Golden Enstoolment

The last of the great ancient kingdoms of West Africa is the Ashanti, whose 2,000,000 tribesmen last week proudly anointed a new king, Nana Opoku Ware II. It was the first time in 35 years that the ceremony, perhaps the most magnificent tribal ritual in all Africa, had been conducted. TIME Correspondent James Wilde went to Kumasi in central Ghana for the fete and wrote this report:

The warriors, their oiled bodies gleaming, danced and chanted, "Yao, yao, we abide, we abide, what was foretold has come to pass." Bells, gongs, metal castanets and deep-throated fontomfroms took up the refrain, then fell to a deep hush as the palace gates swung open. Walking majestically, the new King--or Asantehene--led the procession of sword-carrying royal guards, drummers, musketeers, elephant horn blowers, buglers and slaves. Because the King's person may never touch bare earth, his chamberlains chanted, "Walk slowly, my lord, watch that puddle, beware of the stone, walk slowly, my lord."

His head covered with a cap of pounded gold and his body draped with charms, fetishes, talismans and armor, he looked like an Aztec god or a Shiva as he sat in his sumptuous palanquin at the sports stadium. Later, as 100,000 watched, the King danced, awkwardly, like a jewel-encrusted bear. Three times he fired his flintlock into the air, and was answered by the volleys of 400 muskets. Then he lumbered across the field, his mouth filled with green leaves, symbolizing his identification with the earth, to greet Ghanaian Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia and the other official visitors.

Ghana Second. The climax of the ceremony came that night, as the city lay bewitched in the jungle moonlight, and the Manhyia Palace flickered with torches. In a great field near by sat 27 paramount chiefs glittering with gold under huge, richly colored damask and velvet umbrellas. In a secret room inside the palace, observed by only six of his subjects, the King underwent the most sacred part of the tradition. After being ritually cleansed, he was seated briefly three times upon the Ashantis' sacred Golden Stool for the final ascension to power or "enstoolment." Only then did he become the 19th Asantehene in a dynasty that dates back almost 300 years.

Tribal legend traces the solid-gold Stool to a sorcerer, who produced it to help the first Ashanti king unite seven tribal clans. The British tried many times to capture it in battle, but they always failed. During the last Ashanti war, in 1900, the tribe rebelled against the British governor's demand that they surrender the Stool and allow him to sit on it in the name of Queen Victoria. They were also angry with the British for exiling their ruler, Prempeh I to the Seychelles. The British won the war but lost the Stool, which disappeared for a while. The last king, Prempeh II, resisted Kwame Nkrumah's efforts to whittle down his powers. To this day, the Ashantis swear allegiance first to the Asantehene and second to the Republic of Ghana.

Bound to Serve. The new King is a British-educated Anglican lawyer, J. Matthew Poku, 51, who had just been appointed Ghana's Ambassador to Rome when he learned that the Ashanti Queen Mother and the tribal chiefs' council had decided that he would succeed his uncle as King. "I had my tickets, my traveler's checks, everything," he says. "But when I was caught by the net, I had no choice." As Asantehene, he may leave Kumasi only with permission from the council and is forbidden by tribal taboo ever to be alone. "We are all bound to serve the Golden Stool," he says piously, "one way or another."

By Ashanti tradition, a king's death calls for the sacrifice of as many as 1,000 men and women. Last May, after Prempeh II had "gone to his village,'' as the Ashantis put it, fear swept the kingdom. In fact, the announcement of the death was delayed for four days so that the royal executioners could seek out their unsuspecting victims in stealthy leisure. Villages formed vigilante groups to protect them from prowling executioners, and several European priests were shot at by panicky villagers. It is generally believed that despite the precautions, several dozen lost their lives. But nobody in Ashanti will discuss it, any more than he would talk about the tribe's mysteries, rituals, and especially the whereabouts, between coronations, of the Golden Stool.

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