Cape Coast Festival
My second visit to Cape Coast was for a seasonal festival. Festivals play an important role in the culture of the Ghanaians, with spiritual, economic, political, agriculture and many other significances. Perhaps the agricultural foundations seem like the basis to me. The festival I attened started on Wednesday with a special ritual to re-open the local lagoon to fishing. Cape Coast is a fishing community, but for several months of the year they close the lagoon to fishing and only fish in the sea, for conservation purposes. This festival marked the re-opening of the lagoon, unfortunately we missed that part of the ritual.
The spiritual aspects of the festival revolve around the local shrine. The African Traiditional Relgion (animistic in nature) identifies a rock that is located in the dungeons of Cape Coast castle as a sacred spot. When the castle was built, the shrine had to be moved into what is now the center of town. So this particular shrine now has two location of equal significance. Some of the rituals happened at one or the other or both of these locations.
Thursday night we arrived in time for the pouring of libations and ritualized dancing. I received a nice explanation of the process of how a deceased person is selected to become an ancestor. It turns out to be fairly similar to the process of selecting a saint in the Roman Catholic tradition, and they seem to play a similar role of intersession. There are a few different rules, such as an ancestor can not have died a violent death, and the death cannot have been caused by fire or water in any form. But, basically you had to be a good person. The ancestor of the shrine at Cape Coast was known as Nana Anthony, which happens to also be the name of the patron saint of the Portugese Catholic church built above the dungeons where the Shrine is located. This was described as a symbol of the melding of Traditionalist and Christian traditions in modern African Traditional Religion.
The dancing took place at the shrine in the center of town. It opened by making an inner and outer circle with sand and then pouring libations (a bit of gin) on the grounds as an offering to the ancestors. The dancing was very hypnotic and was a kind of meditative commune with the spirits / ancestors / gods (sometimes it was hard to tell). I only stayed for a few dances since it was already past 11pm. Our power was out when I got back to the hotel, but they had put kerosene lanterns at each of our doors.
On Friday was the main ritual sacrifice. Usually both the dancing and the ritual sacrifice are done in secret, but since tourism is so important to the Cape Coast economy they have made these elements public. In the morning we went down to the castle. We witnessed them carrying plates of fruit and other gifts down into the dungeons where the rock shrine was located. They also brought a bull to the castle to be accepted by the god(s) there before being moved to the shrine in the center of town for slaughter. The distressing part of the animal sacrifice was that there was no apparent respect paid to the life of the animal involved in the process. While hanging out at the castle the bull was subject to poking, being pushed over and having a bloody rag waved at it in order to rile it up. It was already bleeding slightly when I saw it the first time at 10am. It was a decent sized bull for those I have seen around Ghana, but compared to other bovine I have seen, even in the Philippines, it was on the small side. We waited and watched for a while, but eventually I went off with the professor who had the most knowledge of the events to get some lunch because I wanted to hear more of an explaination of what was happening.
While we were out the procession occurred. The reports of those who stayed to witness it was that the bull was walked from the castle up past a tent area where the chiefs were sitting to approve of the bull. During the procession lots of the town children and members would all attack the bull. The bull was barely walking, and bleeding from several wounds by the time it reached the shrine in the middle of town. The effect was that it was placated so that those who were performing the sacrifice would not have to worry about it responding in any way or acting in any way that might harm them. This was perhaps important because those performing the sacrifice were of the royal family, and not likely to be people who handled animals very much these days. By the time I reached the shrine there was a tight crowd around it and I couldn’t see much of what was going on inside, although there were some chicken entrails outside from an earlier sacrifice. So, I headed back to the hotel.
My roommate stayed to watch and was a little ways back, but was glad that she did not have a direct view. The neck of the bull was slit and so the bull died by bleeding. I was disappointed that the spinal cord was not first severed by a strong blow, but this is difficult to do and requires some skill. After some time the neck was sawed some more and the head pulled back and removed. This came as a shock to some people who got blood splattered on them. My professor had explained that in the process of the ritual it is believed that the gods who are involved (some said it was a ritual to the 77 gods of the area) become manifest in the children of the chief who are performing the ritual. When the bull is sacrificed they drink some of the blood as a sign that the gods are accepting the blood sacrifice and then they return to human form. After the sacrifice the bull is butchered and the meat is divided up among the various chiefs who are up in the tent. Thus ending this part of the festival.
