Sprinkling of the Sacred Corn(Abele) to all the 99(infinite) deities representing the Gadangme State.

Sprinkling of the Sacred Corn(Abele) to all the 99(infinite) deities representing the Gadangme State.

The Nungua Sacred Corn(Abele)

The journey commemorates the period of famine in the surrounding lands of Egypt which required families, tribes and groups to travel to Egypt from far and near in search of grains. It is important to recall that trekking was the major means of transportation, if not the only means, at the time, hence the reason the journey from Antrayie to Nungua is by foot.

The famine provides the background for the story of how Jacob and his extended family ended up in Egypt. The Old Testament, which could be described as collection of early Jewish history, indicated that there was famine in the lands, however there was abundance of grain in Egypt which made people from other lands travel to Egypt to purchase grains (Gen 42&43). Many families and tribes later removed themselves to Egypt to survive the famine. One of such families was Jacob, who was regarded as the Patriarch of the Israelites, and his sons who later became the twelve tribes of Israel (Gen 46), who had to relocate from their home in Canaan.

Other secular historians have advanced that more than one famine occurred in ancient Mediterranean world – which for almost 30 centuries (3100 BC to 332BC) was under the dominance of Egypt. Itamar Singer and Wilfred Watson, Ph.D. (1973) affirmed that towards the end of the Bronze Age, in the last decades of the 13th century and the early decades of the 12th century B.C, the Mediterranean world suffered decades-long series of droughts and famines which resulted in desperate need of food. Egypt was however, in a unique position to supply the region food since it depended on the annual inundation of the Nile rather than on rainfall.

One other famine is said to have happened under the reign of Ramesses the Great (1279-1213 BC). Itamar Singer, A Political History of Ugarit, indicated a letter from the Hittite Queen Puduhepa to this Pharaoh about a royal marriage between their two houses, where she notes that the Hittite princess was given animals as her dowry, and tells Ramesses II to quickly take possession of them himself, since “I have no grain in my lands” with which to take care of them.

The people of Ga Wor were part of the migratory GàDangme tribe as posited by major GàDangme historians. The origin of the GàDangme ethnic group and the dates of their various migrations have been a subject of controversy, since various scholars have given different versions. Some historians have maintained that the GàDangmes are descendants of the Israelites and therefore Jews. They postulated that the GàDangmes came specifically from the tribe of Gad and Dan with the attempt to etymologise the tribe’s name Ga Dangme as Gad and Dan. Other historians also asserted that the GàDangmes were part of the ancient Nubian Dynasty or the Kushite Empire which once fell under the dominance of the ancient Egyptian empire just like Canaan.

——some Aspects of the Ancient Gadangmes——