; Fortes, M., ‘Kinship and marriage among the Ashanti’, in Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. and Forde, D. (eds.), African Systems of Kinship and Marriage (London, 1950), 252–84;Google Scholar ‘The submerged descent line in Ashanti’, in Schapera, I. (ed.), Studies in Kinship and Marriage (London, 1963), 58–67;Google ScholarKinship and the Social Order: The Legacy of Lewis Henry Morgan (London, 1969);Google ScholarTime and Social Structure and Other Essays (London, 1970);Google Scholar and Mss, African Studies Centre, Cambridge University. I have also consulted a number of Fortes’ unaccessioned Mss. In addition to Rattray and Fortes the following are useful for present purposes: Busia, K. A., The Position of the Chief in the Modern Political System of Ashanti (London, 1951);Google ScholarDanquah, J. B., Akan Laws and Customs (London, 1928);Google ScholarLystad, R. A., The Ashanti (New Brunswick, 1958);Google ScholarAddo, N. O. and Goody, J. R., Siblings in Ghana (Legon, n.d.);Google ScholarOppong, C. et al. (eds.), Legon Family Research Papers, (4 vols.) (Legon, 1974–1975);Google ScholarBasehart, H. W., ‘Ashanti matrilineal kinship’, in Schneider, D. M. and Gough, K. (eds.), Matrilineal Kinship (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1961), 270–97;Google ScholarAkwabi-Ameyaw, K., ‘Ashanti social organization: some ethnographic clarifications’, Ethnology, XXI (1982), 325–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar I have learned much from the unpublished writings of T. E. Kyei, Fortes' principal research assistant, and from the subtle discussion of kinship in Barnes, J. A., Three Styles in the Study of Kinship (London, 1971).Google Scholar

3 McCaskie, T. C., ‘Power and dynastie conflict in Mampon’, History in Africa, XII (1985), 167–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Wilks, I., ‘Land, labour, capital and the forest kingdom of Asante: a model of early change’, in Friedman, J. and Rowlands, M. J. (eds.), The Evolution of Social Systems (London, 1977), 487–534Google Scholar, since revised and republished as ‘Land, labor, gold, and the forest kingdom of Asante: a model of early change’, in Wilks, I., Forests of Gold: Essays on the Akan and the Kingdom of Asante (Athens, 1993), 41–90;Google Scholar see too Wilks, , ‘Founding the political kingdom: the nature of the Akan state’Google Scholar, ibid., 91–126; McCaskie, T. C., ‘Accumulation, wealth and belief in Asante history: I. To the close of the nineteenth century’, Africa, LIII (1983), 23–43;CrossRefGoogle ScholarState and Society is my most recent discussion.

5 Fortes, Kinship and his Mss (accessioned and unaccessioned). Compare Oppong, C. (ed.), Legon Family Research Papers: I. Domestic Rights and Duties in Southern Ghana (Legon, 1974);Google ScholarFemale and Male in West Africa (London, 1983).Google Scholar

6 See Manhyia, Kumase, Prempe I, ‘The history of Ashanti kings and the whole country itself, written by me, F. A. Prempeh and was dictated by E. Prempeh. Commence (sic) on 6th August 1907’, Ms (henceforth referred to as AK). For context and commentary see Adjaye, J. K., ‘Asantehene Agyeman Prempe I, Asante history, and the historian’, History in Africa, XVN (1990), 1–29;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMcCaskie, T. C., ‘Inventing Asante’, in Barber, K. and de Moraes Farias, P. (eds.), Self-Assertion and Brokerage: Early Cultural Nationalism in West Africa (Birmingham, 1990), 55–67;Google ScholarState and Society. See further Manhyia, Kumase, ‘Ashanti families’, unsigned typescript, n.d. (but 1920s or 1930s), and the Mss etc. collected (by the Asantehene Osei Agyeman Prempeh II) and deposited in the Old Manhyia Palace (OMP), Kumase.

