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The
Ashanti
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The
Ashanti
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The
Ashanti CampaignBaden-Powell brought many ideas home from the
Ashanti campaign, in what is now Ghana in West Africa. Many of them are still in
use in Scouting today.
The Gold Coast, now Ghana,
was a colony of the British Empire. B-P was sent there in 1895 to raise a native
force to oppose the powerful Ashanti tribe. The Ashanti were well known as
fierce fighters, with the slogan
If
I go forward I die
If I go backward I die
Better go forward and die
Baden-Powell's force was made up of hundreds of
warriors from the Krobos, Elima, Mumford and Adansi tribes. They had to scout
out a new route through the jungle, in enemy territory, and pioneer a new road
which the main British force could follow to attack the Ashanti capital of
Kumasi.
Pioneering in the jungleMaking a road through the jungle meant clearing
the thick growth, laying roads through marshes, and constructing bridges over
rivers and streams. B-P made sure his force was trained in skills of axemanship,
pioneering and knotting. They built more than 200 bridges from spars and lashed
together with vines.
The Ashanti used
drums for signalling over long distances, and the intricate language of the
drums could be heard every night booming through the jungle.
From the people of Ghana, Baden-Powell learnt
the phrase `softly softly catchee monkey' - and he learnt that he could get the
best work out of his force by dividing it into small groups, or patrols, and
giving responsibility to the captain of each group.
The Scout Staff was copied from one used in the
Ashanti campaign, to test the depths of swamps, to feel the way at night while
secretly scouting out the enemy positions, and also used to hang telegraph wires
from the brancehs of the jungle.
"It was in Ashanti, on the West Coast of
Africa where my particular job was to organize and command a corps of native
Scouts and Pioneers.
"We were accordingly
working two or three days in advance of the main body of European Troops and in
the densest primeval jungle and forest, without roads or paths of any kind to
guard us.
"In order to circumvent
the enemy much of our advance had to be carried out by night, which meant
difficulties at nearly every step among fallen timber, boggy streams, tussocks
of reeds and bushes, etc.
"Without a staff, one
could not have got along at all."
- B-P
There are two stories about
the origin of the left handshake in Scouting. The first is simply that the left
hand is closest to the heart. But there is also a much more interesting story,
which comes from the Ashanti tribe itself.
When B-P entered the Kumasi,
the capital city of the Ashanti, he was greeted by a warrior chief who held out
his left hand. He told B-P `the bravest of the brave shake with the left hand.'
So began the left handshake which is used by millions of Scouts all over the
world.
The explanation of the left
handshake is that a warrior uses the left hand to hold the shield, while the
right hand holds the spears. So to show your trust in someone, you put down the
shield and greet them by holding out your left hand.
Sources:
Baden-Powell, Scouting for Boys
Hillcourt, Baden-Powell: the Two Lives of a Hero
MacDonald, Sons of the Empire: the Frontier and the Boy Scout Movement
The Scout Trail, handbook of the Scout Association of South Africa.
Lord Rowallan, Forward to The
Left Handshake by Hilary St. George Saunders
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