Episode one: History of Avatime Town.

 A SHORT HISTORY OF AVATIME BIAKPA: 

Avatime Biakpa is one of the seven Towns in Avatime Traditional Area. History has it that , Our Ancestors migrated from Mesopotamia and settled in Ahanta in the present day western Region for a very long time before moving to Accra.

  They finally moved to settle in the Volta Region.

History has it that in Volta Region ,they lived in places like Adaklu , Tanyigbe and Matse before moving to their current location.

 When they arrived on Avatime land ,their current settlement,they settled at a place called Oxulosu which means behind the mountain .On the first night,of their arrival,palm branches were cut and spread on the floor for their leader to sleep on.The following day,they saw a dead snake 🐍 under the palm branches and they considered that as a good omen for them so they decided to settle there. Not without considering the weather and the beautiful landscape of the area.

 At a certain point , they decided to have other settlements all over looking at how the Ashantis were fighting others in the region so when they spread around they would be able to fight the enemy when they come. Avatime DZOGBEFEME were the first to move to their current location. Asare were the family that discovered DZOGBEFEME (Torwui) meaning let them see you when you go. We shall talk about DZOGBEFEME later.

 Avatime Biakpa is said to be the oldest town in Avatime because they didn't move far away from the old settlement and the old stool from Ahanta land is in Biakpa. 

THE MEANING OF BIAKPA: 

The original name for Biakpa was OGOGOGA .Because the land between Biakpa and Gbadzeme was fertile for palm plantation ,Gbadzeme and Biakpa people did a lot of palm wine Tapping.

So it happened that one day ,a man from OGOGOGA went to help the people of Gbadzeme who were tapping palm wine.

The man from OGOGOGA was habitually pulling down the tied -dried palm branches that was used to set the fire for the tapping.

The tied dried palm branches serve three functions : 

1 As touch light 

2 As a tool for killing insects and Bacterial in the pot for the fell palm tree 🌴

3 The smoke from the tide dried palm branches ( obiaalor) makes the wine very strong.

 The Avatime people called the tied dried palm branches Obia .Kpa means to pull down . So anytime this Visitor from Biakpa visited his friends to help them with the tapping ,as usual he would be welcomed with palm wine as was the custom of the people .we all know the result of taking wine.

This gentleman was habitually causing the Obia to fall as the result of the wine he drunk .Because the people of Gbadzeme didn't know his name ,they started calling him Jokingly Obiakpa- meaning the one who cause the Obia to fall. Eventually,they nickname  Obiakpa became the name of the people of OGOGOGA .

THE CLANS OF BIAKPA 

AVATIME BIAKPA Has three Clans.

Biakpa has three clans namely Ogokpo which is the Royal clan.The chief of Biakpa is from this clan. The second Clan is Kava where the Asafo the war Lord of the town comes from.

The third clan is the Ketie where the linguist of the town comes from. The few remaining BAYA family are also from Ketie clan.The title of the Biakpa chief is Okusie Takyi.

Note that Avatime people don't say Torbe but Okusie.Okusie is used for various chiefs and Osie is used for the paramount Chief. We would talk about that later but let me also add that the Queenmother is called Okusidze.

Though history has it that the Amrago family were once chiefs before but it has been  reversed back to Boanyomi and Otyina family. Avatime Biakpa has conducive weather  for Agriculture example crops that do well in BIAKPA are Cocoa, Avocado, palm, coffee, Apple 🍎 maize, cassava, Tee , yam just to mention few.

 Avatime Biakpa has several tourism sites popularly Amongst them are KULUGU CANYON WATER FALL, LEOPARD CAVE 1and 2 ,OXULOSU THE ANCESTRY SITE OF AVATIME PEOPLE That is where Avatime shrine is located . It's important to note that you can still locate all the seven settlements of all the 7 Avatime towns at the Oxulosu. Let me also state here that Avatime has two shrines. Male is located at Biakpa at Oxulosu and Female in Gbadzeme this is Why Biakpa and Gbadzeme people always work as one people.

 The Paramount chief of Avatime Traditional area  OSIE ADZA TEKPOR and the paramountcy is at Avatime Vane.

 The seven of the  Avatime towns are : Avatime Vane, Amedzofe, Gbadzeme, Biakpa, Dzogbefeme,Dzokpe and Fume. The seven towns has been divided into three groupings.

Note that before Avatime people arrived at their current location ,there were different people on the land .These people were the BAYA , BAMAKLE and AKPAFU. 

The Bamakle people were said to be heaving tails , and Baya people were very Giant and they were few issues between the Baya and Avatime people and due to Giant nature of Baya people, the Avatime people couldn't fight them so one day ,there was an issue between them and Avatime was found guilty so they were to pay some drinks to pacify Baya people.Avatime people took advantage of this and poisoned the drinks and sacrificed few of their elders to test the drinks before presenting to Baya people.

Baya people didn't suspect anything so majority of them took the drinks and Died. This is where Avatime people over powered the rest of Baya people and re - distributed them in Avatime towns. Five towns  that Accepted Baya people are Biakpa, Dzogbefeme , Vane, Dzokpe and Gbadzeme. Currently , it's only one family that has Baya people in Biakpa and that family is OFORI AND SROMANI from same home. You can locat. larger Baya clans in Dzokpe and Vane.

 This has been put together by George Ofori with support from Arise Avatime Biakpa youths, Chief inspector Bimpey , Anthonia krapa and  Sister Susan Abutiate.

 Source: George Ofori