7 Fortes, Kinship, esp. 167 and n. 33, and his Mss (accessioned files and unaccessioned papers on ‘Law’ and ‘Kinship and family’); ‘The Ashanti social survey: a preliminary report’, Rhodes-Livingstone Journal, VI (1948), 1–36. I have also consulted the relevant materials in the Ashanti Social Survey Mss (ASSM), which were kindly placed at my disposal by Robert Steel, and which will be catalogued and deposited at Birmingham University.Google Scholar

8 The indispensable genealogical source is AK. An accessible reconstruction that is based on AK is in Wilks, I., Asante in the Nineteenth Century: The Structure and Evolution of a Political Order (Cambridge, 1975, reprinted with a new ‘Preamble’, 1989), 327–73.Google Scholar This reconstruction (‘The dynastie factor in Asante history: a family reconstruction of the Oyoko royals’) is a model of clarity, but its perspective does not foreground the issues discussed in this paper. Wilks is concerned to map the structure of dynastic history, rather than to explore the interpersonal dynamics of kinship in relations between individuals.

9 Wilks, ‘Land, labour’, ‘Land, labor, gold’, and ‘Founding the political kingdom’; McCaskie, ‘Accumulation’, and State and Society.

10 Rattray, , AshantiGoogle Scholar; Fortes, Kinship and Time; Basehart, ‘Ashanti’.

11 Rattray, , Ashanti Law, esp.1–61Google Scholar; Fortes, , Kinship, 154–90Google Scholar, and ‘Kinship and marriage’.

12 McCaskie, ‘Mampon’, for some of the complexities; ‘Ashanti families’, for an Asante view.

13 Fortes, Mss (unaccessioned), ‘Notes, papers etc. on the Asafu-Adjayes and the Kumasi Adonten stool’, for this understanding and some of ils consequences.

14 I have employed the terms of Fortes, Kinship; some basic Asante perceptions are reviewed in Rattray, Proverbs and Ashanti; scattered but illuminating materials are in the notes and letters from informants addressed to Fortes (after he had left Asante) in the 1940s to 1960s; a suggestive commentary on the norms of sociability is in ‘My family, life and times, and opinions of an Ashanti man on custom’, Ms (?1970, and thereafter reworked), by the late I. K. Agyeman. (I understand that the original of this ms, with addenda, is now in the care of Isaac Agyeman's executors and heirs.)

15 Examples of this practice are recorded throughout the Civil Court Cases in the Manhyia Record Office in Kumase. Thus, one notably poignant (and lengthily documented) instance is recalled in Files of the Native Court, Ankobia Clan, A.33, Arbitration of Chiefs Boakye Yam and Owusu Afriyie III in re Hannah Amponsah vs E. Baidoo, Kwasi Nsiah, and others, 5 Nov. 1939 et seq. For general context see Kurankyi-Taylor, E. E., ‘Ashanti indigenous legal institutions and their present role’ (2 vols.) (Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1951).Google Scholar

16 In addition to materials already cited, for the concept of the person see Ackah, C. A., Akan Ethics: A Study of the Moral Ideas and the Moral Behaviour of the Akan Tribes of Ghana (Accra, 1988);Google ScholarOpoku, K. Asare, West African Traditional Religion (Accra, 1978);Google ScholarFortes, M., Oedipus and Job in West African Religion (Cambridge, 1959, reprinted 1983 with an essay by R. Horton);Google ScholarGyekye, K., An Essay on African Philosophical Thought: The Akan Conceptual Scheme (Cambridge, 1987);Google Scholar and The Unexamined Life: Philosophy and the African Experience (Accra, 1988);Google ScholarWiredu, K., Philosophy and an African Culture (Cambridge, 1980).Google Scholar

17 See McLeod, M. D., ‘A survey of the literature on witchcraft in Ghana (excluding the northern region) with particular reference to the Akans’ (B.Litt. thesis, University of Oxford, 1965);Google Scholar and ‘On the spread of anti-witchcraft cults in modern Asante’, in Goody, J. (ed.), Changing Social Structure in Ghana (London, 1975), 107–17;Google ScholarGray, N., ‘Aberewa: utopianism and opportunity in a new religious movement’ (M.A. thesis, Columbia University, 1993);Google ScholarMcCaskie, T. C., ‘Anti-witchcraft cuits in Asante: an essay in the social history of an African people’, History in Africa, VIII (1981), 125–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 General State Archives, The Hague, NBKG 716; Nagtglas to Minister of Colonies, Elmina, 12 July 1859, Kabinet, No. C16.

