Watch highlights of Yagbonwura’s historic visit to Yaa Naa’s Palace

Read Article

Comments (30)

This article is closed for comments.

Read Comments Comments (30)

Prophet Mohammed was a sick dog 1 year ago

Quran is toilet paper.

Quran is toilet paper.
Samus 1 year ago

Come out openly and say that. You are an idiot.

Come out openly and say that. You are an idiot.
Abusebacktoyou 1 year ago

I am a Christian. I advise you to get your brain checked. Please.

I am a Christian. I advise you to get your brain checked. Please.
DotCom 1 year ago

Will someone report the comments of one ‘’Prophet Mohammed was a sick dog’’ to the authorities. He is inciting violence against a religious group.

Will someone report the comments of one ‘’Prophet Mohammed was a sick dog’’ to the authorities. He is inciting violence against a religious group.
Afrifa 1 year ago

Why everyone wants to copy Asantehene

Why everyone wants to copy Asantehene
Abigail 1 year ago

Is it the picture of a dog or a lion that have been drawn on the walls of the Ya Naa's Palace. Very difficult to identify which animal it is.

Is it the picture of a dog or a lion that have been drawn on the walls of the Ya Naa's Palace. Very difficult to identify which animal it is.
Kwaku Ananse 1 year ago

Nobody is copying anybody. I am Asante and proud of it but "Afrifa", your statement is uncalled for. Dagbon, Gonja, Ga, Anlo, etc, each has its traditions. Let everyone be. Besides, I can bet you that Asanteman has also ga ...
read full comment

Nobody is copying anybody. I am Asante and proud of it but "Afrifa", your statement is uncalled for. Dagbon, Gonja, Ga, Anlo, etc, each has its traditions. Let everyone be. Besides, I can bet you that Asanteman has also gained from other traditions.
Bastie Asantefournyinaahene 1 year ago

Asantes copied from Bono and Denkyira.

Asantes copied from Bono and Denkyira.
Darren Jason. 1 year ago

Hahaha madness mumu person Bastie, kwasia who are the Bono people. Bono is only Techiman. And Techiman hene is a relative to Otumfour Asantehene as Oyoko clan. Tell us your tribe in the Bono regions. Mumu person who doesn't n ...
read full comment

Hahaha madness mumu person Bastie, kwasia who are the Bono people. Bono is only Techiman. And Techiman hene is a relative to Otumfour Asantehene as Oyoko clan. Tell us your tribe in the Bono regions. Mumu person who doesn't no his Akan clan. gyimi ofui Bastie
Nana 1 year ago

SHUT UP! YOU KNEW BORN BABY. IF YOU DONT KNOW THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ASANTES AND DAGOMBAS GO AND ASK YOUR GRANDFATHER. STOP ABUSING YOUR COMPUTER KEYBOARD. STUPIDITY! BOTH ARE BLOOD RELATIONS DESPITE DIFFERENCES IN ETHNICIT ...
read full comment

SHUT UP! YOU KNEW BORN BABY. IF YOU DONT KNOW THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ASANTES AND DAGOMBAS GO AND ASK YOUR GRANDFATHER. STOP ABUSING YOUR COMPUTER KEYBOARD. STUPIDITY! BOTH ARE BLOOD RELATIONS DESPITE DIFFERENCES IN ETHNICITY.
Bastie Asantefournyinaahene 1 year ago

Asantes rather copied from their Dagomba fathers. Haruna Iddrissu big dick ancestors fathered asantes

Asantes rather copied from their Dagomba fathers. Haruna Iddrissu big dick ancestors fathered asantes
selfmade SMOKE em’ 1 year ago

Afrifa, are u an Ashanti ? Why are u speaking against THE DAGOMBAS?

Dont ever speak against DAGOMBAS again if u are an Ashanti u heard?

Go and learn your history BOY or man!!

Dagombas are Ashanti’s blood RELATIV ...
read full comment

Afrifa, are u an Ashanti ? Why are u speaking against THE DAGOMBAS?

