Mining Morals, Muck and Akan Gold in New York City Abstract Among
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Mining Morals, Muck and Akan Gold in New York City Abstract Among Akan spirit preachers at shrines in New York, gold, so central to Akan integrity and wealth, and gold weights, once used to measure gold dust and now the epitome of West African artefact, are at the centre of fluid and contestable moral topographies, appealing to spiritual forces and Akan values and ethical codes surrounding economic responsibility and social obligation in a get-rich-quick New York marketplace. Remaking Manhattan’s ethical geographies, from the standpoint of a transnational Akan morality, occult narratives contour the landfill sites of Staten Island and the Ghanaian rivers and forests polluted by cyanide, sulphuric acid and other mining chemicals in Obuasi, the centre of gold mining in the Southern Asante Region. A map of muck and morals is plotted as shrine discourses about gold provide a critical commentary on the moral conventions of wealth creation, accumulation and desire among a diasporic community. Key words Akan spirit preachers, gold, wealth, New York It is widely accepted that West African witchcraft beliefs are forces of moral critique and flourish as commentaries on the ‘corrupt’ workings of the global economy and on the ‘immoral’ conduct of wealthy patrons in the African postcolony (Niehaus 2001; Ashforth 2005; Geschiere 2013). Among Akan spirit preachers (abayifo) practising at shrines in New York, witchcraft beliefs and demonised rumours are at the heart of emergent moral orders that make a distinction between geographical cartographies and Ghanaian moral topographies, shaped out of the experiences of life in New York City. Such an evaluation is happening at a particular moment of economic vacillation as the pursuit of great riches and excessive materialistic consumption is both publically admired and disdained. While the illegal escapades of Wall Street magnates and billionaire financiers have been widely documented, Ndjio (2008) points to new capitalist practices which straddle the lawful and the illicit and which embody the ambition of many African “subversive” entrepreneurs to “reinvent” the “ethical” codes of global capitalism and encourage a new ethos of accumulation (2008:5). Ndjio, for example, notes the rise of the feymania in Cameroon, mainly disenfranchised youth, who have become emblems of African “economic 1 adventurers” (Abbink 2012:11). Likewise in Ghana, the popularity of Sanwara, or internet scamming among Ghanaian youth, who often endure dire economic circumstances, has not gone unnoticed by Akan shrine preachers as young fraudsters consult ‘juju men’ in Ghana and enact ‘fetish rituals’ in order to compel their victims to hand over their bank account details. The desire of Sawara criminals for spiritual wealth known as sikaduro, or ‘blood money’, ties into a central tenet of popular Akan occult discourses where the immoral or ‘selfish’ accumulation of wealth is often associated with witchcraft practices and money that is magically created ‘out of nothing’. At shrines in New York, whether a desire to win lotto jackpots or a pressing hunger for an easy life, selfish money refers to ‘dirty’ or ‘quick’ wealth and an occult affluence that appears to be “disconnected from hard work and production and spent on pleasure-seeking” (Garritano 2013: 189). The witch (obayifo), a member of the extended kinship network, is believed to be a greedy and bitter woman who targets the riches of her more prosperous relatives (Meyer 1998). She selfishly hoards her own wealth but always craves more. She frightens the loved ones of her victims as the price paid for the enjoyment of good fortune and a life she secretly covets. She vengefully attempts to hinder her sufferers’ financial opportunities and cause misfortune (Rattray 1927; Debrunner 1958). Alternatively, she can trick her unsuspecting prey by posing as a benefactor or philanthropist into accepting her satanic help with the instant promise of luxury brands of clothes, expensive cars and mansions (Garritano 2013). Once in her clutches she bribes ‘indulgent’ individuals into committing evil deeds. She may threaten to kill her victims if they resist. In other words, although money may have a liberating e ect for its owner, it can lead also to an asocial denial of community and of wider social andff economic responsibilities (Lentz 1998). Witchcraft speculation is talk about people when they are not present, and it stretches to encompass individuals at ‘home’ and ‘abroad’ as wealth can contribute to their health, or bring about their demise, money being perceived as both a blessing and a curse. In the process of mapping the human cost of the excessive accumulation of wealth in the global economy, spirit preachers excavate a rich vein of Asante gold in the country and its diaspora, particularly in New York City. Bortolot (2003) illustrates how Akan gold is an intricate component of Akan belief, an earthly counterpart to the sun and the physical manifestation of life’s vitality. McCaskie (1981) records how in nineteenth century Asante, for powerful individuals, the