19 Wesleyan-Methodist Missionary Society, London: Correspondence (Gold Coast): Owusu Ansa to General Secretaries, Cape Coast, 11 April 1860.

20 Larry Yarak not only generously supplied me with copies of Dutch archivai records, but also took it upon himself to sort out the vexed chronology of Kwasi Mensa's visit(s) to Kumase on my behalf. I paraphrase here – with gratitude – his ‘The second visit of Kwasi Mensa to Kumase, 1858–9’ (pers. comm. 1 April 1992). In 1857 Kwasi Mensa (‘Myzang’) made his first visit to Kumase on behalf of the Dutch authorities. In early to mid-December 1858 he left Elmina on his second visit to Kumase. By 25 December he had reached the outskirts of the Asante capital. On 25 January 1859 he reported by letter to Governor Nagtglas that he had been received ‘most favourably’ by the Asantehene Kwaku Dua Panin. On 15 June he had his final meeting with Kwaku Dua Panin, and apparently quit the Asante capital immediately thereafter. On 1 July the Governor noted that Kwasi Mensa had returned to Elmina (but without giving the date of his return). On this second visit to Kumase Kwasi Mensa was accompanied inter alios by Pieter de Heer in the capacity of ‘writer’ or clerk. At Kwaku Dua Panin's request Pieter de Heer remained in Kumase after Kwasi Mensa's departure. P. de Heer is the most probable source of the letter about the events of 19 June in Kumase (the substance of which was transmitted by Nagtglas to The Hague on 12 July). The Dutch archives are rich, but historians of Ghana have often relied upon unsatisfactory transcripts or digests. See van Dantzig, A., ‘The Furley Collection: its value and limitations for the study of Ghana's history’, Paideuma, XXXIII (1987), 423–32.Google Scholar

21 Wesleyan-Methodist Missionary Society, London: Correspondence (Gold Coast): Owusu Ansa to General Secretaries, Cape Coast, 13 June 1862.

22 Wilks, , Asante, 491–2.Google Scholar It is impossible to date the rebellion of the Akwaboahene Adu Tutu from the sources used by Wilks, or indeed to assess its duration, extent or gravity; see Institute of African Studies, Legon, IASAS/17 and 39/40: Akwaboa and Bantama Stool Histories, recorded by J. Agyeman-Duah, March 1963 and Nov. 1962.

23 For example, Rhodes University Library, Cory Ms. 15,104, ‘Journal of the Rev. George Chapman, 1843–57’, entry dd. Kumase, 18 Nov. 1844; Wesleyan-Methodist Missionary Society, London: ‘Ms. Journals of the Rev. T. B. Freeman’, entry dd. Kumase, 30 Jan. 1842.

24 Ramseyer, F. A. and Kühne, J., Four Years in Ashantee (London, 1875)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Appendix III, ‘The Government of Ashantee’, 309. As yet I have been unable to locale the original of this Appendix in the 825 Ms pages of Basel Mission Archives, Basel: ‘Tagebuch Ramseyer, 1860–1874’. For discussion of the (very many unresolved) problems involved in reading the text(s) of Ramseyer and Kühne see Jones, A., ‘Four years in Asante: one source or several?’, History in Africa, XVIII (1991), 173–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 AK for the genealogical details.

26 The confusion here is presumably with Opoku Ahoni, the second heir-apparent under the Asantehene Kwaku Dua Panin. For a report of his execution at some date prior to 1849 see Wesleyan-Methodist Missionary Society, London: Freeman, T. B., ‘Life and Travels: Gold Coast, Ashantee, Dahomey’ (Unpublished Ms, c. 1860), 148.Google Scholar

27 The blood of a royal might not be spilled. See Bowdich, T. E., Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee (London, 1819), 256.Google Scholar Royals were executed ritually, inter alia by drowning (twa asua: ‘crossing the river’) or by strangulation (bu kon). The latter was sometimes effected by suspending an elephant tusk from the neck (as may have been the case with Osei Kwadwo).

28 For Kwaku Dua Panin's death see McCaskie, T. C., ‘Death and the Asantehene: a historical meditation’, J. Afr. Hist., XXX (1989), 417–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Fuller, F., A Vanished Dynasty: Ashanti (London, 1921), lviii.Google Scholar Kwasi Apea Nuama – full brother of the Gyaasewahene Kwame Tua – appears in many sources (British and Asante) as an expert witness on tradition.

30 Ibid. 87.

31 General State Archives, The Hague, NBKG 422: Governor's Monthly Report [draft], Elmina, 11 Feb. 1859.

32 Manhyia, Kumase, Prempeh II, ‘The History of Ashanti’, Ms (with enclosures), prepared by a Committee of Traditional Authorities under the Chairmanship of the Asantehene Osei Agyeman Prempeh II, n.d., but in the 1940s (henceforth referred to as HA).

33 Kurankyi-Taylor, ‘Legal institutions’, i, 89–90, n.2, for the Asantehene Osei Agyeman Prempeh II's reservations about making HA public.

34 Basel Mission Archives, Basel: D/20, 4, 5: N. V. Asare, Asante AbasΣm (Twi Kasamu), dd. 1915. I briefly consulted this 124-(variously sized) page Twi Ms in the 1970s when it was still uncatalogued. Paul Jenkins, the Basel Mission archivist, then very kindly met my request for a copy of the Ms. I worked on this copy in parallel with my student Wilhelmina Donkoh, who translated the text as part of her M.A. degree. I would like to record my gratitude to her for many exchanges concerning Asare's work; she and I plan to publish the text – in part or in whole – in annotated translation.

35 Ibid. See too Christaller, J. G., A Dictionary of the Asante and Fante Language, Called Tschi (Basel, 1881: 2nd ed. revised and enlarged, 1933).Google Scholar In McCaskie, State and Society, I reported the responses of Asante discussants to queries about the konnurokusΣm. Further queries (1994) produced similarly guarded results. I am grateful for the insights imparted, and have respected the conditions of confidentiality variously imposed on their attribution and use.

36 See McCaskie, T. C., ‘The paramountcy of the Asantehene Kwaku Dua (1834–1867): a study in Asante political culture’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1974).Google Scholar

37 AK and HA for the traditional history of the abakom dwa; for discussion see McCaskie, , ‘Death’, 439–40.Google Scholar

38 AK for the genealogical details.

39 Banishment and exile from Kumase vvere considered to be equivalent to a death sentence for members of the ruling élite.

40 Confusion appears to have arisen because Kofi Kakari actually succeeded Kwaku Dua Panin as Asantehene in 1867. But all other sources indicate that Kwabena Anin was the one installed as heir-apparent after the fall of Osei Kwadwo. See n. 113 below.

41 For similar behaviour by the Asantehene Kofi Kakari see Ramseyer, and Kühne, , Four Years, 119–20.Google Scholar For context see Nketia, J. H. Kwabena, Drumming in Akan Communities of Ghana (London, 1963).Google Scholar

42 Asare, Asante AbasΣm records instances of Kwaku Dua Panin's ruses, and oral testimony confirms that the Asantehene was generally given to trickery of this sort. Thus, he would declare palm wine to be sweet, encourage his office-holders to agree, and then announce the wine to be sour and them to be sycophants and hypocrites; similarly, he would pretend to see things, trap his office-holders into agreement, and then upbraid them for their deceit. See McCaskie, State and Society, for discussion.

43 Compare McCaskie, , ‘Death’, 431–2.Google Scholar

44 Asare, Asante Abastm suggests as much. However, no reliable figures are available. The 1,000-plus deaths reported by Kwasi Mensa is a suspiciously precise ‘guesstimate’ of the overall number of executions and ‘sacrifices’ that supposedly occurred throughout his stay in Kumase (Dec. 1858/Jan.–June 1859). Apart from stereotypical generalizations about Asante ‘barbarism’, Nagtglas (12 July1859) simply reported Kwasi Mensa's estimate without elaboration.

45 AK for the genealogical details; see too Wilks, , Asante, 359–60;Google Scholar and Ricketts, H. J., Narrative of the Ashantee War (London, 1831), 124–5Google Scholar, for the death of Owusu Afriyie (Gyamadua).

46 AK. Wilks, , Asante, 361, n. 139 has a summary discussion of birth dates.Google Scholar

47 AK for details of the marriages. For the succession of Kwaku Dua Panin see Yarak, L. and Wilks, I., ‘A further note on the death of Asantehene Osei Yaw Akoto and on the enstoolment of Kwaku Dua Panin’, AsantesΣm, IX (1978), 56–7.Google Scholar

48 See, for example, Fortes, Kinship and ‘Kinship and marriage’.

49 For Kwaku Dua Panin's health see Wesleyan-Methodist Missionary Society, London: Correspondence (Gold Coast): W. West to General Secretaries, Cape Coast, 9 June 1862.

50 HA; and Dupuis, J., Journal of a Residence in Ashantee (London, 1824), 114–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For discussion see McCaskie, , ‘Anti-witchcraft cuits’, 127–8.Google Scholar

51 Wilks, , Asante, 361, n. 140, for a summary of the details.Google Scholar

52 AK.

53 In February 1832, at his officiai reception into Kumase, J. Simons noted that ‘Effua Sapon’ – ‘cousin of the King’ – was seated immediately next to the Asantehene Osei Yaw, in the place customarily occupied on such occasions by the Asantehemaa; see General State Archives, The Hague: Archive of the Ministry of Colonies, 1814–49, 3965: Journaal van den Fabriek en Magazijn Meester J. Simons gehouden op deszelfs Missie naar den Konig van Assiantijn te Koemasie, entry dd. Kumase, 13 Feb. 1832. I thank Larry Yarak for giving me access to his draft translation of Simons' Journal. For the death of Yaa Dufi see HA.

54 Asare, Asante Abastm.

55 AK for the received genealogy. The crucial review and analysis of the available evidence is Wilks, I., ‘A note on Career Sheet ACBP/28: Kwaadu Yaadom’, AsantesΣm, XI (1979), 54–6.Google Scholar This should be read in conjunction with the earlier discussion of the evidence in Wilks, , Asante, 336ff.Google Scholar Relevant published reconstructions by the Asante Collective Biography Project (1973–9, co-directed by I. Wilks and T. C. McCaskie) are ACBP/aS: Kwaadu Yaadom and ACBP/71: Kaakyire, Adu Twum in, respectively, AsantesΣm, XI (1979), 5–13 and x (1979), 46–8.Google Scholar

56 HA has a circumspect but suggestive discussion of this transfer. One discussant in Kumase did suggest to me that ‘some people’ – of whom he clearly disapproved – said that Kwaadu Yaadom was the ‘first’ Asantehemaa (by implication, it must be presumed, on the ‘new’ Kokofu stool).

57 Wilks, ‘Note’, 56 indicates that the reclassification following the ‘cancellation’ of Akyaama was already in force by 1780.

58 HA, and – for a further traditional account–Agyeman-Duah, J., ‘Uproar in the Kumase Council of Chiefs, 1777’, AsantesΣm, VII (1977), 43–4.Google Scholar

59 HA, although the account is admittedly confused (and confusing).

60 AK.

61 For discussion see Wilks, , Asante, 356–7;Google ScholarYarak, L. W., Asante and the Dutch, 1744–1873 (Oxford, 1990), 252ff.;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMcCaskie, T. C., ‘Office, land and subjects in the history of the Manwere fekuo of Kumase: an essay in the political economy of the Asante state’, J. Afr. Hist., XXI (1980), 189–208, esp. 196–7; and ‘Paramountcy’.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62 AK. For Kwaku Dua Panin's birth see McCaskie, , ‘Paramountcy’, 9, n. 4. There is a tradition (variants of which have been recorded by Kyei, Yarak and myself) that Anima Sewaa consulted a Heman ɔbosom in order to conduce the pregnancy that led to the birth of Fredua Agyeman (Kwaku Dua Panin).Google Scholar

63 There is an extended discussion in McCaskie, State and Society.

64 See ‘Notes on ntɔrɔ' in Fortes Mss (unaccessioned); T. E. Kyei, ‘Marriage and divorce among the Ashanti’, Ms, n.d.

65 A point clearly implied by Wilks, , Asante, 371–3;Google Scholar contrast McCaskie, , ‘Death’, 438–9.Google Scholar

66 See Rattray, , Ashanti, 47–8; ‘Ashanti families’.Google Scholar

67 AK. In this the Asantehene Agyeman Prempe lists no less than eighteen ‘ntɔrɔ’, but this total is achieved by enumerating discrete sub-divisions; thus, AdufudeΣ (‘Adufoodier’) and AsafodeΣ (‘Assafoodier’) are counted separately, and not as sub divisions of Bosommuru (which itself is not named). Agyeman Prempe was, of course, a paternal grandson of Kwaku Dua Panin, and so Bosompra AboadeΣ predictably heads his listing of the ‘most distinguished of the Intro [sic]’. A list of twelve constructed along the same lines – possibly derived from Danquah, J. B., ɔkanniba Abotafowa (London, 1954)Google Scholar – is in Asare Opoku, Traditional Religion, 98. It might be added that in AK, Agyeman Prempe offered the caution that aspects of ntɔrɔ organization were ‘a bit complicated to understand’.

68 See Kyerematen, A. A. Y., ‘Ashanti royal regalia: their history and functions’ (D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 1966);Google Scholar‘The Royal Stools of Ashanti’, Africa, XXXIX (1969), 1–10; ‘Ashanti families’.Google Scholar

69 For ‘Houses’ see Wilks, , Asante, 327ff.Google Scholar

70 An accessible treatment of mpoatwa is in Arhin, K., ‘Trade, accumulation and the state in Asante in the nineteenth century’, Africa, LX (1990), 524–37;CrossRefGoogle Scholar there is an extended discussion of mpoatwa in McCaskie, State and Society.

71 Rattray, , Religion and Art, 325.Google Scholar

72 Asare, Asante AbasΣm.

73 Compare Wilks, , Asante, 356–7Google Scholar, and Yarak, , Asante and the Dutch, 266–8.Google Scholar

74 Ibid. 263–6, for the problems in establishing Boakye Yam Kuma's career.

75 AK. For the problem of Osei Yaw's birth date see Wilks, , Asante, 336–7.Google Scholar

76 AK for the marriages. For summaries of the husbands' genealogies see ACBP/7I: Adu Twum Kaakyire and Wilks, , Asante, 330 and 355.Google Scholar

77 Ibid. 356.

78 HA for the crucial details; ACBP/28: Kwaadu Yaadom has a useful summary; see too McCaskie, , ‘Manwere’, 196.Google Scholar

79 See Dupuis, , Journal, 245. The issue of Osei Kwame's alleged Muslim sympathies – concerning which I am sceptical – is discussed in McCaskie, State and Society.Google Scholar

80 HA; for the aftermath of Osei Kwame's suicide see McCaskie, , ‘Death’, 429.Google Scholar

81 HA, and Asare, Asante AbasΣm.

82 Thus Kyenkyenhene, Kwame Kusi, Oti Akenten and Akyampon Kwasi all simply vanish from the sources at this point.

83 This was effected, perhaps, following the deaths of Osei Badu and Akua Akrukruwaa in 1807.

84 For convenient summaries see McCaskie, , ‘Paramountcy’, and ‘Manwere’, 197;Google ScholarYarak, , Asante and the Dutch, 260ff.Google Scholar

85 HA; compare Reindorf, C. C., History of the Gold Coast and Asante (Basel, 1895), 148.Google Scholar

86 AK and HA.

87 See IASAS/172: Mamesene Stool History, recorded by Agyeman-Duah, J., 04 1966;Google Scholar and see Wilks, , Asante, 355, Fig. n.Google Scholar

88 HA; Asare, Asante AbasΣm; and McCaskie, , ‘Paramountcy’, esp. 8–9, for context.Google Scholar

89 HA; compare Reindorf, , History, 198;Google Scholar see too Wilks, I., ‘She who blazed a trail:Akyaawa Yikwan of Asante’, in Romero, P. W. (ed.), Life Histories of African Women (London, 1988), 113–39, esp. 122–3.Google Scholar

90 HA for the retreat and the Saawua oath.

91 Ibid. For resentment against Osei Yaw after Katamanso (and possibly more than that) see C.4052, 1884, Further Correspondence regarding the Affairs of the Gold Coast (Accounts and Papers LVI), Report by Capt. K. Barrow of his Mission to Ashanti, 5 July 1883; on Osei Yaw's drinking, see too Kea, R. A., ‘The Danes and the Gold Coast: ten Danish documents of the early 1830s’, AsantesΣm, X (1979), 66.Google Scholar Osei Yaw's favourite drinking companions [sadwaasefoɔ] included Ata Panin and Ata Kumaa, twins from Deduaku near Kwaso in Mponoa who were executed by the Asantehene Kwaku Dua Panin.