Dont ever speak against DAGOMBAS again if u are an Ashanti u heard?

Go and learn your history BOY or man!!

Dagombas are Ashanti’s blood RELATIVES if u don’t know and never ever speak against DAGOMBAS again if u are an Ashanti!

Probably u ain’t an Ashanti and but if u are, keep quiet about DAGOMBAS!

Gonjas ARE GUANS and they lead KWAMAAN and ADANSI people to their present location

Anyone who said that, ALL AKANS are Bonos is a serial LIAR and want to twist history to suit his own warped mindset!

GONJAS played a very big role in the migration of MOST AKAN clans to their respective present locations!

For all u who ll read my comments, GONJAS ARE GUANS and the are among the first in medieval GOLD COAST and their had a kingdom that a lot of AKAN CALMS so journeying to the south and middle belts traded with and Gonjas having lived on this land for a long time, helped THE KWAAMAN( mostly oyoko clan) and ADANSI to their present location in what ll later become KWAAMAN and ASHANTI eventually!!

All AKANS don’t come from BONO and Gonjas played an important role in leading a lot of the AKAN CLANS OR FAMILIES not TRIBES as there wasn’t any established tribe at that time to their present locations!

If any one tell that u that, all Akans comes from a A TRIBE called BONO, that’s person is lying to u because there wasn’t any established TRIBES at that time for any group to come from it!

All Akan groups travelled as CLANS or families with similar DIALECT and blood ties with a CLAN LEADER and their deliberations and tradings with a well established GONJA KINGDOM with their own KING resulted in most of these Akan CLANS or families being lead by GONJA warriors their present locations

Gonjas are vey historicism people just as the Dagombas!
Iddrisu 1 year ago

Massa, I don’t know much about Gonja kingdom. The Dagon kingdom is over 300years older the Asante kingdom.

Massa, I don’t know much about Gonja kingdom. The Dagon kingdom is over 300years older the Asante kingdom.
selfmade SMOKE em’ 1 year ago

Go and read on gonja kingdom then

Although the origin of the Gonja Kingdom is not very certain, scholars have set the dawn of the 17th century as the beginning of the settlement of the descendants of Sumalia Ndewura J ...
read full comment

Go and read on gonja kingdom then

Although the origin of the Gonja Kingdom is not very certain, scholars have set the dawn of the 17th century as the beginning of the settlement of the descendants of Sumalia Ndewura Jakpa at Nyange in the Northern Region of Ghana.

Advertisement
As merchants and traders, they are part of the Guan-speaking tribes in the country and La Cote d’Ivoire who migrated from the then Mali Empire and, after years of wandering, settled southwards near the valley of the Black and White Volta rivers. The rivers offered natural defences, and the abundance of water was beneficial to them.

This is evident, given the presence of some monuments and settlements which served as hiding places from slave raiders.

To this day, Nyange serves not only as the ancestral kingdom of the Gonja but also as their spiritual home, although the Yagbonwura, the Overlord, is based at Damongo. That is why to this day, all religious and spiritual observances are performed there.

Rehabilitating the monuments

In an attempt to restore their homes and re-build these monuments, the Yagbonwura, Tuntumba Boressa I, has sent an appeal to all Gonjas to assist in the rehabilitation of their ancestral home, the first phase of which is estimated to cost GH¢4 million.

Nyange is situated just six kilometres from Sawla, a commercial town which serves as the gateway to Wa, Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, Northern Nigeria, Tamale and Kumasi. The town is well connected on a 147-kilometre highway from Fufulso, Damongo to Bole through Sawla. Former President John Dramani Mahama is a Gonja from Bole.

The remains of the ancient buildings are now in ruins but the Yagbonwura’s palace, court for adjudication of cases, festival grounds, where all the five gates to the paramountcy celebrate their annual Damba Festival, and other sites are still standing and could be turned into a tourist attraction, with conference centres and a place of retreat.

Architecture

These ancient monuments, such as the residence of the Yagbonwura, palace, traditional court and the homes of the wives of the king, were all built in similar sizes of stones in the form of a castle and held together by cow dung and sand. It is a beauty to behold since all stones used for the buildings were of the same size.

