From September 28 through October 1, the students and I (Susan) moved up to Akropong to observe the rituals, pageantry, and politics of the Odwira Festival. We settled into rooms at the Akrofi-Christeler Institute (ACI), which served as our base for observations and our retreat center, for reflection and quiet time. Lectures by a representative of the paramount chief and by ACI staff members helped the students observe and understand what was going on. David stayed at Legon until Thursday morning to attend the Nkrumah Centenary Symposium at the University of Ghana, an academic gathering sponsored by CODESRIA, a leading pan-African social science organization headquartered in Dakar, Senegal.
This was my third time observing the Odwira festival and I learned a lot more this time about the complexity of this tradition and also experienced the impact a raging political dispute had on the festival. The beginning of the celebration of Odwira in Akropong can be dated precisely: in 1826, in one of many battles between the Ashanti kingdom and Akuapem challengers, fighters from Akuapem located a forest camp where the most powerful Ashanti relics were being held, poisoned the guards (and overpowered one woman/priestess who hadn’t eaten the poisoned food), and stole two objects that both sides believed had driven the conquests of the Ashanti army: the odosu and the mpomponsu. The odosu is reputedly a basin containing the skulls of the enemies. The mpomponsu is a hat with horns on the top and two tails at the back containing the oboaman, powerful medicine that protects the life of the chief. The mpomponsu is brought out for public display, worn by a young boy sitting in front of the paramount chief in the chief’s palanquin or on state occasions. The odosu is never seen by the public. The old woman captured with the objects told the Akuapem that, now that they had the odosu, they had to perform the Odwira yearly so that the odosu would protect them from harm and evil. We heard this account from our discussion leader, the Rev. Ernestina Afriyie, who is on the faculty of the ACI and has been studying the Odwira festival for several years. Ernestina was our main lecturer in 2005 as well, and at that time she had moved from the idea that the Odwira festival was antithetical to Christianity to the position that its focus on atonement, purification reconciliation brought it close to key Christian themes. Now that she has a better understanding of the odosu she has a deeper understanding of the complex themes that need to be addressed. She said that ACI is continuing to focus on converting the Odwira to a Christian celebration, not by condemning it but by showing that the covenant of protection between the odosu and Akropong has been replaced by Christ’s new covenant and that it is through Christ that we experience true atonement, purification and reconciliation.
The Akuapem state secretary, Mr. Bekoe, gave us an official introduction to the festival. He described the meaning of Odwira as purification and reintegration of the community to forge forward for the betterment of all. The festival gathers families together, honors the ancestors, calls for the resolution of disputes, and celebrates the community. Mr. Bekoe described the various rules and rituals as much more social-political than religious. He said that the 6 week ban on eating yams before the festival was practical—after yams reached their full size, they needed time to mature, and without a religious prohibition people would not leave them alone. The ban on drumming and funerals gave the chiefs a rest. He emphasized that Akropong was 85% Christian and said that, with a proper understanding, you could be a Christian and a traditionalist. Mr Bekoe never mentioned the odosu. He said that the curfew on Thursday was for the purpose of washing stools but, according to Ernestina, it is then that the odosu is carried around town to absorb all the evil in the area and bestow protection. The odosu is then washed in a stream reserved for washing widows and ridding things of evil and death. The official program of the 2010 Akuapem Odwira states that curfew is imposed for the performance of the “adoration ceremony of ‘Odosu’ by the traditional executioners” but does not explain what the odosu is.
This year there was a lot of trouble behind the scenes in Akropong, as we first learned on Tuesday from Michael Ayensah, who met us along the road about half way from Accra to Akropong at the Aburi wood carving village. He said that everything was starting much later than usual and that he was late meeting us because he had gone to the paramount chief’s palace to learn what was happening. Michael reported that one of the sub-chiefs, the Banmuhene, was upset because his choice for Queen Mother had not been approved and the council of elders was preparing to enstool their choice. A Queen Mother in a stool house is always a female relative of the chief, but not the wife or sister. The Banmuhene has been adamant that (after the previous queen passed away several years ago) his sister, who lives in the US and has been very generous to him and to the town, should occupy the stool. The elders selected another relative, following traditional guidelines for succession, and had begun the enstooling process. The Banmuhene, who is the “chief executioner” and head of the chief’s security guard, is critical to the Odwira festival. He must give permission for each event of the festival to begin.
