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Akan Ananse Stories, Yorùbá Ìjàpá Tales, and the Dikènga Theory: Worldview
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DOI: 10.4314/contjas.v4i2.1

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 Contemporary Journal o f African Studies Vol. 4. No. 2 (2017) 1-36

Akan Anansc Stories, Yoruba ijapa Tales, and the Dikenga Theory:
Worldview and Structure*1

Obadele Kambon*

Abstract

In this paper, we aim to use Dikenga, the cosmogram of the Bakongo, as

an Afrikan cosmological, philosophical, conceptual, and theoretical
framework to analyze the structure o f Akan Ananse and Yoruba Ijapa
stories. According to Fu-Kiau, "nothing exists that does not follow the
steps o f the cyclical Kongo cosmogram” (Fu-Kiau 1994: 26). This bold
hypothesis is tested in this study by applying what we term the “Dikenga
theory of literary analysis” to the aforementioned stories. We find that this
theoretical framework can help us shift away from concepts of
“storylines” and “timelines” to reveal the patterned and cyclical nature of
material, spatial and temporal phenomena. Further, we find such an
approach may deepen our understanding o f these stories as manifestations
o f a shared Afrikan worldview.

Keywords: Ananse, ijapa, Dikenga, worldview, structure

https://dx.doi.org/! 0.4314/contjas.v4i2.1

Resume

Dans cet article, nous visons k utiliser Dikenga, le cosmogramme du

Bakongo, comme un cadre cosmologique, philosophique, theorique et
conceptuel Afrikan pour analyser la structure des histoires d'Akan Ananse
et Yoruba ijapa. Selon Fu-Kiau, "il n'existe rien qui ne suit pas les dtapes
du cosmogramme Kongo cyclique" (Fu-Kiau 1994: 26). Cette hypoth£se
audacieuse est testee dans cette etude en appliquant ce que nous appelons
la «theorie Dikenga de I'analyse littdraire» aux histoires susmentionnees.
Nous trouvons que ce cadre theorique peut nous aider &nous eloigner des
concepts de «scdnarios» et de «delais» pour revdler la nature structurale
et cyclique des phdnomenes matdriels, spatiaux et temporels. De plus,
nous trouvons une telle approche peut approtbndir notre comprehension
de ces histoires comme des manifestations d’une vision du monde Afrikan
partagee. .

# Obadele Kambon, is a Research Fellow at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana,
Legon. He can be contacted at obkambon@staft‘.ug.edu.gh
1 This article is dedicated to the loving memory of my late Kikongo teacher. N’kulu
@| ^
Kintbvvandendc kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau, —j «=>o my1 hnv 'true of voice.’ and the late Baba
. . ©I *'
Henry Ervin Van Kirksey, —a<=>4 myyhrw 'true o f voice.’
 Obadele Kambon: Akan Ananse Stories. Yoruba ijapa Tales, and the Dikenga Theory

Introduction

phrt pw ‘>?// ‘Life is a cycle* (Faulkner 1956, p. 22)

This article will examine parallels between Akan Ananse ‘Spider' stories
and Yoruba Ijapa Tortoise’ tales with regard to worldview and structure.
Dikenga, the Kongo Cosmogram, will be advanced and tested as to whether
it may be regarded as a manifestation of a shared Afrikan- worldview.
Secondly, the structure of these stories will be analyzed using what is
advanced in this article as the ''Dikenga Theory o f Oral (and Written)
Literary Structure.” While various applications o f Dikenga can be found in
the literature, it is undoubtedly unprecedented to use a theoretical framework
from Kongo to describe, explain, and analyze stories found in modern-day
Ghana and Nigeria (Martinez-Ruiz 2007, Morgan 2011). This begs the
question of why, therefore, would the Dikenga cosmogram be used in this
structural literary analysis of these stories? The answer is simple. In
Dsagycfo Dr. Kwamc Nkrumah’s speech entitled “the African Genius”
inaugurating the official opening of the University of Ghana’s Institute of
African Studies, he asserted that:
One essential function of this Institute must surely be to study the history,
culture and institutions, languages and arts of Ghana and o f Africa in new
African-centred ways (Nkrumah 1963). (emphasis mine).

In this light, simply because such an endeavor is unprecedented, that,

alone, should not dissuade one staying true to the course o f studying Afrika
in new Afrikan-ccntcrcd ways. Rather, Afrikan scholars have the
responsibility to pursue such uncharted courses as an intentional divergence
from the propositions and pre-suppositions o f the colonial epoch o f the past
or those of the neo-colonial epoch, in which we currently find ourselves
(Nkrumah 1963). In this same vein, it becomes imperative to transcend
Afrika’s largely arbitrary Berlin-confcrencc-inheritcd borders in an attempt
to study things Afrikan in new Afrikan-ccntered ways by showing how
countless Afrikans, irrespective of their location, share the core cosmological
principles as manifested in the Dikenga cosmogram. Moreover, if we can and2

2 As 1 have argued elsewhere. Afrika (n.)/Afrikan (adj.) is preferred to “Africa" whenever

possible as the word is consistently spelled in various Afrikan languages with a /k/.
 Contemporary Journal of African Studies Vol. 4. No. 2 (2017) I-36

do, indeed, often use “Western” or Eurasian3 (most notably English, f rench,
German, Russian, Greek, etc.) concepts and conceptual frameworks under
the guise of universality to analyze Afrikan literature and other Afrikan
phenomena, then we can certainly utilize concepts from Afrika for the same
purpose. In other words, if those demonstrably foreign concepts and
analytical tools can be said to be universal and/or applicable to the Afrikan
context, then Afrikan tools can, at the very least, be applied to Afrika, the
global Afrikan world, and possibly beyond.
Another reason for using Dikenga is that much of the study in Afrika and
of Afrika - not just literary study - operates from what may be termed a
“forward/backward” paradigm. This is to say, Afrikans o f the continent and
elsewhere in the Afrikan world tend to look “forwards” to Eurasians for
theoretical frameworks and then look back towards the individual ethnic
group (or village) as the object of study. Mere, it is argued that it may rather
be useful for us to look laterally within the rich tradition of Afrikan deep
thought for theoretical frameworks and conceptual paradigms. Another way
of looking at it is to say that Afrikan-ccnlcrcd may also entail a composite
Afrikan approach, which looks at underlying commonalities in addition to
the more prevalent culturally/linguistically/ethnically/nationally-spccilk
approach which focuses primarily or solely on individual pre-colonial or
nco-colonial fragments of the whole. A composite approach, on the other
hand, empowers one with the ability to broaden one's world view to deal
with the global Afrikan world instead of dismembered and disconnected
fragments (Armah 2010).
As further justification of this approach, Dsagyefo Dr. Kwamc Nkrumah
gave yet another ideological imperative stating unequivocally that the
Institute of African Studies should necessarily:
[...] conceive its function as being to study Africa, in the widest possible
s e n s e -Africa in all its complexity and diversity, and its underlying unity
[...] not limited by conventional territorial or regional boundaries.
|T|hcsc investigations must inevitably lead outwards — to the
exploration of the connections between [...] the cultures of other
African peoples and other regions of Africa. Ghana, that is to say. can
only be understood in the total African context (Nkrumah 1963)
(emphasis mine).

Thus, Nkrumah’s charge to Afrikan scholars gives us the ideological

motivation and clarity of thought with regard to the task of uncovering the

3 Note that Europe and Asia are one landmass - Eurasia. Thus, this term is preferred instead
o f arbitrarily choosing to label them as separate entities as is common practice in much of
the English-speaking world.

3
 Obadele Kambon: Akan Ananse Stories. Yoruba ijapa Tales, and the Dikenga Theory

connections between Afrikan people through Afrikan literature in the form

of Akan Ananse and Yoruba Ijapa stories.
Ananse ‘Spider’ stories - in which the spider is often the central character
- come from Akan-speaking areas as indicated on the map in Figure 1. The
group is composed of sub-groups such as Asanie, Fante, Akitapem, Akyem,
Denkyira, Bono, etc. Ijapa ‘Tortoise’ tales - which, similarly, often feature
the tortoise as the central character - come from Yoruba land comprising
Qyo, Eko, Egba, Ekiti, etc. The Dikenga theoretical framework used comes
from the Kongo kingdom composed of Esikongo, Bavili, etc.