But this Kingdom was vacated by the people in 1942 due to the growth and expansion of Gonjaland, which made communication network between the overlord and his divisional chiefs and subordinates quite difficult. The then colonial masters, realising the need to build channels of communication, established a new palace at Damongo for the Yagbonwura where he rules over the Gonjaland. It stretched from Salaga to Kete-Krachi, some parts of the Afram Plains, present day Brong-Ahafo Region and Bole. Only one clan, currently headed by an 85-year-old man, Mr Iddisah Seidu, now inhabits the “holy home.”

According to Yagbonwura Boressa I, although they have moved from their ancestral home, some sacred customary rites and traditions are still performed there and they are welcomed during those occasions by the clan headed by Mr Seidu. These ceremonies included the confinement, enskinment and the final funeral rites of the Yagbonwura before his burial at Mankuma, about 12 kilometres away from Nyange.

The Yagbonwura stated that since their migration from the ancestral home, he is the seventh king to ascend the throne. His predecessors are Yagbonwura Awisi Bunyangso, the last king who migrated and ruled from 1942-1975. Others are Yagbonwura Kurabaso Abudu Mahama, Yagbonwura Timu and Yagbonwura Ewurabuyanso Kanyiti. The rest are Yagbonwura Iddi Jakpa Bi-Awuribi, Yagbonwura Saaka Isaah Atendengi Tikpiri, Yagbonwura Sarfo Amantana and Yagbonwura Doshie Bawa Abudu.

Customary rites

On succession plan, the Gonja have five royal gates which rotate peacefully in the enskinsment of the Yagbonwura. They are the Bolewura, Kpenbiwura, Tuwelewura, Wasipewura and Kusuguwura. These customary rites are so sacred and detailed that there has never been any chieftaincy conflict over the years. According to the Yagbonwura, the beliefs and practices of the people which determine who succeeds whom and even those who worship at a particular shrine also assist to maintain the authority structure within the kingdom and to enhance the continuous existing relationship in the area.

Apart from these ancient monuments, Gonjaland is endowed with such tourist attractions as the Mole National Park, the biggest game reserve in the country which still has lions, elephants and other wild animals. It is located 146 kilometres west of Tamale. It also has the first mosque which was built by Ndewura Jakpa and the Mystic Rock which defied the efforts of the whites to move it away for the construction of the highway at Larabanga.

Stories have it that this mystic rock defied three attempts to be removed from where it now stands for the construction of the highway to Sawla from Fufulso, so the road had to be constructed around it.

Till this day, the legitimate power of the Gonja resides in the Yagbonwura. This includes issues relating to or affecting chieftaincy matters such as the hearing and determining of cases and appeals from the various traditional areas, disputes and the enskinsment of potential chiefs.

Read it
selfmade SMOKE em’ 1 year ago

Gonja are a Guan people who have been influenced by Dagbon, Akan, Mande and Hausa people. With the fall of the Songhai Empire (c. 1600), the Mande Ngbanya clan moved south, crossing the Black Volta and founding a city at Yagb ...
read full comment

Gonja are a Guan people who have been influenced by Dagbon, Akan, Mande and Hausa people. With the fall of the Songhai Empire (c. 1600), the Mande Ngbanya clan moved south, crossing the Black Volta and founding a city at Yagbum. The Gonja kingdom was originally divided into sections overseen by male siblings of Sumaila Ndewura Jakpa including their children and grandchildren.[1]

Under the leadership of Naba'a, the Ngbanya dynasty of Gonja was founded. The capital was established at Yagbum.[2]

The Ngbanya expanded rapidly, conquering several neighbors in the White Volta valley and beginning a profitable gold trade with the Akan states through nearby Begho. By 1675, the Gonja established a paramount chief, called the Yagbongwura, to control the kingdom. The Ngbanya dynasty has controlled this position from its founding to the present day, with only two brief interregnums. The current Yagbongwura, Tuntumba Sulemana Jakpa Bore Essa, has held his position since 2010.

