The sixth region I have visited is nothing else, but the Ashanti Region, which is the center where most of Ghana`s traditions originated from. The story of this area looks somehow like this:
Once upon a time there was a powerful kingdom, called Asante (or Ashanti Kingdom). It was founded by King Osei Tutu in the eighteenth century. His powerful priest, Okomfo Anokye based the unity of the kingdom by a Golden Stool that mysteriously descended from heaven to unify the Asanti states. Besides the Golden Stool, there were two other symbols that provided unity: a sword that was placed into the ground and could never be removed and also a bag that could never be opened, otherwise the unity of the people would fall apart. The kingdom was ruled by the king and the queenmother – the king always sat on a golden stool (but not real one of course!), while the queenmother was seated on a wooden stool. The two of them together ruled and took care of the people of the kingdom, that in the in the eighteenth century was even larger than the current Ghana. Whenever a king died, some of his people volunteered to be killed so that the king could be accompanied by them to death. Also, his stool was painted black and named after him (if he was a good king – if he wasn`t, they didn`t name any stool after him). The next king was always appointed by the queenmother from the male side of the family. After this point the new king didn`t use his former name any more, instead, with his eyes closed he touched the black stool of the king who passed away, and this way, he got his name as well.
The Ashantis were peaceful people, who liked celebrating various events. For example for them one month didn`t consist of 30 or 31 days, but 42 – and in every 42 days they celebrated the days passed and gave thanks to the gods for what they have received from them in the past month.
Although they were very peaceful, at the same time they were also ready to defend themselves if needed – either by power or tricks. In the nineteenth century when the British wanted to colonize the Ashanti Kingdom, they heard about the Golden Stool that was said to hold the strength of Asante. They demanded this stool from the Ashantis, but at last they got a fake stool – still, it took them decades to find out that they were tricked. Besides this, the people of Asante did go to war, too: these times they were wearing thick clothes on which various bones and stones were hanged that all held magical power to protect the soldiers. The last uprising against the British was in 1901, led by a brave queenmother, Yaa Asantewaa, who was already 65 years old when she led her people against the British!!! Still, after she was captured and taken to the Seychelles, where she died at the age of 85, the Ashanti Kingdom was colonized by the British and only gained independence again in 1957 as a part of the current Ghana.
Based on this strong culture, today you can find a busy metropolitan city, Kumasi (it has about 3.5 million inhabitants!!) in the middle of the former Asante. The streets are full of people rushing from one place to another, selling and buying all kinds of goods or apparently trying to get a trotro to get to work or get home from there. One of Ghana`t largest markets can be found in Kumasi, too, which is always crowded – ot would be pretty hard to go against the crowd there. Getting a trotro is not easy either, usually you have two choice: to wait in a queue for a long-long time or to travel in a big circle all around the city to finally get home. Altogether in Kumasi I felt like that it was a large, moving and living city where everybody is busy doing whatever he has to do to make a living.
But at the same time under the layer of the metropolitan city, the Ashanti traditions are still alive, too: besides the government, the area is still ruled by the king and the queenmother as well and they still celebrate various festivals, when the king and the queenmother come out, too, they are carried on richly decorated seats and dance to the traditional beats of the Ashanti drums.
Besides, if you only have a few days to discover the culture of the Ashanti people – like we had now - , you can gain an insight by visiting Manhyia Palace, which was the former home of the kings, and also the Cultural Center where besides the museum (with a very friendly lady to show us around) there are also various art crafts for sale.
Well, I`m really happy that I got to experience this region as well – I guess without seeing Kumasi, I couldn`t have said that I really understood what Ghana was about.
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