Ghana’s festivals remember journeys and hardship — in Winneba, rival warrior companies armed only with sticks and clubs race to catch a live bushbuck for the god Otu, and in Accra the Ga people spend weeks in silence before “hooting at hunger” with drums, dancing and kpokpoi.
Photo: Fquasie, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The two festivals in this atlas come from Ghana’s southern coast and both look back to the migrations that brought their peoples there. Aboakyer, held by the Effutu people of Winneba on the first Saturday in May, commemorates their safe arrival from the old Western Sudan empire. Homowo, the harvest festival of the Ga people of Greater Accra, remembers a famine they endured on their way and is celebrated town by town between August and September.
The Ga people of Accra remember a famine by laughing at it: after weeks in which drumming and noise are banned, chiefs sprinkle kpokpoi — steamed maize with palm oil — through the streets, and the drums return for “hooting at hunger”.
August – September 2026Approximate window
On the first Saturday of May, the two Asafo warrior companies of Winneba set out at dawn armed only with sticks and clubs, and race to bring back a live bushbuck for their chief — a sacrifice to the god Otu that, according to tradition, once demanded a human life.
May 1, 2027Calculated