TheAkan people (aKwa group ofWest Africa) appear to have used a traditional system oftimekeeping based on a six-day week (known asnnanson "seven-days" viainclusive counting). The Gregorianseven-day week is known asnnawɔtwe (eight-days). The combination of these two system resulted in periods of 40 days, known asadaduanan (meaning "forty days").^[1]

The composition or construction of the Adaduanan cycle appears to be based on an older six-day week.^[1]The six-day week is referred to asNnanson (literally seven-days) and reflects the lack ofzero in the numbering systems; the last day and the first day are both included when counting the days of a week.

The seven-day week is referred to asNnawɔtwe (literally eight days). LikeNnanson the last day and the first day are both included when counting the days of a week.

When the six-day week is counted side-by-side with the seven-day week it takes a total of 42 days to reach all combinations. The result of these combinations is shown below; the fourdabɔne are in italics:

The 42-day cycle shown here, as recorded inKwahu, is the same recorded for theBrong (i.e.,Bono Techiman) a state northwest of theAsante.^[2]

Within the Adaduanan cycle are found four special days collectively calleddabɔne (bɔne, evil);Fɔdwo,Awukudae,Fofi andAkwasidae.

The 42-day cycle may be thought to begin onFɔdwo and the other threedabɔne follow in nine-day intervals;Awukudae on the tenth day,Fofi on the nineteenth day, andAkwasidae on the twenty-eighth day. It takes a further 14 days to complete the Adaduanan.

WhenKurow (fromkurow, town) of the six-day week coincides with a Wednesday of the seven-day week (onKurow-Wukuo), or with a Sunday of theseven-day week (onKurow-Kwasi), the twodabɔne most closely related to stool rites,Awukudae andAkwasidae (Wuko-Adae andKwasi-Adae) are celebrated.

These two 'bad' days, related to death, are calledadae (perhaps deriving fromda, sleep,dae, slept or died or dream andeye, well [sic], implying that the ancestors should lie comfortably in their death), and are closely associated with politico-ritual symbols ofgerontocracy sanctified or sanctioned byancestor veneration.

No funerals may be held and no news of death may reach the ears of achief (the living shrine of his ancestors) whilelibations of alcohol and offerings of food are made to the blackened stools (the permanent physical shrines of those ancestors) on anadae.

WhenFo of the six-day week coincides with a Monday or Friday, the twodabɔne most closely related totutelary spirits,Fɔdwo andFofi, are celebrated. They are closely associated with medico-religious symbols or purification and the intervention ofanthropomorphic spirits inhabiting natural objects such as rivers and caves.

TheAsante sent messengers toBrong (i.e.,Techiman) when in doubt about when to hold any festival, for the Brong were 'keepers of the King's calendar.'

These four 'holidays' are not complete vacations from all labour. No farming may be carried out on anydabɔne but work per se is not banned. Hunting and gathering are usually permitted and the people may go to their farms to carry home firewood or food reaped the previous day, so long as no weeding of farms is done. Often communal labour is performed on thosedabɔne which are not filled with ritual and ceremonial activities.

Apart from the four standarddabɔne, some gods may celebrate other days of the cycle, for example, the god Burukung, who was the senior god of the Guan^[3][4][5] on theKwawuAfram Plains, and now the chief of theKwawuabosom (tutelary spirits), since the sixteenth centuryAkan take-over ofKwawu (the principal shrine being a large, strikinginselberg on the northern slopes of theKwawu escarpment), celebrates the principal rites onKwadwo (the Monday followingAkwasidae).

The cult of Akonnedi, god of Late (Larteh) in Akwapim, which has branches inKwawu, observes its most frequent public rites onNkyi-Mene orMemenada Dapaa (the day prior toAkwasidae).

Various other gods inKwawu are honoured on various other days in the 42-day cycle.

The Adaduanan (This means 40 days, and 40 x 9 = 360, and the 9th Akwasidae is celebrated as Odwira, being the end of the past year and the beginning of the new year. Because Akwasidae must be on Sunday the 365 days occurs after the Odwira) do not precisely comprise the annual calendar, because nine cycles total 378 days instead of 3651⁄4. Eight cycles yield only 336 days. Annually celebrated rites of the different Akan groups, such as thefirst yam eating festival,Odwira (ablution) orAfahye (public festival), are therefore celebrated each year on different days of the year. The priests of the various gods, in consultation with the various gods and ancestors, determine which Adaduanan cycle to choose for the annual rites, usually depending upon the ripening of the crops. Any series of annual rites is observed on the same days of the Adaduanan each year, although not on the same days of the year as reckoned by theGregorian calendar.

