by Arthur Japin
Close to my father sat Badu Bonsu II, king of Ahanta, who was one of his closest friends. Around him were gathered the council of wise men: astrologers, judiciaries, fetish priests, diplomats, keepers of customs, symbols and traditional music, magicians, architects and physicians. A place of honour was reserved for the geomancers, who knew where to look for the gold and precious stones embedded in our soil. Before them kneeled young slaves, their heads bowed and their hands brimming with white-gold pendants and fetishes of amethyst and emerald. Flag-bearers formed a guard of honour for the late arrival of dignitaries. There were skirmishes between the bands of musicians, buffoons and dancers, each claiming what they considered their rightful places. In the thick of it all, four black-suited Europeans with heat-stricken, drawn faces were working their way towards the front: they were the Reverend Brooking, an English missionary, and envoys from Britain, Portugal and the Netherlands. The latter was Jacob Huydecoper, a stout, red-faced fellow, who had served as assistant in the city since 1836. Bowing deeply, he greeted Kwame and me with the title of “Prince,” although it was obvious that there was some confusion in his mind about our identity and the precise nature of our link to the throne. We did not return his greeting. These men were underlings, condemned to spend their lives in a place forsaken by their own god. When they were not felled by the climate, they were drunk on palm wine.
On either side of our family, as a sign of honour to Ashanti unity, stood battle formations drawn from all the states of the Union of Ashanti: Kumasi, Juaben, Bekwai, Nsuta, Mampong and Kokofu. Each asafohene, wearing the commander’s fighting tunic decked with gold-inlaid amulets and grigris to ward off evil, headed a squad of 200 akwanrafo with cocked rifles. In addition, each was flanked by a close array of 150 fighters attended by dozens of asansafo, the “empty-handed,” whose task was not to carry provisions but to see to the swift removal of booty. The kyidom bringing up the rear were recognizable by the plumes tied to their spear-points. Altogether there were six full armies: thirty-seven regiments in seventy-seven subdivisions. On platforms strung across the hillsides a dense multitude had assembled, in which 120 golden parasols betokened the presence of the same number of village chiefs. Each of these had brought, in addition to the village elders and their women in all their finery, 400 armed troops, 200 slaves and 100 gifts. A vast assembly of functionaries, a full oman of each state headed by its omanhenes , accompanied by all those who had earned the honour of joining the excursion to the capital, occupied the outermost reaches of the city. There they mingled with the wholesalers and heads of village clans who had gathered together. The Asantehene himself was too far away for those at the back of the crowd to even catch a glimpse of him, which gave rise to widespread grumbling. There was some scuffling and molesting of beer girls. They had no idea of the ceremonies taking place on the other side of the sea of people.
On this day Kwame and I, both of us named, in keeping with tradition, after the Saturday and Sunday of our respective births, were in the tenth year of our lives. We were positioned among our families: I to the left of my father, while Kwame, being the eldest son of the queen mother and heir apparent to the Asantehene’s throne, was directed to the right. Our shoulders were elaborately draped with the colourful adinkra cloths, after which we were told to sit still. Both of us failed to do so, which earned us each a box on the ears from my father. We had to be patient. To while away the time storytellers were summoned to do their work in the oppressive heat.
“Osei Tutu broke two branches off the kuma tree . . .” one of them began. I shot a look at Kwame, who collapsed into nervous giggles when our eyes met.
We had heard the story of the founding of our native city too often: the battle Osei Tutu had fought to throw off the yoke of the Denkyira, his shrewdness in allying himself to five other rebel tribes so that he might later subdue them and thus forge the different domains into a single nation with a common language and common religion—it had all been subsumed into the legend of the archetypal founding father and his kuma tree. Every child in Kumasi imbibes the story of the fruitful branch and the withered branch with its mother’s milk.
Kwame Poku was the only son born to the Asantehene’s eldest sister. His father was the famous Adusei Kra, the atene akotenhene, commander of all the warriors of Ashanti. Adusei Kra was seen in public only at official events. Severe and menacing in full regalia.
