International African Institute

Akan Theory of Conception. Are the Fante Really Aberrant?

Author(s): I. Chukwukere
Source: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 48, No. 2 (1978), pp. 135148
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African Institute
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Africa, 48(2), 1978

AKAN THEORY OF CONCEPTION-ARE

FANTE REALLY ABERRANT?1

THE

I. CHUKWUKERE
MONG the Akan-speaking peoples of Ghana the fundamental notion about
the nature and composition of man-a notion which has a significant bearing
on their view of the relation between man and his social, natural and spiritual
worlds combined-is that each person at his or her conception receives specific
physical and spiritual elements from the genitor, genetrix and Nyame, the Supreme
Being.2 These gifts are conceptualised as bogya (or mogya in the Asante dialect),
sunsum and kra, equivalent English translations in literary and popular usage being
'blood', 'spirit' and 'soul' respectively.
The various Akan sub-groups differ, not surprisingly (given their large population
and extensive geographical area), as to the precise analytical details and implications
of these essential constituents of social man. One point of common agreement,
however, is that the two spiritual contributions, kra and sunsum, are bestowed
exclusively by Nyame and the genitor respectively. In the words of a native Akan
social anthropologist, K. A. Busia (1954: 197) quoting one of his reliable Asante
informants, 'Sunsum is that which you take with you to go to the side of the woman
and lie with her; and then the Onyankopon, the Great One, will take his kra and
bless your union. You give your sunsum to your child, not your kra. He comes
with his own kra. As the Supreme Being gives you a kra, so he gives your child his
kra.'
But as far as the physical component mogya is concerned Akan ethnographers
have recorded fundamentally divergent views between the Asante and Fante, the two
largest and best known (to anthropologists and historians at least) Akan sub-groups.
To the former is attributed the belief that it is the genetrix who is the sole donor,
while for the latter it is the genitor that bestows this most vital element.
This discrepancy I choose to refer to in this article as the main ethnographic puzzle
of matrilineal Fante social organisation. My main task is to suggest a solution, or
rather attempt to provide a satisfactory and valid sociological interpretation of this
paradox. I shall do so by referring mainly to some insightful studies on the historical
evolution of Fante society, especially in the last five hundred years of contact between
the Fante, coastal dwellers, and various Western European peoples. But before we
examine the facts and arguments relating to this central problem of alleged Fante
deviation from the general Akan conception of man let us summarise Akan social
structure.

AKAN SOCIAL STRUCTURE3

The word 'Akan' denotes a very broad category of people, most of whom are
located in Ghana with a small minority in the neighbouring country to the west,
Ivory Coast. Those in Ghana, on whom this paper is based, inhabit about two-thirds
of the land area of the country, stretching from the North Atlantic seaboard north-

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AKANTHEORYOF CONCEPTION

wards to the dense rain-forest region (the cocoa belt) which gradually gives way to
the scrubland or semi-savanna of Northern Ghana. They account for just under half
of the total population of their country.4 Agriculture is their main traditional
occupation but the coastal dwellers practise fishing on a fairly wide scale. Trade,
particularly by the women, plays a large part in the activities of Akan people.
There are over fifteen sub-groupings5 of the Akan, of which the Asante (in the
forest zone) and the Fante (in the littoral) are the most numerous6 and famous. All
the groups possess common socio-cultural features and institutions of which the
following deserve emphasis: a myth of common origin and subsequent dispersion
from a northern pastoral locale to their present locations; one language, defined in
the very broad sense of some resemblance and some degree of mutual intelligibility
of apparently different tongues; lastly, a fairly complex web of clanship which
serves as a symbol of cultural unity for the widely scattered Akan men and women.
In a sense the most important common social and cultural characteristic is an
over-arching matrilineal framework of social organisation interlaced, however, with
patrilateral traits of varying degrees of emphasis and strength. In the case of the
Fante these are today so pronounced that an American anthropologist, Christensen
(1954: 3) who did a field study of them in the 1950s, concluded rashly from some
wrong premises that the Fante social system is a type 'manifesting a system of
double descent'.7
Matriliny, as indicated above, is the corner-stone of Akan social structure. A
localised matrilineage (abusua) is the cardinal social group for most aspects of
institutionalised social interactions, including succession to high state offices,
inheritanceof property (especially of land and other immovables), clan membership,
one's status as a citizen (commoner or royal) and one's links with the spiritual
world. With regard to the last it is noteworthy that abusua by preliminary definition
refers to 'the group of people who share funeral expenses' (Christensen 1954: 20),
this activity being a crucial index of reference'for many institutionalised Akan social
relationships. Within the abusua the mother-child relationship is of paramount
importance.
The clan, also referred to as abusua or abusuakuw (i.e. abusua+ekuw, 'big',
'large'), is a rather broad and loosely structured grouping of kin dispersed all over
Akanland. While the abusua proper has remained to this day the exogamous unit
par excellence, clan exogamy is less and less idealised or the people have become
generally indifferent about it, treating it as a custom more honoured in the breach
than the observance. One of the manifest functions of the abusuakuw, therefore, is
its use as a kinship charter for any Akan outside his natal home or state-a visa, so
to speak, for temporary or permanent residence. Members of the different matrilineages claim affiliation with one of the seven or, in some cases, eight major clan
groupings covering the entire Akan society. Each clan is identified both by its own
proper name and its common emblem (asenkyeredze), invariably some animal
species. The Akan as a whole postulate a close psychic relationship between a clan
group and its symbol: the Ntwa (dog) people, for example, are seen as watchful,
quick and lustful.
A peculiar feature of the Akan matrilineal kinship system is the relative emphasis,
apparently strongest among the Fante, on patrilineal descent. This has given rise to
descent groups such as ntoro (or egyabosom in Fante, literally 'father's deity')-a
once-active grouping consisting of people who traced common patrilineal descent
three to five generations back; and asafo-roughly defined here as the largest
patrilineal grouping of any Akan polity, which originated at a point in their history