The various Adaduanan cycles within the year are given a number of appellations, which are not the same from place to place, and of course never quite the same from year to year, since there are fewer than nine and more than eight cycles in any one year.OpƐpon (OpƐ, harmatan, dry season;pon, supreme) for example, more or less corresponds to the Adaduanan which appears about January–February in the middle of the dry season. Every three years or so, one of the nine named Adaduanan is omitted from the year because of the extra thirteen days gained when observing nine cycles a year. The names of the Adaduanan are therefore flexible and vary over time and cline.

Today some of the names for the Adaduanan cycles have been arbitrarily applied to theGregorian calendar of twelve months by some Akan scholars, although there is no traditional basis for such a translation. For example,Opepon is now used for the Akan word for January even though in the traditional Akan calendar there is no concept exactly corresponding to the Roman month of January (Janus the god facing the past and future). The beginning and end of each Akan year tends to be the various yam festivals celebrated around August or September.

Thelunar cycle and 28-day month are not carefully observed, except by the coastal Akan who are interested in tides as they affect fishing. Still, the month is known asbosome. It consists of 28 days rather than the 30 or 31 days of theGregorian calendar. Threebosome make two Adaduanan. Since the arrival of Swiss missionaries from Basel in the early nineteenth century, Christian Akan scholars have tended to 'Akanize' the Roman calendar rather than observe, analyse and explain the Akan calendar based on Adaduanan.

It is quite easy to calculate the Akan calendar from theGregorian calendar once a few keys are known. Understandably there is no equivalent in English to the six-day week. The seven-day week of the English and Akan calendars are, however, equivalent, with the suffix-da (day) added to the names of the days in the above list (Sunday isKwasida, Saturday isMemenada, and so on). Every second year or so Easter occurs on anAkwasidae. In 1978, there are nineAkwasidae, celebrated on 8 January, 19 February, 2 March, 14 May, 25 June, 30 July, 6 August, 17 September, 29 October and 10 December, that is every sixth Sunday. The first fourdabɔne of 1978 wereAkwasidae (8 January),Fodwo (23 January),Awukudae (1 February), andFofi (10 February). Otherdabɔne may be calculated infinitely from these by adding or subtracting six-week intervals.

The synthesis of a six-day week and a seven-day week, forming the 42-day Adaduanan cycle may be added to numerous other items of evidence to support a theory of the origins and development of Akan culture which suggests that it is based on cultural diffusion and a compromise of observances having diverse origins.

• Boahen, K. Adu 1966 'The origins of the Akan,' Ghana Notes and Queries 9:3-10.
• Busia, K. A. 1951 The Position of the Chief in the Modern Political System of Ashanti. Gold Coast Government, reprinted for Oxford University Press by Cass, London.
• Fortes, M. 1963 'The Submerged Descent Line in Ashanti,' in I. Shapira (ed.) Studies in Kinship and Marriage. Royal Anthropological Institute, London
• 1963 'Ethnological Notes on the Distribution of Guan Languages,' Journal of African Languages 2(3).
• 1966 'The Akan and the North,' Ghana Notes and Queries 9: 18-24.
• 1968 'The Myth of a State.' Journal of Modern African Studies 6(4): 461-73.
• 1963 'A Medieval Trade Route from the Niger to the Gulf of Guinea, Journal of African History 3(2).
• McCall, Daniel. 2008. African weeks.In Hot Pursuit of Language in Prehistory, John Bengston (ed.), 25-36. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

• Bartle, Philip F.W. (January 1978)."Forty Days; The AkanCalendar".Africa: Journal of the International African Institute.48 (1). Edinburgh University Press:80–84.doi:10.2307/1158712.JSTOR 1158712.S2CID 143751434.

• Igbo calendar
• Yoruba calendar
• Efik calendar

• Specific calendars
• Akan

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata