The Ohemaa and the Akwasidae Festival: Ritual Co-Sovereignty in Asante

The Ohemaa (Akan: ‘female ruler’; often rendered ‘queen mother’) in Asante is not a consort but a co-sovereign who occupies the silver stool of the Asantehemaa, the highest female office in the Asante Kingdom (present-day Ghana). Her ritual authority is publicly renewed and displayed during Akwasidae, the great Adae festival held every forty-two days at the Manhyia Palace in Kumasi, when the Asantehene and Asantehemaa jointly honour ancestral stools and the Golden Stool. This article examines the historical foundations, political structures, and living ritual complex through which the Ohemaa exercises complementary sovereignty.

Origins and Mythological Foundations

The office of the Asantehemaa crystallised in the late seventeenth century with the founding of the Asante union under Osei Tutu (r. c. 1695–1717) and the priest Okomfo Anokye. Oral tradition holds that the Golden Stool (Sika Dwa Kofi) descended from the sky to rest on Osei Tutu’s knees, embodying the sunsum (soul) of the Asante nation. The silver stool of the Asantehemaa was instituted as its necessary counterpart, not as a lesser object but as the seat of the female ancestors who guarantee the continuity of the royal abusua (matriclan).

The Asantehemaa is the senior woman of the Oyoko royal matrilineage, the clan of Osei Tutu. Akan cosmological thought links political legitimacy to the ancestral mothers who transmit blood (mogya) and therefore royal identity. The queen mother is thus the living embodiment of the lineage’s founding ancestresses, and her ritual purity is essential to the health of the state.

Asante oral tradition insists that the state was founded not by a king alone but by a king and a queen mother together; the Golden Stool and the silver stool are spoken of as two halves of a single sovereignty.

Political Structure and Governance Systems

Asante governance is best understood as a dual-sex political system, in which male and female offices operate in parallel and in mutual dependence. The Asantehene (king) occupies the Golden Stool and is the principal military commander, land trustee, and external diplomat. The Asantehemaa (queen mother) occupies the silver stool and is the custodian of the royal matrilineage, the guardian of succession, and the senior moral and ritual authority over the internal affairs of the state.

At the local level, every oman (paramountcy) and town has an omanhemaa or ohemaa who mirrors the Asantehemaa’s functions. The Asantehemaa’s court at Manhyia includes her own spokespersons (okyeame), female elders (mpanyinfo), and ritual attendants. She controls revenue from certain lands and markets, and her judicial decisions in matters of family law, inheritance, and women’s affairs carry binding force.

Succession and Inheritance Mechanisms

Asante royal succession follows matrilineal inheritance: a person belongs to the mother’s abusua, and rights to stools, land, and office pass through women. The Asantehemaa is chosen by the kingmakers of the Oyoko royal lineage from among eligible women of that lineage. She is often the sister, daughter, or niece of a previous Asantehemaa, but the decisive criteria are seniority, moral standing, and ritual knowledge.

The Asantehemaa plays a decisive role in the selection of the Asantehene. Because the king must be a member of the royal matrilineage, the queen mother’s knowledge of genealogy and her power to nominate or veto candidates make her the gatekeeper of the Golden Stool. During an interregnum, she may act as regent, safeguarding the state until a new king is enstooled.

A notable historical example is Nana Yaa Akyaa, Asantehemaa from 1884 until her death in exile in 1917. She engineered the enstoolment of her son Prempeh I in 1888 and remained a formidable political strategist during the British annexation of Asante. Her career demonstrates that the queen mother’s succession authority could translate into direct political power.

Gender Dynamics, Matriarchy, and Complementary Rule

The Asante system is not a matriarchy in the sense of female domination, but a complementary dual-sex polity. The Akan concept of obaapanin (female elder) and the title ohemaa denote authority that is parallel to, not subordinate to, male authority. The queen mother’s power is rooted in her role as the mother of the lineage, but it extends into public, judicial, and ritual domains.

The Queen Mother is the real head of the family, and the chief is her son or nephew.

This observation, recorded by the colonial anthropologist R. S. Rattray in 1923, captures the indigenous logic of Asante kinship, even though Rattray and other European observers often failed to recognise the full political implications of female authority. Colonial administrators tended to look for male-style command and thus underestimated the Asantehemaa’s influence.

The military potential of the office was demonstrated by Nana Yaa Asantewaa, the ohemaa of Ejisu, who in 1900 led the Asante war of resistance against British rule. Although she was not the Asantehemaa, her leadership drew on the same tradition of queen mothers as guardians of the nation’s soul and mobilisers of collective action.

Regalia, Symbols, and Royal Insignia

The Asantehemaa’s sovereignty is made visible through a distinct ensemble of regalia. Her silver stool is the female counterpart to the Golden Stool and is never sat upon by the king. She wears handwoven kente cloth, often in deep reds, golds, and greens, with patterns that encode proverbs and historical events. Her ornaments include gold headpieces, necklaces, bracelets, and sandals, each marking her status as a ruler in her own right.

The kyinie (state umbrella) is a key symbol of sovereignty; the Asantehemaa has her own umbrellas, carried by attendants during processions. Linguist staffs (okyeame poma) topped with gold-leaf figures convey her messages through proverbs. Adinkra symbols such as Gye Nyame (‘except God’) and Sankofa (‘return and fetch it’) appear on her cloth and court furnishings, linking her authority to Akan cosmology and historical memory.

