Qualla: Old Wenchi https://qualla.com/old-wenchi en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:17 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Old Wenchi https://qualla.com/old-wenchi Old Wenchi: Introduction https://qualla.com/old-wenchi/ The name has two explanations, and both say something about the people who chose it. One derives Wankyi from the wankyie, a pig-like animal said to have burrowed open the earth at the moment of emergence. The other parses it as wan akyi -- "beyond brightness" -- naming an ancestral realm inside a hole where light could not reach. Old Wenchi was a traditional Akan state in what is now Ghana's Bono Region, centered on successive capitals at Bonoso and Ahwene Koko. Its people produced gold, wove cloth that Dutch traders remarked upon in 1629, and maintained a clan system unlike any other in the Akan world. Archaeological excavations have confirmed what oral tradition always insisted: they were here a very long time.

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]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/c/n/z/old-wenchi-wp/ecnz-old-wenchi-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Old Wenchi: Out of the Earth https://qualla.com/old-wenchi/ According to Wenchi oral history, the ancestors of the Wankyi people emerged from a hole in the ground at Bonoso, near the source of the Ayusa stream. Their leader was the Queen-Mother Asase-ba-ode-nsee, whose title translates as "child of Mother Earth whose origins date to the b...

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]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/c/n/z/old-wenchi-wp/ecnz-old-wenchi-out-of-the-earth.mp3 0:06 2 full Old Wenchi: Gold, Cloth, and the Distant Sahara https://qualla.com/old-wenchi/ The earliest European reference to Wenchi appears on a 1629 Dutch map, which depicts the state as rich in gold and notes its cloth industry. By 1670, the geographer Olfert Dapper recorded Wenchi's reputation for textile manufacture. The earliest cloth was bark cloth, stripped fro...

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]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/c/n/z/old-wenchi-wp/ecnz-old-wenchi-gold-cloth-and-the-distant-sahara.mp3 0:06 3 full Old Wenchi: The Ashanti Surprise https://qualla.com/old-wenchi/ Wenchi's wealth in gold, beads, and regalia drew the attention of the expanding Ashanti Empire under Osei Tutu. Sometime between 1690 and 1715 -- historians disagree on the precise date -- the Ashanti attacked the capital of Ahwene Koko. One oral tradition says the Ashanti deceiv...

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]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/c/n/z/old-wenchi-wp/ecnz-old-wenchi-the-ashanti-surprise.mp3 0:06 4 full Old Wenchi: What the Ground Remembers https://qualla.com/old-wenchi/ Excavations at Bonoso in 2010, 2012, and 2013 confirmed what oral tradition had long asserted. Radiocarbon dating of charcoal from the deepest layers indicates habitation beginning in the 7th century CE and continuing into the 12th century -- placing Akan-speaking communities her...

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]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/c/n/z/old-wenchi-wp/ecnz-old-wenchi-what-the-ground-remembers.mp3 0:06 5 full