Akan people

The Akan () people, or Akanfoɔ, are a Kwa group living primarily in Ghana and parts of Ivory Coast in West Africa. The Akan speak languages within the Tano branch of the Niger–Congo family. Subgroups of the Akan people include: the Adanse, Agona, Akuapem, Akwamu, Akyem, Anyi, Asante, Baoulé, Bono, Chakosi, Fante, Kwahu, Sefwi, Wassa, Ahanta, Denkyira and Nzema, among others. The Akan subgroups all have cultural attributes in common, most notably the tracing of royal matrilineal descent in the inheritance of property, and for succession to high political office. All Akans are considered royals in status, but not all are in royal succession or hold titles.

Origins

Pre-colonial and colonial distortions

According to Jack Goody, the origins of the Akan were distorted during the colonial period by misinterpretations popularized by missionaries, administrators, and early ethnographers. One of the earliest documented attempts to explain Akan origins was made by Thomas Edward Bowdich, an English traveler who visited the Asante Empire in 1817. He argued that there were similarities between Asante political institutions and those of Ancient Egypt and Ethiopia which indicated that the Asante descended from eastern or northeastern African populations. In the early twentieth century, W. T. Balmer, a missionary historian, advanced the view that the Akan originated from the medieval Ghana Empire in the western Sudan. He argued that the decline of ancient Ghana was due to the society losing internal cohesion and was weakened by Islam invasions into the Sahel.