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Odwira: The Festival of Purification
Cultural Heritage 5 min read
Odwira is the Asante festival of purification and first fruits: the blackened stools are cleansed, the ancestors are fed......
Umbrellas, Swords and Linguist Staffs: The Grammar of Asante Regalia
Cultural Heritage 5 min read
Asante regalia is a language: the state umbrella and its finial, the akrafena and other court swords, and the linguist s......
The Asante Stool: Seat, Soul and Succession
Cultural Heritage 4 min read
Beyond the Golden Stool: the personal stool as an extension of its owner, the blackened ancestral stools kept in the sto......
Atumpan: The Talking Drums of Asante
Cultural Heritage 4 min read
The paired atumpan drums reproduce the tones of Twi, allowing proverbs, praise names and announcements to be drummed rat......
Bonwire and the Weavers of Kente
Cultural Heritage 4 min read
The Asante town most closely associated with kente: the narrow-strip loom, the long apprenticeship, the named patterns a......
Carel Hendrik Bartels: Merchant Between Two Worlds
Key Figures 4 min read
A leading Euro-African merchant of Elmina in the first half of the nineteenth century, whose commercial network and role......