Cosmology
When the Akan think about the cosmos, they have in mind a single world that is composed of two parallel worlds, one spiritual and the other corporeal. The corporeal world is the domain of humans suggesting that the corporeal would naturally take precedence over the spiritual or incorporeal. However, in the African scheme of thought this is actually not the case, because the spiritual reigns supreme in all matters, spiritual and corporeal. The corporeal world is merely a reflection of the spiritual, the original and "real" world of humans, because everything corporeal originated in the spiritual. If the spiritual world is the real and ideal home of humans, then how do we explain the presence of humans in the corporeal world?
In the search for answers, we must first tum to the Yoruba people who also view the cosmos in spiritual (Orun) and corporeal (Aye) terms vis-a-vis humans and their role in the corporeal. The Yoruba maintain that: '"The world is a marketplace... [while] the other world is home"' In other words, the corporeal world is where life exists entrepreneurially and when existence is over in the corporeal after shopping, then one goes back home to the spiritual world for rest. Actually, the corporeal is where one works, engages in business and trades and manages all kinds of enterprises, knowing that life in the corporeal is fleeting, because one is destined to return home to the Orun. The promise of ideal life at the Orun is predicated on the notion that after buying and selling in the corporeal, one must return home in other to cook or prepare what one purchased in the mundane. The promise of returning home also assumes that if one purchased good items then one would enjoy the fruits of one's labor in the corporeal, first, and ultimately the spiritual. Existentially, the, one must cultivate certain "goals and aspirations in the world" leading to "long life, peace, prosperity, progeny, and good reputation. Ideally, these can be achieved through the constant search for ogbon (wisdom), imo (knowledge), and oye (understanding). Similarly, if one arrives at the marketplace (corporeal) and engages in illicit or unethical business practices, then one would reap the benefits of one's bad business activities.
The ethical imperative of the Yoruba and how a human being journeys through the corporeal Aye is also true of how the Akan conceptualized their world. In general, the Akan envisioned two worlds: the spiritual and true world, and the other corporeal and fleeting. The spiritual realm the Akan refer to as the asamando, while the corporeal is the wiase. Although the two worlds are the same, the wisae is a reflection of the asamando, the original and permanent home of the Akan. From the asamando, a human enters the wiase enjoined to be morally and ethically responsible for existential and spiritual matters and accept the consequences of all deeds undertaking in the corporeal realm. This moral and ethical imperative is what the Akan refer to as ᴐbra (ethic).
The interfacing of these worlds is important because the corporeal cannot exist without the spiritual. Although a miniature form of the spiritual (Asamando), the corporeal (Wiase) reveals so much about the asamando and other spiritual realms existing alongside the asamando within an infinite cosmos. The spiritual realm has several spheres, including spheres for the dead-alive (the Asamando), the Ancestors (Nananom Nsamanfo) within the Asamando, and the Abosom (Gods and Goddesses). As for the corporeal, there is the Wiase, which encompasses the living and all tangible things, as well as intangible beings like the agitated and revengeful spirits of the dead in limbo (atᴐfo), and dwarfish gods. God (Nana Nyame), finally, holds all these spheres together at the center, where the Almighty occupies exclusively.
The Abosom (Gods and Goddesses)
The Akan would say: Bosompo bɛtoo abo (literally, the ocean Goddess, Bosompo, met a cluster of rocks). Contextually, it means there was already stationed cluster of rocks (abo) prior to the arrival of the ocean or sea goddess resulting in the union of the ocean (Po) and the cluster of rocks (Abo). In other words, the only entity capable of stopping the ocean or raging water or bodies of waters from its destructive force is rocks. Essentially then the tangible universe is composed of rocks and water (ocean), with everything else fallen in-between the two elements. For the Akan, these two primeval elements, the Abosom or Gods, are worthy of worship, because they are visible expressions of a more powerful primeval spiritual forces whom the Akan called collectively abosom (Gods).
Chronologically, the creation of the earth follows in this order: "Rocks preceded the ocean" (Bosompo bɛtoo abo), meaning the world or rather the earth existed as a cluster of rocks before the arrival of primeval mass of ocean as the female counterpart of rocks. While there is no question about the theological basis for the above statement, politically it has major implications when quoted during royal discourses. Ordinarily, to state that the Bosompo bɛtoo abo is to speak of the premier of two competing objects, claims, or situations as to which version is older. In a court of law, the quotation in itself does not suffices as one must proceed to demonstrate how the former precedes the latter, especially so during royal disputes determining which particular lineage is oldest amongst competing families. Indeed, many of the raucous and even fatal royal disputations among the Akan today are the direct results of exactly such claim and counter claims.
