Mepe Traditional Area, its traditional calendar, and sacred days

Introduction
Globally, people or various cultures mark several circumstances, events and time differently with days, months and years. The 13-state Tongu Eʋes and for that matter the people of Mepe Traditional Area are no exception. The 13 states or traditional areas of Tongu are 1. Agave, 2. Bakpa, 3. Battor, 4. Dorfor, 5. Fivie, 6. Fodzoku, 7. Mafi, 8. Mepe, 9. Sokpoe, 10. Tefle, 11. Torgorme, 12. Volo and 13. Vume. The traditional area listing herein is merely based on alphabetical rather than any order of importance or chronology even though Fievie Traditional Area is said to be the first to arrive in Tongu from Notsie. Each Tongu state or traditional area has its own paramount chief and communal deities they worship on specified sacred days.

Put together, the 13 Tongu states have about 96 communal deities or du trɔwo, with Dorfor alone having the highest number, boasting of about 22 communal deities followed by Battor people who worship about 18 communal deities. These deities are called Tongu Dayiwo or Daliwo. Whereas the Koklofu deity of Dorfor has been acclaimed to be the foremost leader of Tongu Dayiwo, the Korlie deity of Mafi has been noted to be the chief linguist and spokesperson for deities in Tongu. Mepe has five clans namely Dzagbaku, Adzigo, Sevie, Gbanvie and Akorvie. Among these clans of Mepe, Dzagbaku has the highest number (6) of the deities of Mepe. Adzigo has two whereas Sevie, Gbanvie and Akorvie have one communal deity each.

Acknowledgement
This historical and educative piece is the result of narratives to me by my dad, the late Torgbe Dedzi Ngorgbier Korto and my further research in this area of interest even after his demise. I must equally admit that I sought for some confirmatory clarifications from Ametsie Awusa Foe Amedzro of Mepe Dzagbaku, Torgbe Aklakpa Ngorgbier of Mepe Sevie, Dorty Dome of Mepe Sevie Plakuƒeme and from Torgbe Maawu Ngorgbier Lawoe of Battor Gblenvie. I similarly gathered other pertinent information from George Padmore Research Library in Accra.

Methodology
In gleaning relevant information necessary for this write up to educate the interested reading public of Mepe and perhaps Tongu as a whole, I conveniently adopted the phenomenological approach which primarily identifies phenomena through the perceptions of certain actors of the phenomena. Accordingly, Aziaku & Akyea (2012) defined phenomenology as the study of a phenomenon from the perspective of an individual or certain identified groups of people in a given setting.

Deity and Ancestral Worship at Mepe
Prior to the inception of the Abrahamic religions (Christianity and Islam) at Mepe, the people of Mepe have been observing their sacred days or days for traditional worship in the shrines of their ancestral or communal deities with which they migrated to their present abode. These are the respective clan deities that are collectively owned by the Mepe Traditional Area hence they are referred to as Mepe trɔwo.

Similar sacred days are set aside for consultation of the spirits of the ancestors known as aƒedome Ŋɔliwo who are also addressed as Yɔxɔwo. The people of Mepe refer to the netherworld as Yɔme hence Yɔxɔwo literally means the dwellers of Yɔme. Basically, therefore, the traditional sacred days of Mepe are strictly linked to the worship or commemorative days for the communal deities (Trɔwo or Etrɛwo), ancestors (Yɔxɔwo) and ancestral stools (Tɔgbezikpoewo).

The deities of Mepe are tabulated below by clan ownership, assigned gender and sacred/worship days while frantic attempts have been made to explain each sacred day in turn for ease of understanding of the reader.

Whereas Azaƒokpe, Dzoxɔ and Golodzɛ are war deities, Dedzi, Dali, Aklakpa and Adido are fertility deities among other functions. Nyaŋakpoe has been considered as the wife of the Dzoxɔ deity and at the same time, Nyaŋakpoe has been deemed as a wise counsel deity hence it is often consulted during traditional arbitrations. In passing a final judgment in a litigation for example, the arbitrators retreat into caucus and usually return saying that having consulted Nyaŋakpoe, the judgement is so-and-so.

Deities such as Dedzi, Dali, Maawu, Aklakpa and Adido have both sacred forests (mangroves) and shrines while Golodzɛ and Azaƒokpe have shrines only. In case of Dzoxɔ and his wife (Nyaŋakpoe), they have sacred mangroves only. They do not have shrines separate from their mangroves. The Dzoxɔ deity’s sacred mangrove is located at Adzigo near Aƒegame. Dzoxɔ is the only deity that has his sacred mangrove within the Mepe town itself. Nyaŋakpoe’s sacred mangrove is located near Degorme along the Aklamaɖɔ creek. Maawu, Dali and Dedzi’s sacred mangroves are located by the Volta River (Amu) overbank of the Mepe township whereas the Aklakpa sacred mangrove is located along the Aklakpa River. The sacred forest for the Adido deity can be found at Adidoveŋu, across the Volta River from Mepe town. Adidoveŋu is located between Mepe-Dudevi and Mepe-Horkpo.

