It is a simple stool, covered with animal skin and serves a very important role of determining whether or not adolescent girls ready to undergo puberty rites have been chaste and stayed away from promiscuity.
In other words, this stool is part of sacred rites performed by the Krobos and Shais during the Dipo rites – a rite organized by the Krobos to transition their female children from childhood to adulthood.
The rite of passage is done for young adult females who are of marriageable age and prior to the final rites, these selected young women are trained to acquire skills including vocational and house-keeping skills and hygiene.
During a tour on the second episode of the People&Places show, Assistant Manager of Shai Hills, Ishmael Otoo explained that the ‘Dipo rock’ at Shai Hills is where the girls used to complete their rites.
The evidence, he said, is in the remnants of schnapp bottles they used for the rites, groves created out of their grinding activities and the water they used to bath them.
Ishmael also told Wonder Ami Hagan on the People & Places show that the sacred stone which was carried away when the Shais were sacked in the past, was what determined if an initiate was a virgin or otherwise.
“In those days, it was clean water which they fetched and bathed the ladies before putting the beads and colourful things on them. After bathing them, they grind the ornamental items and put on them.
“They used to sit on the stone which is covered with the skin of the antelope. There are two indications. If you are a virgin, you will get up easily, if you are not a virgin, you get stuck easily. The main purpose was to determine if the girls were virgins or not and if it was determined, they performed some rites and when you get up, you are banned from the tribe,” Mr. Otoo noted.
Watch Ismael narrate the events:
History also has it that, the girls before using the now sacred stone, were climbing a sacred rock on which they were expected to dance amidst drumming and singing as part of the final rituals.
Any lady who fell during this dance was suspected to be pregnant and if confirmed, was expelled from the tribe.
Today, according to Teyegaga and Huber as cited by Priscilla Akua Boakye in a study (https://munin.uit.no/bitstream/handle/10037/2673/thesis.pdf?sequence=2), “Girls no longer have to climb a rock during initiation. They are rather made to sit on the sacred stone which is located within a shrine.”
The girls had their bodies, especially breasts exposed during the rite as a form of marketing and after, they were taken to the marketplace to dance as a form of exposure to the outside world.
Watch the full People&Places interview below:
In the past, this rite could last several months and even up to a year where the girls were camped and made to go through several processes. With the evolution of time and introduction of education, however, the girls now spend about 5 days for their training and final rites.
But now, the ladies are covered up to the breasts whilst still adorned with beads.
The rite has however raised some concerns by human right adovocates who argue that it promotes child marriage among other things.