Every huge piece of rock is viewed as an ᴐbosom (god), an immovable visible altar on which an otherwise intangible power or force is expressed. On a sacred rock or rocks, a god or goddess periodically expresses itself when devotees invoke and offer sacrifices to it. This is why whenever people come upon rocks, they tum them into altars and worship there because insightfully worshippers view primeval mass of rocks as more that barren masses, they are imbued with spiritual entities that devotees are keenly aware. In fact, any cluster of rocks is a constituent of a family of abosom and probably the reason why the primeval mass of rocks was able to trap the ocean.
What then did the meeting of the two deities produced? The primeval cluster of rocks was imbued with abosom, meaning the rocks were infused with deities so that when the ocean joined with the rocks, it triggered the emergence of the abosom unto the surface who then manifested themselves as rivers, bodies of waters, etc. In other words, the ocean literally gave birth to the gods that existed in the cluster of rocks, causing them to express themselves outwardly. It also suggests that all the deities in the corporeal world had pre-asamando existences, at least existed in a realm unique from what it is in the corporeal world now.
One of the most common and fascinating stories about how a trio of primeval abosom emerged from a single rock-source involves the gods Ayensu and his hairy, three-headed younger brother, Densu (and their middle sister Birim). The god Kwabena Ayensu arrived on earth pursued by his younger brother, Yaw Densu, because Ayensu quickly and secretly prepared a meal and tricked their blind father into eating it pretending to be the hairy Yaw Densu who was supposed to prepare the meal in return for their father's gold. This was in preparation for their journey to the corporeal wiase and the gift each deity was to receive from their father before entering the mundane to start their independent existence. Afterwards, their father, perhaps skeptical and knowing all along that it was Ayensu, nonetheless offered Ayensu the gold that was to have been giving to Densu, because Ayensu passed the test set by their father. Outwitted and incandescent with rage, Yaw Densu set out in pursuit of Kwabena Ayensu, to claim what he thought should have been his. However, Ayensu ran quickly into the ocean and gave the gold to the sea-goddess, Abina Mansa, for safekeeping and ending any chance of Densu ever getting the gold.
As to why the deity Ayensu did what he did, his answer in Twe was that he, Ayensu, is the oldest (Me ni ptinin). Besides, he was there when their father instructed Densu to prepare the meal and so he took the opportunity to do whatever he could to obtain the gold. Moreover, he continued, he has given Densu his share of the gold. This act created an enmity between the two brothers, although Densu maintains that what humans consider as enmity among gods equals the highest expression of love any living thing, including humans can ever hope to achieve. Most importantly, the story of the Ayensu and Densu go to show that the abosom had a pre-earthly or corporeal existence. Furthermore, it demonstrates that not all the gods, like the father of Ayensu, Birim, and Densu, have a mundane or corporeal existence, meaning they have existences beyond the known cosmos or universe. What is important is that at some point
"parent" deities allow their children to depart their "world" in order to be born in other realms as mature deities. Even so, the abosom do not all share the same source or sources, each family of gods have their unique sources, characteristics, form, and nature. Therefore, when one visits the source of the Ayensu, Birim, and Densu rivers, one discovers that though they emerged from one source, each deity was unique and yet the same as the others.
Similarly, the ocean too is a goddess (Bosom po), with her own pantheons. Most importantly, she is endowed with all the abundance of life and probably why the primeval mass of rocks found her attractively desirable. According to tradition, the sea or ocean goddess came into existence on a Tuesday as a female and hence her first name Abina. For the Akan every girl born on a Tuesday goes by the same name as the sea deity, Abina. However, the goddess has another name that reveals something more about her character and nature, and that is, she is the third of three consecutive goddesses and hence her last name Mansa-a name also assumed automatically by every third consecutive daughter. As Mansa, the ocean goddess is feisty, stubborn, and strong-minded and yet very charmingly majestic and extroverted as every Tuesday-born. In recognition of the Goddess Abina Mansa's day of ascendancy, Tuesday is sacred to her and therefore no fishing is carried out on Tuesday at sea.
