On Wednesday, I went to the town
of Keta, here in the Volta Region of Ghana. The story that I am going to tell
today is most precious. One of the most precious days of my life. The story
begins with my name. My mother named me after Maya Angelou, the well - known
Black American writer, poet and actress. I received my first Maya Angelou book
when I was six years old. It was a segment from her autobiography I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings called Mrs. Flowers. I also met Dr. Angelou that
same year. My mother and one of my aunties took me to George Mason University
where she was scheduled to speak. We arrived late, which turned out to be a
good thing. Just as we were walking up to the large double doors, a long dark blue
limousine glided to a stop in front of the entrance. Out stepped the Maya Angelou dressed in a luxurious fur coat. My mother
introduced her to me as my ‘name sake.’ She scooped me up in her arms in a generous embrace. I remember her mink coat and her wide smile. During her show she
performed her poems and others from the classic Black writers. I remember the
Langston Hughes poem Images that she
acted out with dramatic but graceful movements…If she could dance naked under palm trees then she would know she
said, with her arms extended up, moving in gentle rhythms. She autographed my
little Mrs. Flowers book that
evening.
When I was a little older I read
through her first autobiography and eventually read all of them as I grew into
my teens. Many are familiar with her work and her life, but I will explain her
story briefly, since it figures so prominently in our visit to Keta. Maya Angelou was
raised in a small Arkansas town called Stamps by her grandmother Annie
Henderson, along with her brother Bailey. She said that anthropologists have
cited Stamps for its many Africanisms among the Black population that lives
there. In her teen years, she lived with her mother in California, in the San
Francisco area. At seventeen she went out on her own with an infant son. Her
autobiographical series chronicles her experiences that took her from operating
a train car, working as a creole fry cook, becoming a dancer, then singer, then
actress, then writer. She toured Europe with the original company of Porgy and
Bess in the 1950s. James Baldwin was one of her best friends and she worked as
an actress in New York City with Cicely Tyson, Roscoe Lee Brown, Jr., Lou
Gosset and James Earl Jones. She became deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement as the Coordinator of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian
Leadership Conference Office at 125th street and 7th
Avenue in Harlem.
Maya Angelou lived in Accra, Ghana in 1963
and was here when W.E.B. Dubois passed away the night of the March on Washington.
It is her profound relationship to the African Continent, and to Ghana
specifically, that led me to the town of Keta. She chronicles her time in Ghana
in her fifth autobiographical installment entitled All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes. She worked at the
University of Ghana in Legon and became good friends with Afua Sutherland, the
woman who started Panafest. During
her last month in Ghana, someone offered to take her to the Volta Region, where
I am now. Her host explained that Keta
is located between a lagoon and the Atlantic Ocean. A beautiful location, yes,
but the town was slowly being eroded by the sea. When she heard this sad news,
she said she felt upset like she was hearing of the death of an old friend. As
they approached Keta, the car moved forward to cross a bridge. Maya became inexplicably
terrified and refused to cross. Her host asked if she had heard anything about
the bridge. When she said no, he told her that the bridge had blown down five
times and many had lost their lives. She recognized that there was no way she could have had
knowledge of the bridge. As they walked through a narrow alley leading to the
market in the center of town, a woman stopped her. Maya Angelou was six feet
tall, this woman was just a little taller.
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| Photo of Young Maya Angelou |
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| Young Woman Sitting on Bench in Front of Fort Prinzinstein |
The woman began shouting and
pointing her finger in Maya’s face. She tried to speak to her, and even apologize, in Fanti, Twi, French and English, but this was Ewe land. The woman would not
be appeased. When Maya saw her face, she was the splitting image of her
paternal grandmother who raised her. The woman was speaking in a low - timbred
voice identical to hers. She later called this the ‘ewe voice box.’ The woman
continued to speak to her harshly until her host intervened and explained that
she was Black American. The woman refused to believe her until she showed an
old California driver’s license. All at once the woman placed her hands on top of her
head, interlocking her fingers, and began to rock from side to side weeping. Her
host explained that it was the way Ewes mourn. Maya said that when she or her
brother assumed this position, her grandmother would take time to uncross their
hands and said that it was a sign of bad luck. The woman led Maya to her market
stall and swept all of her vegetables into a basket, offering her more if she
wanted. She then led her to other women at the market who repeated the same gestures
of mourning and giving. When she asked, her host explained the situation. Maya
reminded the women of someone…people they never had the chance to meet. He
explained that during the slave trade era, every adult in Keta was captured and
sold into slavery. The children got away and were raised by families in
neighboring communities. When they grew up, they went back to Keta and resettled the
town. They told their children, who told their children, about those who were
stolen away. They knew by her face, her height and her voice that Maya Angelou
was a descendant of those who were taken. I believe it was by the hand of God
that Maya found her ancestral homeland. She found her long lost family. I think
this is profound. When I read this, I prayed to be able to go to Keta…to see
it for myself. God answered this prayer. I checked google maps before I
arrived. Keta is only one hour away from Dzodze.
