..
While I was doing
my research for a PhD at the University of Ghana (1971-79), an ethnography
of a community extended by cyclical migration, I learned of the black staff
(apoma.
tuntum)
ritual.
..
My work was on the social organisation
and culture of the Kwawu people, following members of the community
of Obo to their various places of migration, and looking at their home
links and maintenance of an extended community. ..
I used various research methods, including household surveys, qualitative
interviews and participant observation...
This led to the observation of much material that was serendipitous ––
unexpected delights.
..
In Akan, the word "okyeame"
means something much more than "linguist" (as it is usually translated).
The linguist is a spokesperson, ambassador, diplomat, interpreter, confidant,
advisor and assistant to an elder or chief...
In court, all prayers are in the form of libations,
pouring of palm wine or schnapps on the ground to the gods and ancestors,
and they are always done by linguists or individuals acting the role of
linguists. As the person of the chief is sacred,
possessed by matrilineal ancestors, members of the public cannot speak
directly to the chief, and the linguist must be used as an intermediary.
Very often, if frank expressions are used, the okyeame puts them
into more polite and less offensive language. The elders in a chief’s
court are sometimes said to be speaking the "language
of the dead," which sometimes mean they speak using traditional proverbs,
and may hide their deliberations from the public who are unlikely to know
what those proverbs can imply.
..
Every six weeks on the traditional
calendar (Bartle, 1978:82) Akwasidae is set aside
as a special day. It is one of the "dabone" in that no funerals
may be held, nor can news of any death reach the ears of the chief.
When such an adae is declared to be "kese" (large), a large
"durbar" (an Indian word introduced by the British during the colonial
era) is held. It is called afahye in Twi. Outside
the chief’s palace, under a sacred tree (Ohantrase),
the people gather in a large circle, and the priests and sub chiefs will
go around the circle in a counter clockwise direction and greet all those
already present. ..
Priests and priestesses will often go around more than once, if they are
then possessed by their gods, who then make the same circuit. There
is much drumming and dancing, as sub chiefs and priests and priestesses
each may come her or his entourage, including helpers and musicians. ..
The afahye on an adae kese is a public ceremony which publicly
reinforces the identity and solidarity of the community.
..
Obo Chief Linguist May Sit on Another
Linguist's Knees
..
The Obo chief,
who is also the head of the Nifa Division of Kwawu, a very senior office,
has seven linguists. Each of them is the head of a different matrilineage,
among the confederation which makes up the Obo "oman" (state) structure.
..
The Chief linguist is a member of the Aduana (dog; Lycaon pictus)
clan, the same group as that of the chief, and one which was resident in
Kwawu long before that of the chief came from what is now Brong Ahafo (headwaters
of the Tano River) to become installed as top dog.
..
What is less known is that on every
Adae
(kese or not) the chief, linguists and key elders always meet in
the chief’s palace, in the inner room where the black stools are kept,
and will pour a libation of schnapps to the ancestors. ..
This is done usually about five o’clock in the morning (it becomes light
every morning about six o’clock). ..
The ritual is very beautiful as the elders and linguists chant the responses
to the Chief Linguist, in a most melodious and harmonious manner, like
medieval Christian monks singing in plain song.
..
I had been adopted
by the previous Obo chief a few years earlier when I was a teacher at a
nearby school in another town. ..
My adoptive father died while I was in Canada. ..
When I returned with a Commonwealth scholarship paid by Ghana, and as a
sociology student at Legon, I reintroduced myself to Obo, and the new chief
accepted me, inheriting me as his son in honour of his deceased matrilineal
ancestor. ..
He joked that he inherited all assets and liabilities from his matrilineal
uncle, but would not say which of those I was.
..
As one can never inherit from a father
in Akan matrilineal social organisation, so I was to remain the son
of the chief. ..
"It is the duty of fathers to help with their children’s education.
The State of Ghana paid your school fees and accommodation, but I can help
you by opening doors for you in your PhD studies. ..
If you promise to keep their secrets, then I will announce to all sub chiefs
and priests that they shall tell you and teach you whatever you want to
know." ..
He was good to his word, announced that I was to be allowed into all buildings
and rituals, and that was worth more than any scholarship fees I got.
..
I was also adopted into a matrilineage,
as the nephew of Nana Kwame Ampadu, Head of the Asona (white raven) and
Dwumina clans of Obo, and Gyaasewahene of Obo (under the Gyaasehene, Minister
of the interior on the Obo oman). ..
Nana Ampadu was the father of the musician who was to become the leader
of the African Brothers International Band, who told so many traditional
stories in his music, all of which he learned from his father. ..
Nana Ampadu was one of my key informants (second only to the Kontihene),
and a source of much of the history and culture of the Akan in general
(he is related matrilineally to the Okyenhene, Chief of Akyem Abuakwa in
Kyibi, and the Dwumina (Asona) clans that dominate the Benkum Division
of Kwawu) and Kwawu and Obo in particular.
..
The Obo linguists were teaching me
to say prayers (pour libations). ..
When European or American Christian missionaries came to the chief’s
court, they had to bring a bottle of schnapps, even if they were teetotallers.
..
Theologically they did not like that the schnapps would be used to pray
to the gods and ancestors. It was obvious that some were quite uncomfortable,
that they sincerely believed that the traditional spirits were devils or
Satan. ..
But if they wanted to build a church, school or clinic, they needed the
blessing of the chief and elders. ..
The Obo chief took delight in using such phrases as "brothers and sisters
in Christ" and "In the name of Christ our saviour" which was quite compatible
with his African syncretic theology, but alien to conservative protestants.
..
Since I was an apprentice linguist, the chief also took ironical delight
in asking me, a young European, to pour the libations for him whenever
missionaries came to his court.
..