Saturday was the culmination of the festival, and typically the only public part of the festival. You can just look at the pictures with captions or read the description.
Early in the morning we headed out to get good seats at the start of the parade route. I took a multitude of picture during the parade. First come the Acosombo. These are the traditional Military Companies. Participation in these is hereditary, and they are very similar to our fraternal orders or secret societies in the US. There is not a need for local militias these days and so the Acosombo typically function for search and rescue or to do various development projects. There were seven different Acosombo companies in this parade. They all had a different color costume, dignitaries, musicians and dancers who paraded with them.
Then came the chiefs and queen mothers. These people were carried by palanquin and had large colorful umbrellas held over them. Behind each paloquin were several huge drums, each carried on the head of one man and played by a rotating group of people. The paloquins were carried on the head of 4 men and would sway and dance and turn in circles. The chiefs and queen mothers would dance (as much as you can from a sitting position). I even saw one queen mother who was tossing out small bills to people in the crowd.
We watched the entire procession go by and then we joined the parade. I chose Adrienne as my parade partner. For a while we danced at the back of the parade, but then we decided to explore, so we pushed our way forward. We made our way all the way up to the front of the parade. We were going to join an Acosombo company and be part of their revelry, but then one of them blew a horn of some sort in Adrienne’s ear which was very painful, so we had to fallout until she felt better. The line was moving incredibly slowly, so we went ahead to the festival grounds. We saw the big park that was set up for political speeches. Apparently the President or some minister in his cabinet was scheduled to give a political speech, and I’m sure there would be many others, but we decided that those were not of interest to us, so we went off to get lunch. There were lots of open air food stalls, but we settled on a restaurant where we could sit and relax.
On our way back to the hotel we got caught in a push of people where there were lots of people’s hand all over us and my bag. It was probably the scariest part of the day. I am glad that I have a very sturdy bag with thick fabric. The zipper to my water bottle pocket got opened in this crush, but no important pocket. Several folks with cloth bags had them slashed and two cameras were stolen, but I, luckily, did not loose anything. We headed back to the hotel and got there about 4pm.
On Sunday we visited a national park and went on a rope walk through the canopy of the rainforest, which was fun.
Here are the pictures from Kakum National Park:
The spiritual aspects of the festival revolve around the local shrine. The African Traiditional Relgion (animistic in nature) identifies a rock that is located in the dungeons of Cape Coast castle as a sacred spot. When the castle was built, the shrine had to be moved into what is now the center of town. So this particular shrine now has two location of equal significance. Some of the rituals happened at one or the other or both of these locations.
Thursday night we arrived in time for the pouring of libations and ritualized dancing. I received a nice explanation of the process of how a deceased person is selected to become an ancestor. It turns out to be fairly similar to the process of selecting a saint in the Roman Catholic tradition, and they seem to play a similar role of intersession. There are a few different rules, such as an ancestor can not have died a violent death, and the death cannot have been caused by fire or water in any form. But, basically you had to be a good person. The ancestor of the shrine at Cape Coast was known as Nana Anthony, which happens to also be the name of the patron saint of the Portugese Catholic church built above the dungeons where the Shrine is located. This was described as a symbol of the melding of Traditionalist and Christian traditions in modern African Traditional Religion.
The dancing took place at the shrine in the center of town. It opened by making an inner and outer circle with sand and then pouring libations (a bit of gin) on the grounds as an offering to the ancestors. The dancing was very hypnotic and was a kind of meditative commune with the spirits / ancestors / gods (sometimes it was hard to tell). I only stayed for a few dances since it was already past 11pm. Our power was out when I got back to the hotel, but they had put kerosene lanterns at each of our doors.