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AKAN THEORY OF CONCEPTION

137

not easy to determine with exactitude; nevertheless the institution was certainly well
established, at least in Fanteland, in the nineteenth century, and it is among these
coastal Akan people that it has developed at its most colourful and complex.
This general Akan inclination towards the father's side of kin in spite of their
dominant matriliny seems to be rooted in the theory of sunsum-that spiritual
element which it is the prerogative of the father to transmit to all his children, and
which also serves as his powerful weapon of sanction against them. It is believed that
on one's death the sunsum returns to one's father's ntoro group for possible
reincarnation. Of the three basic components of man, which we have discussed,
sunsum is the only one that determines the character and personality of the child.
Asante believe that a child's 'alienation' of the father's sunsum is a general causal
explanation for his or her misfortune, including illness (Rattray 1929: 8; Fortes
1950: 266; Busia 1954: 187).
One social consequence of this seemingly unusual combination of two opposed
principles of descent is the tendency for relationships between Akan parents and
their offspring to be conceived in terms of complementary dualism of fathers' and
mothers' kin categories. The protagonists in burial and funeral rites-to mention
what is in a sense the most important life-crisis ritual in Akanland today-seem
to be always involved in a bi-focal division of kin from the deceased's father's
paternal group and mother's lineage. The inalienability of the mother-child relationship is, as it were, counterbalancedwith some emphatic recognition of the importance
of the father-child bond, which in theory appears to be weaker. Therefore, the
overall picture one gets from a close examination of the Akan social system (especially
if the focus is on the relationship between parents and their children) is that of dual
classification based on male and female distinctions. In other words, the broad
structural framework within which minor sets of oppositions find expression is
female/male (or mother/father, bogya/sunsum, abusua/asafo).
It is of particular relevance for our later discussion of the Fante ethnographic
puzzle mentioned above that we always bear in mind these unique features of Akan
matriliny, which have only been briefly outlined here.
AKAN THEORYOF MAN

The general Akan doctrine of conception, then, is that it is the outcome of a simultaneous tripartite action of a man, a woman and Nyame. The father is said to
inject his sunsum into the body of the mother, where it reacts with her 'blood'
(except for the Fante, who, it has been claimed, deny this particular aspect of the
belief, at least in its total separation of the gifts) and through the benevolence of the
omnipresent Nyame, who compounds the mixture with the bit of his kra he intends
for the resultant product of the synthesis, pregnancy occurs.
The attention given to the pregnant woman before and soon after her delivery
seems to underline the real import of this fundamental belief in three chief causal
agents of procreation: for example, a traditional Fante ritual of 'purifying' the
womb, apparently to ensure a trouble-free pregnancy and delivery. On discovering
her state the woman takes two fowls to her husband (genitor-cum-pater of the
child-to-be) on the day sacred to his deity and requests him to 'wash her with his
father's obosom (god)'. He or his father is the officiant in the prescribed rite, which
of course includes a libation to the relevant egyabosom. The ritual chickens are later
consumed, together with the main ritual food of the Akan, oto (yam mashed in palm
oil and eggs), by the paternal relatives of the man who are present on the occasion.8

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AKANTHEORYOF CONCEPTION

These, let us not forget, are members of the man's (and the unborn child's) egyabosom group, and the particulardeity invoked is one of the emanations or refractions
of Nyame. The woman's matrilineal relatives (members of the lineage of the unborn
child) and the man's agnates (members of its egyabosom and asafo) are clearly
involved in this as well as other life-crisis rituals concerning the child later on in
life (and death).
We ought in addition to note that there appears to be no Akan theory of differential importance of the three essential donations briefly examined above, although
the idea of the pre-eminence of the woman's would fit in with the logic of the
matrilineal order of their society. Since she provides the basis of descent-reckoning,
inheritance and succession, her contribution should be the chief determinant of
their line of flow. And this indeed is the only one-hundred per cent sure way of
keeping that line pure! It would be easier, that is to say, to prove the identity of a
child's mother than that of its father. Women, if we may state the obvious, are the
only bearers of children. Considered thus, Fante matriliny would lose its intellectual
cohesion if the mother's share of the indispensable ingredients of procreation were
not substantial, or for that matter at least theoretically paramount.
It was thinking (or rethinking) along these lines that led me to reconsider the
historical development of Fante society, especially the nature of contacts it has had
with outsiders. I came to the conclusion that in this aspect of Fante socio-cultural
history lies the clue to what we have already designated the ethnographic puzzle of
their matrilineal social organisation-the seemingly radical deviation from the
general Akan belief that children inherit 'blood' from their mother. But before we
dilate upon this subject we need to recall the basic facts as recorded by the key Akan
ethnographers involved.
Rattray (1923: 36), to put it succinctly, claims that the Asante say that pregnancy
results from the 'mingling' of a woman's mogya with a man's ntoro (which equals
in the context sunsum, for this is in fact a more individualexpression of the essentially
collective ntoro). Fortes (1950: 264-5) affirms that this is indeed the traditional
belief 'still accepted among Ashanti who have had little contact with Western
teaching'. Among 'the more sophisticated', he adds, the belief that a child has 'a
closer physiological bond with the mother than with the father prevails' over the
rather simplified formula that both parents donate the blood. Busia (1954: 196-7),
himself an Asante (in a sense), is unequivocal that 'blood ... is transmitted through
the mother'; hence descent is traced through her, and the mother-child bond also
'confers the rights and obligations of citizenship... determines a man's status and
his title to office or property'. He contrasts this all-important biological bond with
the 'spiritual one' between father and child.
Turning now to the Fante, we have the testimony of Christensen (1954: 94-5) that
his informants 'invariably gave the initial answer' that it was from their father they
received their blood. One exception, he says, was a former resident in Asante, who
had in any case 'read Rattray'. But, to quote him at length, on 'further interrogation
as to the basis of the relationship between members of the abusua,' the respondents
modified their original answer to something like this: 'You may get some blood
from your mother, but the most important and strongest is that of your father.'
Also significant for Christensen's case is his citation (1954: 94-5) of Lystad on the
Brong-Ahafo people, who are an Akan sub-group per se but for a long time were
grouped under Asante (being for a time part of the latter's empire). Their view is said
to be 'analogous' to the Fante's, that is, both parents give blood but the father's is
'greater in quantity and quality'.
I would like to stress the following observations from our brief review of this

