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Adwenadze: present-day descendants are Yaw Donkoh's ebusua
on Odompem, and Nkwa Nye Nyame's ebusua on Ampaah;
Kona: present-day descendants are Kwesi Tanyi's ebusua on
Dawurampon;
- Nsona: present-day descendants are Kodjo Abodom's ebusua
on Amoanda. 19
These five original Dunkwa ebusua, known as the Nnamfodo Mba,
'the Children ofthe Masters', lived in hamlets or villages on their respective
lands where they also buried their own dead. When later, in Yamfo Paintsir' s
time (ca. 1790-1820) they were forced to leave their villages of origin and to
live together at Dunkwa, the cemeteries remained. They are the
distinguishing mark of Nnamfodo lands: a patch of untouched forest,
known as epow, win the middle of the land where the Christianized family
members no longer chose to be buried. Although there is an epow on Ofu
land (Ahwiawom);the Aboratze ebusuaofNana Owiredu does not count
itself among the Nnamfodo, the obvious reason for this being that they hold
the land by virtue of the Stool of Kyeame (Linguist) which is heritable in
the family.
Be that as it may, we have every reason to assume that in the 17th
century the territory of what would once become Dunkwa was made up of
six major lands: i.e. 1. Asukwa (Twidan); 2. Odompem (Adwenadze); 3.
Dawurampon (Kona); 4. Amoanda (Nsona); 5. Ampaah (Adwenadze) and
6. Ahwiawom/Ofu (Aboradze). Each of these lands was then much larger
than it is today; in the intervening period they have in one way or another
been subjected to a process of sub-division and separation.
The history of this process, by which some lands have been more
affected than others, cannot be completely reconstructed. On the contrary,
much escapes us and many details can only be guessed at. It might well be,
for example, that Tease and Amia were once parts of Odompem and that
we just missed the opportunity to interview elders who might have
remembered the events that had made them into separate lands. In the same
way, Kweku Nsarkoh's Kurado land might not, as we now suggest, have
been split off from Ahwiawom/Ofu but from Odompem. Even so, we know
quite definitely that some of the present-day lands have at one time been
part of one ofthe six original Dunkwa lands while we also have more or less
precise indications of how they become separated.
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