The dispute erupted Tuesday morning at the “outdooring” of the new yam. Afterward, the Banmuhene displayed his displeasure by parading through the main street with his cloth at his waist, bare-chested, brandishing a cutlass in one hand and a pistol in the other. (On ceremonial occasions chiefs wear 12 yards of cloth, wrapped around the body toga style, with one shoulder bare.) There was some talk that he had pushed things too far and would, perhaps, be destooled.
After the “outdooring” of the new yam, the next event in the festival was to be the coming of the odwira to the paramount chief’s palace. No one could explain clearly what the odwira was or what it would look like. The closest we could come is that it a spiritual essence that is carried in a small calabash bowl. It is obtained from a shrine in the forest where the Akwapem people first settled. A group of men were to depart for the forest right after the outdooring, but they did not leave town until late afternoon and the ceremony that was supposed to occur around 3 or 4 took place from about 7:30 to 9 pm. We had chairs inside the palace, on the left side half way between the drummers and the chief’s umbrella and chair. When we arrived, there was a bank of the huge fontomfron drums being played. The drumming stopped. A group of linguists huddled to discuss where chiefs would sit. People wandered around with pillows for the chiefs’ chairs (some plastic stacking chairs, others elaborately carved). The drums started again, playing for individuals who performed praise dances. Sub-subchiefs arrived and more individuals performing praise dances. We all rose as the sub-chiefs came in. The paramount chief, who is ill, sent a representative who sat in a chair placed in front of the paramount chief’s chair. The representative was a tall man who appeared to be in his 30s or 40s, very solemn, dressed in a black cloth.
We heard rumors that the Odriwa was coming. More drumming and praise dances. Then a cluster of men in shabby smocks and with dirt in their hair accompanied an old man carrying a red cloth. The old man staggered and seemed to be fainting. Someone poured schnapps at his feet while another took the cloth from him and brought it forward. Lots of men in dirty smocks crowded on the floor in the center. Several had leaves or branches in their mouths. Some drummed on drums they carried. Some shot guns. (There is a roof over the seating areas on the four sides of the rectangular pavilion, but the center is open to the sky.) A second cloth was brought. More ear-splitting gunshots. The cloth was stretched around a small group of chiefs, including the paramount chief’s representative as a tall man with a brown hat carrying a calabash bowl (the Banmuhene) entered the center. He seemed to need to be persuaded to bring the calabash forward. Around him, the men argued, shoved each other, brandished fists, fought over guns, and shot off guns. As the cloths was pulled together to enclose the paramount chief’s representative, tensions were high, but by the time the cloths were parted, there was joviality, with people shaking hands and patting each other on the back. More praise dancing, lots of drumming. The Banmuhene went up and sat on the lap of the paramount chief’s representative at the conclusion of his dance. As we learned later, he was saying that he was ready to lay down his life for the paramount chief and despite their disagreement; he did not mean to disgrace him.
Many of the spectators left when the Banmuhene left, but we stayed to see how the ceremony concluded. Another group of men in smocks came in, offered prayers and poured libations. There was more handshaking and then the chiefs filed out. By then it was after 9 pm. That night and the following day were designated as a time of mourning and remembering the dead. I turned in early.
The next morning Mr. Bekoe gave us an overview of the festival. In the afternoon, we met with Ernestina, learned about the odosu, had a debriefing on what we had seen the night before, and then the students got their assignments of where they were to stand and observe the ceremony of the feeding of the ancestors on Thursday. We walked through town in the late afternoon. While most of the people we saw were wearing dark cloth for mourning, the atmosphere felt more like a family reunion than a funeral. Later we heard rumors that the Banmuhene, who is an army officer, brought some of his army buddies up from Accra, and there had been some injuries from the incessant discharge of firearms—not deliberate attacks, but too-careless discharge of guns that harmed bystanders. We appreciated our home base close enough to the action that we could hear the summoning drums but were well away from the gunshots.
