Tano and Bia: the brothers and the stolen blessing

Tano and Bia: the brothers and the stolen blessing

Nyame had two sons. Bia was the elder and the favourite — quiet, obedient, the one his father loved. Tano was the younger, and he was not any of those things.

Nyame decided to divide the world between them, and he meant to give Bia the better half: the deep forest, the gold-bearing land, the fat country where anything planted grows. Tano would get the dry north, the thin soil, the scrubland.

Word of this reached the goat.

The goat — who owed Tano a favour, or simply liked mischief; the tellers differ — went to Tano and told him what was coming, and told him what to do. On the appointed morning, Tano rose before dawn and went to his father dressed in Bia's cloth, in Bia's manner, answering to Bia's name. Nyame, whose sight had dimmed, blessed the son in front of him and gave him the forest, the gold, the rivers, the great kingdoms that would rise there.

When Bia arrived, there was nothing left but the north.

Nyame could not take back a blessing already spoken. That is not how blessings work.

If you visit Ghana. The Tano River, rising near Techiman; the Bia River, running down through the western forest into Côte d'Ivoire.