Lake Bosomtwe

ɔbosom = god; ɔtwe = antelope

The name of Ghana's only natural lake is said to derive from a legend about its discovery. P.E.Ofosu gives the following version of this popular story:

"On one brisk afternoon of Akwasidae (Sacred Sunday), oral history has it that several years ago a hunter called Akora Bompe who hailed from Asaman in the Amansie East District of Ashanti went on a hunting expedition and discovered the lake. He was with his dog called Daakye (Future). It is said that he shot an antelope (called Otwe in Akan) while hunting through a valley. The antelope did not die on the spot and so he started chasing it. The antelope jumped into a small pond, and the hunter (Akora Bompe) saw a variety of fishes in the pond. He fetched some of the fish to feed the dog. This continued for months and the dog looked healthier than ever before. Later the hunter and his wife also fed on the fish from the pond and nothing happened to them." ('The Legacy of Ashanti: Lake Bosomtwe')

The early 20th century anthropologist, R.S.Rattray, gave what he regarded as an older myth:

".. long before Akorobompi found the lake, there lived near the site of the present village Hantase a very old woman. .. She was a leper .. and lived alone. One day out of the lake stepped an 'obosom' (god) in the form of a man. He was called Twe .. . He made love to the old woman, .. The old woman eventually bore a son called Twe Adodo, the son of the lake spirit, and the first human being to have the Bosomtwe 'ntoro'." ('Ashanti Law and Constitution', Oxford, 1929)

Bosomtwe is a crater lake with a diameter of about 8km surrounded by a ridge about 10.5km in diameter which rises in places about 300m above the lake surface. The scientific evidence for its origin points to a meteor impact occuring approximately 1.07 million years ago. During its history the lake size has varied greatly from a small pond (if the legend is to be believed) to the maximum limit imposed by the ridge height. There are no river outlets or inlets (other than those draining from the inside of the ridge), so the water level is entirely dependent on the balance between evaporation and rainfall. In the lifetime of the lakeside communities this balance has tended to favour an expansion of the lake, with the result that some villages have had to move, in some cases more than once, to higher ground. The map below shows the 21 communities presently living around the shore. There are others on the surrounding ridge.