Associations and Agents in the Ritual Critique of Power and Behavior: Nzema Kundum Avudwene Ceremony.

Kundum is the main annual festival of the Akan Nzema and Ahanta in the Western Region of Ghana. Across Ghana, festivals mobilize different modes of ritual speech. These include liturgical pronouncements, invocations, mythological narratives, singing, fundraising speeches, satirical comments, interfaith sermons, and political speeches at festival durbars. This contribution to the Journal of Ritual Studies discusses the Kundum festival song performance (avudwsne); it expands actor-network theory (ANT) by tracing associations and agents in the avudwene ritual. The article describes the actors and the structured division of artistic work that produces the concepts and criticisms expressed in avudwsne. It makes two main arguments. First, that the Kundum festival can be understood as a ritual network of humans and other-than-human agents. Second, that the Kundum festival song performance is a partial critique of behavior and political leadership. An initial purpose of the festival was to influence other-than-human agents to refrain from doing evil (for example, inflicting famine or disease) and instead to work towards the good of society and the natural environment (for example, promoting the fertility of lands and rivers). Kundum was traditionally intended to resolve food shortages in communities through rituals such as libations, purification, sacrifices, invocations, and drum-dances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]