Seven years before Kwame’s birth, Adusei Kra had led the Ten Thousand southwards on a legendary campaign. Upon his arrival at the coast he had defeated the English, one of those European peoples who had given the Ashanti kingdom and the outlying West African states the name Gold Coast. Adusei Kra sent the white men scurrying back to their fortresses, after which they only ventured outside to bring gifts and to grovel.
In his forty-second year the great warrior fell ill. He called for the fetish priest to conduct the ceremony whereby his strength and bravery would be passed on to his son, my cousin Kwame, who was designated to be the future king of our people. When he had done this Adusei Kra drifted into a sleep resembling death.
In those days the palace children avoided Kwame. They were alarmed by the severity of his expression, which his father seemed to have vested in him along with his other qualities. Kwame spent much of his time in our wing of the palace in order to prepare himself for the throne that he would occupy once my father had died. I ran into him from time to time, but he always kept his eyes fixed on the floor and I did not venture to speak to him. Besides, I had my own reasons for sadness.
I missed my brothers Kwadwo and Kwabena, the only two who had the same mother as I. She was my father’s first wife. My brothers were a little older than me and they were dearer to me than anyone else in the world. They were the only children who had free access to my room. One day I could not find them anywhere. I had three sleepless nights before someone dared reveal the truth to me. My father had handed over his own sons to the British envoy, who was to conduct them to Fort Cape Coast.
I was inconsolable. Never before had an Ashanti prince left our territory. How could my brothers be obliged to travel the same jungle paths that the slaves conquered by my father had been forced to tread before? Were Kwadwo and Kwabena to be given to white men in exchange for Dutch gin and muskets? I had horrible visions of their plight. Eventually I was issued an official statement to the effect that the two princes would return within a few years as grown men; they would have amassed large fortunes and would come with beautiful wives, but I felt they were lost to me. Less than a month later news came that they had been ambushed on the way by Abyssinian caravan drivers and killed for their golden ornaments.
I could not comprehend why my father had sent his sons to their deaths in this way and wished to hear some explanation, some remorse—just a cry of grief, if nothing else—from his own lips. But he did not show his face in the family circle for weeks, probably out of shame, and whenever I did set eyes on him the circumstances were too formal for me to approach him. My mind reeled with questions, but an Asantehene does not speak for himself. From the time a new king has been pressed three times on the Golden Stool—the repository of the spirit of Ashanti which was made to appear out of the sky by Osei Tutu’s priest—he employs the services of a speaker, who never leaves his side. The speaker is deputed to communicate the Asantehene’s opinions, thoughts and feelings. And although it still happened, albeit rarely and only in the most private quarters of the palace, that Kwaku Dua became once more the father he had been before his accession to the throne—when he was called simply Fredua Agyeman and would draw me on to his lap or take a stroll in the street holding my hand in his without this attracting any attention—I could never trust him again. I became apprehensive. My love was numbed by doubts. From then on, if my father happened to see me red-eyed, and sank down on his haunches to comfort me, I would brace myself and say it was nothing, just some grains of sand that had blown into my eyes. An Ashanti knows the salutary power of taboo: grief that is unspoken does not exist.
There I was, huddled in a corner, when Kwame came in. He had seen my servants leave and thought the place was unoccupied. I raised my head and our eyes met. I saw at once that his reticence was not inspired by arrogance. He immediately dismissed all his attendants and sat down by my side, consoling me by breaking into sobs himself. I told him about my own sadness and asked him to tell me about his.
“You know,” he said, “the family of a brave man always has some reason to weep.”
From that day on we bathed together.
Not long afterwards Kwame visited me in my apartments. He had never done so before. The tuition he was receiving brought him into contact with many of those who were close to the throne. He had plied them with questions as to the motives underlying my brothers’ departure, and had come up with the following explanation.
