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Posted by Chester Morton / Thursday 30 August 2018 / No comments
Eight features of the social organization of the Akans: #4 will shock you
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE AKANS
Introduction
Historically, the Akan people are one of the five major
ethnic groups found in Ghana. The rest are the Ewes, the Guans, the
Mole-Dagbani and the Ga-Adangbe. Accounts have it that, the Akans moved to the
coastal and forest areas of present day Ghana many centuries ago. Some of
them can also be found across the border with La Cote d'Ivoire where they
formed the community called the Baule community the Akans. Several subgroups of the Akan people are dotted in Ghana;
they include Asante, Akuapem, Akwamu, and Akyem, Agona, Kwahu, Wassa, Fante and
Bono.
THEIR SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
They are matrilineal
About seven to eight matri-lineages can be identified among
the Akans. Some of them include the Oyoko, the Asona and the Agona. In the Akan
traditional settings, a man traces his lineage through his mother’s line. He is
believed to belong to his mother’s blood line. As a result, an Akan person
inherits from his uncles from the mother’s side.
It is exogamous
A man cannot be allowed to marry from the mother’s family. It
is considered as a kind of in-breeding if an Akan man begets a child with a
member of his mother’s family. All men can only marry from outside the family
circles of their mother.
Marriage among the Akans
Two people, a man and a woman, do not just meet in the street
and arrange to marry. It is supposed, under the customary law, to encompass the
families of both the man and the woman. Usually, it is the man and or his
family that makes the first move if they spot a woman in another family and
wish to have her hand in marriage. Once the family of the woman is informed,
there is discreet fact-findings about either family by the other family. As soon
as it is ascertained that their daughter or son can marry into the family,
arrangements are made to pay the bride price and the marriage ceremony is
allowed to take place in the glare view of all family members.
Classification of society members
In Akan societies, not all people are regarded as equal.
There are those who constitute the nobility, there are the free-born and there
are the slaves. At the bottom are the slaves captured in wars and their
descendants, above them are the free-born who also wield a lot of influence in
the society. Finally, there is the noble class who wield the political power of
the state. It is from this class that the chiefs and the queens, in fact, the ruling class emerges from.
They believe in totems
It is believed that in the course of their journeys through
the wilderness, they were assisted by certain animals in very spectacular ways. These animals have become
their totems and they revere them to the extent where they are not supposed to
kill them. Some of the animals regarded as totems include royal python and crab
among others.
Practice of polytheism
The Akans believe in the existence of the Supreme Being in
addition to other smaller gods. They believe that the world was created by the
Supreme God. They also believe that other deities exist and are associated with
the natural environment; therefore they inhabit things like the sun, rivers,
trees, mountains and others.
SAMPLE QUESTION(S)
1. Describe the social organization of the traditional Akan
society.
2. Describe the clan system of the Akan.
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