Speaking for the Chief: Okyeame and the Politics of Akan Royal Oratory

Among the Akan of Ghana and in other areas of West Africa, royal speech is not articulated with a single voice, but is rather a composite of the chief's words and their artistic relay by the royal orator and principle diplomat, the okyeame. The author shows the art of okyeame to be not simply a genre of speaking but a speaking, but a set of cultural practices that mediate and reconstitute local notions of power, hegemony, and public discourse.


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