It was a Friday evening. This is usually the day and time when corpses are brought home from the mortuary to be prepared for burial the following day.
It was a scene full of activities. Just before the body of a ninety four-year-old woman was washed and laid in state, a lineage elder offered libation. In front of the family house, he poured rum on the ground intermittently as he spoke. He invoked the dead woman’s spirit and prayed through her for ancestral intercession on behalf of the living members of the lineage:
As you go [to join the other ancestors], we ask for long life, money, prosperity… let us multiply [children], protect us from illnesses that lead to death, especially sudden deaths…
There was a group of women wailing in the compound where the corpse laid on the bare floor in a corner. Many people stood in groups engrossed in discussions; others took time to organise themselves. Such are common scenes at Akan funeral events as major occasions that call for collective action to allot duties. The situation on such occasions is always volatile. It often has the potential to spark quarrels at the least provocation. Planning and organising in preparation for burial are done weeks or months back, but people continue to organise and reorganise themselves. Children usually busy themselves carrying the bags of mourners arriving from other villages and towns. They would receive and be very happy with verbal expressions of gratitude, small presents or coins.
More women joined those weeping near the corpse, still draped in the clothes from the mortuary. After washing the body, the clothes would be changed into a new white gown for the lying-in-state ceremony and burial.
The group of women continued to wail near the corpse. Suddenly, one of them went closer and addressed it: “As you go,” she said as she wailed,
“please be reminded that I need a child. Come back to me [reincarnate, bεbra] and let me bring forth a child to name after you.” She was addressing the corpse as though it was still alive, assigning it the human (living) qualities it used to have and thus never cutting the deceased off conceptually from this world.
The scene above reveals how central Akan ancestors are in the society and the beliefs about their power to give (long) life, fertility and prosperity.
It is obvious from the scene above that in terms of Akan ideas about ancestors the deceased old woman is a potential dead forebear even before the ritual of burial (and funeral rites) to properly send her spirit off and formally turn her ghost into an ancestor. She died at a very old age and has
left descendants. Her spirit is therefore being invoked as it is done with all other ancestors; in this instance, she is being given a message to deliver to those already gone, knowing her potential as a would-be ancestor.
This should be understood in terms of cognition and the sacred.
Cognition theorists and psychologists in the study of religion (or about the supernatural) argue that humans try to understand certain religious concepts with something counter-intuitive about them; for instance, lifeless sacred agents or icons are consciously given human-like or living attributes. Pascal Boyer (1996) explains that humans are intuitive in many aspects of life; that is, they are able to understand experience in life largely based on how they feel about their world. In religious thought, however, humans have an intention that is not based on mere intuition, but one calculated to achieve a certain effect (ibid: 83-85). For instance, in a high religion such as Christianity, God as an invisible agent is viewed with human-like qualities.
Similarly in folk religion or thought about the sacred (as pertains among the Akan), the lifeless body of a person becomes an icon that is seen as a
‘living’ ancestor.
Akan culture is prolific with rites and religious observances perceived to seek the good of the society. The ritual performance regarding libation (prayer) before preparations for burial is one such rite. It is enacted by the head or an elder of the lineage before every corpse is washed, dressed and laid in state for subsequent burial. The epistemological concern here, however, does not lie with the enactment of death rituals. Instead, this chapter tries to show that Akan ancestors continue the matrilineal structure and play a significant role as the starting point of social order in the society.
The chapter starts with a discussion of how ancestors are created through the notion of good death. The next section moves to the status of ancestors in the lineage and society; finally, it examines bad death as a blockage to the production of ancestors and reproduction of the matrilineal group and how this threatens the survival of the society. Ancestor veneration indeed lies at the heart of the indigenous Akan belief system and organises many aspects of social life.
Sadly, only few studies have been done on ancestor veneration among the Akan. These studies have noted the importance of ancestors as a part of the indigenous religion. The studies are, however, fragmentary because they usually were a part of a larger discussion of Akan chiefship (e. g., Busia 1968) or the traditional religion (cf. Rattray 1954 [1927]; Opoku 1978).
