Ashanti region Sarfoa’s fluent and convincing command over her oratory skills won the Most Eloquent award as she delivered a powerful account of the history of the Ashanti Kingdom.
Sarfoa’s enthusiastic and communicative arts delved into the beginning of the empire. And then through to how they chose the paramount chief of the Ashanti Kingdom. Before finally concluding on the meaning and mystic behind the bustling Kumasi township.
“There lived a group of people who were great warriors, and they hardly ever lost a battle. But one day they, came across an ‘oppressor. And as they were planning and strategizing on how to conquer that enemy. A thought came to mind. So they exclaimed, ‘we are surrounded by a lot and different people, different clans. Why don’t we speak to them so that they join us because the larger we are, the greater we become?”
Sarfoa said that the rest of the clans agreed to this idea and merged together to become one big army. So they fought and won the battle.
“So for the purpose of the creation of that group, they named it Asa-nti. Asa, which is the plural form of 3sa which means war in our local dialect. And Nti, which because of. These two words coming together makes it because of wars.”
According to Sarfoa, after a while, the name merged into the present-day pronunciation, Ashanti. The Ashanti kingdom was made up of twelve clans who agreed to come together to form a stronger defence against their enemies. But every clan had their chief, so they needed to find one ruler to govern the newly combined states.
“That was when a very great and powerful priest known as Kwame Anokye Kotobre, popularly known as Okomfo Anokye, came into the scene. So he declared 400 days fast and prayers for all the chiefs. And on the fortieth day, together with the chiefs, Okomfo Anokye stood his grounds and commanded the golden stool from above.”
The golden stool landed on the laps of Nana Osei Tutu. This made him the first paramount chief of the Ashanti Kingdom. It was believed that the gods, through the golden stool, made known their choice of a king.
Sarfoa also recounted how Kumasi came to be known as the capital of the Ashanti Kingdom. Again with the help of Okomfo Anokye, the town where the kum seed thrived became the capital of the kingdom. Kum –Asi, which means beneath the Kum tree.
By Grace Somuah-Annan|editors.3news.com|Ghana