Linguists at Adae Kese (Held at Mpraeso
football field)
..
One Saturday, prior to an Akwasidae,
the Obo Chief Linguist told me to come to his ancestral home about an hour
prior to the five o’clock prayers at the Obo Chief’s palace. ..
I did so, and there I witnessed a ritual about which I had never heard
or read. The sacred black linguist staff ritual.
..
Let me first say a little bit about
the "apoma" (Akan linguist staff).
..
Although some European specialists
try to see the origin of the apoma in the silver stick carried by
the Governor of the castle at Elmina, and thus related to the mace or black
ebony rod (used by Black Rod) of European royalty, I argue that it is unimportant.
..
What the Akan have done with the linguist staff is to make it distinctly
Akan, and it should be seen like that.1..The
staff is the size and shape of the walking staffs of Boy Scouts, and perhaps
Baden Powel introduced them to the scouts after hearing of their use by
Ghanaian elders.
..
The top of the staff has some carving
or symbol. ..That
of the Chief Linguist of Obo is a carving of a dog, the totem of the Aduana,
royal matrilineage of Obo. Every linguist staff used by the seven
linguists of Obo is gold plated, perhaps because of the wealth for which
Obo is well reputed. Staffs in a photo of the paramount chief of
Kwawu when Ramseyer arrived in 1888 had
forked tops.
..
When the okyeame in a chief’s
court stands to speak, she or he holds the staff, and is respectfully heard,
because whatever is said then is official and formal.
..
In the ancestral stool room of the
Obo Chief Linguist, I saw the usual collection of blackened stools, but
on the table in the centre of the room was a broken staff, blackened as
if it were an ancestral stool.
..
When a chief or elder dies, her or
his bath stool is then prepared to become an ancestral stool. It may first
be marked only with a swath of black on its bottom, but placed in the ancestral
stool room. Matrilineages are not rigid though history; their fame, power
and wealth may rise and fall as fortunes do. In a reflection of this,
as a matrilineage is on an upward swing, some of its ancestors may receive
promotions. The lineage may gain new offices in the chief’s court,
or elsewhere in the living part of the community. An ancestor, thus
the stool of that ancestor, can become promoted in stature and respect.
..
The first raise in level is to become
completely blackened. To do that, the caretakers of the stools, usually
elders, males and non menstruating females, will use boto powder.
..
Boto
is an interesting traditional medicine. ..
It includes charcoal, several medicinal herbs, and for blackening a stool
it is held together by egg albumen. ..
When you see a small scar on a child’s cheek, it is not a tribal scar
as found, say, in Yoruba groups; it is because a traditional herbalist
has made a vaccination against "fever" (malaria). ..
These are herbs such as found inside the bark of certain trees (similar
to quinine in South America) which can reduce fever and help the body to
fight malaria. The same boto powder is mixed with egg albumen
and applied to an ancestral stool, and it hardens to form a lacquer on
the stool. ..
If the ancestor receives further promotions, sometimes up to a century
later, it may be overlaid with a strip of silver, and perhaps a second
one laid round the stool at right angles to the first.
..
The staff that I saw on the table looked
like an ordinary stick. ..
There were no carvings on its end. But it was handled with reverence, and
it was properly blackened with boto, as if it were an ancestral
stool.
..
Present in the ritual were only the seven linguists and myself. At
that time one of the linguists was a woman. ..
One of the linguists performed on behalf of the chief linguist, and poured
a libation of schnapps while calling God (Supreme Shining Saturday), Mother
Nature (Earth Thursday) the gods and the ancestors, some by name, some
generically, and asked for a blessing to all the linguists, and that their
work on this adae day, especially in public at the chief’s court,
would go well, in dignity and without mistakes.
..
Later the Obo Chief Linguist explained
to me that the original carving had been removed and attached to his own
linguist staff which he inherited from his matrilineal uncle.2..
The carving had been plated with gold. One of the seven linguists
was a goldsmith by trade, and did much of the work of things like plating
royal artefacts.
..
While an ancestral
stool picks up some of the "power" of a living chief when the chief
sits on it in the bath, and it keeps that power after the death of the
chief, so an apoma picks up some of the power of a living linguist,
absorbs it, and retains it after the death of the linguist.
..
After the sacred blackened apoma
ritual in the Chief Linguist’s ancestral home, we all walked over to
the chief’s palace to perform the 5 am sacred ancestral black stool ritual
on the chief’s ancestral stool.3
..
..
Footnotes:
..
1. You can trace the guitar as an instrument
to Spanish and Arabic origins, but what African American blues musicians
have done with it makes it distinctly African American.
..
2. The word “wofa” is translated
as “uncle,” but can be any older male member of the matrilineage.
It cannot be used for father's brother.
..
3. Only one of the ancestral stools
is set on a table in the middle of the room; the others, each representing
named ancestors, are stored along the walls. The chosen stool is
the one the chief touches first when blindfolded during the enstoolment
rituals, and whose stool name is adopted for his reign.
..
References:
..
The classical writing of Akan social
organization is that of Robert S. Rattray.
..
Rattray, R.S. (1923) Ashanti,
Oxford, Clarendon Press, reprinted 1969
___ (1927 U) "Kwawu," Manuscript No.
108, Hand written. Three field notes books (II, III and IV) pp. 3001-3239,
Royal Anthropological Institute Library, London
___ (1927) Religion and Art in Ashanti,
Oxford. The Clarendon Press
___ (1929) Ashanti Law and Constitution.
Oxford. The Clarendon Press. reprinted 1969 OUP
(While he describes the ancestral black
stool rituals, he does not describe the black ancestral apoma).
This note is based on my own field notes, not on anything written by Rattray.
I advise anyone pursuing a serious study of the Akan to read Rattray.
––»«––.
.