Figure l : Diachronic Map o f Pre-Colonial Afrikan Empires (Israel 2007)

With regard to scope, 65 written Ijapa tales and 90 written Ananse stories
were studied and analyzed (Rattray 1930, Babalola 1973, 1979, Hutchison
1994). Additionally, 23 oral Aid apamo “riddle stories’* and 4 oral Aid
apagbe “narrative stories,” as well as 57 oral Ananse stories from various
sources including personal recordings, were studied (Trustees 2009,
Bolajiutube 2012, Masters 2012, Afolayan 2013, Hassan 2013). In short,
about 239 tales were consulted in total in pursuit commonalities in terms of
structure and worldview.
As mentioned above, the Dikenga cosmogram will be used for the
structural analysis of the tales studied. As articulated by Fu-Kiau:

4
 Contemporary Journal o f African Studies Vol. 4. No. 2 (2017) 1-36

According to Kongo teaching, nothing exists th at does not follow the

steps of the cyclical Kongo cosmogram. People, animals, inventions,
social systems, and so on are conceived (yakwa/yindulwa) and live
through a kind of pregnancy (Stage I), are born (bulwa) (Stage 2), mature
(kula) (Stage 3), and die (J\va) at the collision stage in order to undergo
change (Stage 4) (Fu-Kiau 1994: 26-7) (emphasis mine).

It is particularly important to note that Fu-Kiau does not limit the scope
of that which follows the Dikenga cycle solely to Congolese phenomena, but
rather asserts that nothing exists that does not follow the steps outlined -
including the universe and creation itself. This quote is particularly important
because it makes a strong prediction and presents a testable hypothesis which
is essentially that if all things are said to follow the steps of the cyclical
Dikenga Cosmogram, then indigenous stories should also be able to be
evaluated within the Dikenga structural framework. Therefore, in this article,
Akan Ananse stories and Yoruba Ijapa tales will be analyzed to prove or
disprove this assertion under the logical proposition that any phenomenon
that is held to be true universally should also be true for any subset of the
whole - especially when that subset is derived from a common foundational
Afrikan worldview. Indeed, if, in theory, all things follow these steps, so too
should these stories.

Worldview

It is in this light that the

Climax Dikenga cosmogram can serve as
a viable alternative that, in time,
may come to supplant currently
dominant structural frameworks
used in the analysis o f oral and/or
written literature. Indeed, quite
recently, we find literary scholars
who are still using Freytag’s
Figure 2: Freyta g ’s Pyramid (BrokenSegue model to say that narratives go
2006) from exposition to a rising action,
climax, falling action, and then
denouement (Freytag 1863, Me Intyre 2006, Kubheka 2014). While
pyramids themselves are Afrikan phenomena with the vast majority of them
constructed far into the interior of Afrika in the country now known as Sudan,
if we are to adopt a pyramid structure analogy in application to narrative
structure, such an application should be couched in terms of the cosmological

5
 Obadele Kaimbon: Akan Ananse Stories. Yoruba Ijapa Tales, and the Dikenga Theory

significance of pyramids to Afrikan people. Moreover, it is argued that if,

indeed, scholars can use Freytag’s appropriation of the Afrikan pyramid as
shown in Figure 2, then most certainly any contemporary Afrikan scholar of
oral (and/or written) literature should not shy away from using other, perhaps
more appropriate endogenous structural frameworks rooted in the Afrikan
worldview.
To elucidate, Dikenga, also known as Tendwa nza Kongo as shown in
Figure 3, is a cosmogram of the Bakongo ‘People of the Congo’ featuring
four major stage markers
around the perimeter of a
Tukula
circle.
According to Fu-Kiau, the
stage known as Musoni is the
stage of the conception of*
ideas, human beings, and all
things conceivable. Musoni
corresponds to when the sun is
at midnight and is represented
by a yellow color. Although
the sun has set and therefore
cannot be seen directly by the
observer, it is understood to
Figure 3: Dikenga Cosmogram (Kamhon)
still exist. Similarly, when a
person dies, hc/shc is
understood to still exist in the same fundamental way as the human being is
conceived of as ntcingu a moyo ‘a living sun’ (Fu-Kiau 1994: 26). '
By the same token, matter is not created or destroyed - it simply changes
form. One of the most ancient instantiations of this concept is found in the
classical Mile Valley wherein we find the concept of 0 $ " hpr ‘exist, be,
come into being, become, change (into), occur, happen, come to pass’ which
incorporates notions of transformation from one stale/stage of being to
another (Dickson 2006: 299). While this is a principle fundamental to
physics, as exemplified in the law of conservation of energy and the law of
conservation of mass, it is something that has been known by the Bakongo
and many other Afrikan people for millennia as the fundamental
cosmological basis of countless cultural expressions including libation,
sacrifice, ancestor veneration, reincarnation names, etc. However, the

■' Because ihe same word, nhingu is used Tor both "sun" and ‘time' in Kikongo. this could
also be translated as 'vital time, lime o f life* as in the cited text.

6
 Contemporary Journal of African Studies Vol. 4. No. 2 (2 0 17) I-36

difference is that when Afrikans say it, it is oftentimes termed as "pagan and
heathen” but then when physicists tell us the exact same thing, it goes
unquestioned. Needless to say, such a state of affairs is problematic for many
reasons.
After Musoni, the next stage is Kalct, illustrated in Black, which
represents birth, sunrise, and, in this case, the beginning of the story. Next,
Titkula, associated with the color red, represents the sun at noon. It
corresponds to the highest point in a person’s life and the highest point in the
story as will be demonstrated. The next stage is Luvemba, shown in a grey
color. This represents sunset. This is the stage of the transformation that
occurs when a person passes on. However, in the Afrikan worldview, this is
not truly the end. Indeed, Fu-Kiau asserts that “Dying is not an end. Dying
for the Kongo is just going on vacation” (Fu-Kiau 2001b). The underlying
concept is articulated in the proverb *“ tufwanga mu sober — we die in order
to undergo change” (Fu-Kiau 1994: 27) Luvemba is where the story comes
to its closing formula but continues to exist in other forms. According to Fu-
Kiau, worth quoting at length:
The Kongo cosmogram is the foundation of Kongo society. The circle
made by the sun's movement is the first geometric picture given to human
beings. We move the same way the sun moves: we wake up, are active,
die, then come back. [...] This cosmogram is in constant motion, as the
circle is in motion (Fu-Kiau 2001b) (emphasis mine).

Thus, Dikenga provides an extended analogy for understanding story

structure superimposed upon the four cardinal points of the circle. Musoni,
is the idea of the story; it is the nginga ‘seed’; it is conception at midnight.
Ka/a is the beginning of the story like dawn or the transformation occurring
from a child’s transition from the ancestral realm via birth up to the naming
ceremony; the formal rising of the story as a living sun. Significantly, rituals
such as naming ceremonies that mark transitions from one stage o f life to
another arc comparable to opening formulae in stories, which also mark the
transition from one stage to another; from the ideational slate to realization
via storytelling. Titkula is the climax of the story which is analogous to the
climax of one’s life which, for Afrikan people, is also marked with ritual such
as being instated, enskinned or enstooled as a ruler of one’s people. Likewise,
Luvemba is end of the story, which is like the ayie ‘funeral’ (Akan) or isinku
‘funeral/burial’ (Yoruba) which are, in turn, comparable to the closing
formulae which mark the end of the story (Fu-Kiau 1991, 1994, 2001a).
Although Dikenga is used in this article due to its poignant articulation
and visualization of these ideas and principles, these types of solar metaphors

7
 Obadele Kambon: Akan Ananse Stories. Yoruba Ijapa Tales, and the Dikenga Theoiy

and analogies are found not only among the Bakongo people but are common
throughout Afrika and can even be found in other parts of the global Afrikan
world. Among the Yoruba, tor example, proverbs exist such as:

1. Aye l 'a bd ‘Fd [...] osdn gangan nigbdgbo

World FOC’lPL join Ifa [..-j noon exactly FOC-belief
wole de.
enter-house arrive.
‘We came to meet Ifa (Yoruba divination system) in the world [...] It
was not until high noon that Christianity appeared on the scene.’
(Adelowo 2014: 340)

What the proverb in example (1) demonstrates is a conceptualization of

the entire history of Yoruba people since creation as a single day saying that
it was not until relatively recently that Christianity came on the scene. The
concept is also evinced in common Yoruba names such as Bant die:

2. Bd-n-tdle
join-me-up to-night
‘Stay with me until night’ (i.e., do not die young)

In this analogy, night is not conceived of in terms o f the time span o f a

single day, but rather as part of the entire lifespan of a human being. The
name, Bdntdle, therefore means “do not die young.” We can also find
examples of sun-position-as-life-stage analogies within Yoruba Ijapa stories
themselves, such as in the following selections:

3. Aw on jdndukit die t'o ymmu si

PL ruffian few rel ’3 sg poke out nose to
ikede yii fi prim j\f«
announcement DEM take sky . obtain-reward
Vosdngangan ciiye won.5
at’high-noon world 3 PL
‘Those few ruffians who llouted this announcement were executed
before the (successful) completion of their lives’ (Babalola 1979: 84)

s Although orthographical standards For writing Yoruba have changed, examples here are
given as they appear in the original text.