92 HA; compare Reindorf, , History, 216 and 285ff.;Google Scholar another view of the death of Kwadwo Adusei Kyakya – which accepts Osei Yaw's charge that the Gyakye ɔkyeame ‘knowingly betrayed the country for love of money’ – is in Manhyia, Record Office, Kumase:6:00/2, Gyaakyi Stool Affairs, Kwabena Wireku of Gyakye to Kumase Divisional Council, dd. 1 July 1935. On the ‘laws of Komfo Anokye’ see McCaskie, T. C., ‘Komfo Anokye of Asante: meaning, history and philosophy in an African society’, J. Afr. Hist., XXVII (1986), 315–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

93 The West African Herald, Accra, 2nd series, 4/7, 13 June 1871. This newspaper was edited by Charles Bannerman (d. 1872). He was a son of the marriage between the James Town (Accra) merchant James Bannerman (1790–1858) and the Asante ɔheneba Yaa Hom, who had been taken captive at Katamanso in 1826. Yaa Hom was a daughter of the Asantehene Osei Yaw. I must record my gratitude to Larry Yarak, who drew my attention to this intimate (Bannerman and Oyoko Kɔkɔɔ) family tradition.

94 See Rattray, , Ashanti, 47.Google Scholar

95 Compare the rumours concerning Kofi Kakari's legitimacy recorded in Barrow's Report, dd. 5 July 1883.

96 The West African Herald, 13 06 1871.Google Scholar

97 On the chronology see Kea, R. A., ‘The chronology of the Asante Kings: a note on the death of the Asantehene Osei Yaw Akoto’, AsantesΣm, IX (1978), 55;Google Scholar and Yarak, and Wilks, , ‘A further note’.Google Scholar

98 Asare, , Asante AbasΣm.Google Scholar

99 For Opoku Ahoni see McCaskie, , ‘Paramountcy’, 219–21;Google Scholar and Wilks, , Asante, 353ff.Google Scholar

100 McCaskie, ‘Paramountcy’, for a survey and analysis of the reign itself.

101 For the ‘sultanist’ and patrimonial reading see Arhin, , ‘Trade’, 531;Google Scholar see too Yarak, , Asante and the Dutch, 285.Google Scholar

102 I am arguing here, of course, for a sustained exploration of these factors in the life of every Asantehene, and more generally in all relevant Asante historical contexts.

103 The West African Herald, 13 06 1871.Google Scholar

104 Compare for example Freeman, , ‘Life and Travels’, 119ff.Google Scholar

105 Fortes, , ‘Kinship and marriage’, 276.Google Scholar

108 The careers of Akyampon Tia and Akyampon Yaw are discussed throughout Yarak, Asante and the Dutch; see too ACBP/61: Akyampon Tia and ACBP/8: Yaw, Akyampon, Asantestm, IX (1978), 33–6 and 5–14;Google ScholarThe West African Herald, 13 June 1871; and Baesjou, R., An Asante Embassy on the Gold Coast: the Mission of Akyempon Yaw to Elmina, 1869–1872 (Leiden, 1979).Google Scholar

107 See ACBP/51: Brantuo, Kwasi, Asantestm, VII (1977), 14–7;Google ScholarMcCaskie, , ‘Manwere’, and State and Society.Google Scholar

108 In 1994 I was able to collect further horn calls of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Asante office-holders. These are a valuable but underexploited historical resource.

109 See General State Archives, The Hague, NBKG 773: J. Huydecoper to Elmina, Kumase, 21 March 1839.

110 See McCaskie, , ‘Paramountcy’, 256ff.Google Scholar

111 Ibid. 226ff., and Wilks, , Asante, 361ff.Google Scholar

112 Barrow's Report, 5 July 1883.

113 For an account that Kwabena Anin died in 1860, see General State Archives, The Hague, NBKG 422: Governor's Monthly Report [draft], Elmina, 13 March 1860.

114 Compare the remarks in Fortes, , Kinship, 194.Google Scholar