Ejisu
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Description
The Asante (Ashanti) are members of the Akan cultural group, located primarily in the modern Republic of Ghana. From the 2nd century AD to the 10th century AD, Akan city states grew through a process of urbanisation involving agriculture, trade, and craft specialization, including iron metallurgy. The Asante claim descent from the large archaeological settlement of Asantemanso, which has been partially excavated and dated back to the early 9th century AD. Over the ensuing centuries, the Asante state grew in size, power and bureaucratic complexity, reaching its peak in the early 1800s when it covered an area of up to 388 000 square kilometres, much larger than the present Republic of Ghana. The precipitous decline of the Asante empire in the 19th century AD was brought about by European colonisation.
The building technology in the Akan areas of modern-day Ghana has a long history, going back at least 4000 years, with antecedents traced archaeologically to around 1500 BC. The basic Akan housing design is a square courtyard-style, comprising four semi-attached square or rectangular buildings enclosing the courtyard. By addition of similar units, this style evolved into buildings of monumental scale, including multi-storied palaces, administrative buildings and temples.
Akan temples are the “houses of God’s messengers”, where Akan priestesses and priests intercede with the abosom (singular: obosom), the messengers of the supreme creator Nyame, to ensure individual fulfilment and safe human passage through life. The typical Akan temple follows the four-square Akan plan, and in its simple form consists of four connected buildings, three open-faced, one each for musicians, singers and for attendees. Private consultations with the priest take place on the partially enclosed veranda of a fourth building. This building also contains one or two locked rooms, the larger of which houses a shrine. The shrine is a kente cloth-covered brass basin (or kuduo), on a brass-studded Akan chair or an ornate wooden stool, standing on a platform. Around it is a scatter of offerings. Each consecrated kuduo is filled with a mass of votive ingredients, and acts as the temporary abode of the obosom when called upon by the priest for assistance.
Besease Temple
This is one of the last remaining examples of traditional Asante temple structures.
Further reading:
Connah, G. 2001. African civilizations, 1st edn 1987. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Chapter 5. The West African forest and its fringes: 144-180.)
Kea, R. 2000. Agency, belief & the social imaginary in Gold Coast towns. In Anderson, D. M. & Rathbone, R. eds Africa’s urban past: 163-188. Oxford: James Currey.
Acknowledgement:
These texts are based primarily on informations on the Aluka website (aluka.org)