Oral histories all agree that the Ashanti were originally part of a unified Akan clan that included the Fante, Wassaw and other Twi-speaking people. But it is in the specifics of its subsequent division that stories begin to diverge. In one legend, it is Fulani invaders, destroying the Akan’s crops and forcing them to forage …
The traditional web of legend and lore that allegorizes human nature — particularly its propensity for wisdom, ingenuity, resourcefulness, yet also for the shrewdness and duplicity that often goes hand-in-hand — spans across world cultures. As it stretches from one corner of the globe to another, from Japan to India to the Lakota region of the …