Hence, we owe much to Meyer Fortes (1965; 1969) for deeper discussions about ancestor reverence among the Akan. Ancestors ensure the continuity of the lineage and, by extension, the society. Indigenous belief in the holistic
Akan society designates ancestors to watch over their living kin members to ensure their welfare. The many Akan beliefs and practices venerate and implore the dead forebears to protect the group (Busia 1968). This conforms to the pattern generally portrayed in ethnographies from other African societies (see, e.g., Kopytoff 1971, among the Suku of Congo).
There seems to be no records of the origins of ancestor reverence in Akan society. A set of beliefs and practices about the relationship between the living and the dead seems to have been prominent in prehistoric times.
There is almost no direct evidence about these practices (Klein 1996). Oral history indicates that ideas about their ancestors may have intensified as the Akan migrated southwards from the north, beyond Ghana. They were led by people who, upon death, were preserved and carried along to the group’s final abode (see Apter 1955). Keeping in mind the difficulty in historicising oral narration, A. Norman Klein (1996) has tried to reconstruct the origins of the Akan and their ancestral practices. He cites very important pre-historic stone axe, Nyame Akuma, found by archaeologists and originally identified by Rattray (1954: 294-301).
In his attempt to reconstruct Akan origins, Klein (1996) dismisses Rattray and Ivor Wilks (1993: 64-66) for relying on the oral tradition account of ‘the hole in the ground from which our ancestors sprang’ to look for the history of the Akan (ibid: 254). Instead, he tries to reconstruct the origins based on radiocarbon evidence and sickle cell traits found in the Akan area. To me, Klein’s evidence does not help in any way. For, he succeeds in showing that the Akan have a long history of residence in their present abode, the forest areas of Ghana, but fails to show the origins of their ancestral practices.
In the absence of any literature on the nature of the demise that creates ancestors in Akan society, we may look to notions found in India. As in India (Parry 1994), the Akan classify death into good and bad. According to Jonathan Parry (ibid), in Indian society a good death produces ancestors;
when a good death occurs, there is a rebirth in which ghosts are turned into ancestors. On the contrary, bad deaths “result in a blockage of biological and material reproduction” (ibid: 226, original emphasis). Thus, the Akan and Indian notions are quite close, even though the two societies are quite distinct and our analyses also have different starting points. Parry examines priests and other ‘sacred specialists’ in India who perform death rituals before burial and serve mourners and pilgrims to the Indian holy city of Banaras. Although his analysis takes him to a further discussion of hierarchy, power (ritual authority), and avarice, he is able to show that ancestors play a significant role in the growth of the society. Since my
approach begins with how Akan ancestors are created and their significant role in the lineage and society, a central idea is that the dead forebears create the society and society, in turn, creates them. The theme of death and the regeneration of life in many traditional societies has been the focus of recent publications, notably the edited work of Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry (1982).
Becoming an Akan ancestor: ‘good’ death
The first prerequisite to become an ancestor among the Akan is death.
Someone can only become an ancestor only after death. This is an important point about death in Akan society. Death, however, is highly abhorred in the society. A person’s demise is seen as a great loss in the lineage. Ironically, deaths are far too common in Akan-land as in many other societies in Africa.16 The funeral events held almost every weekend in many Akan communities are a constant reminder of death. While in the Western world death is infrequent and distanced because it largely occurs in the seclusion of the hospital (Mellor 1993: 21), it is the contrary in Ghana. The high rate of fatal motor traffic accidents on Ghana’s major roads and deaths from such illnesses as malaria, cholera, and HIV/AIDS are indicative that death is an everyday occurrence. Ghana has quite high adult mortality rates compared to Finland, although it is lower than South Africa’s figures. With regard to child mortality, however, Ghana has the worst records as the figures below shows.
Mortality rates for Ghana, South Africa, and Finland in 2003 Adult mortality Child mortality
Male Female Male Female Ghana 352 295 99 92 S. Africa 642 579 70 61 Finland 134 57 5 4
Note: All figures are per thousand deaths.
FIGURE 1: The adult and child death rates for Ghana, South Africa, and Finland in 2003. Source of figures: World Health Organisation (WHO)—
internet homepage:http://www.who.int.html (10/4/2006).
As in many African societies, the high mortality rates also reflect the woefully inadequate medical interventions in the country. The Akan know too well that death is inevitable. This is expressed in the saying that life is a
16 For instance, John Middleton (1982) says something similar about the Lugbara of Cameroon.
journey at the end of which is death. They know that everyone will die some day. Yet they abhor death, viewed as polluting. It is associated with the left hand as a profane side of the body, in line with Robert Hertz’s (1960 [1907]) theory about body metaphor and a homology with the negative view of death in many traditional societies. Because of its negative nature, the death that produces ancestors is a consolation to the Akan. Being dead, however, is not sufficient enough a criterion to become an ancestor.
Many studies on Akan ancestors say how a dead person ‘qualifies’ to become an ancestor (e.g. Rattray 1954; Fortes 1965; Opoku 1978), but they do not tie it to the kind of death. To become an ancestor, a person’s demise needs to be one of two kinds considered to be good. The death should have been abodweewuo (peaceful death) or nsramuwuo (death at the battlefront).
The main defining characteristics of a good death are age, status, and accomplishments (van der Geest 2004). Abodweewuo is considered to be the best type of death in Akan society. It involves the elderly, even if they had been ill (except with leprosy, apparently because of its contagious nature). It is believed that the illness leading to death, even if prolonged, is part of the phasing out process. Death at the battlefront may connote a violent ending;
it is still considered good and honourable. It is accompanied by a respectable burial and funeral rites. I do not know if those who died in war at young age could become ancestors. My inquiries did not yield definite answers because people hardly gave it a thought. Others believed that such deceased people were regarded as national heroes. I assume that they are mentioned during libation, but not as ancestors.
Ancestorhood is conferred on persons of the parental generation in the lineage group. Meyer Fortes (1965), who cites mostly his better known data on the Tallensi of northern Ghana and occasionally makes references to his findings in Ashanti, has made the connection between ancestors and jural authority in the lineage. He explains that ancestors are those who had jural authority when they lived and not just those who imprint their personality on offspring by virtue of their part in bringing them up (ibid: 130). Fortes claims that it is only members of a lineage who had been invested with authority as lineage heads or as office holders in the external politico-jural domain who become enshrined in stools of worship after death (ibid). This assertion seems vague and too narrow for the creation of ancestors. Indeed, anyone who died close to or at the age of 70 and above (informants did not seem to base it on the Biblical notion of three score and ten, the general Christian belief about man’s number of years to be spent on earth), was considered as an ancestor.
To better understand the Akan ideas about a good death in terms of the nature of demise, age, and status we may consider the death of an old man in his sleep during my fieldwork. He was aged 79 and the father of ten children; he was also quite successful. His burial and funeral rites came weeks after his death, well attended by mourners from far and near. The Akan appreciate this as “a long and well-spent life” (van der Geest 2004:
899), which is close to local Indian perceptions about age and good death.
According to Jonathan Parry, a good death in India is a demise “after a full and complete life having lived to see the marriages of one’s son’s sons”
(1994: 158).
Early anthropologists on the Akan, that is, R. S. Rattray and later Meyer Fortes, grappled with the constituent part of the individual which turns into an ancestor. Meyer Fortes, for instance, claims that it is not clear what essence of the person transforms into an ancestor upon death among the Ashanti. He notes:
As to what constituent of the living person is transmuted into an ancestor, our authorities are vague and I myself never succeeded in getting a coherent account from my informants. An ancestral ‘spirit’ is not thought of as a kind of nebulous being or personified mystical presence but primarily as a name attached to a relic, the stool, standing for ritual validation of lineage ancestry and for mystical intervention in human affairs. In more precise terms it is thought of as the counterpart, in the context of lineage cult, of the matrilineal component of the living person (1965: 129).
