Asase Yaa

The earth as goddess among the Akan, invoked second after Onyame.

Asase Yaa is the earth, honoured as a goddess among the Akan. Her name joins asase, earth, with Yaa, the name for a girl born on Thursday, and in many Akan areas Thursday is her day: the land rests and is not farmed. Among the Fante she is known as Asase Efua, and her day is Friday. At a libation she is called second, right after Onyame, and the drink is poured onto the ground she is.

Asase Yaa is not served in shrines with priests the way the abosom are. She is present everywhere people live, farm and bury. She gives the harvest, and she receives the dead. A grave is opened in her, and an important oath can be sworn on the earth itself. Because she holds the dead, she is closely tied to the ancestors, the nsamanfo.

The tradition treats her with both gratitude and care: breaking her taboos, or shedding blood on the land carelessly, calls for making things right with her.

In dreams the earth is a weighty image in an Akan reading. Dreams of farmland, of digging, of planting or harvesting, or of an open grave are read with her in mind. A dream of fertile soil is often felt as a good sign for family and work; a dream of digging a grave is read not as a prediction of death but as something to be finished, mourned or set right. As always, Dreamkin describes these readings and does not predict, and a family elder is the person to ask about a dream that weighs on you.