Akwantu: Travel and the Making of New Roads

Abstract

In contemplating the significance of akwantu, anibuei ne sikasεm (travel, “civilization,” and money matters), the women first refer to themselves and others who were living away from their hometowns as akwantufo (travelers),³ with Auntie Pauline Sampene jokingly describing her husband and herself as “roving ambassadors.” From the women’s descriptions of their travel experiences, it is clear that their states of travel are simultaneously temporary and permanent because of their dual or multiple homes. These homes are “after effects” of the Asante tradition of duolocal residence,⁴ and the numerous social networks that the women have stretched across a variety of locations. In fact, many of the women had more than one physical home or considered more than one place as their home. The other home tended to be in their hometown and came in various forms from the abusuafie (matrilineal family house) to personal property, which they had built for the occasions that they visited their hometowns. On top of this, some of the women also individually or jointly owned other property in Accra or Kumase,⁵ which they rented out in order to make extra income. The ambiguous nature of these women’s travel, that is, it being both permanent and temporary, is also due to their willingness to uproot and relocate at the shortest notice to wherever sikasεm (money matters) can be resolved.

tu kwan, to undertake a journey (Christaller, 1933, p. 281)

akwán-tú, inf. [tu kwan] journey, travel; voyage

ɔ-kwántuní, ɔ-kwántufó, pl. a-, wanderer (p. 283)

Well, for now Asantes are, you know… at first even Asantes didn’t travel. But now if you go to, where? The moon! You’ll find an Asante there.¹

Asantes are daring. We are mobile to those open places that no one else will go to… So when an Asante comes they will roam all over there to get to know the place… That is why the Asantes… we Asantes whenever we go somewhere we want to get to know the place. What’s this place like? I will go and take a look.² (Author Translation)