Libation – its misconception in contemporary Christianity in Ghana

Ancient Africans believed in the existence of an unseen superpower that manifested itself through daylight and nighttime, lightning and thunder, earthquakes and seasonal changes, as affirmations of its omnipresence. They acknowledged and sought his protection in every function and facet of life through prayers.

Libation, utilizing liquid as an offering for invocation, is the most ancient mode of prayer. There are different forms of libation. The traditional Akan means of supplication is libation, the act of dropping liquid on the ground amidst incantation. Unlike Christian prayers, libation does not call for the eyes to be closed. 

In Ghana in Retrospect the Rt. Rev. Dr. Peter Kwasi Sarpong asserts that “libation has a religious character, expressing belief in God, in the various gods, and in the ancestors.”  He points out that in the Revised Standard Version of the Christian Bible the terms “libation,” “libations,” “drink offering,” and “drink offerings” occur 67 times.

It must be understood that libation comes in different shapes and forms and is not limited to wine and liquor. In fact, blood was among the earliest fluids to be used for libation. Wilkinson, citing Herodotus, tells us of ancient Egyptians that “their sacrifices commenced with a libation of wine, and some was sprinkled on the ground where the victim lay.”

In contemporary Akan culture, in the absence of palm wine and/or liquor, water may be used. The “holy” water that a Christian minister sprinkles on congregants before Mass and the water that an African priest, the Okomfo, sprinkles on people connote the same symbolism.

Commissioning a ship by breaking a bottle of champagne against its hull is a libation rite that still persists.

Contrary to some beliefs, libation may be offered any time, day or night. In fact, libations are offered at night during the secret burial of a royal or a ruler. In times past, only the initiated (e.g., the king) and initiates-in-the-making offered libation and carried vessels of libation to a prayer point.

As in ancient Egypt, an Akan king is the traditional head of the religious body, but a ritual performance is mostly carried out by the priesthood. Amen-Ra was said to have poured yearly libation to his parents, much as the biblical David “poured it out (water) to the Lord” (2 Samuel 23:16; see also Numbers 28:7).

In libations of prime and national importance such as in the Stool/Shrine Room, both the Okyerema (Master drummer) and Osene/Esen/Sen (the herald) punctuate the process with exclamatory phrases of encouragement, especially when the king himself is conducting the libation. The Osene, as a rule, is the first to drink from the libation cup before the drink is offered.

The Process

Libation is offered to the entities by an eloquent, culturally knowledgeable person. Every person officiating in libation has at least one assistant. The assistant stands immediately behind the minister to respond and urge him on in the process.

He may also quickly remind the minister of salient points such as names that must be mentioned in the process and advise him if he is straying from the main theme or letting the ceremony run too long. An assistant pours some drops of the drink onto the earth as “a call to prayers,” after which he fills a gourd/glass with three servings.

The three servings represent Heaven above, the Earth below, and the Guardian Spirits, an African trinity rooted in antiquity. The last pour is a little longer, to ensure enough for the libation. The officiating minister now heaves the wrap-around cloth off from his shoulders and bundles and knots it at the waist, baring his chest.

This is a sign of humility, a return to nakedness and therefore infancy, a common African show of deference when going before someone mightier and more powerful. He takes his sandals off, just as the biblical Moses was ordered by God to take off his and as ancient Egyptian priests would take off their sandals in religious rituals.

The minister raises the drink just close enough to his mouth to verify its true content, a rite still practiced by some churches before Mass.

Looking up to the heavens with the drink raised, he first invokes Onyankopon, the Dependable One. The Onyankopon is a spirit without any known confinement or containment, whose attention is sought by raising the gourd of liquid unto the heavens.

In Akan libation, Onyankopon, rather than Nyame, is mentioned, because Nyame is the generic name for demi-gods such as Akuamoah Nyame, or Kofi Nyame, whereas Onyankopon is the Supreme and Mighty One, the God of all Gods, the “Entire God.” The Ewe people perhaps has a deeper rendering of the totality of the universe known as Sogbolisa.

