Out of West Africa: The Adae Festival

The Drummers on the Look-out.

Greetings again from Kumasi! I've been quite busy with the research project this past week, but tonight I have some free time to share a rather unique experience.

This past Sunday I finally had the opportunity to see the Adae Festival at Kumasi's Manhyia Palace, home of the Asantehene--that is, the king of the Ashanti people. Basically, the Adae occurs every 42 days on the Ashanti calendar, and it is the occasion where paramount chiefs, who rule over smaller territories, from all over Ghana come to Manhyia to pay tribute to the Asantehene. It is a colourful, boisterous experiences, replete with praise-singing, actual sabre-rattling, drumming, dancing, more praise-singing and all sorts of ceremonial.

The Chiefs' Stools. [Yes, the blue one is a plastic Rubbermaid stool.]

According to one of my Kumasi-based friends, this festival has been going on, basically without interruption and with few changes, for the past four hundred years. The changes were quite interesting. For instance, the Asantehene's entourage is preceded by the Executioner--who, as it turned out, was a really old man, who walked with some difficulty, but donned a leopard-skin cap and carried various--rusty--blades. I asked, "so does this executioner still execute?", to which the answer was, luckily, no. I read somewhere that under a previous Asantehene anyone who tried to take a picture of the Asantehene would be prevailed upon to surrender his camera--and then he would happen to be decapitated. The current Asantehene appears to be a bit more lenient: you don't have to surrender your camera. (Only kidding).

Schnapps for the Asantehene. [Notice the huge royal umbrellas in the background.]

Under the current Asantehene, the Adae Festival has become more open to foreigners, and we are allowed to take as many pictures as we want, so long as we don't interrupt the proceedings, something that was made known to us several times. I was certainly fine with that, seeing how this was an actual traditional ritual and not some Disney attraction, but that realization was unfortunately, sadly lost on many of the other obrunis (about 15 of us, total) attending. Quite a few of them rode in to Manhyia in SUVs owned by a not-to-be-named multilateral development agency. These people carried multiple, higher-end DSLRs (i.e. a D300 loaded with an 18-200 zoom) as well as video cameras, etc. Basically, I think they felt entitled to walk around as they pleased, get as close to the action as possible (wait, what about that zoom lens?), tell people to move around and disobey orders from the various attendants, even a few chiefs, to step aside. Honestly, I was a bit disgusted with some of their brazenness.

Preparing the Drums.

As for me, I had my trusty prime 35mm lens (still saving up to buy that 18-200). A fixed lens in this situation, where we aren't supposed to move around, presents a few difficulties in terms of composition. The Crimson photographer who advised me on my camera and lens purchase told me that a fixed lens (in her case, a prime 50mm), while not having the obvious advantages of being able to zoom in on a subject, challenged her to give more thought to her composition. Having used this lens for the past few months, I've really come to appreciate that sentiment and think more of how to portray people and life in Ghana.

All Eyes on the King.

I spent most of the festival hanging out in the drummers' gallery, towards the back of the Manhyia plaza, a gallery filled with drums of various sizes, including talking drums, that the Ashantis used to communicate, especially during war time. This was my first experience with talking drums, and all I basically knew about them was that they were used during the Stairs Expedition by Katangan spies to gauge the size and capacity of the encroaching European forces. Such a crazy story. I think for this festival those drums were used to augment the praises to the Asantehene and announce the arrival of various chiefs.

The Talking Drums.

One major highlight of this particular festival was that it was also attended by John Kufour, former president of Ghana. Given that Kumasi is the stronghold of the NPP, the current opposition, most people were ecstatic to see Kufour, and the line to shake his hand (no, I was not included) took about half an hour to cycle through--before another line started. His attendance was interesting in that chiefs and traditional leaders are not supposed to get mixed up with 'formal' government, but Kufour was given the seat of honour, directly facing the Asantehene. Furthermore, when greeting the Asantehene, it is traditional for men to lower the left shoulder of their 'toga' outfit to signify that they are not hiding a weapon; I don't think Kufour had to do that. But, in any case, certainly a cool experience to see him there.

The Crowd Going Wild for Kufour.

After the Adae I decided to take a stroll around Kumasi, and happened to find a lively game of street soccer. More pictures of the Adae and of the soccer game below.