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139

ethnographic controversy. First, on both sides absolute claims were later tempered
with relative statements, largely to the effect that both parents give some 'blood',
one more than the other. All the same the Asante mother/Fante father polarisation
still exists. He in particular is the acclaimed major donor. Secondly, the anthropologists we have cited do not seem to have shown any overt awareness of the
semantic complexity, as we will try to demonstrate later, of the word 'blood' in
English usage, let alone its Akan equivalent, bogya or mogya.
But before we comment on the major issues they have raised, let us for the sake of
brevity summarise their opposed positions in a structuralformula. Among the Fante,
blood (bogya) and the matrilineage (abusua) are contraposed: they are traced
through the male and female lines respectively; in Asante, on the contrary (and this
goes for the greater majority, if not all, of the other Akan), blood (mogya) and the
cardinal matrilineal social unit (abusua) are more or less coterminous: the former
passed on exclusively from the woman to her children, irrespective of the genitor,
forms the backbone of the dominant principle of their matrilineal social organisation.9 (It must be reiterated, however, that the Asante share this cultural feature
with all other Akan including, of course, the Fante.) To alter the phraseology, in
Asante a dichotomy exists between the mother-child relationship and the fatherchild relationship: the former is physical while the latter is spiritual. But in Fanteland the father-child link is both physical and spiritual, thus leaving the mother out
of it and in a manner which is out of tune with their fundamental conception of
procreation as the result of the combined acts of man, woman and Nyame. Each
of these three protagonists ought, on a priori grounds in any case, to contribute one
or at least a considerable proportion of one of the three essences of the Akan person:
mogya, sunsum and kra.
In the light of the above, I think that Christensen's assertion (1954: 94) that 'the
Fante concept of abusua and bogya cannot be equated' suggests a basic flaw in his
approach to his study of the patri-focused aspects of Fante society. His weakness
stems from taking insufficient cognisance of Fante social and cultural history-their
settlement and later territorial expansion along the coast of Ghana, and their
protractedand relatively intensive interaction with Western European traders, priests,
educators and administrators. How these factors and agents of 'social change'
brought about the apparent cracks in the walls of Fante matriliny we will try to
establish in the remainder of this article.
SOCIO-HISTORICAL
EVIDENCE
There are three principal sources'1 of evidence: documented oral history of Akan
origin and migrations, which in the case of the Fante terminated in their present
location on the coast; early European accounts and maps; modern studies by both
indigenous and foreign scholars of Akan society and culture. The facts one can
scrape together from these sources transcend the lines of the division which we have
drawn here mainly for the convenience of analysis; our discussion should, therefore,
reflect their overlapping nature.
Akan traditions of dispersion and settlement in the forest and coastal zones they
occupy in present-day Ghana emphasise their conquest and subjugation of the
previous inhabitants, Guan-speaking peoples, who are believed to be autochthonous
to the country and pockets of whom are still found all over Akanland today. With
respect to the Fante, now the second largest Akan sub-group, the Guan sub-group

