INTERMEDIATE SPACE

View from the last row of houses toward the bush, across the intermediary space. Kami, 1972 (XVI)

The two realms of Village and Wilderness are often separated by an intermediary space. Located at the edge of the village, this barrier serves as a protection, not from people or animals, but rather a mystical protection for the village against the dangers and powers which dwell in the bush. This space also marks the  end of the village, the realm of man, and the beginning of the wild.

In the Asante village this zone was where burials occurred, menstruating women were housed, garbage was disposed, and latrines were located. Today particularly in urban centers, some of these activities have been modified but this space is still the place where certain deities and other spiritual entities reside, where the ancestral grove is located, where certain shrines are placed, and where protective rituals may be held, just as in former times (I)

The Kami added additional protection by planting agwal, a thorny shrub. This was thickly planted in a ring around the village during the guerrilla war they fought with the French between 1904 and 1911. Narrow passageways through it, known only to the villagers, allowed them to escape quickly and to fire upon the Europeans from the safety of its tangles (XVI).

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