Divisions
The Divisional States of Vakpo
The Vakpos have three divisional states which consist of eleven sub-divisional states. The first divisional state consists of the Afeye, Dzogbati, Atsaame, Fordome, and Konda who belongs to the paramountcy division. The second division is the Gboxome, Dutanyigbe and Tsortaa who also belong to another division. Adomi, Todzi and Efu, are the third division who are the ‘war leading division’. They all have their chiefs and their linguists.
The linguist staff of the paramountcy
The visual image of the linguist staff consists of an elephant and an antelope. The antelope is seen riding on the elephant. It was carved with wood and covered with gold leaf. The staff symbolise the status of the paramountcy. Though the antelope is very small it is riding on the elephant because of its status.
The linguist staff of Vakpo-Dotanyigbe
The image of the linguist staff is consisting of an eagle (Kromponi) and a snake. The eagle is holding a snake’s head to ransom while it straggles with the tail for survival. It was carved with wood and covered with gold leaf.This symbolizes a sadden state of the snake, which is believed to be a very powerful animal who lost his power to the eagle due to its mistake. It describes the sudden state of Vakpo Dutanyigbe as they loss the paramountcy to Vakpo Afeyee.The symbolism of the eagle and snake came about as the result of a painful experience they had. Dutanyigbe happen to the oldest divisional state in Vakpo. Based on that they were formally responsible for providing individual to be enstooled as the paramount chief of Vakpo.
The linguist staff of Vakpo-Afeye
The visual image of the linguist staff of Vakpo-Afeye comprises of a hawk on a brunch of a tree, holding a bone with the mouth and a dog in a sitting posture waiting for the bone to drop for it to pick. The dog is very aware that the bone is of no use to the hawk, hence the bone does not belong to the hawk. Therefore, the dog is wating for the day the hawk will leave the bone for it to pick because the bone does not belong to the hawk. This is figurative description of the Akoni clan as the dog and Gbogbolulu clan as the hawk.According to the people of Afeyee, their stool is occupied by Togbui Akoni clan. Gbogbolulu clan was not holding any position in the chieftaincy system of Vakpo-Afeyee previously. Since they already have a chief in Afeye who is from Akoni clan, they were not expecting the gift paramount stool to be install differently. But the elders stood and watch the Gbogbolulu clan to install the paramountcy stool in Vakpo-Afeyee and the Akoni stool is now under Togbui Gbogbolulu. So, the Akonis made their linguist staff in this image to depict the fact that the Gbogbolulu clan will one day release the paramount stool for the Akoniwo to pick one day.