Asaase Yaa, Mother Earth, as sustainer of life, is next in line to be glorified and offered a drink.  The belief is that all things from heaven come to mankind through Mother Earth. It must be remembered here that Onyankopon and Mother Earth have neither shrine nor priest/priestess. This helps to define and clarify the relationship between the Almighty God, the giver of life, and Mother Earth, life’s sustainer.

Then comes the veneration of ancestors, gods, and other natural entities (rivers, mounts, etc.), deities, and family-specific spirits and entities. It must be noted here that only family members who led exemplary and positive lives on earth are remembered and honored.

The context or text of a typical Akan libation is then spelled out. Supplication is made for guidance, prosperity, excellent health, and longevity for all present and beyond. Wrath on perceived enemies may also be invoked.

Finally, in Akan culture, after prayers, the officiating minister would drink for and on behalf of the unseen spirit, the ancestors, and those mentioned in the prayers.

Soul & Spirit

The clear distinction of the soul and spirit must here be emphasized: souls are to the gods as spirits are to the glorified. In other words, no dead person becomes a god. The gods were natural powers developed from elemental forces such as fire, rain, thunder, and darkness etc., some that was eventually divinized.

The legendary high priest Okomfo Anokye, like Osiris (whose African name was Asare, but characteristically butchered by the Greek to Osiris), of ancient Egypt, could have been deified, as it were. Spirits, on the other hand, were once humans. They are glorified, as in libation, but never worshipped.   

Fetishism & Worship

On this, Ellis tells us, “The practice of propitiating by offering beings who are believed to dwell in the woods or mountains, the rivers or the seas, is not fetishism; nor is the worship or reverence paid to certain animals by particular tribes’ fetishism.

Neither can the worship of idols be so termed, for the idol is merely the representation of an absent god, or the symbol of an idea, and has of itself no supernatural or superhuman power or quality. The confusion which has resulted from the improper use of the term ‘fetish’ is extreme and is now probably irreparable.”

In essence, it was the deity (such as Yahweh) that was worshiped, not symbols of wood, stone, or pictograph. Nigerian soccer fans do not worship the mighty Green Eagle bird, nor the stars of the Black Stars of Ghana worshipped by Ghanaian soccer fans.

The eagle and the star are mere symbolic representation without any power to win soccer tournament! So are Asante Kotoko (porcupine) and Bofoakwa Tano (a mighty river). The concept of Akan worship is explained in the works of one of Ghana’s foremost philosophers Professor W.E. Abraham’s The Mind of Africa.

To believe in Akan ancestral worship is to believe that Christians worship saints. Christians pray hallowing the names of saints and other biblical personalities. But the prayers are meant for the Christian God. Similarly, Akan people pray hallowing the names of their ancestors (who by tradition are an extended part of the family).

Both belief systems are a mode of communicating through another medium to the Creator. There is no altar of worship for any Akan ancestor.

Until recently in traditional Akan, men harvesting palm fruits intentionally left small quantities of the fruits in the forest while bringing the rest home, a sure sign of paganism to the uninitiated eye. But this was a natural way of spreading cultivation of the palm tree: rodents, such as bush rats, digested the palm fruits and, through secretion, deposited the seeds of palm tree elsewhere, creating wild growth.

Similarly, clearing the immediate surroundings of a river or stream was forbidden, because without substantial vegetation (and protection from the scorching sun) the stream could dry up.

In retrospect, libation, like several ancient practices and phenomena have been woefully misrepresented and misinterpreted out of ignorance. The ancients understood and accurately interpreted their language of symbols; we have not and have thus termed their mythology paganism… with negative connotation.

Source: The Akan of Ghana. Aspects of Past & Present Practices by Kofi Ayim

Available at kofiayim.com