Mus's Roots

Okay, so this blog isn't going to look all pretty pecause the photos are acting weird... But you'll get the idea.

These first photos are photos of Mus's hometown. See, in Ghana, when you ask "Where are you from?" they won't tell you where they were born or where they were raised... They tell you where their ancestors lived. This is the village of Mus's mom and her ancestors...

























Which is right next door to Mus's father's village. From L to R- Mus, his grandmother, and his dad's sister. Mus's grandmother is over 100 years old- no one's quite sure how old, since she was born before Ghana started using the European calender. They just know that she was born before a certain recorded event (a war, I believe) and that happened over a hundred years ago, so she's even older. He said she could walk up until just a few years ago- and she can still see and has most of her teeth.


She was one of several wives of Mus's grandfather, who was the chief of the village. Mus's ancestors discovered the mountain that the village was built on- I think it was his great-great-great grandfather. When Europeans started imposing the custom of having surnames, Mus's family took this famous ancestor's name as their surname. Because they are Twi, though, the stool of the chief is passed matrilineally, meaning that the Queen Mother nominates who gets the stool, to be approved by the elders. The Queen Mother is not married to the chief- often they are her nephews or sons. So if your father is a chief, you don't necessarily get to be chief, and rarely do, in fact.

His grandmother, though she isn't the queen mother, still holds a lot of influence in the town. She is the last of the previous chief's wives who remains alive (Mus's granfather has died, and so there is a new chief). She controls a lot of land and the new chief has to pay respect to her- they say that proverbally he has no power over her house, because he's outside of the family, and her family is the one who controls the stool.