Kundum festival was founded, according to the inhabitants of Ahanta, after a hunter named Akpoley went hunting in the forest and came saw a group of dwarfs dancing in a well-coordinated circular pattern.
The hunter, Akpoley, is said to have lurked and observed the dwarfs’ dance before returning to Ahanta Township and introducing the newly discovered dance to his people. The dance became related with banishing evil spirits from the Ahanta and Nzema people’s towns and villages over time.
With the passage of time and the arrival of civilization, the Kundum Festival evolved into a festival honoring God for the abundance of food as well as the protection of the people, making Kundum both a religious and harvest festival.
How Kundum Festival Is Celebrated
The Kundum Festival lasts eight days and includes activities such as drumming, feasting, and animal sacrifices performed by the elders of the community. The sacrifice usually involves a few chosen and designated persons, usually the town’s elders, slaughtering a bird in a small room.
According to mythology, killing the chicken in the stool room purifies the room and the traditional stool of any evil spirit or bad omen that may befall the chief and his elders.
Another fowl is sacrificed in front of the town’s gods and ancestors at a durbar, after which the town’s dancers and ladies perform the ritual dance discovered by Akpoley. Cooking, eating, and dancing occupy the remaining days.
During the festival’s week-long celebrations, tens of thousands of people flock to the Ahanta and Nzema districts. The majority of individuals there are invited visitors and tourists who have traveled from all over the world to see Kundum and Ahanta culture and festival.
What is the history of the Kundum festival?
The Kundum Festival is said to be Ghana’s, then the Gold Coast’s, earliest documented festival. A Dutch vogager named Bossman landed on the Ghanaian coast in the early 17th century and held the first formal documented celebration. Before he was granted the opportunity to compose the first known formal document documenting the celebration in the late 16th century, Bossman believed the event had been going on for hundreds of years.
That is correct. Ahanta Aboade, a village on the Tarkwa-Takoradi highway, is regarded to be the birthplace of the Kundum festival. According to tradition, a hunter from Aboade saw dwarfs dancing to the beat of strange music while on a hunting trip. Before taking it home, the hunter spent a month observing these weird creatures perform their strange dance. According to another legend, a palm tree associated with the founding of the Kundum festival once existed in the village of Aboade. Because the fruits of this tree only ripened once a year, it became a symbolic calendar in people’s lives over time. The ripening of the palm fruit signified the start of the festival.