Precolonial Gonja society was stratified into castes, with a ruling class, a Muslim trader class, an animist commoner class, and a slave class. Its economy depended largely on trade in slaves from Central Africa[3] and kola nuts, particularly through the market town of Salaga, sometimes called the "Timbuktu of the South."

The Gonja language, properly called Ngbanya or Ngbanyito,[4] is a Tano language within the Kwa languages family, closely related to Akan languages.[5]

Gonja language is also a a KWA LANGUAGE like Akan language too!

Gonjas have a huge influence on ALOT OF AKAN TRIBES and and help in their relocation….

After the fall of the Mali empire, some of the spinster kingdoms to come out of the Mali empire was the GONJA kingdom and they traded with a lot of AKAN clans or families migrating down to the forest belts!

This is the history they don’t tell u and ALOT OF GHANAIANS refers to DAGOMBSA and GONJAS as NORTHERNERS, which is meaningless to say the least!

Is like calling all AKANS SOUTHERNERS without any references to their respective tribes!

Gonjas are GUANS and they are part of the KWA people and KWA language that Akans are and hence GONJAS are direct relatives to AKANS and helped ALOT OF AKAN CLANS and families!

The narratives that all AKANS are from BONO is a BLOODY lies from a demented LAWYER ANOKYE who has his own propaganda!

Gonjas lead KWAAMAN mostly the OYOKP CLAN and ADANSI to their present location and these two CLANS! ADANSI is made up of the EKUONA CLAN and the KWAAMAN aer made of OYOKO clan and these two clans have a distinctive TWI DIALECT which doesn’t contained the B333, B333 intonations like the BONO people and the question is why?

Because the two CLANS never passed through or STAYED IN BONOMANSO!!

They lead by GONJA TRADERS and warriors who guard them on the other side of RIVER PRA to their present location and hence they never stayed or live in Bono! And this goes for so many of the AKAN TRIBES too!

Fantis did stayed in BONOMANSO precisely TUOBODOM and not TAKYIMAN as people want u to believe!

ESSUMEJA which is ASANTEMANSO and are the ADUANA clan never stayed in BONOMANSO too as they were lead to their present location by GONJAS way before KWAAMAN and ADAMSI too!

A section believed that, they came from the GROUND which means they made from the RED EARTH!!

Don’t ever believed the lies that, ALL AKANS came from BONL! Is a BIG LIE told by LAWYER FRIMPONG ANOKYE due to PROPAGANDA!!

When AKANS were making their sojourned, there wasn’t any ANYTHING called TRIBES and there was certainly nothing called A BONO TRIBE anywhere! It was CLANS OR FAMILIES with CLAN HEADS which layer on became known as ABUSUAPANYIN or OBAAPANYIN!

Tribes came when the different clans or families INTERMARRIED with a common BLOOD TIES, common dialect and common language
Kilogram 1 year ago

Bravo! Why did it take the NPP so long to see that the TV3 New Day panelling is skewed against the NPP? You usually have an NDC member + the host (who is always pro-NDC) + one of the Jantuahs/Bernard Monah (who are anti NPP) ...
read full comment

Bravo! Why did it take the NPP so long to see that the TV3 New Day panelling is skewed against the NPP? You usually have an NDC member + the host (who is always pro-NDC) + one of the Jantuahs/Bernard Monah (who are anti NPP) and an NPP person... 3 NDC against 1NPP. I am happy that nobody from the NPP attends the Big Issues any longer.
Abusebacktoyou 1 year ago

Just like joy news file Abi? Tune there - it is that easy

Just like joy news file Abi? Tune there - it is that easy
Critical 1 year ago

These are the things we want to see and hear about
There shouldn’t be any negative comments the chieftain t ministry should liaises with the various chiefs and keep good records of these events and market them
Writers can ...
read full comment

These are the things we want to see and hear about
There shouldn’t be any negative comments the chieftain t ministry should liaises with the various chiefs and keep good records of these events and market them
Writers can turn these activities into films and documentaries and stop the daily political nonsense on the airwaves
Congratulations to the kings and Ghana shall surely win
King 1 year ago

Where from these alien custom they have put on? Must you put that ugly thing from northern Nigeria on a beautiful smock? Sometimes you wonder if these chiefs have enlightened people around them.