Kwaku Dua, my father, had developed a keen interest in all things European. He was the seventh Asantehene of the Union of Ashanti, but he was the first to view the old contacts as more than a means of acquiring alcohol and arms. He was seized by the notion that the science and knowledge of white men might well be of service to our people, especially now that the European nations had, for reasons incomprehensible to us, abolished slavery. The trade in slaves had not been wholly wiped out by the abolition, but it had declined so dramatically that the prosperity of our outlying regions was at risk.
The Reverend Brooking, who strutted around Kumasi wearing the regulation high black collar of the Wesleyan Missionary Society even in the midday heat, encouraged my father’s interest. He proposed sending my brothers to London for a spell, no doubt with the aim of converting them, and eventually, through them, our people as well. My father liked the idea of an English education for his sons, even though the religions of Europe struck him as absurd. He did not tolerate Christian worship in his realm. Indeed, some years later he even had Brooking’s head, complete with collar, impaled on a stake in front of his palace. Religious teaching of any kind was the least of his concerns. The Asantehene’s interest in this venture focused on science and progress, on his relations with the British government and on the expansion of trade. However, the murder of my brothers had nipped all these ambitions in the bud.
Kwame could tell that I was not cheered by his information. Soon afterwards he came to see me again, and we took to playing together for a while each afternoon after his lessons.
Gradually, as we listened to each other’s hopes and fears, I felt my loneliness ebb away. Kwame, burdened by the high expectations the court had of him, found consolation and sustenance in our friendship. He developed into a promising heir apparent, and in due course our people were convinced that the future Asantehene would know no fear.
We became so inseparable that people said we were beginning to resemble one another. “As the dog-tamer resembles his dog,” Kwame said. When we finally asked if we might share the same room and the same bed, no one was surprised. My father was pleased with the positive turn our association was taking. So Kwame moved out of his room in the eastern wing and into mine, which was located outside the main building next to a spring where, by dint of an ingenious system of conical vessels, the water burbled into a small basin, even in the driest months of the year.
Soon afterwards Kwame assumed his manly duties to general approval. Although his mother continued to be the head of the family, it was Kwame who led the elaborate farewell ceremonies when his father, Adusei Kra, was on his deathbed. He behaved in the most dignified manner and did not flinch once while the Asantehene’s eyes were upon him. Now and then I gave him reassuring signals that only we understood. Under the scrutiny of the other children and wives of the dying man, Kwame and the fetish priest conducted the rites at his dying father’s bedside: a burning oil lamp passed three times around the face about to lose its expression, water sprinkled on the hands about to abdicate their power and on the feet that need travel no more, and three final splashes of water on the tongue.
An Ashanti does not fear his dying day. His death is merely the ultimate fulfilment of a promise made at birth. But the time of death is never without meaning. He who dies young is a curse to his nearest kin. A dead infant will be spat upon and mutilated by its parents, and must be buried in the place where the women relieve themselves in order that the child’s soul may be dissuaded from returning. An advanced age attests to good behaviour. Old men with white hair and manifold children are cosseted and covered in gold. But Adusei Kra’s death was untimely, and dying at his age was suspicious to say the least. The ancestors might be summoning him so soon because he had committed serious misdemeanours. It was left to Kwame to produce an explanation for the premature departure of his father’s soul. The two of us fancied that Adusei Kra had lost his life to a host of vengeful spirits. For such is the fate of the warrior from the very first day he begins to kill: the more bodies he claims from the enemy, the more numerous the spirits massing against him. It was just as well, I reassured Kwame, that Adusei Kra had been able to avert the worst misfortune that can befall an Ashanti: dying childless. No one could accuse him of being kote krawa. He was no “waxen prick.”
