Akan and Ga-Adangbe Governments
The people of the Gold Coast make up several ethnic and linguistic groups, each forming their own types of government. In this article, Carl Christian Reindorf compares the common governments…
Location: Ghana
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
The Governments established in the country are of two kinds.
The Tshi form of Government is an absolute monarchy, in which the king or chief has unlimited power over life and property of his subjects. Those Tshi chiefs coming into the Protectorate have, however, moderated their claims on their subjects, by coming in contact with the European form of government.
The Royal stool is by order of the king, who established a dynasty, constructed and carved, generally out of ''osesew" or any other hard wood. It is generally worshipped as a kind of national fetish. Human sacrifices were sometimes offered to it, but generally the blood of a ram and it is annually painted with the blood of the victims, and the subjects are taught to fear it, as the Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans are taught to fear God. The stool of Asante was made by Okomfo Anokye, who told them that the stool was possessed with the spirit of an albino, or white negro, and therefore, no white man should ever be sacrificed to it; hence the Asantes never sacrifice or behead a white man or albino as an offering to the stool.
The successors of the king were formerly his younger brother or his first son, but subsequently his nephews. Among the different traditions showing why nephews became heirs, we choose the following: The priest Anokye advised the king in whose reign the stool was made, that in celebrating a yearly feast in its honour, yam must be used.
That first king was Sei Tutu, in whose days yam was not known in Asante, but was indigenous in Takiman. Amo Yaw, the king of the place, had strictly forbidden the export of it into another country. The king of Asante sent messengers to him, requesting a favour of a few seeds to plant. His request was not granted; alleging as his reason that yam was a noble plant, and unless one of his noble royal blood be sent in exchange, it could not be spared. The king thereupon consulted with his wives, that one of them should give up a son to purchase the seed; but none consented to his request.
The king was in great distress, till his sister offered one of her sons and obtained the seed, which was planted in Asante; hence nephews became heirs to the stool. In celebrating, therefore, the grand yam-custom, it was settled by the sister, that 300 persons must be slaughtered, not for the stool, but in honour of that royal personage, who was sold to obtain yam. In course of time, the number of the poor victims was reduced to 200, then to 100, afterwards to 80, and at last to one person, on every yam-custom.
Okomfo Anokye (or the soothsayer Anokye) was a native of Awukugua in Akuapem, and by origin of the Guan tribe. The Guan people are the most superstitious tribe on the Gold Coast, and it was through Anokye, as it appears, that superstition and fetishism was introduced into the Tshi tribe. Princes of the Tshis rule by power and wit generally, whilst the princes or priests of the Guans ruled by fetish influence, as wall be seen in the Ga or Akra form of government.
As the government of the Tshis is an absolute monarchy, and the political as well as military power is in the hands of the king, he according to their custom arranges his subjects into three principal divisions: general chiefs, commanding the centre force or van, and the right and left wings; and also two other divisions: chiefs commanding the rear and the body guards.
These five divisions constitute the kingdom. In all political and military matters, the king sits with these generals and chiefs of the different divisions to decide. For all minor cases, he sits with the chiefs and captains of his body-guard, who reside in the capital. The generals also have sub-chiefs and captains under them, who form together a sort of jurisdiction under the king. The generals and captains get their appointments directly from the king, who also increases the number of warriors to every new general or captain, enlarges the funds of a captain, and inherits the property, a part or the whole of it. The stools of the general chiefs are hereditary, as that of the king; but captains are often appointed by election or merit.
The Ga or Akra form of government was formerly an absolute fetishocracy. In it the supreme power was formerly directly, and is now indirectly lodged in the hands of a set of impostors known as foretelling priests, who are rightly named by the Akras "wou-tsemei" i.e. fathers of the fetish or originators of fetishism. Women are also admitted to be members of this class.
