Adae

Yaba Amgborale Blay

An Akan term meaning “resting place,” Adae is the most important festival of the Akan. Connected to the meaning of the term, it is a day of rest for the living and the ancestors, and, as such, work, including funerals, is forbidden. As the paramount ancestral custom, it involves the invocation, propitiation, and veneration of ancestral spirits. These are special days on which the ahene (traditional rulers; singular = ohene) enter the Nkonuafieso (stool house), the place where the spirits of enstooled ancestors rest, and pour libation and offer food and drink on behalf of their people. Every 5 years, the Asantehene (paramount ruler of the Asante) hosts Adae Kese (big Adae), a 2-week period of celebration during which all those enstooled within the Asante nation unite in Kumasi (the capital of Asante) and reaffirm their allegiance to the Asantehene and the Sika Dwa (Golden Stool), the spiritual seat It ...

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