Where from these alien custom they have put on? Must you put that ugly thing from northern Nigeria on a beautiful smock? Sometimes you wonder if these chiefs have enlightened people around them.
Shit hole 1 year ago

You people should stop these cheap journalism..are written on yaagbonwura or otumfou

You people should stop these cheap journalism..are written on yaagbonwura or otumfou
Jef 1 year ago

Is very funny how Ghanaweb skewed the story to include Otumfuor . Can’t this story be about the Yagbonwura and Ya Naa for God sake ?

Is very funny how Ghanaweb skewed the story to include Otumfuor . Can’t this story be about the Yagbonwura and Ya Naa for God sake ?
Saeed 1 year ago

Excellent observations

Excellent observations
Seini 1 year ago

Thanks. That is exactly my opinion.

Thanks. That is exactly my opinion.
Osman 1 year ago

Great initiative. God Bless Ghana

Great initiative. God Bless Ghana
Winner’s 1 year ago

Spintex Car Rental. Call now: 0544:00:64:39:

Spintex Car Rental. Call now: 0544:00:64:39:
Bestbuy Ent 1 year ago

Buy your catfish fingerlings from us to start your business. And also get after service support to help you succeed .0557430128/0557078466//-

Buy your catfish fingerlings from us to start your business. And also get after service support to help you succeed .0557430128/0557078466//-
Che Andrew 1 year ago

Why is the writer eclipsing the event by over hyping events in the Kumasi?

Why is the writer eclipsing the event by over hyping events in the Kumasi?
Iddrisu 1 year ago

Very happy to happy to see out respective overlord, yagbonwura visit his brother. We are one people..Gonjas have always been our brothers. Powerful kingdoms by all standards

Very happy to happy to see out respective overlord, yagbonwura visit his brother. We are one people..Gonjas have always been our brothers. Powerful kingdoms by all standards
Kwame 1 year ago

Very primitive traditions drawing Africa back and back. Africa is doing so bad economically due to these outmoded chieftancy/ asofo traditions. Stop this Africa and get yourselves up, think deep, work hard and develop. Mark Z ...
read full comment

Very primitive traditions drawing Africa back and back. Africa is doing so bad economically due to these outmoded chieftancy/ asofo traditions. Stop this Africa and get yourselves up, think deep, work hard and develop. Mark Zuckerberg was only 20 years old when he started Facebook. Today, he own instagram, WhatsAPP etc. He has given all these social media free for Africans to display their nonsense every damn day with useless, jerk, outdated motherfucker traditions such as this. ANIMALS .
CAR TRACKING SYSTEMS. 1 year ago

TRACK your vehicle/motorbike with ease. With Justrac GPS Tracker one can Shutdown engine remotely, Real-time tracking, Voice monitoring, playback route by your phone etc. PRICE: GHS750. Call/WhatsApp: 0501796870 for more info ...
read full comment

TRACK your vehicle/motorbike with ease. With Justrac GPS Tracker one can Shutdown engine remotely, Real-time tracking, Voice monitoring, playback route by your phone etc. PRICE: GHS750. Call/WhatsApp: 0501796870 for more info. FGHGFH

Welcome,

SIGN IN

Welcome,

RESET PASSWORD

Hello,

Terms and conditions

REGISTER

News

Watch highlights of Yagbonwura’s historic visit to Yaa Naa’s Palace

Read Comments .st0{display:none;fill:#14BDD3;} .st1{display:none;} .st2{display:inline;fill:#FC0F0F;} .st3{display:inline;fill:#FFFFFF;} .st4{display:inline;fill:none;stroke:#000000;stroke-width:6;stroke-miterlimit:10;} Comments (30)

Read Comments Comments (30)