8
 Contemporary Journal o f African Studies Vol. 4. No. 2 (2 0 17) I -36

Eni to / 'oko a di
Someone REL’3SG have’husband HAB become
op6 Vpsdngungan.
widow at’high-noon
‘A married woman would suddenly become a widow.’ (Babalola
1979: 28)

There is also a common idiom in Yoruba that uses a solar position analogy:

5. Aaro ojo
morning day
‘Childhood’ (Fabunmi 1985: 11)

Similar sun-position-as-life-stage analogies exist among the Akan

people. In lyrics from a song called “M’adamfo” by Bisa Kdci, he cites the
following well-known Akan proverb:

6. Adamfofa mo nti rta otwe

Friend-making also therefore FOC duiker
nya-a ti 'awia-wu.
obtain-CQMPL 3SG.POSS’sunshine-death.
‘It is because of friendship that the small antelope/duikcr died
young.’ (Kdei 2013)

In other words, the duiker did not get all the way to the “evening” of its
life or it did not reach old age. A comparable example is found in the
following libation text:

Mo-m-ma yE-n-nya amatieE,

2PL-NEG-allow lPL-NEG-obtain catastrophe,
Mo-m-ma yen ani m-fira,
2PL-NEG-allow I pl eye NEG-wrap,
Mo-m-ma yen aso n-si,
2PL-NEG-allow I pl ear NEG-clog,
Mo-m-ma ys-n-xvu awia-wuo.
2PL-NEG-allow iPL-NEG-die sunshine-death.
‘Don’t allow us to encounter disaster, don’t allow us to become blind,
don't allow us to become deaf don’t allow us to die young' (Mensah
2010 ).

9
 Obadele Kambon: Akan Ananse Stories. Yoruba ijapa Tales, and the Dikenga Theory

Dzobo cites another Akan libation text in translation keeping with this
same theme:

8. Don't let me die in the day.

Don't let me die at night,
Don't let me die at all,
Blit let me die.

In Dzobo's discussion of the text, he explains thusly:

The point of the first is fairly obvious, but that of the second needs some
explaining. In the second one, which is a prayer proverb, the individual
expresses his desire to see and appreciate the beauty of life and nature
(line one) and to be sexually active (line two) so as to fulfill his creative
being and have many children who may perpetuate his name, beliefs and
philosophy of life (line three). After he has fulfilled his destiny he would
be happy to join the fathers (line 4). In this proverb we see the indigenous
understanding of life and death as polar opposites, which complement
each other. (Dzobo 1992: 98)

Again, the first line is about living life to

its fullest and reaching eldership and uses the
analogy to refer to the entire life span. The
lifespan reference is layered on lop of “don't
let me die at night,” which is but a single day’s
duration saying that night is the time at which
procreation (and conception) occurs. We see,
quite profoundly, that the libation text itself
extends and layers these analogies at different
levels (a lifetime/a day's duration) demons­
trating an awareness of the philosophical and
cosmological principles found in Dikenga.
This idea is echoed in the Akan goldweight
, ... proverb Abode? ne abrabo mu ntaa ‘'Creation
as Sunset on a Memorial Service bib (ure) twins (Ofori-Ansa 1997). A
Flyer (Photo Credit Kambon) major point, as correctly noted by Dzobo, is
the notion of complementarity. It is very
important to understand that these ideas are conceptualized by Afrikan
people as complementary opposites (both necessary parts of a whole) in
contradistinction with more prototypically Eurasian conceptions of diametric
opposites wherein what arc actually two aspects of the same thing are
typically seen as being against or in conllict with each other.

10
 Contemporary Journal o f African Studies Vol. 4. No. 2 (2017) 1-36

While this sun-position-as-Iife-stage analogy is common to the Bakongo,

Yoruba, and Akan, it is also interesting to note that this analogy has persisted
among Afrikans from elsewhere in the global Afrikan world as well as seen
in Figure 4. By way of another example, in the song “Nightshirt,” the
Commodores - not known by any stretch of the imagination for their
particularly “Afrikan-centered consciousness” - nonetheless sang a tribute
to R&B singers Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson - both deceased at the time
of the recording. In the lyrics of the song, they sing that although the two
luminaries of their genre have passed away, they know that both of them
continue to sing “on the nightshirt.”

9. Marvin [...] Say you will sing your Jackie [...] Gonna miss your sweet
songs voice
Forevermore (evermore) That soulful voice
Gonna be some sweet sounds On the nightshirt
Coming down on the nightshirt We al I remem her you
1 bet you’re singing proud Ooh, the songs are coming through
Oh, I bet you’ll pull a crowd At the end of a long day
Gonna be a long night It’s gonna be okay
It's gonna be all right On the nightshirt
On the nightshift You found another home
Oh you found another home 1 know you’re not alone
I know you’re not alone On the nightshift (Commodores
On the nightshirt 1985)
[...]

This concept can also be heard in Talib Kweli’s chorus to the song “Good
Mourning” (a pun on the homophonous morning) in which he sings:

10. Good mourning, good afternoon, good night

What have you done with your life?
Everybody time comes to be embraced by the light
You only scared to die when you ain’t livin’ right, man
I’m puttin’ up a hellafied light
(“Stay awake to the ways o f the world”) (Kweli 2000)

Again, we find that the duration of one’s life is analogous to the course
of the day from morning to night. A similar concept can be found in the song
“A Day in the Life of Benjamin Andre” in which Andre Benjamin’s lyrics
touch on various relationships he has had throughout his life but, as
expressed in the title, these interactions arc equated to activities of a single
day (Benjamin 2003). This is particularly significant in that the duration of

II
 Obadele Kambon: Akan Ananse Stories, Yoruba Ijapa Tales, and the Dikenga Theory

the day as an analogy lor the course of life and the duration of night as an
analogy for the course of death (merely a continuation of the life process in
a transformed state) is part of a shared worldview of Afrikan people both on
the continent and elsewhere in the global Afrikan world as seen in these and
various other idioms, proverbs, songs, stories, etc. (Martincz-Ruiz 2007,
Powell 2010).
In the Bakongo articulation of this shared Afrikan worldview, the sun’s
position is also indicative of the
literal time of day. In Figure 5, the
Kongo Hourly Time Segmentation System
principal hours are labeled with in
Roman numerals (1-1V) and
identified as Lo biangudi ‘princi­
pal hours.' Interspersed between
these are the in-between hours
labeled (1-4) and identified as Lo
biandwelo ‘small hours.’ Again,
this is an articulation of the
analogy of the sun’s position from
the perspective of the viewer
standing at the didi dia ngolo KuMpemba L o w e r W orld
zanzingila ’axis/center of vitality’ I, II, III, IV: Lo biangudi (principal hours)
1, 2, 3, 4: Lo biandwelo (in-between or "small" hours)
at the intersection of the perpen­
dicular Kalunga (horizontal) and Figure 5: Kongo Hourly Time Segmentation System
Mu Kula (vertical) lines (Fu-Kiau based upon (Fu-Kiau 1994: 29)
1994:29).
In Figure 6, we can see the
similarity between the Kalunga
line and the horizon in that both
serve as dividing lines at which the
upper world, ku nseke, and the horizon
sunrise
lower world, ku mpemba, meet.

