Word: atta
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Africa was enjoying a rash of ritual murder. Three years ago jet-complexioned Sir Ofori Atta, Paramount Chief of Akim Abuakwa, died (of natural causes) in the Gold Coast Colony. Soon his friend and secretary, Mensah, Chief of Apedwa, disappeared from view. After long investigation by the British authorities, eight natives were convicted of murdering Mensah, and sentenced to hang (TIME, Dec.11,1944). Mensah, the Crown contended, had been sacrificed to provide blood to daub a ceremonial stool which represented the late Sir Ofori; or to provide Sir Ofori with a companion in the spirit world; or both...
Before their approving headmen two Paramount Chiefs-Nana Atta Agyeman IV of Sefwi Bekwai and Nana Kwami Nkua II of Sefwi Wiawso-joined hands in ostentatious amity. For the occasion both wore richly colored robes with gold crowns on their heads. Spokesmen for the two tribes invoked the spirits of departed Bekwai and Wiawso chiefs to tell them they were now as one. In turn the living chiefs blessed the new union...
...Ofori Atta was a stout, pious, blue-black man who ruled over Akim Abuakwa on Africa's Gold Coast. London knew him. Once he visited King George V to be knighted for his services to the Crown (supplying soldiers and bearers) in World War I. Again he went to London on business, as a director of Akim, Ltd., a diamond mining company. He wore a heavy golden crown, a purple and gold toga. Wherever he went, a small black boy in silk knee breeches walked before him. The boy was the repository of Sir Ofori's soul...
...Junkers, shot upward, swerved right, then banked sharply, with his guns blazing. The German bomber fluttered down, trailing smoke. At a Red Air Force headquarters, a 35th digit was marked against the name of Major Alexander Pokryshkin. Across the breadth of Russia, men & women grinned and muttered: "Molodets paren"-atta boy. For to them, Alexander Pokryshkin is one of the war's top air heroes...
...Says Van Atta: "I'm [now] probably the greatest living authority on Mac-Arthur's strength and able to assert most solemnly that it's still terrific...