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AKANTHEORYOF CONCEPTION

they had to contend with were the Effutu, who had a powerful coastal kingdom that
the Fante annexed at the beginning of the 18th century (c. 1711 but certainly before
1729)." The Fante retain up to this day a vivid historical sense, particularly of two
epochs: one, the exploits of their founding fathers, which are tellingly enacted by
their national 'appelative' 'Boribori Mfantsi' (approx. 'the pure', 'the first Fante'),
invoked on the drums and horns of the various Fante states; the other is the long
struggle of the Europeans for hegemony on the Gold Coast, which brought to the
Fante immense economic, social and educational advantages over the other
inhabitants of the country.
As regards the first epoch, the Fante agree that one notable outcome of their wars
and early settlements on the coast was the evolution of a distinct Fante 'language' (in
actual fact a dialect, but quite distinct in some ways from other Akan dialects) and
'common culture'. The latter, in particular, was an amalgam of the indigenous
Effutu (Guan) and immigrant Fante (Akan) types. A most interesting point about
the Effutu kingdom is that it had, like the other Guan polities, a patrilineal kinship
system; succession to its throne at least was patrilineal-to 'brothers' or 'sons'. This
custom continued even after the Fante political absorption of the Effutu and other
coastal communities, including non-Fante Akan. Oguaa (Cape Coast, as it is widely
known today) was a leading Effutu town on the coast-a 'market town' (as its
original name suggests)-which sprang up mainly in response to European presence
on the coast; the capital of the Effutu kingdom was several miles inland. Around
Oguaa a new Fante state, also named Oguaa, was born and before the end of the
18th century it had superseded an older leading coastal Fante state, Anomabu (c. 15
miles to the east), as the social, economic, educational and political capital not only
of the Fante states but of the Gold Coast colony as a whole. Cape Coast retained
this position up to 1877, when the British moved the capital to Accra (c.90 miles to
the east). Fante preponderance in the social, economic and political life of their new
country continued even after the 18th century, when the unified, populous and
militarily formidable Asante emerged to become the greatest force that subsequently
dominated much of Gold Coast history and politics until the beginning of this
century, when British military might gained the upperhand and the whole country
was brought under imperial rule.
Two propositions seem to emerge from the evidence. The first is that it is probable,
in the light of these historical facts, that the new Fante state of Oguaa, which quickly
became the nerve-centre of Gold Coast education, politics, foreign trade and social
progress as a whole, continued the old Effutu practice of patrilineal successionfortuitously similar to the custom of the new 'civilising' masters-until the fundamental matrilineal framework of Akan society and culture asserted itself. (Fante)
Oguaa kingship, it has been explicitly claimed though not substantiated, was patrilineal until the deposition of Omanhene (King) Kofi Amissah in 1856, after which
matrilineal succession became the vogue and Winneba, originally a coastal Guan
community which retained its native patriliny after Fante annexation, followed
suit,'2 i.e. became matrilineal or Akanised. As the rationale for such a radical and
dramatic cultural switch is not stated, let alone argued, we dismiss it as a rather
dubious and unreliable ethnographical datum. In other words, to simply assert that
Fante kingship was patrilineal before 1856 negates the historical truth of Akan
matriliny, which was fairly well documented even before the dawn of anthropology
as a serious sociological study. 3
The second postulate is that it is plausible that one of the consequences of
European influences was to turn the Fante towards an expressed ideal of patriliny-

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the European model-in respect of kingship at least. And as in mythology, a general

human tendency to create a historical charter justifying an intrusive cultural trait
would be conducive to the kind of claim mentioned above regarding 1856-an
important date in the annals of Fante (Oguaa in any case) political institutions.
It is this Fante predisposition to a patrilineal kinship system, especially evident in
their easy appropriation of patrilineal kingship succession, that we should bear in
mind as we turn our attention to the impact of pre-colonial European visitors and
traders, both private and chartered companies, on the peoples of southern Ghana.
EURO-FANTE
INTERACTION
It would be no exaggeration to say that it is impossible to understand and appreciate
the development and contemporary nature of Fante society and culture without a
firm grasp of the nature and extent of their far-reaching contact with Europeans.
For it was in that part of the Gold Coast territory settled and dominated by the
coastal Fante that the Europeans first established some foothold in West Africa in
the second half of the 15th century. From then on a crucial phase of Gold Coast
history began; it ended with the formal annexation of the 'country' (i.e. coastal
area) by the British in 1874. Considered thus, this cultural influence of Europeans
on the Fante needs to be put in proper perspective here, and in some detail.
Beginning with the Portuguese around the 1470s, soon followed by others (most
successful among whom were the Dutch and English), Western European merchants,
traders and companies competed intensely in the acquisition of gold, ivory, slaves
and, unobtrusively at first, the establishment of their home governments' political
control along about 300 miles of coastline in the Gold Coast. Their activities are
monumentalised in the number of castles and forts (many still standing) which they
built and inhabited and within which they transacted their business.
In a historical study of these 'fortified trade-posts' in West Africa as a whole,
Lawrence (1969: 20-21) observes that the 'most densely' fortified country was the
Gold Coast-in effect Fanteland. Consequently here, by the 19th century, 'generations of literate Africans had learnt to hold their own in the white man's world'. He
goes further to express his surprise that such 'small and transitory communities of
traders' could have had such considerable impact not only on the life of their
immediate hosts, the Fante, but 'indirectly on a vast region beyond'.
The Europeans stimulated the growth of urban centres in places like Cape Coast,
Sekondi, Elmina, Anomabu, Saltpond, Winneba, and others in 'Fanteland'. The
Fante themselves became in effect the live-wire of their ambition to secure a firm
foothold, not only commercially and culturally but also politically, first on the coast
and then beyond in the uncharted hinterland, whence originated most of the valued
trade commodities exchanged for the aliens' manufactured goods on the coast. The
Fante enjoyed, at first as a consequence of their role as middlemen and later in
addition as independent, credit-worthy merchants and traders per se, not only the
material benefits and social prestige of the nouveau-riche class, but also by the 18th
century the effective control of the entire trade between, on the one hand, the Europeans, effectively pinned down in their forts and castles, and, on the other, the Akan
inhabitants of the interior, particularly the redoubtable Asante. (The main goal of
the latter's contemporary wars against the Fante was to break the stranglehold of
this monopoly by gaining direct access to the European traders.)
Another conspicuous and culturally significant outcome of the European presence