Whereas the Vivimeza (the errand deity of Mawu Ozogblo) is located very close to Aɖabaƒeme (Dapaƒeme) outside the Maawu Ozogblo shrine, Delikpe, (the errand deity for Dedzi) is located within the Dedzi shrine at Mepe Dzagbaku. The worship days for Maawu Ozogblo and Dedzi are the worship days for Vivimeza and Delikpe respectively.

Sacred or Traditional Worship Days of Mepe

Just like many Eʋe-speaking communities in Ghana, Mepe has a four-day or a five-day per week system of counting the days of the week based on the sacred days of the aforementioned deities. The exception in Mepe, however, is that the sacred day for the hunting deity (Ade or Adevɔ) is every Thursday, whether or not that Thursday falls on any of the sacred days of Mepe.

The traditional sacred days observed at Mepe are Anyrɔgbe, Agasigbe, Aƒenɔegbe (also called Asidome or Ŋɔlisigbe), Agbletoegbe (also called Asimlɛ-last day), then the count begins again with Anyrɔgbe. As such, the sacred days alternate and fall on different weekdays from Sunday (Korsidagbe) through Monday (Dzodagbe) to Saturday (Mimlidagbe). No sacred day has been assigned only one ordinary weekday on the Julian or Gregorian Calendar. Again, Anyrɔgbe, Agasigbe and Ŋɔlisigbe follow one another closely. For example, Friday July 12, 2024, is Anyrɔgbe and the two ensuing days, Saturday, July 13, 2024 and Sunday, July 14, 2024 will be Agasigbe and Ŋɔlisigbe respectively.

Mostly, some farmers of Mepe refer to Anyrɔgbe as Kpodzisigbe, denoting that it is the non-farming day for the people of Mepe-Adidoveŋu and its environs. These are the days Obianim (1975) described as typical farming and non-farming days of the Eʋe people. As depicted in Table 1, each deity of Mepe has its worship day within those five days.

Morphologically, Agbletoegbe means agble (farm) + toe (start) + gbe (day). It is thus the working day of the week for the Eʋe farmer, so it also means “farming activities resume on that day.”

Accordingly, Agbletoegbe is the first farming day of the week on which every farmer of Mepe is expected to go to farm. In the olden days, a person who fails to go to farm or work on Agbletoe without a tangible reason is deemed to be a lazy person.

Anyrɔgbe and the other sacred days fall after every four-day interval and at Mepe, Anyrɔgbe is the worship or sacred day for most of the communal deities except Dedzi and Aklakpa whose collective sacred day is Agasigbe. People who live around Duɖevi, Adidoveŋu and their contiguous communities abstain or are required by taboo to abstain from farm activities on Anyrɔgbe, largely because it is the sacred day for the Adido deity whose sacred mangrove is located in that part of the Mepe Traditional Area. It surmises that those overbank communities that abstain from farming on Anyrɔgbe are free to farm on Agasigbe and other days.

Agasigbe is the second worship or sacred day for the deities. It comes immediately after Anyrɔgbe. For example, July16, 2024 will be Anyrɔgbe and the following day, July 17, 2024 will be Agasigbe. Perhaps I should reiterate that Aƒenɔegbe, also called Ŋɔlisigbe comes immediately after every Agasigbe. Suffice to say that knowing how to calculate Anyrɔgbe and Agasigbe makes it easy for the individual to count the ensuing sacred days of a month.

Mindful of the fact Agasigbe is the last sacred day in the week for deity worship, the day ensuing Agasibe is set aside for consulting or pacifying the ancestors, or ancestral spirits simply referred to as Ŋɔli, hence Ŋɔlisigbe literally means a sacred day for ancestral spirits.

To be able to count or calculate the sacred days with ease, it is necessary to know the coincided market days in the week especially those popular markets such as Ho, Dabala, Akatsi, Agbozume and Sogakope that count the days in tandem with the sacred days discussed earlier. Table 2 simplifies the count.

Suffice to say that Agbletoe falls between Ŋɔlisigbe and Anyrɔgbe.

Using Table 3, I have chosen to equally demonstrate in a Gregorian calendar format, Mepe’s sacred days in August 2024 because the Mepe Afenorto Festival is celebrated in August and the aftermath of the festival durbar is marked with several traditional sacrifices that are supposed to be appropriately offered on these sacred days. As such, this calendar is appropriate for the 2024 celebrations. This year, Mepe Afenorto Festival Durbar falls on August 10, 2024 which is Agasigbe.

Conclusion and Dedication
It is envisaged that with this piece, those who are not too familiar with the sacred days of Mepe will now know. Also, I hope ardently that traditional worshippers who knew about the sacred days but could not calculate them accurately should be able to do so now after reading this article.

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