I think Fortes is mistaken in his claim of vagueness. My informants’
accounts and my own understandings as an Akan would throw more light. It involves the Akan view of an individual as composed of the three essences of soul, spirit, and blood. At death, the soul returns intact to its owner, Onyame. This seems to correspond to the Christian doctrine of immortality of the soul. There is an Akan belief that the soul is received at conception and is “a small indestructible part of God” which he gives to the individual and with it his or her destiny17 just before birth (Sarpong 1977: 5).
While no transformation affects the soul, death converts the two other essences (the blood/body and the spirit). At death, the body, in which ran the blood, becomes a corpse (efun). The spirit (sunsum) then leaves the corpse and becomes a ghost (כsaman). The ghost goes to the abode of ghosts
17 Destiny (nkrabea) is God-given too or is taken in his presence and cannot be reversed.
Seen to determine the final fate of an individual, destiny is either the final words the soul receives from Onyame before it enters this world, or it is the soul’s own description of what it would be doing when it starts life on earth. For more on the notion of destiny, see Fortes (1959) and Opoku (1978).
(nsamanfo) in the underworld (asamando). In this sense, ancestors are nsamanfo like any other ghosts. There are many types of ghosts in Akan society. Ancestors, however, are revered ghosts. In fact, there are only slight differences between ancestors and living elders in terms of the jural authority they command in the lineage. They are accorded “fearful respect”, as Eugene Mendonsa 1976: 63) says about attitudes of the Sisala of northern Ghana towards their ancestors. Akan living elders such as grandparents go by the title nananom (sing. nana) as a sign of respect for their seniority in age and status (or rank). Ancestors are often referred to as Nananom nsamanfo to differentiate them from living elders and ordinary ghosts.
It is thus the spirit which becomes an ancestor, when death separates and metaphorically scatters the three human components that made the individual one whole in life. Death thus ends in a “dispersal of the various elements of a dead person”, as John Middleton (1982: 140) puts it among the Lugbara. These transformations caused to the individual at death made R. S. Rattray (1954) note among the Ashanti that death was seen as generating life because it was conceptualised merely as a transition. “Like birth, [death is] from one kind of life to another,” Rattray (ibid: 106) observed. Such an observation, however, is vague or seems to consider the regeneration of only one aspect of life, that is, the end of the earthly existence into the other world. In fact, two sets of lives are generated after death. First, through the Akan ritual of burial and funeral, conceptualised to separate death from life, the deceased person is sent to the underworld to begin life there as a ghost/ancestor. Secondly, through reincarnation by ancestors new lives are regenerated into the matrilineage in the world of the living.
There is no gender separation in Akan ideas about ancestorhood. Both men and women are capable of becoming ancestors in the lineage. Although it is usually performed by a lineage head or elder, any man or woman too can appeal to the ancestors to bless an occasion or a person by pouring rum on the ground in supplication. Unlike among the Nyole (Whyte 1997), there are no shrines and shelters for Akan ancestors. Instead, blackened stools, made black by being smeared with animal blood mixed with charcoal, are kept for royal ancestors and those who were lineage heads (see Rattray 1955 [1923]). Stools are the only artefacts created for ancestors. They symbolise the presence of the dead forebears. There seems to be no explanation for using stools, but I assume that its importance lies with a significant Akan practice. Each person is allotted a stool on which he or she sits for everyday activities at home, although it is not rigidly followed these days (probably due to social transformations).
Not every ancestor is given a stool. Only dead royals and lineage heads are enshrined. But they and all others receive ritual offerings and
Not every ancestor is given a stool. Only dead royals and lineage heads are enshrined. But they and all others receive ritual offerings and