Wednesday night a curfew was imposed for the washing of the black stools (memorial stools handed down from ancestors). We were instructed to be inside with lights off by 10. Drumming pounded and loud speakers blared until about midnight but everything then fell eerily silent and the outside lights around the ACI were extinguished. I was housed in ACI’s old guesthouse rather than the dorm and my screened porch overlooked the road down which the stools would be carried. I extinguished my lights when the music stopped and then looked out the porch and realized that I could stand in the deep shadow of the door. There were some lights shining directly across from the guesthouse at the Presbyterian Teachers College, which takes the position that the Odwira is a pagan ceremony in which they take no part, going so far as to ignore the ban on eating yams and on drumming.
Standing in the shadow, I heard gunshots and then a phalanx of men came into view, surrounding a pair carrying large wash basins and stools on their heads. They marched past and returned up the hill from the stream in less than 10 minutes. After a while, a second group passed, warning people away with bells rather than gun shots. The third group shot guns and passed at a run—very intense. The fourth group took a different route to the stream. I heard the gunshots but no one passed the guesthouse. By then it was after 1:30 am and I headed to bed. A few weeks later, I told a friend who has lived in Akropong that I watched and he said it was good that they did not see me. If they met someone, he cautioned, they would beat them, perhaps not with the intent to kill, but they would leave the person for dead.
On Thursday, there was a late start again for the days main event--the feeding of the ancestors, in which the stool house families send entranced young women (and a few young men) to a shrine on the edge of town carrying food. I spent some time in the paramount chief’s palace, watching new chiefs be presented. The first couple of chiefs came with small entourages and only a few gifts, but the chiefs apparently increased in importance or wealth, because the amount of goods (schnapps, cases of beer, cloth, goats, yams, and envelopes of money) accompanying the new chiefs increased each tome a new group appeared before the paramount chief’s representative. The last group came in with a huge entourage, shooting many guns, and we were glad to head back to lunch.
We heard that the Banmuhene went ahead with an enstoolment ceremony, making his absent sister a Queen Mother. The elders say he did nothing of the sort—he is not authorized to appoint a queen on his own. But with this act, he allowed the rest of the festival to proceed and the food bearers to head out toward a shrine called Nsorem on the edge of town. They are dressed in white cloth, dusted with talc, surrounded by bodyguards who are charged with preventing them from falling or dropping the food, and followed by an umbrella bearer and drummers. There was a sizable police presence among the spectators on the street and young men carrying guns were being questioned. Everything went off without injuries and the town seemed more relaxed, despite the press of the crowds watching the procession of food bearers and despite the fact that the women from the Banmuhene’s house were accompanied by a rowdy gang of young men, shouting and firing off guns and generally misbehaving. The procession was supposed to start in the early afternoon and end by 5 pm, but it did not begin until 4 pm and went past nightfall.
On Thursday night, David and I found a spot in an alley where a bar had hired a good band, playing Ghanaian highlife music--which evolved out of big bands, jazz and African music--and the people welcomed us warmly.
On Friday there was a durbar (a gathering of traditional and political leaders) in the central square, preceded by a parade down the main street in which many of the chiefs and queen mothers ride in palanquins carried on the heads of young men. The only hitch at the durbar was that the leader of the political party that is now in the minority, the NPP, arrived at the durbar after the representative of the ruling party, the NDP, and was told that, because he was late, he would not be permitted to take the time to shake hands with all the dignitaries lining the durbar grounds. We were sitting in the midst of his supporters who set up a great hue and cry. The NDP prevailed, the police kept the crowd in good order, and the durbar did not go on as long as we had anticipated.
We returned on Friday night to the alley with the highlife band and friends and students joined us. It was great to listen to good music and dance after such intense days.