S tructu re

Using this anthropocentric

viewer’s-eye perspective in which
the observer’s point of view is Figure o: Twilight Description (Full Day) (Carlson 2013)
implicitly advanced as a valid
relative and relational reference point, we see that midnight corresponds to
the conception of a human being and it is also like the conception of an idea

12
 Contemporary Journal o f African Studies Vot. 4. No. 2 (2017) 1-36

as illustrated in fable l. We see twilight as analogous to pregnancy or

formulation of a new story based on existing structures. Dawn is similar to
birth or a naming ceremony - the ritual through which an Afrikan comes into
the world - which is like the inception of a story. Morning follows the dawn
in a natural progression and is very much like one’s youth or the “exposition”
stage of a story. Then comes late morning, which is comparable to
adolescence or the “complication” stage of the story.

SOLAR POSITION HUMAN LIFE STORY STRUCTURE

(DIKENGA)
I MIDNIGHT CONCEPTION IDEA/CONCEPTION
1 TWILIGHT PREGNANCY FORMULATION (BASED ON
EXISTING STRUCTURES)
II DAWN BIRTH (NAMING OPENING FORMULA
CEREMONY)
2 MORNING YOUTH EXPOSITION
COMPLICATION
III NOON ADULTHOOD CLIMAX
3 AFTERNOON ELDERSHIP DENOUEMENT
RESOLUTION
IV SUNSET DEATH CONCLUSION (CLOSING
(FUNERAL) FORMULA)
4 EVENING/NIGHT JUDGMENT/ REFLECTION/
ANCESTRAL INTERNALIZATION
REALM
I MIDNIGHT CONCEPTION IDEA/CONCEPTION
Table I: Analogous Structures: Sun-Human-Story

In Table I we sec that Dikenga Theory of Story Structure

noon is analogous to in
Ku Nseke climax Upper World
adulthood or the “climax” 2 exposition/
denouem ent
of the story. Afternoon is resolution
co m p lic a tio n

analogous to eldership or
the “denouement” stage.
Sunset is akin to death or
4
the “conclusion;” the reflection, formulation
internalization
closing formula of the I
idea/
Anansesem ‘Ananse conception

(Spider) story’ or Alo Ijapa Ku Mpemba Lower World

‘ijapa (Tortoise) tale.’ This I, II, III, IV: Fulu kiangudi (principal positions)
stage, how-cvcr, is where 1, 2, 3, 4: Fulu klandwelo (in-between or "small" positions)

the Dikenga theory as Figure 7: Dikenga Theory o f Story Structure

13
 Obadele Kambon: Akan Ananse Stories, Yoruba ijapa Tales, and the Dikenga Theory

depicted in Figure 7 departs significantly from existing models of oral

narrative structure. We find that even though the sun has set, it continues to
exist in a form not readily visible to the observer. Similarly, for Afrikan
people, when a person dies he/she takes on a form not readily visible to the
average observer but, which is still understood as existing in another state.
This concept is expressed succinctly in the Akan maxim Onipa wu a, na
omvui ‘When a man dies he is not (really) dead’ (Gyekye 1987: 100). It is
also expressed in Birago Diop’s (1951) poem, Souffles ‘Breaths’ provided in
translation from the original French below:

Listen more often to things rather than The dead are not gone forever.
beings. They are in a woman’s breast.
Hear the fire’s voice, A child’s crying, a glowing ember.
Hear the voice o f water. The dead are not beneath the earth,
In the wind hear the sobbing o f the trees, They are in the flickering fire,
It is our ancestors breathing. In the weeping plant, the groaning rock,
The wooded place, the home.
The dead are not gone forever. The dead are not dead.
They are in the paling shadows,
And in the darkening shadows. Listen more often to things rather than
The dead are not beneath the ground, beings.
They are in the rustling tree, Hear the fire’s voice,
In the murmuring wood, Hear the voice o f water.
In the flowing water, In the wind hear the sobbing o f the trees.
In the still water, It is the breathing of our ancestors. (Diop
In the lonely place, in the crowd: 1951: 187-189, Hughes 1960: 182-183)
The dead are not dead.

[...]
It is the breathing of our ancestors,
Who are not gone, not beneath the ground,
Not dead.

The core idea expressed in the above poem is that energy and matter - of
which our ancestors are composed —are not created or destroyed but are
rather merely transformed into the various forms that surround us as
poignantly articulated in the poem. Indeed, if water, for example, comprises
approximately 60% of the human body, that water does not disappear upon
a person dying but is rather recycled back into the larger system as the water
in rain, lakes, clouds, and rivers. Similarly, upon death, the other tangible and
intangible elements that make up the human being are gradually released
back into the environment where they take on other forms and appearances.

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 Contemporary Journal o f African Studies Vol. 4. No. 2 (2017) 1-36

In this article, the day-as-life-night-as-death analogy is extended to cover

stories as well, wherein, even though a story has “ended” it continues to exist.
This existence is simply in a different form in the consciousness of the
individual and in the fabric of the society, among many others. For Afrikan
people, upon death, a human being is called to account for his or her deeds
and whether or not he or she has fulfilled his or her destiny and, then,
ultimately he/she undergoes judgment (Kamalu 1998, Ephirim-Donkor
1997). One of the earliest attestations of this endogenous Afrikan concept of
adjudication of the human in the afterlife is found in the Instructions of
Mry kj rf ‘Merikare’ (ca. 2100 BCE) wherein the text states:

11. The C ourt th at judges the wretch,

You know they are not lenient,
On the day of judging the miserable,
[...]
When a man remains over after death,
Mis deeds are set beside him as treasure,
[...]
He who reaches them without having done wrong
Will exist there like a god,
I'ree-striding like the lords forever! (Lichtheim 1973: 101) (emphasis mine)

The period after one’s life in the upper world has ended corresponds to
the period after the story has “ended” and, similarly, is a time of reflection
and adjudication with regard to the value of the story and values contained
therein; i.e., whether or not it fulfilled its overt and/or underlying goals or its
metaphorical “destiny.” Subsequently, night is akin to the ancestral realm
and it is also like the period in which the story’s aesthetics, structures and
concepts are internalized. Upon traversing this cycle, the story moves back
to the position of midnight, coming back to the conception of the idea of a
story which, again, is like the conception of a human being. The following
YouTube videos are illustrative of what is meant in this Extended Analogy
Layering (EAL), by juxtaposing images of analogous phenomena at similar
stages of development. Due to space constraints, we will focus on the Lo
biangudi ‘principal hours’ of the Dikenga hourly time segmentation cycle.

12. Dawn: http://voutu.be/xDlzeTpEVV4 (Kambon 2014d, Masters

2012)

The dawn video shows dawn in various forms: dawn of the day, dawn of
a human being, and also dawn of a story. This is the oivia apueef ‘sunrise’

15
 Obadele Kambon: Akan Ananse Stories. Yoruba ijapa Tales, and the Dikenga Theory

(Akan), tia odritn ‘sunrise’ (Yoruba), rneluka ‘sunrise’ (Kikongo). Dawn is

comparable to birth and the first ritual of one’s existence thereafter, which
marks the transition from one state to another in what is known as the
isomploritko ‘naming ceremony’ by the Yoruba. The video also shows the
Akan abadintoo ‘naming ceremony’ with the requisite tasting of water and
drink. This opening ritual of a human’s transition from the ancestral realm to
the physical world is analogous to the transition of the story from the
ideational stage to its realization through the process of the storytelling
performance. The Yoruba Alp Ijapa and the Akan Anansesem also have
parallel set formulae lor the opening o f a story such as the following:

13. a. Yrnse se use sc o!

