Medial Deities and Relational Meanings

Abstract To date, few phenomenological studies analyze African religions at the level of epistemology. This essay engages in such an analysis with a focus on the cosmological tradition associated with the Akan of southern Ghana. I argue that medial Akan deities can be understood as constitutive elements of a grammar of knowing, the latter designating a mode of meaning construction serving as a formative component of an epistemology rooted in the significantly relational idea of sunsum (spirit). I argue further that Akan conceptions of the abosom (medial deities) in conjunction with certain attendant ritual observances and practices signal three epistemological principles that can be described as follows: (1) knowing as a function of regular contact with the spiritual world (asamando), (2) knowing as a heterogeneous, paradoxical experience marked by both power and limitation, and (3) knowing as an ethical mandate.