private accumulation of wealth was a public duty and social status measured in gold. Those who had reached a particular level of wealth displayed this with the adornment of gold (McCaskie 1981). In its celebratory aspect, like other Akan 2 artefacts, gold transmits what Labi (2009) translates as abakwasen, meaning important information about values, incidents, beliefs and philosophies (2009: 43). If a person accumulated substantial wealth, they were made an abirempon, a businessman or entrepreneur that meant “Big Man” (McCaskie 1981: 143) and were awarded the elephant tail, a way of encouraging the creation of private wealth for public recognition (McCaskie 1981). Worn around the waist, the elephant tail signified that its wearer surpassed all others in terms of the ownership of gold and the possession of civic power (Wilks 1975; Leyten 1979; McCaskie 1981). Among the Ghanaian diaspora today, the display of wealth and artefact becomes illustrative, as Fumanti (2013) demonstrates, of a uniquely Akan aesthetic that allows Ghanaians to reassert their ontological presence in the world and renders them “realised in linguistic terms, through proverbs, mottoes and wise sayings” (2013: 200). The exhibition of wealth and its associated artefacts, writes Fumanti (2013), also allows individual Ghanaians to reclaim their place in the world, to assert and reassert their moral, economic and social identity in strange and alien settings (2013: 217). People want to show their success and symbolise it through the wearing of kente cloth inscribed, for example, with proverbs and adinkra symbols (Fumanti 2013: 209). While the cornerstone of Akan artefact lies in its visibility and public display in order to observe economic success (Fumanti 2013), wealth also remains, on the one hand, "the kind that feeds the people”, but, on the other, “the kind that eats them” (Ferguson 2006:73). Among Akan spirit preachers in New York, in response to such ambivalent moralities concerning wealth accumulation, exclusion and aspersion, a moral politics is conducted using shrine objects to probe the ethical landscape of New York City. In this process, the urban sub terrain conflates with the mysteries of wealth production. It is common at Akan shrines to see objects such as gold weights, the epitome of West African artefact, in the shape of small figurines – animals and humans depicting various actions – often mass-produced objects bought by relatives in Ghana or from street vendors uptown in Harlem. Made from brass, and originally used to measure gold dust, they are produced in bulk for the tourist market in different types: geometric patterns, seated Paramount Chiefs and depictions of people engaged in both everyday activities and intimate acts (McLeod 1971, 1987; Garrard 1980). Rattray (1927) listed over fifty-three Adinkra sayings and messages, which relate to the morality of the gold weight. For example, the proverb for the mythological, backward-facing Sankofa bird encourages one to learn from and correct the mistakes of the past (Rattray 3 1927). Also a miniature golden crocodile with two heads and tails but only a single stomach represents a proverb concerning the “futility of struggle within a group” (see also Garrard 1975:19). The gold horned antelope figurine speaks to the uselessness of after-the-fact regret (see also Bassing 1970; Appiah 1977). Although of no economic value, gold weights remain important to shrine priests because they symbolise moral laws like, ironically, “the ones? Marvel Iron Man lives by” and signify to shrine clients that although the shrine may look “bank poor” it is strong and has good character. Yet in New York, these valuations are increasingly confounded by the disruption and displacement of gold-based accumulation to extend in new directions. For “moral topographies are always in a process of becoming and are intimately connected to the past and to peoples’ wishes and fears” (Trovalla 2011:77). Among shrine preachers, public space has become privatised to produce complex, moral representations of sacredness and dirt. Moreover, the shrine construction of cognitive maps, questions the very etiquette of New York’s millionaires and the industrial philanthropists who founded New York’s infrastructure. In New York City, occult narratives discovered at spirit shrines about gold and the accumulation of wealth are part of a wider cultural reinforcement of moral personhood and ethical responsibilities and obligations. These allow for a negotiation of morality among Ghanaians across a global, historical and industrial landscape. This encompasses the ‘immoral’ trading of slaves in the nineteenth century, gold mining in West Africa by large corporations, as well as the ruthless acquisition of money and alleged business circumvention of moral codes and working practices in Manhattan today. Concealed dirt, wealth and immorality Among growing waves of Ghanaian migrants to the United States since the 1980s, especially, in the last fifteen years, Akan spirit preachers are often unregistered aliens and immigrants who also work as street vendors, store assistants, waiters and entrepreneurs to supplement their income as shrine priests.