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AKAN THEORY OF CONCEPTION

was the growth of a sizeable mulatto population-children of mixed Fante (women

and European (men) descent-particularly at Elmina, Anomabu and Cape Coast.
These were among the very first Akan recipients of formal education given in the
forts and castles; many grew in affluence as well as influence. A good example was
Edward Barter of Cape Coast, whose house, according to William Bosman (1705:
306) stood 'under the English fort' and was in itself a miniature fort; to succeed in
trading with the English, the Dutchman seems to grieve, one 'must stand well with
him [Barter]'.
The impact of these mulattoes and their descendants on traditional Fante social
structure has not yet, to my knowledge, been fully assessed. Nevertheless, Margaret
Priestley's lucid case study (1969: 187-91) of the Brew 'family' started by Irish
trader, Richard Brew, in the second half of the 18th century does illuminate the
nature of the conflicts they generated against the traditional family customs,
especially matrilineal inheritance and succession. She has summed it up thus:
'Within the Akan lineage system ... a "Brew family" emerged displaying western
traits-emphasis on the male line of descent, an individualist strain in property
attitudes... status passed from father to son...' And finally, her terse inference
that 'Akan society on the coast showed no small capacity for the assimilation of
alien cultural traits, and indeed alien blood' very well adumbrates the basic culturecontact situation.
A point worth emphasising strongly is that the local brofombaa ('whitemen's
children') constituted the bulwark of the educated Gold Coast 'elite' of the 19th
century, who played prominent roles in public life. They were, qua true elites,
standard-setters for the wider, outer society they belonged to, and they enjoyed
immense prestige far out of proportion to their number vis-a-vis the rest of Fante
and Gold Coast population. Furthermore their relatively wealthy European fathers
passed on to them not only some of their property (through written wills, for
example) but also some European attitudes, values and, above all, techniques and
skills, including formal education at home and abroad.
Therefore, it should not be difficult for one to visualise the general effect on
Fante social and cultural institutions, especially social stratification, family and
kinship, of this deep and prolonged exposure to new, alien and powerful economic,
political and educational processes. Christine Oppong (1974: 36-7) has well described
it thus: 'a new set of coastal Akan people evolved ... with standards of life different
from most of the rural coastal population'. And by the middle of the 19th century,
she adds, the 'revolutionary economic and educational changes... in a chain of
coastal, urban Akan settlements... influenced residential patterns, propertyholding, patterns of inheritance, all of which had undoubted effects upon the
kinship ties of the people concerned'. Of special importance and interest in her
analysis of the European impact on the Akan as a whole is her three-fold typology
of coastal (Fante), eastern (Akuapem) and inland (Asante) Akan. For the first
category the contact began five hundred years ago, whereas for the second it started
in the 1840s with Basel missionaries opening schools in their territory.'4 As for the
inland Akan, relatively close and effective European contact commenced after
formal British colonisation of the Gold Coast-that is to say, by the beginning of
this century.
Thus, even before the other Akan areas had felt the real strength of the European
cultural impact on their country, the Fante had lived through a very long phase (or
perhaps phases) of shifting stress, uninterrupted to this day, towards father-child
inheritance (of at least property) and, by extension, associated ideas and beliefs as to

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how property and acquired status should descend. We know very well that among
the Asante mogya is the solid determinant; hence the accent is on one's sisters and
their children. It would appear that in Fanteland, prior to miscegenation and
infusion of alien cultural forms, the same belief and practice prevailed.
In the light of the foregoing revelations, we would expect a field anthropologist of
Fante paternal structure today to show sufficient explicit awareness that the terrain
is unusually craggy; other parts of Akan land might yield more reliable ethnographic
data. He ought to realise, even without the benefits of the more recent historical
studies we have cited, that it was in this aspect of social relationships, above all
others, that Euro-Akan cultural friction would register its first seismic wave. The
aliens and their hosts were mutually receptive to sexual union, which has been
described by Priestley (1969: 7) as 'a common feature of life' at the time.
Considered thus, one is forced to the conclusion that functionalist a-historical
analysis would not suffice in the circumstances. Nor would mere assiduous documentation of so-called 'Fante informants' responses'. The anthropologist's own
penetrating probe into the reality behind the answers is what matters most here.
And it is along such lines that we shall proceed to examine the sociological implications of the claim that it is the father in Fanteland who transmits 'blood' to the
child. We are concerned not so much with the statement of the fact (as attributed to
the informants) as with Christensen's acceptance of it as a true representation of the
Fante ethnographic situation.
THE AKAN CONCEPTOF BLOOD: IMPLICATIONS

The expose under this heading will take two closely related forms. One is the
ambiguity of the English term 'blood' itself, especially in cross-cultural semantics;
the other is the sociological question raised by the postulated right of the Fante
father to pass on his 'blood' to his children, who, however, are dejure members of
their mother's (his wife's) family and lineage. The former first.
The problem of translating the word 'blood' into bogya or vice versa calls for
attention to two allied senses of it: in anthropological taxonomy, as 'blood-relations'
(cognates) distinguished from 'relations by marriage' (affines); secondly, to mean
'descent from'-usually one line, father's or mother's. Needless to point out, there
are many other uses and meanings of 'blood' in English.
Although it is now generally accepted in Western 'scientistic' culture that it is not
really blood but genes that parents pass on to their children the former continues
to be the idiom of consanguinity and descent, thus apparently creating some kind of
confusion with the 'red liquid circulating in veins of higher animals' (Concise
Oxford Dictionary). Herein we note a common mistake, or rather scientific
imprecision, among different cultures on the globe! It is further accepted in Western
science today that the man's genes determine the sex of the child in its mother's
womb. The reaction of my own Fante informants15to this revelation was to quickly
draw an analogy between those genes and the Fante father's blood (bogya), which,
they reaffirmed, was 'stronger' and 'more important' than the mother's. (This was
an apparent corroboration of Christensen's monograph-the context in which the
debate took place.)
The point that ought to be stressed is that informants of this kind are unusual, not
typical as far as field anthropology was known. It would be, in my opinion,
injudicious for the anthropologist to uncritically quote them in a monograph on
traditional beliefs. Yet, from all available indications Professor Christensen did. It

