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Ivory Coast
Index
Akan
Akan societies are best known for the large kingdom of
Asante,
which evolved in what is now Ghana. The westernmost Akan
peoples--the Agni, Baoulé, and several smaller groups--are
descendants of people who fled from Asante and now make up
about
one-fifth of the Ivoirian population.
Historians believe that Akan civilization evolved in
stages,
beginning about A.D. 1000, forming urban settlements by
about A.D.
1400, and giving rise to the Asante and other large
kingdoms by
about A.D. 1600. They became known for their elaborate use
of gold,
their military organization, and their success in
international
trade. Military expertise probably provided the basis for
their
regional dominance, but their dramatic success from A.D.
1600 on
also resulted from their use of slaves in gold mining and
agriculture and from the spread of Islam.
Most Akan societies are organized into matrilineages
(abusua). Each lineage is identified with a home
village or
section of a town, although lineage members may be
dispersed.
Lineages demonstrate their autonomy with respect to other
similar
groups through the ownership of a symbolic chair or stool,
named
for the female founder of the lineage. Possession of the
ritually
important stool is seen as vital to the existence of the
group.
Large lineages may segment into branches, each led by an
elder or
headman, but a branch does not possess a stool as a symbol
of its
social autonomy.
Despite their matrifocal center, Akan societies are
dominated
by men. Men occupy most leadership positions, but they
succeed
former leaders based on their relationship through their
mothers
and sisters. Thus, a leader is succeeded, and his valuable
property
is inherited, by his brother or his sister's son.
Matrilineal descent and inheritance produce particular
strains
in the social fabric under the pressures of modernization.
Tensions
often arise between a man's sons, who help him acquire
wealth and
property, and his sister's sons, who may inherit it.
Similarly, a
man is expected to support children of deceased maternal
relatives,
a demand that may conflict with the interests of his own
children.
Akan people used to cope with this contradiction by
allowing a
senior woman in the lineage to rule that a matrilineal
relative had
to relinquish his rights in favor of a man's son. More
recently,
the Ivoirian government has refused to enforce legal
claims to
matrilineal rights and has condemned, but not eliminated,
practices
related to matrilineal descent.
Agni political organization was derived from its
lineage
foundations, in that lineages grouped in villages were
united as a
chiefdom. The chief served as the guardian and protector
of this
domain and as priest, judge, administrator, and custodian
of the
sacred stool, which in the 1980s was still recognized as a
symbol
of unity of the entire chiefdom. An Agni chief was
succeeded by a
man nominated by the senior women of the lineage. This
nominee,
usually one of the deceased chief's matrilineal heirs, was
confirmed, or on rare occasions rejected, by a council of
lineage
elders. Most of the chiefs' traditional political
authority has
been eroded or transformed by modern national law, but
their ritual
authority remained important in the 1980s, confirmed by
their
custody of the sacred stool.
The Agni were particularly successful at assimilating
other
groups into their political organization, with the result
that many
people in the southeast trace their ancestry both to Agni
chiefdoms
and to smaller, distinct societies that fell under Agni
control.
One mechanism of assimilation was grouping semiautonomous
chiefdoms
under an Agni paramount chief, who held ultimate authority
over his
subjects. In at least four regions, these polities evolved
into
kingdoms--Indénié, Moronou, Comoénou, and Sanwi--which
still evoke
strong loyalties and ethnic pride. The continuing
importance of the
kingdoms was demonstrated in 1959 and 1969, when Sanwi
attempted to
secede from Côte d'Ivoire in the hope of demonstrating
Agni
autonomy from Baoulé domination.
In 1988 the Baoulé constituted about 15 percent of the
population, making this the nation's largest indigenous
ethnic
group, although the Agni population in neighboring states
was
larger. Baoulé society was less highly centralized than
the Agni,
with villages grouped into small chiefdoms. Baoulé
agricultural
successes were remarkable, however, partly because of
careful
control of land, which was held in common by an entire
village and
redistributed each year to those most efficient at
cultivating it.
Hunting supplemented agriculture.
The Baoulé were also successful in absorbing
neighboring
peoples into their society by political means and
intermarriage.
Baoulé women married freely into other societies, in part
because
their children inherited their lineage membership from
their
mother. As a result, many Baoulé still have extended kin
ties
reaching into other ethnic communities, and this network
provides
political support for Baoulé politicians. Assimilation by
the
Baoulé also involved the transfer of their myth of
origin--which
emphasized the value of agriculture, respect for
authority, and
individual sacrifice for society--to smaller neighboring
groups.
Ivoirian president Houphouët-Boigny has used his Baoulé
identity pragmatically to pursue political goals. For
example, he
refused to name a successor to his presidency, saying that
to do so
was not in keeping with tradition. At the same time, he
condemned
the Baoulé traditional practice of matrilineal inheritance
and
descent for failing to strengthen the unity of the nuclear
family,
which he considers the pillar of modern Ivoirian society
and the
mainstay of economic development.
Most influential among smaller Akan cultures of eastern
Côte
d'Ivoire are the Abron (Brong in Ghana), Abouré, Ehotilé,
and
Nzima. Together they make up only about 2 percent of the
total
population. All are matrilineal peoples with a
heterogeneous
population and mixed economy. None achieved the elaborate
political
centralization of the Agni nor the postindependence
importance of
the Baoulé.
Data as of November 1988
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