|
|
AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
Show panel list
Religious peacekeeping and the persistence of 'divine kingship' in Ghana
| Panel |
22. Retour sur les monarchies sacrées en Afrique
|
| Paper ID | 302 |
| Author(s) |
Muller, Louise F.
|
| Paper |
View paper (PDF)
|
| Abstract | The focus of this paper centres around the question of whether “divine kingship” among the Asante in Ghana has persisted, and if so, why.
In the introduction, the meaning of “divine kingship” will be explained in the context of Asante history. In the pre-colonial period of the Asante Kingdom (1701-1901), the divine Asante King (Asantehene) was the mediator of the ancestral spirits and indirectly of the Highest God (Nyame). He was also the commissioner for the exercise of traditional customs, such as the pouring of libation and “human sacrifice.”
For most of the colonial period (1901-1935), the function of Asantehene was officially discontinued. Henceforth, the highest political position in the so-called “Crown Colony of Asante” was reserved for the Chief Commissioner. This policy did not change after 1935 when the Asante ruler Prempeh II was chosen as Asantehene.
• What happened with the Asante monarchy in the colonial (1901-1957) and postcolonial period of the Asante state?
The historian McCaskie (1995) argues that as a “divine kingship,” the Asante Kingdom disappeared around 1880 due to the introduction of Christianity and Western modernity. His colleague, Wilks (1979), on the contrary, argued that during the colonial period, the Asante monarchy persisted but that the secularisation of the function of the Asantehene marked the end of the monarchy as a “divine kingship.”
Different from McCaskie and Wilks, the author of this paper will reason that in today’s Ghana, “divine kingship” among the Asante has persisted. The present-day Asante King has remained in his position as a “divine king” due to the incorporation of significant elements of Islam and Christianity in the indigenous Asante religion, especially during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
It is true that the custom of human sacrifice and other violent customs that originate in the pre-colonial period have been discontinued. However, there is no doubt that the present Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, can be called a “divine king,” because, among other things, he has remained to be a true mediator of the spirits and the God of both the indigenous believers, Christians and Moslem. Osei Tutu II is blessed by his personal traditional priest (nsumankwahene) as well as his chief imam (Alhaji) and his Anglican pastor.
In conclusion, the writer of this paper will make the statement that the incorporation of Islamic and Christian elements into the indigenous Asante religion are the reasons for the persistence of “divine kingship” in the Asante Region of today’s Ghana. There will be a particular focus on Kumasi, which is the ancient capital of the Asante kingdom. Historical research and six months of fieldwork in the Kumasi Metropolis have convinced her that the inhabitants of the Metropolis, (indigenous religious believers, Moslems and Christians) whom she interviewed, legitimate the Asante monarchy, despite the existing religious frictions between the religious believers mentioned.
|
|