My Name Is My Soul

To have a name is to have a soul (Ɔkra), and to have a soul is to exist as a conscious living being. Meaning, every soul has a day of ascendency (Krada) as an extrinsic agency with a unique name (Kradzin) and characteristic attributes leading to a spiritual life during adulthood. As an extrinsic phenomenon, the soul survives death not as a human being, but rather as a spiritual personality called Ɔsaman. It is this posthumous abstract personality (Ɔsaman) that is recalled by name and remembered periodically by the Akan and kindred African peoples. Far from being ancestor worship, the ancestors are rather remembered (Nkai) in all matters of state. That is, the Akan recall and remember their resurrected dead (Nsamanfo) and the Ancestors (Nananom Nsamanfo) as though they were still living members of the community. Indeed, Africans worship souls, but it is the eternal souls of God, the Abosom (Gods and Goddesses), that Africans and Black diasporic Africans worship directly as custodians of the world at the behest of God.