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The Adinkra Symbols Reveal the Theology of the Akans People of Ghana

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The Adinkra Symbols Reveal the Theology of the Akans People of Ghana Abstract The real price for accepting that there is only way of doing hermeneutics, and ultimately, theology has been the sacrifice of some of the significant models in the scriptures that God has given us for hermeneutical and theological enterprises. One of the models that we should not have been blind to is the model of Symbols for theology. A symbol may be an art piece, a ritual, a dance form, a saying, silence, countenance, a story, a song, or other realities like that, which serve as a metaphor, and which is pregnant with a story (or sacred story, which I call myth in this dissertation) that points to a religious, social or economic understanding of a people. In this work, I present the Adinkra Symbols of the Akan as such symbols, and as a route to showing the theology of the Akan people of Ghana. My aim is to encourage Symbolic Theology (as a branch of ethnotheology) through ethnohermeneutics, for people of the Majority World like Africa. In Africa where symbolisms occupy a great space in epistemology and religion, Symbolic Theology may be very appropriate. The extent, to which Scripture uses symbols for doing theology in both the Old and New Testaments, is not only far reaching, but is also surely meant for our emulation. However, we have not been exploring this symbolic way of doing theology in the deeper and extensive ways that we should have been doing. I am submitting that some of the effective ways of doing theology is to use symbols. At least two reasons account for this affirmation. First, human beings appreciate religious knowledge better when it is experienced, and they are able to retain and make the experience part of their lives through symbolic representations of those experiences.1 Symbols then become the building blocks for maintaining the understanding of life in general, and religious experiences especially, for a people and their succeeding generations. Second, and constituting the reason for the first one is that, symbols are bi- 1 H. W. Turner, “A Model for the Structure of Religion in Relation to the Secular,” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 27 (1979): 42–64. i directional. They look back to draw from the experiences of the past, and re-activate the reality of those experiences, especially if they are built into rituals, for succeeding generations of that community. Symbols, in telling the metaphors of the religious experiences, then, also look forward into the future to facilitate both the evocation and introduction to the faith and theology of the original person(s) who made the symbolic representations of the religious experiences. It is my proposal that some the Adinkra Symbols of the Akans were created from religious experiences for the same purposes. ii The Creedal Symbols of my Great Grandparents: The Adinkra Symbols Reveal the Theology of the Akan People of Ghana Written by Kofi Amoateng and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Intercultural Studies iii The Creedal Symbols of my Great Grandparents: The Adinkra Symbols Reveal the Theology of the Akans People of Ghana A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the E. Stanley Jones School of World Mission and Evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Intercultural Studies By Kofi Amoateng ©April 2018 iv Table of Content Abstract ……………………………………………………………. I Title Page ……………………………………………………………. iii Copyright Page ……………………………………………………………. iv Glossary ……………………………………………………………………. xi Acknowledgement ……………………………………………………………. xii Dedication ……………………………………………………………………. xiii General Introduction ……………………………………………………............... 1 I. Symbol in this Dissertation? ……………………………………... 2 II. Adinkra Symbols ………………………………………………… 6 III. Outline of Dissertation …………………………………………... 9 Chapter 1 The Problem and Research Methodology …………………… 13 I. Statement of the Problem ……………………………………….. 14 II. Research Questions ……………………………………………. 16 III. Research Background …………………………………………… 17 IV. Folk Religion and Split-Level Christianity ……………………… 18 V. Place of African Theology in Global Theological Discussions …... 21 VI. Africa’s Symbolic Orality ……………………………………. 23 VII. What are the Adinkra Symbols? ……………………………. 26 VIII. The use of Adinkra Symbols in Akan Religious Spaces ……. 27 Method and Theory for Dealing with and for Resolving the Problem …………... 29 I. Published Research and Other Relevant Publications …………… 30 v II. Ethnographic Research Method ……………………………. 31 III. Interviews and Why I Chose Informants………………………… 32 IV. Locating the Researcher in the Dissertation …………………… 36 V. Focus Groups …………………………………………………….. 38 Theoretical Framework …………………………………………………………... 