3PL-NEG-say COMP NEG-say COMP EMPIl
‘wc don’t say, ‘don’t say” (i.e. it is make-believe so virtually
anything goes)
b. Yesesa soa wo ara!
3PL-galher placc-on-head 2SG emph
‘we put the responsibility on you’ (i.e. it’s your turn to tell the
story)
14. a. Anansesem ye asisie o!
Ananse-story be cheating EMPH
‘Ananse stories arc (only) make-believe’
b. lo no yie!
throw 3SG well
‘tell it well’
15. a. Abra, abra o!
Falsehood, falsehood EMPH
‘make-believe, make-believe’
b. Yoo!
okay
‘okay’

In examples (13a-15a), the initial line is the call of the storyteller while
the second line (13b-15b) in each instance is the response of the collective
audience: veritable “story-helpers” who are active participants in its telling
via their exhortations, songs, and extemporaneous critical feedback. We find
a similar phenomenon in the case ofYoruba Alp Ija p a - the opening formula,
which is exemplified below - where the second line in bold is the standard
audience response while the initial line and the rest of the formula is spoken
by the storyteller.

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 Contemporary Journal o f African Studies Vol. 4. No. 2 (2017) 1-36

16. Aid o!
story EMPH
‘story’
Aid!
Story
‘story’
Aid mi eld gbdd
story lSG.POSS strike ideo
‘my story strikes like this’
Aid mi eld gbdd
story lSG.POSS strike IDEO
‘my story strikes like that’
Aid mi eld ftirigbdgbdd
story lSG.POSS strike IDEO
‘my story strikes falling and bouncing like so’
0 dbileri Ijapa,
3sG.sum strike-lay-head tortoise,
‘it strikes the head o f the tortoise,’
Tirokb. oko Ydnnibo
oi'-bombax ceiba husband Y.
‘of the silk cotton tree, the husband ofYannibo’
Esc danindanin bi bran ope.
leg(s) light like fruit palm-tree
‘with legs tight like the fruit o f the palm-tree’
T ’d kole, kole
REL’SSG.SUBJ build-house build-house
‘Who builds houses’
t '6 ji Iran bd d je
rel '3 sg .subj take scat make-contact 3 sg .obj destroy
‘Who destroys them with the seat of his shelf
7/ n lo I'darin epd
rel.*3sg prog go al’middle groundnuts
"who goes among groundnuts’
7/ ipdkd re n ban jirifiri
rel occiput 3SG.POSS pr o g show indistinctly
‘for whom the back o f his head shows indistinctly’
O ni opelope pe dun ga
3SG say thanks to that 3SG.REPORT tall
‘who says it is thanks to the fact that he is tall” (Babalola 1973: 1)

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 Obadele Kambon: Akan Ananse Stories, Yoruba i japa Tales, and the Dikenga Theory

This formula may be followed up with additional subsequent calls and

responses to begin the story such as:

17. a. Ni igba kan

At time one
‘Once upon a time’
b. Kan, kan
One, one
‘Once, once’

a. Oba kan wa
King one exist
‘There was a king’
b. 6 wa bti ewa
3 sg e x is t lik e b e a u ty
‘He was there like beauty.’

These subsequent formulae make use of puns, wordplay, alliteration and

other oratory devices as they further draw the audience into the story by
encouraging participation. Therefore, as demonstrated above, we see clearly
that both Akan and Yoruba stories have opening formulae which mark the
metaphorical “sunrise/birth” of the story maintaining the analogy between
the relative solar position, the human being’s life and the progression of the
story.
The Extended Analogy Layering (EAL) continues through to the climax
of the story, the climax of a person’s life, and also the climax of the sun. This
is known as owigyinaer “noon” (Akan), osan gangan “noon” (Yoruba),
mbata “noon” (Kikongo).

18. Noon: http://youtu.be/DcxBdL-QYVg (Kambon 2014c, Masters

2012)

Examples in the noon video show the high point in the story, which
corresponds to reaching the highest point in one’s career in academia such as
giving one’s inaugural lecture. It is similar to being made the ruler o f one’s
people or country. This is the high point of one’s life. It is like when the sun
reaches its highest point in the sky from the perspective of the observer. In
the background of the video, Mr. Zablong Z. Abdallah sings Dagbamba
praise poetry in the Dagbanli language saying that we come to this world
with music and dance and we will leave the world with music and dance

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 Contemporary Journal o f African Studies Vol. 4. No. 2 (2017) 1-36

(Kambon 2014a). The song was selected due to its relevance in showing how
we have formulae to mark the transition from one stage/state to another, as
is also the case for the story.

19. Sunset: http://youtu.be/DKCOp2xfnss (Kambon 2014e, Masters

2012)

The video in example (19) shows Luvemba in its various forms and
manifestations. In terms o f time of day, this is the owia atoee “sunset”
(Akan), iwo ooriin “sunset” (Yoruba), ndimina “sunset” (Kikongo). This is
like the closing formulae of the Yoruba Ijapa tale and Akan Ananse stories
as shown in the video. Another example of a closing formula for the Yoruba
is as follows:

20. Idi alo mi re gbahgbalaka

reason story lSG.POSS this IDEO
‘this is the reason for my
Idi alo mi re gbangbalakci
reason story lSG.POSS this IDEO
i/’
y
Bi ng ba puro, ki agogo enu mi
COND lSG CONT lie, should bell mouth lSG.POSS
ma ro;
NEG ring;
‘if 1 am lying, may the bell of my mouth not ring’
Bi ng 6 ba puro, k ’agogo enu
COND lSG NEG CONT lie, should’bell mouth
mi ro l 'emeta
lSG.POSS ring in’thrice
‘if I am not lying, may it ring three times’
O di p o ........po........po!
3SG become IDEO IDEO ideo !
‘it rings, rings, rings’
(Babalola 1973: 19)
Each of these closing formulae is an expression of Luvemba in the
Dikenga cosmogram.
21. Midnight: http://youtu.be/QliCZnaBCwl (Kambon 2014b, Masters
2012)

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 Obadele Kambon: Akan Ananse Stories. Yoruba i japa Tales, and the Dikenga Theory

The final major marker of transition is,

at the same time, the first marker. T his idea
of the last being the first as well can also be
seen in the traditional Akan week (and
month) with Kwasiada ‘Sunday’ being the
inclusive beginning day of the week and the
final day of the week at the same time. This
concept is found in other parts of Afrika
represented as a serpent with its own tail in
its mouth, most notably in Benin’s Da
Ayido-Hwedo ‘Divine Rainbow Serpent'
and in Ancient Knit6 ‘Land of the
Black People’ as shown in Figure 8.
This Musoni stage is odasuom
“midnight” (Akan), ogcmjo dm “midnight”
(Yoruba), n'dingu-a-nsi “midnight”
(Kikongo). In the video, there is a lunar
eclipse with the moon’s position in relation
to the sun allowing the observer to see the
exact point of midnight in relation to
him/her. T his is yet another example of the
sun’s position, similar to the human's
position, which is yet and still analogous to Figure 8: 'Ll l\vt-O nh-
the story’s position. The sun’s movement in nnn 'Tutankh-annm's' Ciolden
the lower world is much like the phase after Relief with Tail-Swallowing
the story is told, in which it still exists Serpents encircling both head and
feet (Photo Credit Kambon)
having gone through a transition from one
stage to another. In the African context, this is like how the human being is
recognized as existing after death - merely in another state. Many Afrikans
exhibit an understanding of the continued existence of ancestors through
masquerades, music, sculptures, possession, libation, and through their
words, which continue to live after them as long as their words c o n tin u e to

(>Indigenous name of the land - literally translating lo ‘Land of Black People' - later referred
lo by the Creeks as AVyimxoq (Aigyptos) Egypt' (from * Liu hwt kj pth
T emple/enelosure of the soul of Ptalv) as an example of synecdoche or pars pro toto.
Notably. while (while) Lurasian scholars aliempt lo say Knit only refers lo the Blackness of
.. . . /”Iyv*•
the soil and not the Black people, they fail to account lor the lad dial the rr»iVi Kiniyw
‘Black People", in their own mythology said that they were made from dial same Black soil
of the Nile on the poller's w heel of the divinity Ijnmw ‘Khiuim'!

