play videoTogbi Kumassah says Ghana is the Ewe word for Hyena
The words Ghana, China and Khartoum are all Ewe words. In effect, all these places were named by Ewes when the Anlos settled at some points there, in their migration.
This is per the narration of Togbi Kumassah, who is a learned historian and the Spokesperson to the Awoemefia; Togbi Sri III.
According to Togbi Kumassah, the Ewes, like
Read full articleevery other ethnic group, migrated from some lands to their current location; the Volta Region and established notable marks in the course of their journey.
The Anlos, under the Ewe sub-group, he says, have three stories they use to describe their origin. The first traces their roots to the lost continent, the second to the Hebrews and the last to the third son of Noah; Ham.
In connection to all these, Togbi noted that the Ewes named some places with elements from their language based on peculiar situations.
Ghana for example he said, was named after the Hyena which is Ga-ana in the Ewe dialect, under the Old Ghana Empire. China, which they settled at, at some point, according to him, also attained its name from the Ewe words; ‘Kyi-na’ which means ‘giver of rain’; after a deity who provided them with water in times of drought.
Then the capital of Sudan; Khartoum, according to them, is derived from the Ewe word; ‘Ke-tu-me’ which means ‘sand storm’.
Togbi Kumassah maintains that Khartoum was named after the sand storms that usually were experienced at the Sahara Desert.
Speaking on GhanaWeb’s People and Places show, he said;
“Kyina is a deity, so whenever there was drought in Anlo land, we prayed and made supplications to the China deity and it gives us rain. That was the deity we gave to the China people,” he said.
About Khartoum, Togbi had this to say,
“The second story was that the Ewes were part of the Hebrews so they stayed in Egypt together and then moved to Palestine.
They were there when Nebuchadnezzar conquered the Hebrews and brought them to Babylon but during the attack on Palestine, some of them escaped and the Ewes were those who escaped. When they escaped, they went back to Egypt and from Egypt, they moved to Sudan and they stayed in Khartoum. The word Khartoum is Ketume.
The Sahara Desert has the rocky part, the stony part and the sandy part. Ketum means sandstorm. ‘Ke’ is sand and storm ‘ahum’. Because there is a sandstorm, they said the sand is forming a storm so inside the sandstorm.”
This is why Ghana was named so, according to Togbi Kumassah,
“They [Ewes] were there when the old Ghana empire was established, and the word Ghana is an Ewe word; it’s the Hyena. There’s a drum we call Ghanaphu, that one, we don’t beat it, you just strike it with the talking stick and it sounds like the Hyena. The emblem is also that of the Hyena of the ancient Ghana Empire.”