“The tree has fallen,” Kwame announced to the people. He assisted his mother in laying out the corpse; she used a large sponge to sprinkle water on Adusei Kra’s loins and cleanse them, just as she had done in the night when he had begotten his son. The slaves and private servants of the deceased were rounded up and sent to accompany their master with a single blow of the sword. In the meantime the ancestors had to be informed of the coming of the fresh soul. The heavy rhythm of sticks beating against the skin of elephants’ ears stretched taut over talking drums, the male and female atumpan, led the women and girls to begin a chant: they were glad the dead man had lived so well, glad the dead man had shared his life with them, glad he was setting out on his last journey, glad he was awaited, glad he would be there later to await them when their time came. Glad, glad, glad.
That night I lay against Kwame and held him tight until the sobbing stopped. He told me the last words spoken by his father, with which he had revealed the secret of victory: each attacking phalanx of Ashanti warriors is tailed by a horde of sword-wielding afonasoato, ready to kill their own fighters at the slightest hesitation or attempt to flee.
Kwame’s father had saved his final breath not to tell him he loved him, but to impress upon his son the Ashanti battle cry: “To advance is to die. To retreat is to die. Better then to advance and die in the jaws of battle.”
In keeping with tradition, the body of Adusei Kra was laid to rest in a room, where it stayed until the flesh dropped from the bones. Only then would he be buried—in silence—beside the ancestors. It was in this period of waiting that Kwame and I paid a final visit to the deceased. This was no mean feat. Upon opening the door we found the corpse covered in flies. We flailed our arms to drive them away. When we set eyes on the body we saw that it had lost its pigment. It had turned white. To us, white was the colour of death, of the spirit world, the colour of all that is drained of life.
In these hallowed months of mourning Kwame showed a growing interest in the rituals of maturity. Besides, there were new customs to be learned by us both, now that our budding manhood was visible when we were bathed. We were instructed by the fetish priest in the knowledge that is kept from boys until the pubic hair begins to grow. The gods, he assured us, looked kindly upon the promise of our bodies. Fertility prayers were to be recited in order to placate the spirits attending to adult functions of the flesh, which, far from being familiar, had seldom even entered our minds.
But all this did shed new light on the nights we spent t
ogether, in which we found a certain consolation, and a closeness that was addictive and deeply reassuring. I sensed that it would be prudent to keep silent about the intimacy between us, preferring to remain a child. I noticed that Kwame was equally reticent once the innocence, and with it the lightheartedness, of our games vanished. We felt that our intimacy arose more easily from a wrestling match than from an embrace, but never found the words to express it.
We enjoyed going to the sanctuary of Twi, not out of piety but because it was one of the few chances we had of getting away from our peers, who teased us for our taciturn ways and quiet friendship. Even when I publicly renounced my old beliefs, many years later, I still thought wistfully of the animistic pantheon at the lake of Twi. The story that goes with it is this.
When Osei Tutu drove the spirit named Twi off his land to make way for the city of Kumasi, Twi sought refuge in the lake nearby, where he leads a reclusive life in water that abounds in fish and has turned the colour of his blood. The spirit named Twi, who is said by some who have met him to resemble a human being, does not wish to be disturbed anew. This is why the local fishermen avoid rippling the surface, and move their craft carefully over his resting place using their hands as paddles. To make sure that Twi lacks nothing and has no reason to leave his refuge to seek what he needs in Kumasi, plentiful offerings must be made under the canopy of the rainforest, where all the gods are venerated with like devotion.
Our pilgrimages to Twi familiarized us with the cruelty and mercy of nature. These expeditions lasted three days, in the course of which we encountered strangling orchids, death trees, parasitic fungi, spitting cobras, acid-spraying insects and the poisonous milk secreted by the teated shrub. In the heart of the forest, where each living creature leeches on another, smothering and destroying in the constant battle for the scarce rays of sunlight, there are also mutually sustaining bonds. Looking closely one finds that, in the midst of all the violence, extraordinary alliances are sometimes formed, the better to survive the struggle for life. Never was I in closer contact with the divine than at those moments when nature revealed to me the root of friendship.