Ga-Adangbes In Toronto Celebrate Homowo Festival

As globalization help opens up world cultures to each other, minority ethnic groups who for long were shy in showing their culture internationally are bent on showcasing their culture to the outside world wherever one or two them are gathered internationally. It is in this context that Toronto’s over 10,000 Ga-Adangbe ethnic group of Ghana celebrated their yearly Homowo festival like their brethrens back home in their native Ghana on Saturday, August 24 at Toronto’s Humberwood Community Centre with the slogan “Afioo Afi !!!! Afioo Afi !!!”

For the past 13 years, Toronto’s Ga-Dangbe community, appropriating Canada’s multicultural values, has celebrated the Homowo festival to not only show their rich cultural heritage to the rest of other Canadian cultural communities, but also rekindle their culture to their children, most of who were born in Canada and have the potential of not knowing their native culture. Said Christopher Nelson, a member of the Ga-Dangbe Association of Toronto (GDAT) and owner of the Accra-based Toronto By Night Motel, “We celebrate the Homowo festival every year because we do not want the festival to be forgotten…We celebrate it every year to pass on the values of the ancient festival to our children…Values of hard work and inspiration so that we don’t loose some of our culture.”

Various historical reasons are given for the celebration of the Homowo festival by the Ga-Dangbe. Prudence Kyeremateng, herself a Ga-Dangbe and director of the Toronto-based Tabong Enterprises, one of nine the corporate sponsors of the festival, said, “Some centuries ago there was a war between the Asantes and the Ga-Dangbe. The Ga-Dangbe prepared “kpoikpoi” (palm nut soup prepared with big fish and ate with corn meal) and placed it on the path of the Asante warriors. The Asantes ate the kpoikpoi and their stomach started running, they became weak and could not fight any more and so were defeated.” The Ga-Dangbes are, therefore, said to celebrate the Homowo as thanks to their gods for defeating the Asantes. Another reason given by Christopher Nelson, a Ga-Dangbe himself, is that “there was famine and the Ga-Dangbes prayed to their gods for rain and good harvest. Their prayers were answered and they celebrated it with thanks giving and kpoikpoi to praise the gods and drive aw! ay hunger with lots of food to eat.”

However, Mr. Samuel Odio-Sykes, 74, himself a Ga-Adangbe and Ghana High Commissioner to Canada and who was a guest speaker at the Toronto Homowo festival, told packed hall that, “The Homowo Festival is the principle annual customary ceremony of the people of Ga descent in the Greater-Accra Region of Ghana. It is celebrated in July/August throughout the region by the various branches of the Ga-Dangbe tribe. It is an occasion for communing with the traditional gods of the Ga-Dangbe tribe, offering them thanks for the past years and invoking their guidance and blessing in the New Year. There is feasting and merry-making with the eating of the traditional food—kpoikpoi. Family members, relatives and close friends come together to celebrate, and departed ones during the years are remembered. It is an occasion for stock-taking, reconciliation and the exchange of views on important matters concerning the family and/or tribe.” On the other hand, in the Canadian context of the Homewo! od festival, Edmund Nil Addotei- Brown, the public relations officer of GDAT, said, “This is to bring the Ga-Dangbe community in Toronto together and promote our culture…Homowo is the main time to bring people together in Toronto, especially when there have been crisis among friends or family quarrel.”

Having ushered Mr. Odoi-Sykes into the hall in a traditional style reminiscent of a traditional chief entering a traditional festival, the Ghana national anthem was played by the Ga-Dangbe Youth Association (GAYA) and later both Christian and traditional Ga-Dangbe traditional prayers were offered by Eugene Kotey and Addotei-Brown respectively. James Quarcoo, chair of GDAT, in his report, said, among other things, that a Ga-Dangbe youth organization has been formed that will help teach Ga-Dangbe kids their native language, culture and history. “We are setting up programmes that could raise funds for the kids’ education. We are also planning how best to help Ga-Dangbe kids back home via exchange programmes,” said Quarcoo. After the chairman’s report, the traditional sprinkle of kpoikpoi was performed for “the gods to bring prosperity in the coming.” After a huge sumptuous traditional Ga-Dangbe diner for the over 1,000 audience, the Ga-Dangbe Children Cultural Troupe performed ! many of their native shows including the popular Kpanlogo (a very intense body movement with skills and energy). A display of Ga-Dangbe traditional Sese Yabu kept the audience awestruck, especially the non-Ga-Dangbe visitors. The audience was later invited to dance to the tunes of various Ga-Dangbe traditional music.