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 Contemporary Journal o f African Studies Vol. 4. No. 2 (2 0 17) I -36

be spoken. As an Akan proverb affirms Onipa wit a ne ttkn m a inipovn no,

na tfiri teasefoo ‘When a person dies and his/her tongue docs not rot, it is
because of a living person’ (Appiah, Appiah, and Agycman-Duah 2001:
203). In the video in example (21), Dsee Kwaku mentions that he was
originally told the story that he re-told back in 1955 or 1956 and he still
remembers it to this dale. Implicitly, this lets us know that one of the
underlying functions of storytelling is lo engender remembrance of the story
itself (through repetition, colorful language, etc.). Lawrence Kwaku 13oaten,
in his interview in the video, says that his motivation for telling his story is
simply just to remember his grandmother who has passed away (Kambon
2014b, Masters 2012). These interviews provide a window to the idea that
different storytellers may have different goals and that these goals may even
change based upon context. In other words, while there may be overt reasons
for telling a story —i.e.. “1 want/need to teach you these specific lessons’' -
there may also be underlying reasons - i.e.. "I want/need you to remember;
I want/need to live on through my words.” Above and beyond the
storyteller’s reasons, from the perspective o f the “story-helpcr/listcncr,”
different individuals may perceive different lessons from listening to the
same story as the story may even take on different meanings for the same
individual across space and time.
In this section, we have discussed the structure of Alo Ijapa and
Anansesem using Dikenga as a framework for analysis and understanding. It
is important to note, however, that this conception of reality is not something
that the people of Kongo came up with in a vacuum, but rather is a
manifestation of the maintenance of a shared cosmology dating back lo
Afrikan antiquity. Archaeological research shows that the earliest fossils of
modern humans {homo sapiens) originate in the area of the source ofthc Nile
and other adjacent river valleys, with the oldest of these fossils having been
found at Kibish in the Omo River Valley, Lthiopia (McDougall, Brown, and
Fleaglc 2005). Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Alrikans, having
traveled down the Nile Valley towards the north, would have worked out
such intricate philosophical expressions with regard to solar position
analogies prior to migrating to various other places of the continent. Indeed,
this cyclical concept is expressed most clearly in the aphorism
«►
— o © njM r O phrt pw snh ‘Life is a cycle’ from the “Conversation
Between a Despairing man and Mis Ba (Soul)” composed during the second
golden age (ca. 2052 BCE-1778 BCE) (Faulkner 1956:22, lines 20-21 , Obcnga
2004: 617). Indeed, in Knit. Alrikans there had the same idea of four major
 Obadele Kambon: Akan Ananse Stories, Yoruba ijapa Tales, and the Dikenga Theory

phases o f Ihc sun. According to

Budge (2013) in the Legend o f
R r ‘Ra’ and iH ? A s t
‘Isis’, / ^ ‘Ra’ says “I am
Khepera in the morning, Ra at
noon, and Temu [Atum] at
evening” (Budge 2013: 76). As
such, at sunrise we find JiM
Hpri ‘Khepri’ which is
symbolized by a scarab beetle as
shown in Figure 9. 1H8 Hpri
‘Khepri’ is followed by the sun
at its highest point, Rf
M ‘Ra’ and then we have
Figure 9: Ancient Afrikan Cosmological Structure
Itm(w) ‘Atum’, which is
(Kambon adapted from Moore 2011) representative o f sunset. After
sunset, the sun becomes A S
Wsir ‘Osiris,’ The Lord of the Underworld, as the sun at midnight (Moore
2011, Wilkinson 2003: 206). These concepts can be seen clearly in the
Pyramid Texts (ca. 2780-2260 BCE), the oldest sacred texts in the world
(Obenga 2004: 163). In.this same vein, according to Allen (2005: 11),
The Pyramid Texts are largely concerned with the deceased's relationship
to two gods, Osiris and the Sun [J?l ‘Ra’]. Egyptologists once considered
these two themes as independent views of the afterlife that had become
fused in the Pyramid Texts, but more recent research has shown that both
belong to a single concept o f the deceased’s eternal existence after
death— a view o f the afterlife that remained remarkably consistent
throughout ancient Egyptian history.

Further, Allen (2005: 438) describes Wsir ‘Osiris’ thusly:

Slain by his brother Seth, Osiris rests as a mummy in the middle of the
Duat, where the sun unites with him at night to receive the power to
come lo life again at dawn, (emphasis mine) (Allen 2005: 438)

The conceptualization of the four major phases of the sun’s movement

shows a shared worldview of Afrikan people from antiquity all the way to
the present, as demonstrated throughout space and time in Afrika and
elsewhere in the global Afrikan world. This calls for continued research into
migration patterns of Afrikans from the Nile Valley to current places and
spaces of habitation after having been largely driven out by successive waves

22
 Contem porary Journal of African Studies Vol. 4. No. 2 (2017) 1-36

of foreign invaders who now occupy and dominate the lower (northern) Nile
Valley today.
This begs the separate but related
question of why in the Kongo, the
dikenga cycle is depicted as moving in a
“counter-clockwise” fashion while in
Knit, the cycle moves in a “clockwise”
fashion. One possibility is that, from the
northern hemisphere-where our
Afrikan/Black ancestors were located
prior to migration away from the lower
Nile Valley - if one observes the
movement of the stars, such as that
depicted at the temple of Dcndcra in
ancient Knit one sees that the movement Figure 10: Dendera zodiac (Isis 20/3)
of all constellations is in a counter­
clockwise fashion as shown in Figure 10. in contemporary Akan culture, the
shaking of hands, likewise, occurs in a counter-clockwise manner as does
dancing at traditional spiritual ceremonies known as akom. In another
Afrikan combat art called Capoeira (originally Kipura), in the volta-ao-
mundo, cyclical movements are also done in a counter-clockwise manner
(Talmon-Chvaicer 2008: 29-30). The similarity that may be intuited from
these similarities across space and time is that each of these counter­
clockwise movements may have something to do with being in alignment
with the cosmos on a very deep level. An ancient teaching of the Nile Valley
says “as above, so below” (Chandler 2000: 18, Martin 2008: 957). Thus, it
seems that the movements of celestial phenomena can serve as an apt
metaphor and ideal model for the movements of terrestrial phenomena. It is
interesting to note, however, that in ancient Knit, east t ijbt ‘cast' was
associated with t J —o iyby ‘left-hand' while fc^=!i inmt ‘west' was associated
with *1.—■?' imn ‘right (-hand), right(-side), the ‘West’. Thus, the
Kmt(yw) ‘Black people' were always facing their source and their land of
origin - the interior of Afrika - and the equator where the sun’s intense rays
manifested in their richly melanated Blackness. This recognition of the
causative link between the sun and their Blackness - which formed the very
core of their identity - to no small degree influenced their heliocentric
worldview in which the sun was central in all aspects of life and the afterlife.
Because the east was seen as left, Figure 9 reflects this orientation and
perspective with relation to the four major phases of the sun.

23
 Obadele Kambon: Akan Ananse Stories. Yoruba i japa Talcs, and the Dikenga Theory

In an alternative explanation to the celestial one offered above, the

differences in terms of clockwise (Northern Hemisphere Nile Valley) and
counter-clockwise (Southern Hemisphere Congo River Basin) variants may
be wholly solar. In other words, the variants may be based on the ecliptic due
to the fact that, from the perspective of a person in the northern hemisphere
facing the equator, the sun would appear to rise on the left and set on the
right. From the position of a person in the southern hemisphere, however,
the sun would appear to rise on the right and set on the left.
In conclusion, with regard to structure, the Dikenga theory of structural
analysis is one manifestation of a shared Afrikan worldview. Dikenga can be
understood in the context of the sun’s movement, the human life cycle, and
also in the development of the story. This extended analogy layering (EAL)
shows how Anansestm or Aid Ijapa, in and of themselves, can be viewed as
living suns. Transformation is key in understanding structure and transition
from one stage to another as marked in the story, as marked in the human
being’s life, and as marked in the sun’s movement along with many other
phenomena that could be analyzed using the EAL method.
It is also clear that stories are not fixed artifacts. As ‘living suns.” they
come to life in performance. When they are not performed, they are not alive
but are, rather, functionally dead - not in the modern European sense of
death, but in the prototypically Afrikan sense wherein death is
conceptualized as a continucd/continual/continuous transition from one
stage to another stage. This notion can easily be reconciled with the law of
conservation of energy in physics which slates that the total energy of an
isolated system cannot change. In other words, it is conserved over time. In
other words, energy cannot be created or destroyed, but rather simply
changes form (Planck 1927). This is not unlike the concept ofrcincarnation
and repetition in a changed form. It should be noted that one of the first
attestations of the idea of rebirth can be found in the Nile Valley concept of
w lvnjm w t ‘rebirth, renaissance’ famously attested in the
I lorus name of imn in lit ‘Amcncmhat’ as .^ iS liS Whm-mswt
‘The one who repeated births’ (Lundstrom 2016a, Dickson 2006: 57). flic
term was also applied to the later Ramesside period known byjhc same name
and thought to have begun in the 19th rcignal year of RO-msi-sw
IjOi-(M )-W Ost Mrr-Imn Nn'-IIkD-iwmv ‘Ramesscs XL (Lundstrom
2016b).
Another major aspect of Dikenga is that the upper world {Ku nseke) is
mirrored by the lower world {Kit mpemba) and vice versa. Thus, there are
complementary movements in the visible upper world that are paralleled in

