Akonadi

On a Tuesday, somewhere between two in the morning and first light, the lamps in the shrine house at Larteh stay dark. There is no electric bulb, no radio, no talk above a murmur. Then the priestess begins to speak in a voice that is not hers, in a language most of the people listening cannot follow: an old form of Lɛtɛ, the Guan tongue of the town. Akonadi has arrived, and she does not like light.

That detail comes from inside the shrine. Ama Boakyewa, herself an initiated priestess of the Akonnedi tradition, recorded it in her 2014 doctoral dissertation in anthropology at Indiana University: the goddess comes on Tuesday mornings, speaks the most ancient form of the Guan language, and abhors light, electricity and noise. Akonadi is the spelling that travels in English reference lists. In Larteh and in the scholarship she is Akonnedi or Akonedi, Nana Abena to those who serve her, and her shrine stands in Larteh-Kubease, the upper part of a hill town on the Akuapem ridge in Ghana’s Eastern Region. A funeral programme printed for her most famous priestess in January 1996 describes the place as a sacred house with sacred groves and sacred streams.

She is older than her most famous priestess by a long way. The Basel Mission linguist Johann Gottlieb Christaller, stationed in Larteh in the 1850s, put her name in a list of the town’s deities in his Twi dictionary of 1881, with a note that she was the wife of Konkom, another local god. The historian Benedikt Pontzen, writing in 2024 after fieldwork in Larteh, adds what became of the husband: Konkom went on to be Dente, the famous oracle of Kete Krachi, while Akonnedi stayed at home. The Dente shrine is documented by D. J. E. Maier in a 1983 study. The marriage itself is a single line in a dictionary. Nothing more of it survives.

The story told at her own shrine is different, and harder. Boakyewa records it as oral tradition. A girl named Nedi became pregnant, and her father, Ako, forced her into a marriage she did not want. She died, perhaps in childbirth. Then she came back into the head of a woman called Adwo Komfo, the founder of the shrine, and made a promise: she would help anyone forced into a situation against their will. Ako and Nedi together make Ako-Nedi, the name the goddess carries. Boakyewa dates the shrine’s beginnings to the late nineteenth century, which sits awkwardly beside Christaller’s note from the 1850s. The two accounts are never reconciled in the sources, and there is no need to force them.

Everyone agrees on what she does. A woman who cannot conceive, a man whose money has vanished, a family whose child will not stop sickening: they come to Larteh for abisa, a consultation, and the goddess, through her priestess, tells them the spiritual cause. Pontzen lists the work plainly. The priestess divined the causes of people’s problems, made charms and remedies, cured illness, barrenness and witchcraft, and exerted justice in the name of her deity. Boakyewa adds finding lost things and lost people, success in business, safe childbirth and the settling of court cases. The shrine was, and is, especially committed to mothers and children.

She does not work alone. Akonnedi sits at the head of a household of gods. Nana Esi Ketewa, a Fante deity, serves as her linguist and midwife and watches over pregnant women and children; Boakyewa calls her Queen Mother of the ghosts. Asuo Gyebi, an Asante god, is herbalist and executioner. Adade Kofi, a warrior, is another of her executioners, and Tigare came from the north of Ghana. Pontzen notes that the last two were added under the priestess Nana Akua Oparebea. Around them, he writes, dwell countless unnamed gods and spirits.

Oparebea is the reason most people outside Ghana have heard the name. The priestesses of Kubease are recorded in succession: Nana Anima, who died in 1927 after divining that a woman of her family would bring the goddess to glory; Nana Amma Ansah I, who held the seat until 1957; and Oparebea, raised Presbyterian and seized by spirits as a child, who served until her death on 18 November 1995. In 1965 an African American seeker named Gus Edwards, sent to Larteh by a university official, met her. She told him they shared ancestry, named him Nana Yao Opare Dinizulu, trained him in possession, and made him chief priest of the Akan diaspora. From 1969 shrines appeared in New York and Washington, and in 1971 Oparebea crossed the Atlantic herself.

Here the goddess meets her one clear limit. Pontzen reports that Dinizulu could not take Akonnedi with him, because she does not travel over water; he took Asuo Gyebi, Esi Ketewa and Adade Kofi instead. Her funeral programme puts the rule more starkly, as a belief that any deity carried across the high seas is stripped of its power by the gods of the sea, and credits Oparebea with proving it wrong by founding shrines overseas. The two accounts pull against each other. Both agree that the sea is the problem.

Her power, then, is a judge’s power: to see what is hidden, to name the cause, and to punish through the gods who carry out her sentences. It is bounded by place, by the dark hours she favours, and by the body of one woman at a time. When Pontzen was in Larteh in 2023, Oparebea’s seat was still empty. Some townspeople told him Akonnedi had left for America. Others denied it outright. Her name, he found, still draws people up the hill.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Akonadi?

Akonadi, more often spelled Akonnedi or Akonedi, is an oracle goddess of the Guan people of Larteh in the Akuapem hills of Ghana. She speaks through a possessed priestess to diagnose the spiritual causes of illness and misfortune and to deliver justice. Her main shrine is at Larteh-Kubease in Ghana’s Eastern Region.

What is the origin story of Akonnedi?

According to oral tradition recorded by Ama Boakyewa, Akonnedi was once a girl named Nedi whose father, Ako, forced her into marriage while she was pregnant. She died, possibly in childbirth, then possessed a woman named Adwo Komfo and vowed to help anyone forced into a situation against their will. Her name, Ako-Nedi, joins her father’s name with her own.

Who was Akonnedi’s husband?

The missionary linguist Johann Gottlieb Christaller, who worked in Larteh in the 1850s, recorded Akonnedi as the wife of Konkom, another Larteh deity. Historian Benedikt Pontzen notes that Konkom later became Dente, the famous oracle of Kete Krachi, while Akonnedi remained in Larteh.

What does the Akonnedi Shrine help people with?

The Akonnedi Shrine is consulted for illness, barrenness, witchcraft, lost property and missing people, business success, childbirth and court cases. Its priestesses divine the cause of a problem, prepare charms and remedies, and pronounce judgment in the goddess’s name. The shrine is especially devoted to mothers and children.

Did Akonnedi go to America?

Akonnedi’s priestess Nana Akua Oparebea trained the African American priest Nana Yao Opare Dinizulu and founded shrines in the United States from 1971. Historian Benedikt Pontzen reports that Akonnedi herself could not be taken across the ocean because she does not travel over water, so the lesser deities Asuo Gyebi, Esi Ketewa and Adade Kofi went instead. Some people in Larteh now say the goddess has moved to America, while others deny it.

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