Good morning, good evening, or good afternoon depending on when you read this blog and prepare your lesson plans. Of course, you could be reading this post at midnight sometime in the future, so welcome, welcome, welcome. I am working through the History of Africa Series with Zeinab Badawi. This episode is called The Golden Stool and has a run time of 44:48.
Zeinab Badawi travels to Ghana and the Ivory Coast and learns about the Asante people and the Asante Kingdom. She learns about the history, myths, and legends of the Asante. The tour continues with a trip to the festival of Akwasidae. This festival features the king of the Asante, known as the Asantehene, and the king wears golden regalia. Then Zeinab learns about the Asante queen who led the resistance movement against the British. Finally, Zeinab learns about the golden stool. Zeinab kicks off this episode with a trip to a restaurant to learn more about the food and the mixing of cultures in Ghana. Sheet meets up with fashion designer Linda Ampah and her family. Linda goes through the foods and where these foods have their regional origins. Every region was represented with this meal. They talk about the different foods and the populations that developed these foods. After this culinary experience, Zeinab meets up with Professor Gauva and tours a small museum. They talk about the region, how people moved around, and about how tribes developed. The people would have mixed and the Asante people would descend from these people. The Asante are the best-known people in this region. Zeinab learns about the Asante people. The Asante people would have started as hunter-gatherers. Eventually, they would have settled into farms. It would have been a great task to clear the woods for farming. Zeinab finds herself being tangled in a vine and it helps her understand the task these ancient people had in clearing the forests. However, once the lands were cleared the people would have used every part of the tree. Zeinab tells the purpose of one of those trees: the palm tree. There would have been fruits and nuts for cooking and for oil, palm wine, and for roofing. She tries a palm nut to see if it is bitter. Zeinab continues her travels and talks about how settled communities developed into chiefdoms. The Asante would have been one of these chiefdoms and they established their settlements on the top of the hill. Kumasi was the heart of the Asante kingdom and was located on the edge of the rainforest. Zeinab meets with an Asante community leader to learn more about the Asante culture. The community leader also served in the military and so Zeinab takes the time to learn about his experience in the military. After this discussion, the pair go to a site that is important to the Asante people. The Asante grew rich from gold and trade. They also had a strong military and would dominate other tribes in the region. They were made up of a variety of tribes. Eventually, they would unite under one kingdom, under a military leader. To help unite the Asante people the religious establishment became his allies. It is here that the golden stool legend was born. The Golden Stool would become symbolic of Asante kingship. The golden stool is rarely seen and if it were to be destroyed the Asante kingdom would be destroyed. In addition to one king, there were lesser kings that act as advisors. Zeinab meets one of these advisors to learn more about the Asante kingdom. After this interview, Zeinab attends the Akwasidae. It is a festival where the Asante people dress their best and show off their finery. It is a celebration of Asante culture. They also celebrate the kings of the past. What else does this celebration symbolize? What does Zeinab continue to learn about the Asante people? Where else do Zeinab’s travels take her? Tune into the rest of this episode to find out. I rather liked the food section of this episode and it was a nice change of pace from the series. It was neat to learn about the Asante people. This series continues to deliver information on Africa’s history. I would put this episode on my list of documentaries to show to a history classroom.
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The purpose of this blog is to share information on what can be used in a classroom, private school, or home school setting as well as serve as a portfolio of my personal and professional work. The reviews are my opinions and should be treated as such. I just want to provide a tool for teachers to select documentaries for their classrooms. |