39 I. Semiotics Semiotic Anthropological Ontology—What is it? …… 40 II. How I used the Theoretical Framework …………………… 41 III. Semiotics …………………………………………………… 42 IV. Anthropological Ontology of Models …………………………… 42 V. Hermeneutics for Contextual Theology in the Anthropological Model ……………………………………………………………. 45 VI. Ethnohermeneutics and My Field Research ……………………. 48 VII. Definitions ……………………………………………………. 51 VIII. What is Contextual Theology? …………………………… 51 IX. What is Culture? ……………………………………………. 54 X. What is Context? ……………………………………………. 56 XI. What is Tradition? ……………………………………………. 57 Literature Review ………………………………………………………………... 58 Akans: Who are they? …………………………………………………………… 59 J. B. Danquah and Daniel Oduro-Mensah: The Akan-Jewish Connection ……… 62 Scope and Delimitations ……………………………………………………. 64 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………… 64 vi Chapter 2 Origins of the Adinkra Symbols: Reshaping and drawing from the History …… 65 I. Akans and the Custody of Historical Myths/Traditions ………….. 67 II. Tracing the Origin of the Adinkra Symbols …………………….. 68 III. Why Support the Nana Adinkra/Gyaman Origin? ……………... 69 IV. Earlier Scholarly Theories of Origin of the Adinkra Symbols ……. 71 V. J. B. Danquah’s Theory …………………………………………… 71 VI. The Kwame Boateng Theory ……………………………………... 74 VII. James Nkansah-Obrempong’s Theory ……………………………. 76 VIII. Research Among the Gyamans/Sumas was Inevitable …………… 82 IX. Locating the Theories: Who are the Suma People? ……………… 83 X. Gyaman Golden Stool, the War and Making Meaning of Some Adinkra Symbols ………………………………………………….. 85 XI. Was the Asante-Gyaman War in the Ivory Coast or in Ghana? ….. 91 XII. Was there an Asante-Gyaman War or Wars? …………………….. 91 XIII. The Reasons for the Asante-Gyaman Wars ………………………. 94 XIV. The Nana Adinkra of the Gyamans Origin of the Adinkra Symbols Theory ……………………………………………………………. 97 XV. The First Adinkra Symbol Created and Why? …………………… 98 XVI. The Adinkra Symbols and Biblical Symbolic Paradigms: An Illustration .................................................................................. 102 XVII. Were the Gyamans the only Creators of the Adinkra Symbols? …. 103 XVIII. The Ga People of Ghana have their Symbols …………………… 103 vii XIX. The Ethnic Groups of Northern Ghana and other Scholars have their Symbols …………………………………………………………... 104 XX. Asantes had their Symbols ……………………………………….. 104 XXI. Synchronizing the History as an Emic Person …………………… 105 XXII. Conclusion ……………………………………………………….. 105 Chapter 3 Adinkra: Symbolic Rhetoric from Experience …………………………………… 108 I. The Contextual Meanings of the “Nyame Nti” and the “Hye a anhye’ Symbolisms …………………………………………………….. 110 II. Adinkra Symbolizations as Textile Rhetoric …………………... 111 III. Scholarly Affirmations of the Akan Cloth Rhetoric ………….. 113 IV. Symbols as Texts ………………………………………….. 118 V. Adinkra Symbols as Texts ………………………………….. 121 VI. Some Adinkra Symbols as Religious Texts ………………….. 125 VII. Meaning of some of the Adinkra Symbols ………………….. 125 VIII. Toward Identifying the Meaning of the Adinkra Symbolic Text . 132 IX. My Akan Orientation and Bible Translation …………………… 136 X. Yahweh’s Character as the Stories of the Bible Tell …………... 139 XI. Summary …………………………………………………... 143 XII. The Creation of the Gye Nyame Symbol …………………... 143 XIII. Conclusion ……………………………………………………… 147 Chapter 4 Adinkra Symbols: The Revelations of Akan Religiosity ……………………….. 148 viii I. The Place of Religion among the Akan People ………………… 149 II. Nyame biribi wɔ soro: The Akan Acted Prayer Form …… 150 III. Adinkra Symbols for Symbolic Prayers …………………… 151 IV. Obi nka Obi How it was Understood in the Past …………… 155 V. Contemporary Social and Religious Applications Of the Adinkra Symbols ………………………………………………... 164 VI. Social Transmission of Symbolic Texts …………………… 165 VII. Explanation of the Figure …………………………………… 166 VIII. The Use of the Adinkra Symbols in Public Spaces …………… 168 IX. Some Notes ……………………………………………………… 176 X. The Use of the Adinkra Symbols in Ghana’s Religious Spaces … 177 XI. Adinkra Symbols in Akan/Ghanaian Religious Spaces: What Implications …………………………………………………… 180 XII. The Adinkra Symbolic Prayer Revisited …………………… 180 XIII. The Implications of the Nyame ne Hene Symbol …………… 186 XIV. The Similarity of the Akan Kingship of Nyankopɔn and God in the Bible …………………………………………………………… 188 XV. Adinkra Symbols with the Christian Cross, Why? …………… 191 XVI. The Cross in the Mmusuyideε/Krapa Symbol …………… 191 XVII. Conclusion …………………………………………………… 191 Chapter 5 Adinkra Symbols: The Connecting Rods to Christian Theology …………… 193 I. Introduction …………………………………………………… 193 ix II. Owuo kuum Nyame Adinkra Symbol …………………………… 196 III. Owuo kuum Nyame as a Creedal Symbol …………………… 199 IV. The Anthropological Model of Contextual Theology …… 201 V. Owuo kuum Nyame Symbol for Contextual Theology
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