Akan, ethnolinguistic grouping of peoples of the Guinea Coast who speak Akan languages (of the Kwa branch of the Niger-Congo family). The Akan people are living primarily in present-day Ghana and in parts of Ivory Coast and Togo in West Africa. They include the speakers of the Akyem, Anyi, Asante (Ashanti), Attié, Baule, Brong, Chakosi, Fante (Fanti), and Guang languages; some scholars also consider Twi a distinct Akan language.
The culture of the Akan people of West Africa dates from before the 13th century. Like other long-established cultures the world over, the Akan have developed a rich conceptual system complete with metaphysical, moral, and epistemological aspects. Of particular interest is the Akan conception of persons, a conception that informs a variety of social institutions, practices, and judgments about personal identity, moral responsibility, and the proper relationship both among individuals and between individuals and community.
Most Akan peoples live in Ghana, where they settled in successive waves of migration between the 11th and 18th centuries; others inhabit the eastern part of Côte d’Ivoire and parts of Togo. Yams are the staple food crop in the Akan economy, but plantains and taro also are important; cocoa and palm oil are major commercial resources. The Akan people are believed to have migrated from the Sahel region and the savannas of West Africa. Between the 15th and 19th century, they dominated trading and gold mines in the region, and by the 17th century, they were already among the most influential communities in Africa.
They dominated the goldfields between the Volta and Komoe Rivers where they mined the precious metal and traded it with other local communities or traders from overseas. The gold attracted the Dutch who were later joined by the British. The Europeans quickly realized that the Akan was a strong group and opted for diplomacy instead of armed colonialism. They employed the Akan warriors to invade their neighbors for slaves who were sold in exchange for guns. Between 1820 and 1900, the Ashanti engaged the Europeans in armed conflicts as the latter tried severally to colonize the Ashanti Kingdom. By the early 1900s, the French had colonized Ivory Coast while the British had colonized Ghana. In March 1957, Ghana gained independence, and three years later the Ivory Coast followed suit.
Traditional Akan society is composed of exogamous matrilineal clans, the members of which trace their descent from a common female ancestor; these clans are hierarchically organized and are subdivided into localized matrilineages, which form the basic social and political units of Akan society. Most Akan live in compact villages that are divided into wards occupied by the matrilineages and subdivided into compounds of extended multigeneration families.
The village is a political unit under a headman, elected from one of the lineages, and a council of elders, each of whom is the elected head of a constituent lineage. The lineage head is the custodian of the lineage’s stools, which are the symbols of unity between the spirits of the ancestors and the living members of the lineage; every lineage also has its own god or gods. There is a strong feeling of corporate responsibility among lineage members. Matrilineal descent also governs inheritance, succession, and land tenure. Paternal descent is also recognized and determines membership in the ntoro, a group sharing certain taboos, surnames, forms of etiquette, and ritual purification ceremonies.
The Akan are a religious group of people. They adopted Christianity as their primary religion, but others identify as Muslims. The Ancient Akan people worshipped Onyame (Supreme God), Asase Yaa (the goddess of the earth), and to their ancestors by offering sacrifices including slaves. The Akan maintained the traditional matrilineal cultures where the kingship lineage is dependent on women.
