Asante traditional music, dance (adowa) and funeral

[Ɔkyeame Kwame]

• Asante traditional music, dance (adowa) and funeral

• Nana Yaw Opoku Mensah was once a flutist in the courts of the Asantehenes Nana Prempeh I & Nana Prempeh II and possibly Nana Opoku Ware II early in his reign. He was 102 in this video and I was told that he was still in good health in 2006. Nana didnt know his birthdate but he told me that he was born a few months before the Yaa Asantewaa War of 1900. He is playing the odurugya which is the traditional cane flute of the Akan. The song hes playing i believe is one in the tradition called Sikabewuepere(moneys death pangs which was popularized during the 1920s economic boom in Asante & the Gold Coast Colony. The flute is often used in songs of lamenting or grief. This piece is more of a recitation than a song really, for the odurugya is a talking instrument, which means that the Akan of antiquity developed a system of encoding their language into the range of sounds/tones the odurugya makes. One must be immeresed in the deep structures of Akan society in order to learn the method of decoding the flute language. Mixed with this video is footage from the funeral of the Bantamahene Baffour Awuah V, an event that was both solemn and celebratory.

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