The Akan Doctrine of God

The true Akan doctrine, simply stated, is the cult of God as the Great Ancestor, with all other ancestors in between as the Mediators. God, says the doctrine, is the Father of all diverse men of one blood, and the good chief of the tribe is exemplar of the chief good. The Akan idea is of an ancestral creator and head of the very real and near community, continuous with the past, present and the future of his relations of blood. The omnipotence of the high-father cannot be greater than the reality of this community. In the African, and the West African or Akan sense, the ancestral spirit is essentially a creative energy, a soul if you wish, and can often impress us as an over-soul, the Old One or the Great One of Being. Rattray says: The predominant influences in the Ashanti religion are the Asamanfo, the spirits of the departed forebears of the clan.