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AKANTHEORYOF CONCEPTION

would appear that he did not bother to question the 'reality' behind his informants'
answers; nor did he appreciate that Fante 'culture' today should be defined, at least
as a basis for investigation, as a composite of Akan, Guan and European cultural
strains. Or perhaps he was too preoccupied with his functional, synchronic model.
In any case, if he had shown sufficient awareness of the slippery ground he was
stepping on by taking up the paternal aspect of Fante descent, he might have had
second thoughts on the need for the equal stress he laid on the male and female lines,
which in turn led him to the rather fruitless line of 'sociological explanation' based
on functional typology.'6
With regard to the problem of the sociological implications of the father's bogya,
it should be made explicit at this juncture that no known ethnographer has denied
the matrilineal basis of the Fante lineage and kinship system; on the contrary we have
Christensen's unequivocal statement (1954: 127) that 'the key unit in the Fante
social structure is the matrilineal abusua.' And earlier (p. 48) he declared that 'the
salient relationship in the abusua is, of course, that of the mother and child' (my
italics). Secondly, it is generally acknowledged today in social and cultural anthropology that the lineage in African societies is a most enduring centre of collective
rituals and other expressions of the collective representations of the people concerned. It follows, therefore, that the job of uncovering the conceptual basis of
whatever principle of lineage organisation an African people adopts-unilineal or
double-unilineal or cognatic-is a worthwhile starter for the anthropologist.
Applying this guideline to the point at issue, we postulate that the matrilineal
foundation of the abusua system and, for that matter, of the entire Fante social
structure, would stand on crumbling sand if the mother were to make no
fundamental, indeed inalienable, contribution to the basic composition of her own
progeny. In traditional Fante (indeed Akan) society rights in immovable property,
succession to most higher political offices and, above all, the conferment of citizenship are all firmly vested in the abusua. Considered thus, should we not take the
recorded ethnographic data about the father's 'blood' with a grain of salt and at
the same time accept, with due regret, that it is now too late to ever accurately
recover this aspect of traditional Fante beliefs?
The rationale of the Asante position, on the other hand, is consistent with the
rest of their (and Akan) social structure. Let us, for the sake of emphasis, recapitulate it. Since mogya is the absolute determinant of the descent line, inheritance and
succession should flow in its direction. The surest way to keep that line indisputably
pure is to trace mogya through women, the exclusive bearers of children; hence
heavy stress is laid on the children of a man's sister(s) or siblings of one woman.
This, it would appear, is how the Asante rationalise their matriliny. The hypothetical equation, genetrix equals mater, is easier to demonstrate empiricallybarring of course today's sophisticated scientific tests-than the male counterpart,
genitor equals pater. In any case what seems to matter more to the Asante, as indeed
to all Akan, is the identity of the genetrix. In other words the distinction between
sociological and biological mother is merely academic-not an Akan kind of question.
Furthermore, the Asante use of the concept of mogya is in line with the two
commonest English senses of 'blood'-consanguinity and descent. However, they
seem to have placed stronger emphasis on the latter, thus creating the impression (at
least from the view-point of the academic anthropologist) that consanguinity, which
involves both parents, is not that important. That is to say, the father's role in
physiological or blood relationship is in theory subordinated to the more socially
vital use of mogya, namely: descent-reckoning, which is focused on the mother.
As to the Fante, however, my hunch is that the common use of the English word

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145

'blood' to connote patrilineal descent coupled with the fact that Cape Coast
(originally in Effutu, where patriliny was the norm) later came to be the effective
capital of the Fante, from the early 18th century onwards, may have influenced
their own notion of bogya. As a result the stress shifted from matrilineal descent,
which fits in with the belief that the mother is the sole donor, to either consanguinity-logically implying that both parents are transmitters-or patrilineal
descent, which accords with the doctrine of the father's paramount contribution.
Hence this paradox of a Fante social ideology which accords no primarily significant
position to the parent through whom primary descent is actually traced and who, to
paraphrase Christensen, who seems to detect no puzzle in the situation, is the pillar
of 'the salient relationship' in the all-important abusua system.
CONCLUSION