During Akwasidae, the Asantehemaa may wear black or dark cloth during the private ancestral rites and then change into full ceremonial kente for the public durbar, visually marking the transition from mourning to celebration.

Ceremonies, Festivals, and Public Rituals

Akwasidae is the most important public festival in the Asante ritual calendar. It falls on a Sunday every forty-two days, alternating with the smaller Awukudae (Wednesday Adae). The festival at the Manhyia Palace in Kumasi draws chiefs, queen mothers, courtiers, and thousands of visitors to honour the ancestral stools and renew the bonds between the living and the dead.

Ritual Sequence

1. Purification: The palace and stools are ritually cleansed; libations of water and schnapps are poured to the ancestors.
2. Private stool veneration: The Asantehene and Asantehemaa offer food, drink, and prayers to the blackened stools of deceased rulers in the stool house.
3. Procession: Courtiers, drummers, horn blowers, and umbrella bearers process through the palace grounds.
4. Public durbar: The Asantehene and Asantehemaa sit in state to receive homage from paramount chiefs, queen mothers, and the public.
5. Blessing and announcements: The Asantehene may make declarations, settle disputes, or confer honours; the Asantehemaa blesses the gathered community.

The Asantehemaa’s participation is not decorative. She performs the female ancestral rites, receives the homage of the amanhemaa (paramount queen mothers), and her presence is understood to complete the ritual circuit of sovereignty. Without the silver stool’s occupant, the Golden Stool’s rites are considered incomplete.

Oral Traditions, Songs, and Praise Poetry

The authority of the Ohemaa is preserved and transmitted through kwadwom (state drum poetry), mmomme (praise songs), and the recitation of genealogies by court linguists. These oral forms do not merely praise; they encode constitutional principles, historical precedents, and the names of powerful queen mothers.

Praise names for the Asantehemaa include Ohemaa, ɔbaatan pa (‘good mother’), Ohemaa, ɔdɔmankoma (‘the one who holds the nation’), and references to the silver stool that never tarnishes. Drum language can reproduce the tones of Akan speech, allowing state drummers to recite the queen mother’s lineage and deeds in her presence.

Oral traditions also preserve accounts of queen mothers who acted as regents, war leaders, and peacemakers. These narratives are not fixed texts but living performances, adapted to each Akwasidae to address contemporary concerns while anchoring the present in the ancestral past.

Encounters with Colonial Powers and Resistance

British colonial expansion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries posed a direct threat to Asante sovereignty and to the office of the Asantehemaa. The British arrested Asantehene Prempeh I in 1896 and exiled him, together with his mother, Asantehemaa Yaa Akyaa, and other senior royals, first to Sierra Leone and later to the Seychelles. Yaa Akyaa died in exile in 1917, but her defiance and political acumen remained a rallying point for Asante resistance.

In 1900, Nana Yaa Asantewaa, the queen mother of Ejisu, led the last major Asante war against British rule. Her famous challenge—if the men would not fight, the women would—drew on the queen mother’s ritual duty to defend the Golden Stool and the nation’s soul. The war was ultimately defeated, but it forced the British to recognise the depth of Asante attachment to their political and spiritual institutions.

Colonial Source Caveat

Early European accounts by Bowdich, Rattray, and colonial administrators must be read critically. They often translated ohemaa as ‘queen mother’ and assumed a European model of queen consort or dowager, obscuring the office’s real political and ritual power. Where possible, this article prioritises Asante oral traditions, court historians, and the work of African scholars such as Kwame Arhin and A. A. Boahen.

Legacy and Modern Political Influence

As of 2025, the Asantehemaa is Nana Konadu Yiadom III, enstooled in 2017, serving alongside Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II. The office remains central to Asante cultural identity and to the moral authority of the Manhyia Palace. Although traditional rulers in Ghana do not hold formal constitutional power, the Asantehemaa’s voice carries weight in matters of education, health, women’s empowerment, land disputes, and family law.

The Akwasidae festival has become a major cultural event, attracting Ghanaians from all regions, the diaspora, and international visitors. It functions as a living museum of Asante sovereignty, where the silver stool and the Golden Stool are displayed in ritual context, and where the co-sovereignty of the Ohemaa is publicly reaffirmed.

Contemporary queen mothers across Ghana and the Akan diaspora look to the Asantehemaa as a model of female leadership. Her office demonstrates that African political systems have long included institutionalised female authority, challenging narratives that equate political power with male dominance.

Sources and Further Reading

• Akyeampong, Emmanuel, and Pashington Obeng. ‘Spirituality, Gender, and Power in Asante History.’ International Journal of African Historical Studies 28, no. 3 (1995): 481–508.
• Arhin, Kwame. ‘The Political and Military Roles of Akan Women.’ In Female and Male in West Africa, edited by Christine Oppong. London: Allen & Unwin, 1983.
• McCaskie, T. C. State and Society in Pre-colonial Asante. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Rattray, R. S. Ashanti. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923.
• Wilks, Ivor. Forests of Gold: Essays on the Akan and the Kingdom of Asante. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1993.