Agni mask from Ivory Coast. Piece over 50 years old, delivered on a base.
The Agnis are a West African people of approximately 1,200,000 people, living mainly in Côte d'Ivoire. They are also present in neighboring Ghana.
They were the first people in the region to come into contact with Europeans in the 17th century.
At the beginning of the 18th century, coming from the Ashanti kingdom of Ghana, the first Agnis crossed the Ivorian border with another people of Akans. Arrived at the Aby lagoon, they founded the kingdom of Indénié, Kingdom of Sanwi and that of Moronou with the Agnis Mrôfo.
It should be noted that there are other subgroups such as the Agnis-Assonvon in the locality of Ebilassokro, in the east of Côte d'Ivoire.
The Akan chieftaincy system is of the monarchical type: the choice stems from a hereditary mechanism of succession which limits the exercise of power to members of one and the same family. This was done in accordance with the general rule of successions of the ruling tribe which ruled a historical role from neighboring Ghana towards the end of the 17th century.
Before French colonization, the Akan had developed a kingdom with a political structure composed of the sovereign assisted by his council. The rest of society was made up of three main castes: nobles, freemen, and servants.
Among the Agnis, the witch doctor is the Komian. In the Akan societies of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, it is everyone who holds the occult knowledge. Komians can teach their knowledge to kings or give predictions about the future. Their magico-religious trances allow them to understand things that are incomprehensible to ordinary mortals. The kômians are grouped into secret societies.
There was a great influence from the Togolese pastors of the Church of Pentecost towards the Agnis of Ghana and then Ivory Coast in the 1950s.