The question we started with was-in a rather simplified formula-from which of

the two parents does a Fante child inherit the essential 'blood' that, according to a
universal Akan belief, commingles with its father's 'spirit' (sunsum) and Nyame's
special gift of 'soul' (kra) to impregnate its mother? We were led to this problem
mainly by the fact that some students of Akan society and culture had ascribed two
diametrically opposed views to their Fante and Asante informants. The latter's
position that the mother is the absolute donor of the 'blood' is the more widely
accepted belief, which is also more consistent with Akan social structure as a whole,
than the rather sophisticatedalleged Fante claim that the father is the principal donor.
The main issue for us, therefore, was, how could we explain this apparently
serious Fante aberration, which leaves unanswered, or at best unsatisfactorily
answered, some fundamental questions on the principles of their social structure?
We were led to the conclusion that an historical rather than a synchronic analytical
framework, which in the words of Professor Fortes (1970: 72) is 'the sine qua non of
functional research', holds the clue to the ethnographic puzzle, as we earlier on
designated it. Accordingly we examined relevant socio-historical studies and
documented narratives, which throw light on the history of Fante origin and migration to the Atlantic seaboard, their wars of conquest and later territorial expansion
in the new land, their absorption of indigenous Guan cultural traits, especially
patrilineal succession, and above all, their centuries of interaction with Western
European people on the coast-an era the coastal Fante up to this day esteem.
All these taken together persuade us to the view that the reported Fante belief in
the father's stronger or greater 'blood' was simply borrowed, mainly from the patrilineal white aliens. If it was original to any extent the notion probably existed in
relative terms like '.. . both father and mother provide the essential bogya but the
accent is on the mother ...'; and in accord with the historically authentic evolutionary process of Fante society the lesser aspect of the gift, the father's, was given a
considerable boost, especially by the patrilineally-oriented European visitors and
residents.
Whatever be the truth, it is clear that the Asante present, at least in this particular
respect, a much more consistent and coherent picture of Akan social structure. And
since a sound methodological principle in the sociological study of any Akan subgroup demands that the student take a pan-Akan view of the problem in hand, we
are compelled to conclude that Christensen's approach to the paternal structure of
Fante kinship betrays a fundamental weakness, namely, insufficient attention to

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AKAN THEORY OF CONCEPTION

history or too much preoccupation with functional classification. Hence, his central
concern was to discover a 'more appropriate' label or name for the social system,
whereas the more interestingand apt sociological question is the underlying principle
of social structure which the matter under consideration highlights. In this case it is
the broad principle of 'primitive classification'.
The dichotomy of sunsum and mogya, or the belief that ego's genitor donates the
one while the genetrix donates the other, is one expression of Akan dual symbolic
classification associated with male (e.g. sunsum, asafo) and female (e.g. mogya,
abusua) categories. Seen thus, we must contradict Christensen's assertion that
among the Fante abusua and bogya 'cannot be equated', which implies that sunsum
and bogya cannot be contraposed. This, we have shown, is an error that can be
easily rectified if the anthropologist adopts an historical framework of analysis and
interpretation of Fante society and culture.

NOTES
I wish to specially thank, first Mr P. O. Nsugbe,
Reader in Social Anthropology at the University of
Nigeria, Nsukka, for carefully reading through the
final draft of this article and offering useful
suggestions; and secondly Dr L. Dei, Visiting
Lecturer in the Dept. of Geography, also at
Nsukka-himself an Akan of the Akuapem subgroup but, as he has just revealed to me after
several years of close personal acquaintance, of
Guan ancestry-for discussing with me the first
draft and thereby provoking further thought on
the subject. Needless to say, they share no blame
for any faults in the essay.
2 Nyame is the Supreme Being, referred to and
addressed by several other names or titles e.g.
Onyankopon, Otumfo (qua Omnipotent One),
Ananse Kokroko ('Great Spider', qua the Wise
One) etc. (cf. Busia, 1954: 192).
3 The more salient features of Akan traditional
social structure have been well documented in a
wide selection of literature by both native Akan
and foreign scholars. The following deserve special
attention: Sarbah (1897), Rattray (1923, 1927,
1929), Fortes (1950, 1970), Busia (1951) and
Christensen (1954).
4
The 1960 Ghana census gives the total Akan
figure as 2,965,000 (44 1%0of the whole population).
5 The number of Akan sub-groups varies,
depending on the criteria one adopts. However,
long-established distinctive names like Agona (also
known as Fante-Agona), Ahafo (also BoronAhafo), Ahanta, Akuapem, Akyem (popularly
Akim), Asante, Denkyira, Fante, Kwawu and
Nzema deserve mention.
6 A breakdown of the Akan total (n. 4 above)
gives 1,899,470 to the 'Asante' and 757,550 to the
'Fante' (second largest). The figures are, however,
subject to modification because of shifting criteria
for classification. 'Asante', e.g., includes Boron-

Ahafo, which strictly speaking is separate.

7 The title of his
monograph tellingly sums it up,
Double Descent among the Fanti.
8 I owe the description of this rite to Christensen
1954: 82-3.
9A well-known Asante saying, Abusua kor
mogya kor ('one lineage one blood') epitomises the
idea.
10 Specific publications of interest are cited in the
text and bibliography. For Akan origin see
especially Boahen (1966), Brown (1929).
1l Two maps of 'the Gold Coast' by unnamed
early European cartographers reproduced by K. Y.
Daaku (1970) are revealing. In the first (1629)
'Fante' is a small territory bordered by 'Agona' in
the east and 'Asebu' and 'Fetu' (Effutu) in the
west. In the second map, dated 1729, 'Fante' had
absorbed all three-'Agona' (Akan) and 'Asebu'
and 'Fetu' (Guan).
12 See 'Cape Coast Affairs', 1929, National
Archives (Accra).
'3 A generally accurate early account (1705), even
by modern standards, of Fante manners and
customs is by the Dutchman W. Bosman. He has
this to say about inheritance: 'as far as I could
observe' the children do not inherit their parents'
effects; rather the dead man's 'brothers' and
sisters' children are the right and lawful heirs'.
He however confesses that the subject is 'so perplexed and obscure' that no European can get 'a
clear description of it' (Bosman 1705: 418-42,
italics mine).
14 The first school, PresbyterianTraining College,
was opened at Akropong c. 1846.
15 I carried out field work on the asafo system of
the Fante 1966-1970.
16 See Leach 1961 for a sound critique of
structural-functional typology presented as sociological explanation.

