sacred grove. At this time, the people come from
many kilometers away to pay homage to the deity.
At the grove that gives rise to the Tano River are
festival sites that are used quite regularly for some
of the more important occasions. For example, the
Apoo Festival is held deep in the grove each April
or May as a place for the people to ask for spiri-
tual cleansing, rededication, and renewal.
As in many African cultures, the practice of
renewal among the Akan can take place in many
sites. However, here at the headwaters of the
Tano, priests of the Atano abosom centered on the
sacred river Tano performed some of the most
important rites in all of Akan.
Among the Akan who come to this sacred place,
drum texts, ritual statements, archaeology, oral nar-
ratives, and proverbs allow the people to reconfirm
in their hearts the holiness of the Tano River Shrine.
Clearly, the deities who frequent the Tano River
are not small deities; they are extremely important
and popular with the almighty Onyame. Actually,
all tutelary deities are extensions of the Supreme
Being and are personalities.
Now the deity called Tano is the stool deity for
Obo. It came with the Amoakade matrician from
near the head of the Tano River in an area that is
now called Brong Ahafo near the Ivory Coast bor-
der. The stool drums recite the famous poem that
includes the lines: “The stream crosses the path.
The path crosses the stream. Which came first?
Pure, pure, Tano. The stream is from long ago.” It
explains that the deities were here before the
people.
Thus, the history of sacred rivers in Africa,
from the Nile to the Oshun, from the Zambezi to
the Tano, is one where humans always seem to
understand the value of water. The sacred Tano is
central to the Akan’s appreciation of nature and
its life-giving qualities.
Molefi Kete AsanteSeealsoLakes; Rivers and Streams; Water
Further Readings
Asante, M. K. (2007).The History of Africa. London:
Routledge.
Buah, F. K. (1980).History of Ghana. New York and
London: Macmillan.
Gocking, R. (2005).The History of Ghana. Westport,
CT: Greenwood Press.TAUETONA
The Tswana people of southern Africa have an
oral tradition that says Tauetona was the first
human created. In the beginning of all things, God
created Tauetona, who then worked with God to
create other humans who were his brothers and
sisters, as well as animals, birds, and fish. The
Earth was peaceful, and the humans and animals
lived among each other in harmony. All of the
plants were bountiful, and the land seemed
divinely serene. The land was calledThaya Banna,
meaning “The Place of the Beginning of
Humanity.” However, as things turned out, all
was not as peaceful as it could have been and as
God and Tauetona wanted it to be. They soon dis-
covered that there was discord because all of the
animals had wives, but men did not have wives.
They were disgruntled and felt extremely bad
about their condition.
According to the story, men were not happy
and could not be pleased, so God sent a message
with Tread Carefully, the Chameleon, which told
men what would happen to them. The message
said that men would all have to die, but that they
would then be reborn. Men would be allowed to
return later. This was a complicated, strange,
and bizarre message to the men. It took Tread
Carefully a long time to tell this message to men.
Because God saw that it was difficult for Tread
Carefully to tell the message as quickly and as pre-
cisely as it should have been told, he decided to
send another more exact message to men by the
speedy lizard. So when Speedy Lizard got to the
men, he said, “God said that your spirits will live
forever but you will die just like all the rest of the
animals.” Furthermore, according to Speedy
Lizard, God said that the men would have
children. The men asked the question, “How can
we have children without women?”
Of course, there was something the men did not
know. They did not know that God had created
women far away in another valley calledMotlhaba
Basetsanaor “The Great Savanna of Women.”Tauetona 649