Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Akan religion
Summary
Akan religion comprises the traditional beliefs and religious practices of the Akan people of Ghana and eastern Ivory Coast. Akan religion is referred to as Akom Although most Akan people have identified as Christians since the early 20th century, Akan religion remains practiced by some and is often syncretized with Christianity. The Akan have many subgroups (including the Fanti, Ashanti, the Akuapem, the Wassa, the Abron, the Anyi, and the Baoulé, among others), so the religion varies greatly by region and subgroup.
Similar to other traditional religions of West and Central Africa such as West African Vodun, Yoruba religion, or Odinani, Akan cosmology consists of a senior god who generally does not interact with humans and many gods who assist humans.
Anansi the spider is a folk hero who is prominent in Ashanti folktales where he is depicted as a wise trickster. In other aspects of Akan spirituality, Anansi is also sometimes considered both a trickster and a deity associated with wisdom, responsible for creating the first inanimate humans, according to the scholar Anthony Ephirim-Donkor. This is similar to Legba, who is also both a trickster and a deity in West African Vodun.
Followers of Akan spirituality believe in a supreme god who created the universe. He is distant and does not interact with humans.
The creator god takes on different names depending upon the region of worship, including Nyame, Nyankopon, Brekyirihunuade ("Almighty"), Odomankoma ("infinite inventor"), Ɔbɔadeɛ ("creator") and Anansi Kokuroko ("the great designer" or "the great spider"). There is no concept of the trinity in Akan religion like Christianity but rather the veneration of the Creator, Mother Earth and the ancestors besides the abosom.
The supreme creator is an omniscient, omnipotent sky father called Nyame. Asase Yaa (also known as Mother Earth), is second to the creator. Together they brought forth four children: Bia, Epo, Bosomtwe and Tano. The Creator is connected to saturdays and saturday-borns while Asase Yaa (Mother Earth) is connected to thursdays and thursday-borns and hence, revered by farmers on thursdays.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.