Word: ashantis
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...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...
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...
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...