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 Contemporary Journal o f African Studies Vol. 4. No. 2 (2017) 1-36

the invisible lower world. The aforementioned parallel movements wherein

one is traversing the upper world while another is traversing the lower world
may be termed the principle of “Complementary Inversion” (Cl). On another
level, this Cl may explain why, in various Afrikan societies including that of
the Akan and Yoruba, it is the elder who does the naming o f newborns at
naming ceremonies because the elder is the one who is best positioned to
recognize his or her own grandparents upon their reincarnation. The
undergirding concept here is that as a person moves through the world and
life from birth to death, at the same time, one’s grandparent is moving
through the underworld in a similar fashion only to “die” there and be reborn
back here into what, from the perspective of the living, is the upper portion
(Ephirim-Donkor 1997). This understanding is why countless Afrikan people
throughout the global Afrikan world demonstrate an understanding of rebirth
and reincarnation. This philosophical thought is enshrined in Yoruba names
such as Babatiinde ‘father again arrives’ and Yejide ‘mother wakes (and)
arrives.’ We find a similar phenomenon in Akan, wherein Nana translates to
both grandparent AND grandchild at the same time. As such, babies are
reincarnated with their previously held titles intact and, therefore, we find
names such as Nana Yaw ‘elder/grandparent Yaw’ even applied to children
as well as other names such as Ababio ‘has come again.’ We see related
phenomena in instances of various survival names such as Sumina ‘rubbish
heap’ and Yempew(o) ‘we do not want you’ given to trick the newborn’s
playmates in the ancestral realm into leaving the child alone so that he/she
may survive in the realm of the living (Obeng 2001: 98, 101). We see that
this Cl is something that is marked in names due to its significance with
regard to an understanding of the cosmos as manifested in the Dikenga
cosmogram. When Dikenga is taken out of the human context and applied to
stories and storytelling, we can see stories in a similar fashion as occurring
either in the upper world or the lower world.
While the argument could be made for the telling of stories
corresponding to passing through Ku mpemba —the lower world and realm
of the immaterial - for the most part we view the lower world as where
stories, once told, transform into the stuff from which remembrance,
reflection, internalization, personalization, and reformulation are made.
Thus, if the Ku mpemba portion is missing or incomplete, it means that the
story was not told well enough to engender remembrance, reflection, and
other underlying functions for which the story is told. Again, this is parallel
to how human life is conceived as cyclical in that one’s life in Ku nseke
foreshadows how one’s continuation of life in Ku mpemba will be. According
to Fu-Kiau:

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 Obadele Kambon: Akan Ananse Stories, Yoruba ijapa Tales, and the Dikenga Theory

Time, for the Kongo, is a cyclical “thing. “ It has no beginning and no end.
Thanks to dunga (events), the concept of lime is understood and can be
understandable. These dunga, be they natural or artificial, biological or
ideological, material or immaterial, constitute what is known as n'kama
mia ntangu in Kikongo, that is, the “dams o f time." (Fu-Kiau 1994: 20)
(emphasis in original)

In this analogy, time is conceptualized as flowing like a river, but there

are intervening dams or cataracts that mark different points along its course.
In this section, we have primarily addressed the main markers along the
course: Conception, Birth, Maturity and Death. However, within these, there
are smaller repetitions (Fulu kiandwelo), which also serve to mark time. Such
phenomena may include points of significant transition or the repetition of
episodes. These smaller markers also serve a functional role to structure the
tales. As such, they are functional for the oratory/Iiterary artist and the
audience. For the oral (and/or written) literary artist, these smaller n ’kama
mia ntangu are functional because they help him/her hang on to and repeat
key phrases that may have been made up extemporaneously in front of a live
audience full of potentially critical participants. Repetition ensures that there
will be no need to make up new phrases on the spot in the context o f the
pressure cooker that is live performance. Repetition is also used aesthetically
for imbuing an artistic quality to the story while simultaneously serving to
aid remembrance for both the storyteller and for the listener alike. Repetition
can also provide order, structure and familiarity in the context of an otherwise
chaotic landscape wherein anything can happen. Additionally, episodic
repetition (via Fulu kiangucii/Fulu kiandwelo) may serve to organize the plot
of the story (Okpewho 1992; 76-77). As such, while one can view the entire
story as a large cyclical pattern {Dikenga), one can see smaller repetitions
within the larger repetition. In other words, there is a Dikenga within a
Dikenga within yet another Dikenga. This phenomenon o f micro patterning
like the macro structure could be thought of along the lines of fractal patterns
within fractal patterns where smaller patterned repetitions resemble the
larger scale patterned repetitions (Eglash 1999). In other words, as above
{i.e., large-scale), so below {i.e., small-scale). Thus, the structure of these
tales is functional and meta-theoretical on multiple levels.
In this article, we have demonstrated worldview correlations and
structural parallels between Akan Ananse stories and Yoruba Ijapa tales
using the Dikenga cosmogram as a framework and Extended Analogy
Layering (EAL) as a method of understanding situated in the
temporal/spatial Afrikan context.

26
 Contem porary Journal of African Studies Vol. 4. No. 2 (2017) 1-36

Conclusions

In conclusion, stories help the listener to understand that time and space
arc cyclical, which is something that has been known by Afrikan people from
ancient times. This understanding may be contrasted with the notion more
commonly associated with prototypical Eurasian societies in which time is
generally seen as taking place in linear motion. According to Mengyu and
Prosser (In Press):
The scientists and philosophers after the Renaissance followed Aristotle’s
suit, and they thought of time as a kind of object in linear motion as well
f...] The physical interpretation of absolute time in lineal motion,
together with industrialization and civilizational progress helps cultivate
the future-time orientation in most countries of the western world
(Mengyu and Prosser In Press) (emphasis mine)

However, as Afrikan scholars, it

may behoove us to be careful ol\
Eurasian claims regarding the so-called
universality of their culturally-specific
ideas including the notion that time is
always linear, among others (Ani 1994).
Such notions may not be appropriate or
fitting in the Afrikan context especially
in light of the fact that by and large
Eurasians, at one time, also thought that
replica fro m Mexico inA ddis Ababa, 2015 the world was Hat (Simck 1996). At that
(Photo Credit Terrence Johnson) same time that Eurasians were saying
this, Alrikans such as Abu Bakr II and
others before him had already travelled to the western hemisphere where they
left evidence of their presence in the form of huge multi-ton monuments such
as the Olmec heads (as shown in Figure 11) of Ires Zapotes. San Lorenzo
and La Vcnla in what is now modern-day Mexico (Van Scrtima 1976). Given
the preponderance of evidence there can be no doubt as to the Afrikan’s
advanced knowledge of the circular nature of spatial realm commensurate
with Afrikan knowledge of the temporal and material.
While it seems that after interacting with Alrikans, pale Eurasians have
updated their concept of space in terms of moving towards a more Afrikan
understanding that the world is actually round, for the most part, they have
neglected to necessarily update their concept of time as an essential aspect
of understanding the space-time continuum. While it seems that after interac-

