The Enduring Puzzle of Patriliny in Asante HistoryA Note and a Document on Ntɔrɔ Tom McCaskie* (bio) Note In reviewing the older, often contradictory, literature on the matter of ntɔrɔ among the Akan, including the Asante, the Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Gyekye came to the following conclusion: “The ntoro appears to be the basis of inherited characteristics, and may therefore be translated as ‘sperm-transmitted characteristic,’ even though spiritual as well as physiological qualities are attributed to it.” So, ntɔrɔ transmitted by the father, and its homologue mogya (blood) transmitted by the mother, “are genetic factors responsible for inherited characteristics.”1 In 1967–69, during my first stay in Ghana, I met and often talked with A.C. Denteh, a colleague at the university at Legon. We discussed ntɔrɔ, for he had just published a short piece on the subject.2 He was a member of the mmamma (patrilineal sons and grandsons) of the important Kumase stool of Gyaasewa, descended from its still celebrated incumbent Opoku Frɛfrɛ, or Opoku “the nimble” (d. 1826). My records tell me that Denteh spoke [End Page 162] of the “great names” (aboadenfo>ɔ) in his patrilineal line, and of how the holders of such names embodied characteristics that might be passed on to their ntɔrɔ descendants. Naming practices, he remarked, might be employed to encourage or to conduce such an outcome. Finally, I made note of the intense seriousness and pride that marked Denteh’s speech about the matter of his male descent line. Around 1980, I spent much time talking with Meyer Fortes. On one occasion in his Cambridge house we discussed ntɔrɔ—the principle of patrilineal descent in matrilineal Asante society—at length. His view of the matter, documented in his writings on Asante kinship, are well known (as is his view of kinship in general, formulated in his interactions with Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, and Evans-Pritchard). Meyer had a British structural-functionalist aversion to the kind of interpretative ethnography practised eminently (and at the time fashionably) by Geertz.3 I took up the cudgel of Geertzian interpretation (or, in Meyer’s view, speculation), and asked the obvious question. Where had Asante patrilineality come from historically, and what did it mean and intend? Meyer rehearsed the canonical arguments about structure and function, and bridled at my “speculation” that Asante ntɔrɔ might reference a political past in which succession to office ran in male rather than female descent lines. Our talk concluded with him giving me a copy of the document reproduced in this article. I reprint it here as an evidential addition to any future analysis of Asante ntɔrɔ, which remains enigmatic, an enduring puzzle. Let me now summarize what historians—rather than philosophers or anthropologists—have said about it. Wilks first decoded the historical record to illustrate that while appropriate matrilineal descent was the necessary condition for succession to high royal office in Asante, equally appropriate patrilineal descent was the sufficient condition for the same thing. That is, an ideal candidate for any such royal office should combine together in his person an indispensable claim (supremely so through the exogamous matrilateral cross-cousin marriage of his parents) and a desirable claim (supremely so via patrilineal descent as the grandson of a previous incumbent of that office). Historically, Wilks showed that the factor of patrilineal descent (ntɔrɔ) was (and is still) a significant factor in succession to matrilineally inherited royal office, and most especially to the highest office of all, that of Asantehene.4 [End Page 163] It will be seen that in the document reproduced below (page 3 of manuscript), it is noted that, “Members of the same ntɔrɔ are believed to display certain characteristics in common.” I explored some of the implications of this observation in writing about the web of patrilineal ties that enmeshed—and were acted upon—by Asantehene Kwaku Dua (1834–67). Notably, he made calculated use of marriages between Oyoko women and his own sons, the object of this being to conduce into being a royal grandson who was kra pa, a (re)incarnation of his own patri-personality and, of course, a future Asantehene. In...