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147

REFERENCES
Boahen, A. A. 1966 'The origins of the Akan,' Ghana Notes and Queries 9.
Bosman, W. 1705 A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea. London.
Brown, E. J. P. 1929 Gold Coast andAsianti Reader. 2 Vols.
Busia, K. A. 1951 The Position of the Chief in the Modern Political System of Ashanti.
London.
1954 'The Ashanti,' in D. Forde (ed.) African Worlds. London.
Christensen, J. B. 1954 Double Descent among the Fante. New Haven.
Daaku, K. Y. 1970 Trade and Politics in the Gold Coast, 1600-1720. Oxford.
Durkheim, E. and Mauss, M. 1903 [English trans. 1963] Primitive Classification. London.
Fortes, M. 1950 'Kinship and marriage among the Ashanti,' in A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and
D. Forde (eds) African Systems of Kinship and Marriage. London.
1970 Titmeand Social Structure and Other Essays. London.
Lawrence, A. W. 1969 Fortified Trade-Posts. The English in West Africa 1645-1822.
London.
Leach, E. R. 1961 Rethinking Anthropology. London.
Oppong, C. 1974 Marriage among a Matrilineal Elite. Cambridge.
Priestley; M. 1969 West African Trade and Coast Society. London.
Rattray, R. S. 1923 Ashanti. Oxford.
- 1927 Religion and Art in Ashanti. London.
- 1929 Ashanti Law and Constitution. Oxford.
Sarbah, J. Mensah 1897 Fanti Customary Laws. London.

Resume
THEORIE AKAN DE LA CONCEPTION: Y-A-T-IL ANOMALIE CHEZ LES FANTE?
LE present article tente de montrer qu'une analyse historique peut etre plus fructueuse qu'une
analyse fonctionnelle lorsqu'on a affaire a un probleme d'anthropologie: celui qui nous
interesse decoule de l'acceptation par le professeur Christensen (1954) de l'affirmation de ses
informateurs Fante selon laquelle, a l'inverse des autres peuples Akan du Ghana, qui croient
que l'enfant herite du 'sang' de sa mere, c'est le pere qui est le donneur principal.
L'importance vitale de cette notion de 'sang' (mogya ou bogya) dans le systeme de parente
Akan provient de l'idee fondamentale que l'homme se compose de trois essences: kra
(l'ame), sunsum (l'esprit) et mogya, fourni a l'epoque de la grossesse par respectivement
l'Etre Supreme (Nyame), le geniteur et la genitrice. Comme en premier lieu le systeme de
parente est matrilineaire, la determination du rapport physiologique, qu'il est plus stir de
retrouver par les femmes, est donc capital pour l'exercice des rapports sociaux, tout
particulierement ceux qui se rapportent aux problemes d'heritage et de succession et aux rites
de deuil.
Dans cette optique, nous postulons que le fondement matrilineaire de toute entite sociale
Akan serait denue de sens si la mere n'apportait rien de significatif et en fait d'inalienable a
son propre enfant qui est membre de son lignage (abusua) d'of proviennent les droits de
propriete fonciere et les hautes fonctions politiques.
Le but essentiel de cette remise en question est donc une argumentation qui s'oppose a
l'affirmation de Christensen selon laquelle ses informateurs offriraient une image ethnographique exacte: son defaut majeur est une investigation insuffisante de l'histoire des Fante,
en particulier l'evolution de cette societe depuis l'epoque of les Fante et autres Akan pensent
s'etre disperses a partir de leur localisation d'origine qui etait pastorale et septentrionale pour
occuper respectivement les zones cotieres et forestieres du Ghana actuel. Les Fante parvinrent
plus tard a etablir leur supremacie dans leur nouvelle contree. Tout d'abord, ils absorberent
le sous-groupe autochtone Guan des Effutu, dont le royaume pratiquait la succession patrilineaire;en second lieu, ils firent leur profit de la presencede commercantsd'Europe Occidentale

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AKAN THEORY OF CONCEPTION

en C6te d'Or des le milieu du 15eme siecle. Leur r6action extremement favorable a cet apport
de sang et de traits culturels europeens a ete tres bien decrite par Lawrence et Priestley (voir
bibliographie). Ces facteurs externes ont donc cr&eun climat propice a une preference marquee
des Fante pour une ideologie patrilineaire, y compris l'heritage du sang requdu pere.
Le probleme etant examine sous cet angle, il serait errone pour un anthropologue culturel
du 20eme siecle de conclure que, a partir de son analyse surtout synchronique des structures
sociales Fante, il soit impossible d'etablir un rapport d'egalite entre les concepts de 'sang' et de
matrilignage de ces derniers. C'est plut6t l'inverse qui est soutenu ici, d'autant plus que
d'autres zones Akan, n'ayant pas subi une influence culturelle europeenne du meme ordre,
considerent ces deux concepts comme synonymes. Ainsi donc, pour tous les Akan, le 'sang' de
la mere (bogya) et l"esprit' du pere (sunsum) sont mutatis mutandis en opposition. D'ailleurs,
cette opposition structurelle s'inscrit dans un systeme Akan plus large de double classification
qui a pour principe de base la distinction male/femelle.

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