Kinship, ritual and the concept of political hierarchy among the asante

Some Chiefs Are "More Under" Than Others is a study of how political hierarchy is constructed among the Asante of Ghana, West Africa. It explores the principles that legitimate chieftancy and hierarchies among chiefly offices. It shows how the institution of chieftancy is connected to certain aspects of social structure and cosmology and how it is precisely because of this connectedness that chieftancy continues to be viable despite major changes in Ghanaian society. Through a rethinking of some of the classical theories on the Asante society the book introduces a model of the Asante polity that gives a fresh, more profound, picture of the relationship between social and political structures in Asante. The research is based on fieldwork conducted in Gahana.