The majestic beauty, mystery, fecundity, fury, and power of Abina Mansa are attributed to the fact that she embodies the essences of all the gods on land and sea. Most of the deities express themselves visibly as rivers or bodies of waters that flow into and fuse with the sea, and in the process each deity takes along what makes it a unique deity into the sea. Thus, the sea is essentially most of the deities combined, meaning Abina Mansa reigned supreme above each individual deity as mother of the gods. However, there may be exceptions because not every deity fuses entirely with the sea even after flowing into it-some choosing to remain unique after joining the ocean. One such deity is Kwabena Ayɛnsu, a river that empties itself into the sea at Simpa (Winneba), Ghana. According to some fishermen in Simpa, the "Ayensu ... never mixes with the sea, so that one notices the river flowing through the ocean for miles, especially during floods." Some elders even maintain that when "we go fishing, we are still able to taste it [the Aysnsu River] as pure water, even at sea." The reason for this phenomenon may be explained by the fact that both Abina Mansa and Kwabena Ayɛnsu share the same essential attributes in that they both originate on a Tuesday. As a result, Kwabena Ayɛnsu can resist the propensity to join the collective, the ocean, and yet maintains his uniqueness as pure water.
The gender of Abina Mansa, the ocean goddess, further suggests that the primeval mass of rocks is male and probably in need of a female counterpart. As evidence, all gods originating on land or rocks are distinguished by the unsalted water that they produce as opposed to the more caustic and salty seawater. However, the joining of the two groups of gods and goddesses produced exactly what was needed for life when they first procreated the earth (soil) thought to be a female and who in turn made life possible. For the larger Twe speaking Akan the earth was born on a Thursday and so they call her Asasi Yaa, while the Fante speaking Akan believe that she came into existence on a Friday, hence Asase Afua.
Whether the earth was born on a Thursday or a Friday, what the Akan concur is the fact that the earth has a day of origination resulting from the union of the Abo (cluster of rocks) and the Bosompo (the ocean). Still, the fact remains that the earth has two names suggesting that the Abo (Rocks) and Bosompo (Ocean) may have given birth to two female earth goddesses: one on a Thursday and the other on a Friday, hence Asase Yaa and Asase Afua. For the two names to survive to the present times suggest that there were two traditions deeply entrenched in respective Akan camps. The two female-earth-deities hypothesis is further strengthened by the fact that all gods originate in pairs of two rival deities of the same gender, one older and the other younger. The appearance of only a day separating the goddesses Asase Yaa and Asase Afua should not be taking as equality of the two female deities,
because a cosmic-spiritual day cannot be computed on the same scale as human computation of time. Spiritually, time is computed in terms ofweight,8 so that Asase Yaa's currency simply means that she is the younger of the two goddesses, while Asase Afua's status appears to be limited only to the Fante speaking Akan, because she comes from an older tradition. Logically, the fact that Thursday precedes Friday, at least from the way humans reckon time would make it appear as though Asase Yaa originated before Asasi Afua chronologically. But it could be argued, equally, that a Friday-born came into existence long before a Thursday-born when speaking about the two earth goddesses. The point is that a day that a deity comes into existence is not the basis for determining the "weight" or age of a deity, because deities existed long before there were seasons and certainly before humans ever existed.
Another common notion among the Akan is the ascendancy of women and their blood (mogya) as basis of physicality and belonging. After all, the Akan follow a system of inheritance based on a mother's bloodline called Abusua. Physically the Akan contend that they descended from women, indeed, the first woman to walk the earth, hence the name Akanfo (First people). In addition to equating blood with women, the Akan also equate blood with the earth and therefore a taboo to spill blood, especially human blood on the earth. The whole principle of abusua is based on seven or eight original female bloodlines, going back to the first human, the Abrewa (Old woman). Humans, then, descended from seven (or eight) unique blood groupings, meaning each human must have descended from one of seven original blood types or groupings.
What the sea and the cluster of rocks were able to accomplish was to make it possible for rocks to express themselves corporeally and make life sustainable on earth. The sea, it appears, enlivened the fresh waters within rocks, which then burst up into the surface in style and with essence uniquely different in taste from the sea's and the more reason why the ocean is the mother ofthe gods. Manifested corporeally as bodies of waters, the abosom have their spiritual domiciles apart from the corporeal, however. For the abosom, all life forms in the corporeal world are their offspring, including humans and therefore society must be judicious with its use of the environment.
In the past, the Akan were careful with nature and treated it reverently, believing that nature was infused with spirits ready to mete out punishment on those who disrespected nature. The forest was a fearful place to traverse and so indiscriminate tree felling, for example, was rare; the misuse of earth or land was prohibited with certain acts like copulation and spilling of blood considered taboos. Now, the situation is different. Spurred by greed and get-rich-quick mentality, it seems that nature has lost its spirits and deities, as the earth is being unclothed and penetrated in order to rid her of both her internal and external beauty and resources. Granted there are harsh economic difficulties facing Ghana and Africa in general, however, there is no justifiable explanation for the continued loot by politicians, the military, public officials, and governments of the earth's resources.
To be continued....
