Asante people

In the Asante dialect of Twi, Asantefo; singular masculine: Asantenibarima, singular feminine: Asantenibaa. The name Asante "warlike" is traditionally asserted by scholars to derive from the 1670s as the Asante went from being a tributary state to a centralized hierarchical kingdom.[4][6] Asantehene Osei Tutu I, military leader and head of the Asante Oyoko clan, founded the Asante Empire.[4][6] Osei Tutu I obtained the support of other clan chiefs and, using Kumase as the central base, subdued surrounding Akan states.[4][6] Osei Tutu challenged and eventually defeated Denkyira in 1701,[4][6] and this is the asserted modern origin of the name.[4]

The Ashanti Region has a variable terrain, coasts and mountains, wildlife sanctuary and strict nature reserve and national parks, forests and grasslands,[7] lush agricultural areas,[8] and near savannas,[7] enriched with vast deposits of industrial minerals,[8] most notably vast deposits of gold.[9]

The territory Asante people settled is home to a volcanic crater lake, Lake Bosumtwi, and Asante is bordered westerly to Lake Volta within the central part of present-day Ghana.[10] The Asante (Kingdom of Asante) territory is densely forested, mostly fertile and to some extent mountainous.[10] There are two seasons—the rainy season (April to November) and the dry season (December to March).[10] The land has several streams; the dry season, however is extremely desiccated.[10] Ashanti Region is hot year round.[10]

Today Asante people number close to 3 million. Asante Twi, the majority language, is a member of the Central Tano languages within the Kwa languages.[1][11] Asante political power combines Asantehene Otumfuo Nana Osei Tutu II as the political head of the Asantes and the Ashanti Region,[12][13] with Asante semi-one-party state representative New Patriotic Party,[14] and since the Ashanti Region (and the Kingdom of Asante) state political union with Ghana,[15] the Asante remain largely influential.[16]

Asantes reside in Asante and Brong Ahafo Regions in Ghana.[16] Kumase metropolis, the capital of Asante (Kingdom of Asante), has also been the historic capital of the Asante Kingdom.[16] The Ashanti Region currently has a population of 11 million (11,000,000).

Today, as in the past, the Ashanti Regioncontinues to make significant contributions to Ghana's economy.[17] Asante is richly endowed with industrial minerals and agricultural implements, Asante is responsible for much of Ghana's domestic food production and for the foreign exchange Ghana earns from cocoa, agricultural implements, gold, bauxite, manganese, various other industrial minerals, and timber.[17] Kumase metropolis and Ashanti Region produces 96% of Ghana's exports.[8][9]

Asante yam ceremony, 19th century by Thomas Edward Bowdich

Because of the long history of mutual interaction between Asante and European powers, the Asante have the greatest amount of historiography in all of sub-Saharan Africa.[20] In the 1920s the British catalogued Asante religion, familial, and legal systems in works such as R. S. Rattray's Asante Law and Constitution.[21] The Asante state strongly resisted attempts by Europeans, mainly the Kingdom of Great Britain, to conquer them.[21] The Asante limited British influence in the Asante State,[21] as Britain annexed neighbouring areas.[21] The Asante were described as a fierce organized people whose king "can bring 200,000 men into the field and whose warriors are evidently not cowed by Snider rifles and 7-pounder guns".[21]

The Ashanti Empire was one of the few African states that seriously resisted European colonization.[21] Between 1823 and 1896, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland fought four wars against the Asante kings: the Anglo-Asante Wars.[21] In 1901, the British finally defeated the state following the 1900 War of the Golden Stool and the Ashanti Empire was made a a British protectorate, in 1902, and the office of Asantehene was discontinued with the Asante capital Kumasi annexed into the British empire; however, the Asante still largely governed themselves.[22][23] Asante gave little to no deference to colonial authorities.[22][23] In 1926, the British permitted the repatriation of Asantehene Prempeh I – whom they had exiled to the Seychelles in 1896[22][23] – and allowed him to adopt the title Kumasehene, but not Asantehene. However, in 1935, the British finally granted the Asante self-rule sovereignty as Kingdom of Asante, and the Asante King title of Asantehene was revived.[24]

Akwasidae Celebration in Manhyia Palace in 2009.

An Asante funeral in 2020.

Asante culture celebrates Adae, Adae Kese, Akwasidae, Awukudae and Asante Yam festival.[25] The Seperewa, a 10-14 stringed harp-lute, as well as the Fontomfrom drums are originally from the Bono Akan people. Kente cloth]]ing.[26]

Customs

Asante are a matrilineal society where line of descent is traced through the female.[27] Historically, this mother progeny relationship determined land rights, inheritance of property, offices and titles.[27] It is also true that the Asante inherit property from the paternal side of the family.[27]

Asante soulwasher (Ashanti Sunsum Washer)

Though not considered as important as the mother, the male interaction continues in the place of birth after marriage.[27]

Historically, an Asante girl was betrothed with a golden ring called "petia" (I love you), if not in childhood, immediately after the puberty ceremony.[27] They did not regard marriage "awade" as an important ritual event, but as a state that follows soon and normally after the puberty ritual.[27] The puberty rite was and is important as it signifies passage from childhood to adulthood in that chastity is encouraged before marriage.[27] The Asante required that various goods be given by the boy's family to that of the girl, not as a 'bride price', but to signify an agreement between the two families.[27]

Language

Asante Twi greeting phrases; "akwaba" (welcome) and "ɛte sɛn" (how are you).

