page_title: Coromantee
section_title: Culture
hierarchical_section_title: Coromantee / Culture
caption_attribution_description: English: Yam Ceremony, Ashanti Українська: Ямсова церемонія народу ашанті, Гана (1817)
context_page_description: Coromantee, Coromantins, Coromanti or Kormantine was the English name for enslaved people from the Akan ethnicity from the Gold Coast in modern Ghana. The term was primarily used in the Caribbean and is now considered archaic.
context_section_description: Prior to becoming enslaved, Coromantins were usually part of highly organized and stratified Akan groups such as the Asante Empire. Akan states were not all the same, but the 40 different groups in the mid-17th century did share a common political language. These groups also had shared mythology – and a single, supreme God, Nyame – and Anansi stories. These stories spread to the New World and became Anancy, Anansi Drew, or Br'er Rabbit stories in Jamaica, The Bahamas, and the Southern United States respectively.
  According to Long, Akan or "Coromantee" culture obliterated any other African customs and incoming non-Akan Africans had to submit to the culture of the dominant Akan population in Jamaica. Akan deities referred to as Abosom in the Twi language were documented, and enslaved Akans would praise Nyankopong (erroneously written by the British as Accompong); libations would be poured to Asase Yaa (erroneously written as "Assarci") and Epo the sea god. Bonsam was referred to as the god of evil. The John Canoe festival was created in Jamaica and the Caribbean by enslaved Akans that sided with the man known as John Canoe. John Canoe was a man from Axim, Ghana he was an Akan from the Ahanta. He was a soldier for the Germans, until one day he turned his back on them for his Ahanta people and sided with Nzima and Asante troops, in order to take the area from the Germans and other Europeans. The news of his victory reached Jamaica and he was celebrated ever since that Christmas of 1708 he had first defeated German forces for Axim. Twenty years later his stronghold was broken by neighbouring Fante forces aided by the military might of the British. This resulted in the Ahanta, Nzima and Asante warriors becoming captives and being taken to Jamaica as prisoners of war, numbering some 20,000 men.
caption: The Yam ceremony was observed by Akan groups, drawn in the 19th century by Thomas Edward Bowdich
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