The Akan Concept of the Soul

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The Akan Concept of the Soul by Sam K. Akesson

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AN'S STRUGGLE to understand himself is universal. From primitive man to modem man, from ancient civilization to our modern rocketry, man has attempted to explore the mystery of the " self " within him, aware that the physical-substance does not explain his mysterious essence. Science has practically brought nature under man's control by penetrating into the many mysteries of his physical being; yet, despite the advances science has made, it has not in any way been able to say what the soul is. Surgeons can draw blood from many parts of the body, but no surgeon has made a soul bleed or heard it expostulate, as Dante has. Physicists have devised formulae for the vast and for the infinitesmal, able to harness nuclear energy and to measure the weight of an atom, but they have not attempted, as Plato has, to formulate or probe the indwelling spirit. The quest for the soul will probably never come into the province of science. The answers of Christian theology, as of other religions, are enshrined in mystery. Christian theology has refined man's ideas of pagan antiquity, especially in its notions of the effects upon' the soul of sin and its consequences ; but the mystery still remains, for the Christian explanation of the soul docs not say exactly what the ' 'personality " of the soul is. The old primitive belief that a soul has the personality of its owner, but can be separated from the body (as experienced in a dream), and that it is indestructible and survives and lives on forever when the organs of the body no longer function, is still a view widely, if not universally, held. This study intends to present the concept of the soul as propounded by the Akans of Ghana and to show the influence of this concept on the life and thought of the Akan peoples. The belief in immortality, in the soul's survival after death, is a concept Akans do not repudiate. It is natural for the Akan to hold the concept because the belief in immortality has its very origin in the word the Akan uses for soul. The Akan term for soul, KRA or OKRA (meaning " goodbye ") reflects the origin of the concept. Leaving aside for the moment the Akan idea that the souls of new-born children are either emanations of ancestral souls or reincarnated former lives, I would like us to examine further the connotations of the " goodbye " which attend the Akan word KRA for the soul of man. According to the Akan, the soul (KRA or OKRA) of a man existed with Nyame, God, long before it became incarnated. This soul may be the soul or the spirit of a kinsman or ymiftimy* of another person, but one who belongs to the same tribe. In the past, marriage was strictly endogamous among Akans; therefore, if a child did not resemble somebody who died in the kinship group, that child might be regarded as a reincarnate of the husband's (the father's) kinship group. (My oldest daughter, for example,

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is believed to have the characteristics of my paternal aunt.) Whatever line the soul may have come from, that soul existed with Nyame, God, and the day a person is bora is the day on which he takes upon himself the human frame in order to make his existence real in the physical world of man. According to Christaller "when he [the soul] is thus dismissed in heaven, he takes with him his errand, Lc. his destination or future fate is fixed beforehand; from this the nam