Originally the head-man among the foretelling priests, called "lomo" (now corrupted into "lumo", a title now given to kings, rulers, and governors), seems to have had the ruling power over the people. Just as we find it still in the government of the Angulas, where the king or "kong" (konge, a Danish name for a king) is the chief foretelling priest of their national high fetish Ligble, who assumes the government by the fetish's own election from any tribe whatever, and not by hereditary right or by the people's election.
Such a prophet-priest-king is represented by an ordinary man in public; the former is the in-door-king. But by an undue exercise of that power, the lomos forfeited that privilege, and it was conferred on the officiating priests of the national high fetish, who were called ''wu-lomo" i.e. fetish-man or fetish-servant. And thus this class of people became the ruling family, instead of the former, from which a priest was elected, who was acknowledged as king or chief in every town, and had to serve in the fetish-yard, keep the place clean every day, and administer the holy water (some leaves and water in a country trough) for the worshippers to wash themselves with on fetish-days.
He instructed the people in the laws of the fetish, ruled over the people according to the instructions of the fetish, offered sacrifices in behalf of the people, and prayed for them. But such priest-kings were ruled by the advice of the foretelling priests, who were considered as the mouth-piece of the fetishes or their representatives, as through them the whole constitution was framed. Hence the government of the Akras was a fetish-hierarchy.
Sometimes it happened that the priest-king was at the same time a member of the foretellers. In such cases, the government was an absolute fetish-monarchy, as the government of king Okai Koi seems to have been; he possessed three important powers of the government. Hence it has become an established law of the Akras, that the priest who is the king should never be a member of the foretellers, neither should any one of the latter become king. Even a prince, becoming a foreteller or predictor, forfeits not only the stool, but also his becoming a "lomo"' i.e. the acknowledged principal fore-teller or prophet; because he would connive at the tyranny of the ruling family, or would support them in such ways. The Akras are not ruled directly by the priest or king, but by the foretelling fetish-priests.
The form of government somewhat resembles that of the ancient Jews. The priest might be also a prophet, and at the same time a judge, as we see with Samuel. When the Israelites asked for a king, and Saul was appointed, the three offices became separated.
Coming into contact with the European and Tshi forms of government, that of Akra became more patriarchal. The Akra king was at the same time the priest of the national high fetish. Bnt gradually, to avoid violation of the sacredness of the priest in appearing often in public, and especially when the seat of government was removed from Ayawaso to the coast, the two powers were separated. The priest retained his priestly stool, and the honour of a king was conferred by the priest on a second person, who is held as a vassal to the fetishes and is under the priest.
For that honour conferred, the king has to undergo any expense to get a wife lawfully married for the priest; when the priest dies, the king is bound to sleep and watch in the fetish-house, until he has got a new priest in his room. The priests are the owners of the lands in and about the town by right, as it was among the Egyptians in ancient times, because the lagoons which are held as fetishes, and whose priests they are, were in the land prior to the immigration of the inhabitants. But the king retained the political power; yet the foretelling priests exercise their influence over both priests and kings.
The office of a king or priest is hereditary; they are succeeded by their half-brothers, whose mother was lawfully married, or by their lawful sons. The Tshi's are succeeded by their brothers or nephews, according to the age of the mothers, i.e. the son of the elder sister succeeds the uncle; after him, the son of the second sister, thus throughout the family. Sometimes the succession is left entirely to the sons of a single sister. With the Akras, the son inherits the stool only, but the nephews the estate, imitating the Tshis; though both nations had the same law of succession, till the Tshis changed theirs, as already remarked. Formerly no one was made a king or priest, unless he had performed the custom of "kromotsunwo" or 'butunwo" (a custom which entitles one to have access to the fetish-house, a rank among his company, and to wear sandals and use an umbrella), and had taken a wife according to the established law of the countries If the one to be nominated as king or priest had not performed these customs, the chiefs and elders would undergo the expense before he was appointed.
Reindorf, Carl Christian. History of the Gold Coast and Asante. Missionsbuchhandlung, 1895.
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