Asase Yaa

The earth herself

Rattray's Asante informants in the early 1920s described Asase Yaa as the second great power after the sky god: the earth that bears crops and receives the dead. Unlike the abosom, she had no priests and no shrine; she was addressed in the libation poured on the ground at the start of prayers, and in the invocation that names the sky god first and the earth second. Her name is the word for earth joined to a day-name: Yaa for a female born on Thursday, which is why Thursday was kept as her rest day and farming on it was avoided in many Asante communities. In Fante areas, where her day is Friday, she is Asase Efua.

Earth, the dead, and truth

Because the dead are buried in her, the earth is closely tied to the ancestors, and she was invoked when land was cleared, graves were dug, and oaths were sworn. Rattray records that permission was asked of the earth before breaking ground. Some modern writers describe her as Nyame's wife; that pairing is widely repeated but is a relationship of complementary powers, sky and earth, more than a narrative marriage with its own myths.

A living practice

Pouring libation to the earth remains a common part of Akan ceremony in Ghana today, including at civic events, which is the clearest continuity with the tradition Rattray recorded.