Re-Membering through Oath: Installation of African Kings and Queens

Abstract

Scholars writing about African diasporic religions in the New World often focus on Candomble Nago of Brazil (Omari, 1984); Santeria in Cuba, Florida, and New York (Murphy, 1988); voodoo (Hood, 1990; Brown, 1991); and recently, immigrant independent or pentecostal churches in Boston, New York, Washington D.C., and so on. The above religious systems tend to have specialists such as priestesses and priests, mediums and pastors, and identifiable institutions and places of worship for the devotees. There is, however, another form of recent diasporic African religion that is unlike the others, which is experienced and expressed during the installation of Ghanaian community leaders. The installation ceremonies in New England that occur every 4 years have become the locus of an African religion in which ancestral veneration, the display of the sacred authority of chieftaincy, and the religio-political underpinnings of royal stools are articulated. During the installation, the Great Oath (the Ntam Kese) of Asante, which makes an oblique reference to a national tragedy and has religious implications, is also evoked to ratify the commitments people make and to renew relationships among Ghanaian immigrants.