My friend and I made off for Keta
at 3 in the afternoon. Our taxi driver and guide really took care of us. The
drive took about an hour from Dzodze. We dozed off and woke up to a beautiful
scene – the African side of the Atlantic Ocean. The Gold Coast. On the left was
the crashing waves of the sea. On the right a lagoon, rolling southward with gentle waves. It was
beautiful.
Keta is no longer the town that
Maya Angelou visited in 1963. The sea has eroded about 3 miles of the town. The
market that Maya visited and the bridge she traveled over is now beneath the
ocean. The government has built a rocky barrier to try to stop the erosion. If
you want to see Keta, try to make it as soon as possible. Our driver stopped in
front of a fort. Fort Prinzinstein. It is a slave trading fort built by the
Danish in 1784. About a third of it has been eroded by the sea. We walked along
the beach taking photographs of the castle. These macabre words were painted on
the back wall of a dungeon facing the ocean. Until the lion has his historian, the hunter will always be a hero.
That is what I have become. A historian for the Lion.
We took a few more photos and
walked to the front of the castle. Just then the caretaker pulled up in a taxi.
He offered to give us a tour, even though it was after hours. I have no doubt that this is the
castle where Maya Angelou’s great - great grandmother was held captive. As he
began the tour he mentioned names of European nations that I didn’t expect…Sweden,
Norway and Denmark. Do not let European countries fool you with their
descriptions of minimized participation in the slave trade and ‘early’
abolition on Wikipedia. Every single one was enriched through the trans - Atlantic
slave trade. There are 42 slave castles on the coast of Ghana alone. I was
shocked to see a fort built by the Danes, but there is was. I recently saw a
movie about the prince of Denmark who marries a ‘normal’ white American farm
girl. The wealth depicted in the movie came in part from the Danish run slave
castle that stood before me.
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| Togbe's Royal Stool |
Apparently, the Togbe (chief) of
Keta allowed the land to be sold to the Danes. They were of course very unhappy
when they built the castle with forced labor to start slave trading and launched a war against
them. The Danes killed the Togbe and took his royal stool and cane. Both are
still in the castle. Many other original artifacts were there. The large iron
pot where Banku was made to keep the captives alive. (Banku is a combination of
corn flour and cassava dough that the Ewes often eat with soup. It is a little
like fufu.)
I stumbled over an iron chain
that was nailed in the middle of the floor. In order to prevent the captives
from escaping, the captors would not bring in fresh water. Instead they would
pour it in a shallow gutter that is carved into the floor. The desperate
captives would have to lap up the water with their tongues. The lower dungeon
facing the ocean turned out to be holding place for captives who were deemed
especially strong, rebellious or difficult. Our tour guide pointed out a place
in the floor where the captives tried to dig their way out. I could only
imagine the desperation that would lead them to attempt that…the broken and
bleeding fingernails…the blisters, cuts and broken fingers. Fort Prinzinstein
was horrible. But the experience of visiting was beautiful at the same time. The
rest of the group was visiting a shrine. Allyson and I chose not to participate
in that. We chose instead to honor a grandmother of our African – American nation
by coming to her homeland and honoring the experiences of our ancestors who
suffered and died there.
Our guide told us that some of
the captives were taken to North and South Carolina. Even before he said it I
could see it in the structure of the building. Fort Prinzinstein is made with a
building style called ‘tabby.’ This is the same building style of the Gullah
and Geechee of the Georgia and South Carolina Sea Islands. It is a mixture of
oyster shells, sand and lime. Our guide said that this is also the Ewes
traditional building style. We are African through and through.
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| West African and Gullah 'Tabby' Traditional Building Style |
At the end of the tour, we were
able to purchase keep sakes. I bought a painting titled Why, wood carvings and beads. They must have been in that small office
for over ten years, since Fort Prinzinstein is not a major tourist attraction. They are precious to me. To be able to see the family origins of Maya Angelou, my namesake, is precious to me. I will never forget Keta…the beauty of the
lagoon, the poetry of the ocean and the tragedy of all that went on with the
slave castle that still marks our lives on the both sides of the Atlantic.
