According to Wenchi oral history, the ancestors of the Wankyi people emerged from a hole in the ground at Bonoso, near the source of the Ayusa stream. Their leader was the Queen-Mother Asase-ba-ode-nsee, whose title translates as "child of Mother Earth whose origins date to the beginning." Traditions describe a Paramount Chief who withdrew back into the hole after being offended by a ninth-born son named Nkrumah, leaving the Queen-Mother to rule in his place. Seven clans -- Asere, Akyease, Akwandu, Twemma, Ababaa, Twafuo, and Nyinsae -- are said to have descended from that original emergence. Members who trace their ancestry to the event call themselves Yefiri: "we come from the hole." To this day, Wenchi tradition forbids eating the wankyie, the animal believed to have unearthed the first ancestors, and forbids a ninth-born child from occupying the Wenchi stool.

The earliest European reference to Wenchi appears on a 1629 Dutch map, which depicts the state as rich in gold and notes its cloth industry. By 1670, the geographer Olfert Dapper recorded Wenchi's reputation for textile manufacture. The earliest cloth was bark cloth, stripped from the kyenkyen tree and beaten soft. Dyeing followed: pits were lined with cow dung, filled with water infused with pounded Lonchocarpus cyanescens leaves and silk-cotton tree ash, and left for ten days until the liquid turned blue. Manufactured cloths moved south to Denkyira and the Kwahu region. Goods flowed north too -- foodstuffs, ivory, rubber. From the coast came copper rods, European cloth, beads, tobacco, and salt. Spindle whorls from Dyula traders in Bondoukou, Venetian glass beads, and fragments of brass forowa containers all confirm that Wenchi was embedded in trade networks stretching ultimately to the trans-Saharan routes.

Wenchi's wealth in gold, beads, and regalia drew the attention of the expanding Ashanti Empire under Osei Tutu. Sometime between 1690 and 1715 -- historians disagree on the precise date -- the Ashanti attacked the capital of Ahwene Koko. One oral tradition says the Ashanti deceived Wenchi by claiming they intended to attack Dormaa, advising the erection of a barrier that would inadvertently leave Wenchi exposed. Another version holds that the invasion came on a Thursday, when the Ashanti knew Friday's rest day would thin the population as farmers left for their fields. Either way, the attack was a devastating surprise. The Queen-Mother Nana Afoa Dankoto was captured, the state's regalia looted. Wenchi had no standing army; military roles were assigned only in times of conflict, and weapons consisted mainly of slings, spears, and bows and arrows. Against the Ashanti's organized wing system and firearms acquired through coastal trade, they had no chance. Wenchi became a tributary state, its independence gone.

Excavations at Bonoso in 2010, 2012, and 2013 confirmed what oral tradition had long asserted. Radiocarbon dating of charcoal from the deepest layers indicates habitation beginning in the 7th century CE and continuing into the 12th century -- placing Akan-speaking communities here centuries before any European contact. Pottery classified into four distinct wares, iron slag from smelting operations, lateritic building foundations, and grindstones all tell a story of settled, specialized communities. At Ahwene Koko, the later capital, smoking pipes dating to the mid-17th century and sherds of Begho Ware point to cultural links with the major trading town of Begho and the Mo people further north. In 1948, the site of Ahwene Koko was resettled by Wenchi people and Ashanti immigrants who named their village "Ahwene" in memory of the old capital. The sacred hole at Bonoso remains a living site. During the Odwira festival, the Wenchihene still performs libations there, honoring ancestors who emerged from beyond brightness.