No one has ever sat on it and since its arrival, it has not touched the ground. The golden stool is very carefully protected. There is an elaborate legend surrounding it that is told by the old men of Ashanti. The golden stool is sacred to the Ashanti. The Ashanti also practice many rites for marriage, death, puberty, and birth. There are a variety of religious beliefs involving ancestors, higher gods, or abosom, and ‘Nyame’, the Supreme Being of Ashanti.
They also believe in fairies, witches, and forest monsters. They believe that plants, animals, and trees have souls. The Ashanti religion is a mixture of spiritual and supernatural powers. Within every village there is a village head council made up of all the heads of households Villages are brought together by a subchief. A district chief presides over a District Council of Elders, which is made up of subchiefs. A paramount chief presides over district chiefs. There is one king and he heads the Ashanti Confederacy Council, a group made of paramount chiefs. The government of Ashanti is shaped like a pyramid. Even so, divorce is very rare in the Ashanti culture and it is a duty of parents on both sides to keep a marriage going. Many women do not meet their husbands until they are married. Women in the Ashanti culture will not marry without the consent of their parents. Men may want more than one wife to express their willingness to be generous and support a large family. Marriage is very important to Ashanti communal life and it can be polygamous. They also work the fields and bring in necessary items, such as water, for the group. Girls are taught cooking and housekeeping skills by their mothers. The talking drums are important to the Ashanti and there are very important rituals involved in them. Talking drums are used for learning the Ashanti language and spreading news and are also used in ceremonies. Boys are taught to use the talking drums by their mothers' brother. The father is also responsible for paying for school. They are taught a skill of the fathers' choice. He is called either Father or Housefather and is obeyed by everyone.īoys are trained by their fathers at the age of eight and nine. The head of the household is usually the oldest brother that lives there. The family lives in various homes or huts that are set up around a courtyard. This relates them more closely to the mother’s clan. A child is said to inherit the father’s soul or spirit (ntoro) and from the mother a child receives flesh and blood (mogya). To the Ashanti, the family and the mother’s clan are most important. Ashanti is in the center and Kumasi is the capital. It is now politically separated into four main parts. Ghana, previously the Gold Coast, was a British colony until 1957. The Ashanti are a major ethnic group of the Akans in Ghana, a fairly new nation, barely more than 50 years old. The Ashanti live in central Ghana in western Africa approximately 300km.
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