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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Forty Days: The Akan Calendar
Author:Bartle, Philip F.W.
Year:1978
Periodical:Africa: Journal of the International African Institute
Volume:48
Issue:1
Pages:80-84
Language:English
Geographic term:Ghana
Subjects:Akan
time
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External links:https://www.jstor.org/stable/1158712
https://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pao:&rft_dat=xri:pao:article:4011-1978-048-00-000006
Abstract:Several attempts have been made to understand the development if not the origin of Akan culture. In terms of the diffusion of a) traits from the north which were taken south with the expansion and disintegration of the great savanna trading empires and the south-ward migration of Mande Dyula merchants and b) traits which were already present prior to that migration in a large area once populated mainly by Guan in the Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Togo, and today populated for the most part by Akan, Adanbe, and Ewe. The worship by the Akan of what were once Guan gods i.a. leads one to suspect Chat Akan is a culture that was once Guan but which has varied because of the fusion of some traits with it. One institution indicating such fusion is the Akan calendar. The Akan calendar is based on what the Akan call 'forty days', adaduanan. The composition or construction of the adaduanan cycle-appears to be based on an older six-day week, stil extant in some northern Guan communities, on which is superimposed a seven-day week which may have been brought south with itinerant traders from the savanna. Ref., French summary.
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