About the 7 kneeling bare-chested horn blowers at Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park

Anytime you visit the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park and Mausoleum, you are sure to see his ‘forward ever, backwards never’ statue.

And if see that, you are sure to not miss the statues of the 7 bare-chested horn blowers, the man playing the talking drum, and the other with the ‘gonje’.

But have you ever wondered why these seven horn blowers are in a kneeling position?

Well, on GhanaWeb TV’s People and Places, hosted by Ernestina Serwaa Asante, the Director of the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park and Mausoleum, Edward Quao, noted that the kneeling position of the bare-chested men signifies honour and respect to Ghana’s first president.

Giving more insight into it, he said traditionally, these men blow the horn to announce the presence or arrival of a revered person in society.

In the same vein, when an important person passes on, the horns are blown to announce his or her demise.

Edward Quao said, "These are an expression of our traditional culture. Traditionally, when there’s an occasion, or a chief is about to come to a gathering, you often would have some of his servants going ahead of him, blowing the horn to announce his arrival. Similarly, when a very important person dies, by our custom, we also blow horns to announce the person’s death.

"So, in this place, symbolically, the same thing is being done for Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. But what you observe is that when they are blowing the horns, they are supposed to be standing and not kneeling. But here, they are in this posture because they are giving him honour and respect."

Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park and Mausoleum houses the mortal remains of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and his wife, Fathia Nkrumah.

The park has a museum that hosts rare artefacts relating to Ghana’s independence.

Tours at the park give visitors an in-depth history of the Sub-Saharan struggle for independence.

SA/AE

Meanwhile, watch this Ghana Month special edition of People and Places as we hear the story of how the head of Kwame Nkrumah's bronze statue was returned after 43 years, below: