DODE AKAIBI (Reigned CA. 1642-Ca.1648) Female Ruler of the Gã.28 .1

In the mid-seventeenth century the Gả people had a female monarch, Dode Akaibi. She was the daughter of an Obutu (Awutu) King, Wyete (Wiete). The Obutu like other Guan- speaking states of the Gold Coast had strong cultural affinities with the Gã. Eventually Akaibi became the regent after the death of her husband Mănpon Okāi because her son, Okãi Koi was a minor. Mänpon Okāi had been killed by unknown assassins and soon after the king’s death, his wife, Akaibi secured the stool for herself and her young son, despite having older stepsons who were equally if not better qualified for the position. Gã oral traditions remember Akaibi’s reign as

of female rulers according to historian Harry Odamtten was a universal trope not limited to the Ga people. Perhaps Akaibi’s “wickedness” was less about her insolence or iniquities and rather a reflection of her inversion of gender roles and demanding tasks. In one legend, Akaibi supposedly ordered the killing of all old men. And yet an old man was alive and apparently challenged Akaibi about the folly of asking that her palace be roofed with clay. Consequently, Akaibi constituted “seven elders as councilors to advise the King and chiefs” in every town” of her realm.
This council of seven elders may have led to the creation of the Ga Akwashon (Mfantse: ekuuw esoun) council of seven

elders. The fact th. sought the wise cou old men to act as a ci the monarch’s powers only contradicts the dominant narrative but presents an important but suppre ssed memory of her reign. ond of the important kpele rituar songs of composed sometime/ater the Akwamu sack of Ayawaso (“Great Accra”) in 1677-80, Akaibi ‘s reign was n stalgitally invoked in the face o nu enslavement and misrult in an era of Atlantic slave raiding on the southeastern Gold Coast:
All of Dode’s children h>ve been snatched Lo, you have takerr all of Ga You let uncircumcise£ [Akan] people take all of Ga,”