The Golden Stool (Sika Dwa)
The Sika Dwa, the Golden Stool of the Asante, is a gold-covered wooden stool kept unseated upon as the soul, the sunsum, of the Asante nation, the supreme emblem of its sovereignty. Tradition holds that in the late seventeenth century the priest Okomfo Anokye called it down from the sky, and it settled onto the lap of the first king, Osei Tutu, proving his divine right; since then the stool has never been allowed to touch the ground, and a blackened stool commemorates each departed king. When a British governor demanded the stool in 1900, the Asante rose in the war led by the queen mother Yaa