On Friday was the main ritual sacrifice. Usually both the dancing and the ritual sacrifice are done in secret, but since tourism is so important to the Cape Coast economy they have made these elements public. In the morning we went down to the castle. We witnessed them carrying plates of fruit and other gifts down into the dungeons where the rock shrine was located. They also brought a bull to the castle to be accepted by the god(s) there before being moved to the shrine in the center of town for slaughter. The distressing part of the animal sacrifice was that there was no apparent respect paid to the life of the animal involved in the process. While hanging out at the castle the bull was subject to poking, being pushed over and having a bloody rag waved at it in order to rile it up. It was already bleeding slightly when I saw it the first time at 10am. It was a decent sized bull for those I have seen around Ghana, but compared to other bovine I have seen, even in the Philippines, it was on the small side. We waited and watched for a while, but eventually I went off with the professor who had the most knowledge of the events to get some lunch because I wanted to hear more of an explaination of what was happening.
While we were out the procession occurred. The reports of those who stayed to witness it was that the bull was walked from the castle up past a tent area where the chiefs were sitting to approve of the bull. During the procession lots of the town children and members would all attack the bull. The bull was barely walking, and bleeding from several wounds by the time it reached the shrine in the middle of town. The effect was that it was placated so that those who were performing the sacrifice would not have to worry about it responding in any way or acting in any way that might harm them. This was perhaps important because those performing the sacrifice were of the royal family, and not likely to be people who handled animals very much these days. By the time I reached the shrine there was a tight crowd around it and I couldn’t see much of what was going on inside, although there were some chicken entrails outside from an earlier sacrifice. So, I headed back to the hotel.
My roommate stayed to watch and was a little ways back, but was glad that she did not have a direct view. The neck of the bull was slit and so the bull died by bleeding. I was disappointed that the spinal cord was not first severed by a strong blow, but this is difficult to do and requires some skill. After some time the neck was sawed some more and the head pulled back and removed. This came as a shock to some people who got blood splattered on them. My professor had explained that in the process of the ritual it is believed that the gods who are involved (some said it was a ritual to the 77 gods of the area) become manifest in the children of the chief who are performing the ritual. When the bull is sacrificed they drink some of the blood as a sign that the gods are accepting the blood sacrifice and then they return to human form. After the sacrifice the bull is butchered and the meat is divided up among the various chiefs who are up in the tent. Thus ending this part of the festival.
Saturday was the culmination of the festival, and typically the only public part of the festival. You can just look at the pictures with captions or read the description.
Early in the morning we headed out to get good seats at the start of the parade route. I took a multitude of picture during the parade. First come the Acosombo. These are the traditional Military Companies. Participation in these is hereditary, and they are very similar to our fraternal orders or secret societies in the US. There is not a need for local militias these days and so the Acosombo typically function for search and rescue or to do various development projects. There were seven different Acosombo companies in this parade. They all had a different color costume, dignitaries, musicians and dancers who paraded with them.
Then came the chiefs and queen mothers. These people were carried by palanquin and had large colorful umbrellas held over them. Behind each paloquin were several huge drums, each carried on the head of one man and played by a rotating group of people. The paloquins were carried on the head of 4 men and would sway and dance and turn in circles. The chiefs and queen mothers would dance (as much as you can from a sitting position). I even saw one queen mother who was tossing out small bills to people in the crowd.
We watched the entire procession go by and then we joined the parade. I chose Adrienne as my parade partner. For a while we danced at the back of the parade, but then we decided to explore, so we pushed our way forward. We made our way all the way up to the front of the parade. We were going to join an Acosombo company and be part of their revelry, but then one of them blew a horn of some sort in Adrienne’s ear which was very painful, so we had to fallout until she felt better. The line was moving incredibly slowly, so we went ahead to the festival grounds. We saw the big park that was set up for political speeches. Apparently the President or some minister in his cabinet was scheduled to give a political speech, and I’m sure there would be many others, but we decided that those were not of interest to us, so we went off to get lunch. There were lots of open air food stalls, but we settled on a restaurant where we could sit and relax.
On our way back to the hotel we got caught in a push of people where there were lots of people’s hand all over us and my bag. It was probably the scariest part of the day. I am glad that I have a very sturdy bag with thick fabric. The zipper to my water bottle pocket got opened in this crush, but no important pocket. Several folks with cloth bags had them slashed and two cameras were stolen, but I, luckily, did not loose anything. We headed back to the hotel and got there about 4pm.
On Sunday we visited a national park and went on a rope walk through the canopy of the rainforest, which was fun.
Here are the pictures from Kakum National Park:
Comments