...Ghanaian Traditional Stools...

Stools in Ghana come in different shapes, sizes, designs and purposes... If you ever assumed that all stools can be used in the kitchen or worse still, that all stools can be used in the chief's palace then you are mistaken. Every clan, tribe, emblem or totem of the people of Ghana can in most cases be identified by the stools used in the various palaces of the areal they are found. You see, the thing with us Ghanaians is that we do have a lot of spiritual, symbolic and sometimes hard-to believe attachments to objects that might be taken for granted elsewhere. This is the land where almost every animal and object has some form of ancestral attachment to it. Take for instance the Ghanaian traditional stools... This is the Golden stool(lying flat) of the Great Ashanti kingdom and is made of pure gold. History has that this stool has never touched the ground and usually placed on the skin of an elephant indoors. It is believed that not many people had the opportunity to see it with their naked eyes. It continues to n=be hidden in an undisclosed place since it was the quest to posses it that brought a lot of wars in the Ashanti area of Ghana...Find below a number of different traditional stools. These stools represent different clans and tribes and are used on different occasions Take a very good look at the inaugural seat of Ghana...yes! that is certainly a stool and not your usual "chair"....:)

Ghanaian Beads Of Yesterday

A typical use of rich traditional Ghanaian beads; obviously one of the few significant traditions that differenciates us from the others. In the past, Ghanaian beads were worn only on special ocassions. And were the most significant items that were dispalyed during the DIPO RITES of the people in Krobo land. The DIPO RITES are performed to transform girls into womanhood. History has it that Ghanaian women who go through this rites are virgins hence it was a disgrace for a young woman to be defiled (not a virgin) before this rite is performed A young woman going through the Ghanaian Dipo Rites Another young dipo girl A rising trend due to modernisation: Given that some families have found it quite embarassing to have their growing girls go through the dipo rites, the ages of young women who are taken through these rites have reduced, Infact so drastically that toddlers can be found in the long dipo rite queues.... This is the rite that started today's waist beads trend.....as time went on, the use of traditional beads as waist beads even in Ghana changed...So much so that in place of the big, heavy and thick traditional waist beads, are smaller and crystal seed beads that come in a wider range of colours and textures .....Gradually replacing the tradioanal Ghanaian waist beads

Okomfo Anokye, The Great Priest of Ashanti Kingdom

Okomfo Anokye (active late 17th century) was an Ashanti fetish priest, statesman, and lawgiver. A cofounder of the Ashanti Kingdom in West Africa, he helped establish its constitution, laws laws, and customs. The original name of Okomfo Anokye was Kwame Frimpon Anokye (Okomfo means "priest"). Some traditions say that he came from Akwapim in the Akwamu Kingdom southeast of Ashanti, but his descendants claim he was born of an Ashanti mother and Adansi father and was related to the military leader Osei Tutu (the other cofounder of the Ashanti Kingdom) through a maternal uncle. When Osei Tutu succeeded about 1690 to the leadership of the small group of Akan forest states around the city of Kumasi which were already grouped in loose military alliance, Anokye was his adviser and chief priest. Tutu and Anokye, who must be considered together, carried out the expansionist policy of their predecessors, defeating two powerful enemies, the Akan Doma to the northwest and the Denkyera empire to the south. To throw off the Denkyera yoke required a powerful unity that transcended the particularism of the Ashanti segments, and Anokye employed not only the political influence of his priesthood but also added the spiritual ties that transformed the loose Ashanti alliance into a "national" union in 1695. Anokye and Tutu established rituals and customs of the Ashanti state to diminish the influence of local traditions. They designated Kumasi the Ashanti capital. They established a state council of the chiefs of the preexisting states admitted to the union and suppressed all competing traditions of origin. Finally, they reorganized the Ashanti army. The war with Denkyera from 1699 to 1701 went badly at first, but when the Denkyera army reached the gates of Kumasi, Anokye's "incantations" supposedly produced defections among their generals. The Ashanti broke the Denkyera hegemony and captured the Dutch deed of rent for Elmina Castle. This gave the Ashanti access to the African coast and involved them henceforth in the commerce and politics of the coastal slave trade. After Tutu's death in 1717, Anokye is said to have returned to Akwapim and died there. The greatness of Anokye the lawgiver and of Tutu the warrior is measured by the permanency of the nation they created, its symbolism and ritual alive today in the greater state of Ghana. A historical judgment on Anokye is that he enabled the Ashanti "to succeed where Hellas had failed," that is, to retain their national unity after their war of liberation. credit: Encyclopedia of World Biography on Okomfo Anokye