The Asante people speak Asante Twi, which is the official language of the Ashanti Region and the main language spoken in Asante and by the Asante people.[28][29][30][31] Asante language is spoken by over 9 million ethnic Asante people as a first or second language.[28][29] The Asante language is the official language utilized for literacy in Asante, at the primary and elementary educational stage (Primary 1–3) K–12 (education) level, and studied at university as a bachelor's degree or master's degree program in Asante.[28][29][30][31]

The Asante language and Asante Twi have some unique linguistic features like tone, vowel harmony and nasalization.[28][29][30][31]

The Asante live in the Ashanti Region, specifically in the capital of Kumase, and, due to the Atlantic slave trade, a known diaspora of Asante exists in the Caribbean, particularly in Jamaica. Slaves captured and sold to the European slave traders along the coasts were sent to the West Indies, particularly Jamaica, Barbados, Netherlands Antilles, British Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Guyana, Suriname, etc. Asante were known to be very opposed to both the Fante Confederacy and the British, as the Asante only traded with the Dutch in times of their ascension to becoming a hegemony of most of the area of present-day Ghana.

Coromantee, the English-language term for enslaved Akan people, came from the original name of the Dutch slave fort of Fort Amsterdam (Fort Kormantse). This was despite this fort being primarily occupied by the Dutch during its history and having no records of trade to Jamaica while being under Dutch ownership.[34] Evidence of Asante and Akan-day names and Asante and Akan-surnames (but mispronounced by the English), Adinkra symbols on houses, Anansi stories and the dialect of Jamaican Patois being heavily influenced by Twi, can all be found on the island of Jamaica. White planter Edward Long, like other planters before him, described "Coromantees" the same way that the British in the Gold Coast would the "Asantes", which was to be "warlike". Edward Long states that others around "Asantes" and "Coromantees" feared them the same way as they were feared in Jamaica and from the hinterlands of the Gold Coast.[35]

According to BioMed Central (BMC biology) in 2012, the average Jamaican has 60% of Asante matrilineal DNA and, today Asante is the only ethnic group by name known to contemporary Jamaicans.[36] Famous Jamaican individuals such as: Marcus Garvey and his first wife, Amy Ashwood Garvey, are of Asante descent. It is commonplace for many Jamaicans to have this descent.[37] Also are Jamaican freedom fighters during slavery: Nanny of the Maroons (now a Jamaican National Heroine), Tacky and Jack Mansong or Three-finger Jack. The names Nanny and Tacky are English corruptions of Asante words and names: "Nanny" is a corruption of the Asante word Nana, meaning "king/queen/grandparent", the name Tacky is a corruption of the Asante surname Takyi, and Mansong is a corruption of the Asante surname Manso, respectively.[38]

• Ashanti cultural artifacts, regalia and other forms of symbolism
• 
  Ashanti National Emblem of the Ashanti Region
• 
  Fontomfrom (Ashanti talking drum and drums)
• 
  Ashanti Blowing Horn
• 
  Ashanti Stool Dwa
• 
  Ashanti Regalia (Asante Gold plated spokesman rod and Asante combat stick)
• 
  20th Century Asante Akrafena (Ashanti Sword with Gold-ring pommel)
• 
  Ashanti Gold plated Shield

• List of rulers of Asante

• Robert B. Edgerton, 1995, The Fall of the Asante Empire. The Hundred-Year War for Africa's Gold Coast. New York, ISBN 0-02-908926-3
• Ernest E. Obeng, 1986, Ancient Asante Chieftaincy, Ghana Publishing Corporation, ISBN 9964-1-0329-8
• Alan Lloyd, 1964, The Drums of Kumase, London: Panther
• Alfred Kofi Quarcoo, 1972, 1994, The Language of Adinkra Symbols Legon, Ghana: Sebewie Ventures (Publications), PO Box 222, Legon. ISBN 9988-7533-0-6
• Kevin Shillington, 1995 (1989), History of Africa, New York: St. Martin's Press,
• N. Kyeremateng, K. Nkansa, 1996, The Akans of Ghana: their history & culture, Accra: Sebewie Publishers
• Dennis M. Warren 1986, The Akan of Ghana: An Overview of the Ethnographic Literature, Accra: Pointer

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ashantis.

• Asante People hand History Profiles history and other aspects of the Asante.
• Asante Page at the Ethnographic Atlas, maintained at Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing, University of Kent, Canterbury
• Asante Kingdom at the Wonders of the African World, at PBS
• Asante Culture contains a selected list of Internet sources on the topic, especially sites that serve as comprehensive lists or gateways
• Africa Guide contains information about the culture of the Asante
• Historical Notes and Memorial Inscriptions from Ghana