In his speech to the exciting audience, Mr. Odoi-Sykes torched on various issues not only affecting the Ga-Dangbe but also the entire Ghana. He joined the on-going debate about the danger of negative ethnic politics and the fact the “Ga-Dangbes have paid price for the modernization or urbanization of Accra as the nation’s capital is regression,” and thundered that, “The Ga-Dangbe people are a minority tribe, and the Greater Accra Region is the smallest in the country. Ethnic politics by the peoples of Ga-Dangbe will be counter-productive. Ga-Dangbes are 8 percent of the national population. Akans are 49.1 percent and Ewes 12.7 percent…I do not believe that any single tribe in Ghana can impose itself on the rest of the other tribes in the country. And I do not see any cogent evidence of such a desire or agenda by any ethnic or tribal group in the country. Yesterday the Ewes were suspected; today it is the Asantes…I fail to appreciate that the Ga-Dangbe people have been “margi! nalized” in the overall development of the country. The Greater Accra Region is alleged to have gained nothing from the capital city status placed upon it, except to loose its identity and culture, and its lands to government and private individuals. I suspect these sentiments to be politically motivated and lacking in integrity.” Odoi-Sykes dispelled the talks that there are schemes to change the capital of Ghana from Accra. “I do not believe that any ethnic group or government would want to change the capital of Ghana from Accra to any other city or town. For what reason or purpose? And at what cost? …It is na?ve for anyone to be taken in by such a frivolous political propaganda.”

Odoi-Sykes spoke at length about the issue of land problems of the Ga-Dangbe group, a problem that has been going for the past 40 years and used by opposition forces over the years. “Ghana is a unitary state. Each region contributes towards the national economic development and welfare according to its means and ability. Some contribute gold, timber, cocoa and many agricultural products for food, etc. The Ga-Dangbe people provide land for national projects because we have the nation’s capital in our region…the 1992 constitution takes care of equitable land distribution,” he said. In taking Ga-Dangbe chiefs to task for misappropriating the large portion of their peoples’ land, Odoi-Sykes revealed that the Ga-Dangbe cannot blame rapid acquisition of their lands in the hands of non-Ga-Dangbes. “They were sold to them by our own chiefs and their elders, agents, proxies, etc. Since Accra is the nation’s capital and the place where everything happens, everybody wants to settle in ! Ga-Dangbe. This is one of the dear price Ga-Dangbe people pay for its national capital status,” he said.

Odoi-Sykes said one reason for the Ga-Dangbe land problem is that “our chiefs are not held accountable for the lands they hold in trust for all their subjects. They sell the lands and use the money for their own purposes. Most of them have no programmes or plans for the development of their areas and promotion of the welfare and interests of their subjects. In Akan chieftaincy system, the chiefs meet their people every year in durbars, festivals, etc. to render account of their stewardship. They account for stool properties sold or leased and projects undertaken in the development of their areas.” The High Commissioner advised his audience that the only solution to the land problem is Ga-Dangbes helping themselves by “calling upon their chiefs to emulate the shining example of their colleagues from other regions. We have all seen what some chiefs are doing to their citizens in education, health and economic prosperity. We cannot sit down and do nothing to help ourselves, how! ever little it may be, and just accuse and envy others for our lack of progress.”

Talking like a lawyer, the High Commissioner explained that there seems to be confusion elsewhere and in Toronto about the regulation on the Ghana Dual Citizenship Act launched by the Ministry of Internal Affairs on July 3, 2002. “Every Ghanaian-Canadian must apply to become a Ghanaian citizen once again in addition to his or her Canadian citizenship, even though he or she has not been required to renounce his or her Ghanaian citizenship. By Article 8 (1) of the 1992 Constitution…”a citizen of Ghana shall cease forthwith to be a citizen of Ghana if, on attaining the age of twenty-one, he, by a voluntary act, other than marriage, acquires or retains the citizenship of a country other than Ghana.” A Ghanaian-Canadian thus automatically lost his or her Ghanaian citizenship on acquisition of his or her Canadian citizenship,” Odoi-Sykes elucidated, revealing that the Ga-Dangbes are one of the most educated groups in Ghana.

After some more cultural f?te, awards were presented and raffle drawn. An up-and- coming Toronto-based Ghanaian highlife musician, Feeling Brother-Francis (aka Kofi Nti) thrilled the audience with his new recording debut entitled Hwe Mawaamu. Christopher Medley, 28, a Jamaican married to a Ga-Dangbe woman, said he came with his wife to see the Ga-Dangbe culture and how “different cultures work.” Nana Sikafutro Serwaa-Ampem, the Queen Mother of the of the over 50,000 Asante ethnic group in Toronto, dressed fully in traditional Asante royal regalia, said she came with his groups to show their appreciation of Ga-Dangbe culture and for national unity. A white Canadian lady said, “I came to see different African cultures…The festival is not only for the Ga-Dangbes but for all Canadians.”