27
 Obadele Kambon: Akan Ananse Stories. Yoruba i japa Tales, and the Dikenga Theory

Figure 2: Map o f the world as round on the sarcophagus oj

Wereshnefer ca. 380-300 BCE (Keel 1997: 3 8 >
-ting with Alrikans, pale Eurasians have updated their eoneept of space in
terms of moving towards a more Afrikan understanding that the world is
actually round, for the most part, they have neglected to necessarily update
their concept of time as an essential aspect of understanding the space-time
continuum. The continuum bet-ween time and space is also found in the
concepts of S dl ‘continuous spatial eternity’ and ’k l l 0 nhh ‘recurrent
temporal eternity,’ which were written adjacent to each other to convey
complementary aspects of infinity /eternity in scores of texts through-out the
history of ancient Kml. Dikenga provides us with a prototypically Afrikan
understand-ing of space AND time as cyclical. Indeed, as evinced on the
sarcophagus of w r s - n f r 'Wereshnefer,’ (at the center of which is a
“living sun”)7 as shown in Figure 12, conceptions of the world as round pre­
date Eurasian claims to “discovering” this ancient Afrikan knowledge by

7 The winged sun symbol, which appears at the center of the sarcophagus relief is attested
at least from ca. 2487-2475 UCE to the reign of sOhw-rO' Sahurc', if not
earlier to ca. 2575-2551 BCE during the reign of 'g Q E E l S-nfr-w ‘Sneferu.' (Shaw and
Nicholson 1995: 305). Expounding upon this concept, it is interesting to note the fact that
one of the main appellations of the ruler in Kmt was s O r O 'Son of the Sun.'

28
 Contemporary Journal o f African Studies Vol. 4. No. 2 (2017) I -36

well over 1,000-2,000 years, by conservative estimates. Further, as can be

seen on the sarcophagus and in the Dikenga cosmogram, because the human
being is seen as a “living sun,” the anthropocentric model and the
heliocentric model are actually one and the same, as the movements of the
microcosm are a reflection of the movements of the macrocosm and vice-
versa. We find that the view from Afrikan antiquity parallels the view from
traditional Afrika. According to Fu-Kiau:
When you have a circle o f the Kongo cosmogram, the center is seen as
the eternal flame. It is a way to come closer to the core of the community.
If someone is suffering, they say “you are outside the circle, be closer to
the fire." To stand on the cosmogram is to tie a social knot, bringing
people together. Dikenga is from the verb kenga, which means “to take
care, to protect," but also the flame o r fire from inside the circle, to
build and give life (Fu-Kiau 2001b) (emphasis mine).

In other words, this phenomenon constitutes a fractal within a fractal.

Thus, we see that for the Bakongo as well, the human is at the center, yet the
human is seen as a “living sun,” making the model both anthropocentric and
heliocentric simultaneously and without contradiction (Fu-Kiau 1991: 8, 9,
30, 46). Interestingly, modern-day scientists are now coming to understand
what Afrikans understood, articulated and according to which they lived
several thousand years ago. According to noted astrophysicist Dr. Neil
deGrasse Tyson:
Stars die and are born in places like this o ne - a stellar nursely.
They condense like raindrops from giant clouds of gas and dust.
They get so hot that the nuclei o f the atoms fuse together deep within them to make
the oxygen we breathe, the carbon in our muscles, the calcium in our bones, the
iron in our blood. All o f it was cooked in the fiery hearts o f long-vanished stars.
You, me, everyone wc are made of sta r stuff.
[...] The planets, the stars, the galaxies; We, ourselves, and all of life. The same
sta r stuff (Tyson 2014) (emphasis mine).

This apparent “modern” scientific revelation can be dated back to over

4,000 years ago to the Coffin Texts ca. 2060 - 1785 BCE, written in Kmt,
wherein the texts expound upon “The Four Great Achievements o f Rr
‘Ra’ (/.<?., the Sun) At Creation Time”:
Words o f The One o f Hidden Names, Lord of the Universe;
Says he before those who calm the storm during the voyage of [Ra’s]
companions:
[...]
I accomplished four great acts

29
 Obadele Kambon: Akan Ananse Stories. Yoruba Ijapa Tales, and the Dikenga Theory

inside the portal of the horizon.8

[...]
I created the deities from my sweat,
and humans from the tears of my eye (Obenga 2004: 120-121) (emphasis
mine).

With Eurasians and those who identify closely with Eurasian history
finally starting to understand what the Afrikan has been saying since
antiquity - that we are made of star stu ff- it is not lost on this author that the
reemergence of this knowledge is, itself, an example o f the cyclical
conception of time so common throughout Afrika. The cyclical conception
of time is similarly found in the following Bakongo proverb:

22. Ma ’kwendci! Met ‘kwiza!

matter go! matter’eome
‘What goes on (now), will come back (later)’ (Fu-Kiau 1994: 33)

Similar to the law of inertia, according to Fu-Kiau, “What flows in a

cyclical motion will remain in the motion. Time is cyclical, and so is life and
all its ramifications that make change possible through the process of
marking ‘the dams of time’” (Fu-Kiau 1994: 33).
A parallel proverb is found among the Akan:

23. A birekyie se: "Det' t’-bi-ba

goat says: REL 3SG.lNAN-FUT-come
a-ba dadet."
PERF-come already
‘The goat says “That which will come has already come.’”
(Appiah, Appiah, and Agyeman-Duah 2001: 47)

Similarly, a Yoruba poem says:

24.Akoko n lo, akoko n bo.

time PROC. go, time PROG come
‘Time is going, time is coming.’ (Schleicher 1998: 7)

While in proverbial form, the non-linear nature of time is stated in the

following maxim:

8 i.e.. at the “dawn" o f creation.

30
 Contemporary Journal o f African Studies Vol. 4. No. 2 (2017) 1-36

25. Igba kii to lo bii orere.

time NEG.HAB set go like horizon
‘Time is unlike a straight line.’ (Ayoade 1984: 17)

This is in stark contrast with the archetypal Eurasian concept of space

(i.e. the world) as flat and the contemporary Eurasian model which still views
time as flat. The persistence of this archaic Eurasian notion is still readily
observed via terms such as “timelines,” “storylines,” etc., as well as in other
linguistic and conceptual baggage attached to this protolypically Eurasian
mode of thinking.
In this article, we have argued that it is imperative for Afrikan people to
use endogenous Afrikan philosophical and theoretical frameworks to analyze
indigenous Afrikan phenomena. We have gone further by going beyond mere
exhortation to actually using such a framework to analyze phenomena from
different parts of the Afrikan world to show an underlying unicity of
worldview. We argue that this common foundation o f Afrikan thought is
readily evident irrespective of its various and diverse manifestations. Indeed,
the shared Afrikan worldview can be understood as one entity with many
derivative branches. A similar concept can be found in one of the oldest
attestations of monotheism as found in the Papyrus of i ilW A n y ‘Ani’
ca. 1600 BCE wherein it states that “God is one and alone and none other
existeth with him [...] thou one thou only one whose arms arc many [...]
thou one, thou only one who has no second” (Budge 1895: 85, 113). By the
same token, Akan, Yoruba, and Bakongo culturo-linguistic phenomena can
be thought of as various manifestations or “arms” of a shared foundational
Afrikan worldview.
In this paper, it has been demonstrated that the application of endogenous
cosmological, philosophical, theoretical, and conceptual frameworks can
provide innovative perspectives and additional insight to our understanding
of the structure of Akan Ananse and Yoruba Jjapci stories as well as the
shared Afrikan worldview, which is the common foundation from which they
have arisen (and continue to arise). In conclusion, wc will come back to the
subject of worldview with which we began so that this article, itself, may
also follow a Dikenga-\ike structure through the following quote:
Diddi nza-Kongo kandongila: Mono i kadi kia dingo-dingo (kwenda-
vntukisa) kinzungidita ye didi dia ngolo zanzingita. Ngiena, kadi yateka
kata ye kalutulaye ngina vutuka kata ye kalidula.
Here is what the Kongolese Cosmology taught me: I am (a going-and-
eoming-back-being) around the eenter of vital forees. I am because I was
and re-was before, and that 1 will be and re-be again. (Fu-Kiau 2001a: xi)
 Obadele Kambon: Akan Ananse Stories, Yoruba ijapa Tales, and the Dikenga Theory

As the sun rises, sets and rises again, so too does the human being and
the Afrikan story.

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