Ghana: Ashanti
For the past three centuries, the Ashanti of Ghana have been making artworks in gold and they have done some work in terracotta which appears to be of ancestral figures.
They have also carved notable representational and charming dolls (known as Akuaba) and beautiful stools, all in wood.
The Akuaba figures are aimed at expressing the ideal of beauty.
They are carved to have long necks, round flat faces with high foreheads and small mouths.
These dolls are carried by women especially pregnant women who are not expected to look at anything ugly, be it a carved figure or a living person, so that the child may not take on the ugliness around it.
Apart from wearing it, the
pregnant woman is to gaze upon the expressions of the idealized beauty of the figure to encourage the child in the womb to be beautiful.
The gold works are in badges, jewels and in weight. This was
motivated by the use of gold dust as exchange for whatever they wanted to buy.
When a man wanted to buy anything, he would carry a bag containing gold dust, a set of brass gold weights and a
balance to be used to weigh the gold by the goldsmiths.
The weights ranged from simple geometrical shapes to animal forms, people in different actions, plants and insects or the furnishings of the royal palaces such as drums, guns, stools and swords.
The wearing of gold jewellery was reserved for only the Asantehence and the high chiefs who wore them in the form of bracelets, pendants, necklaces of gold beads, hats, crowns and sandals encrusted with gold.
Golden stools were also made for the chiefs.
Some, however, were made in silver.
Brass vessels known as Kuduo are also designed to hold gifts
and offerings at religious cêremonies.
They are also made to serve
as containers for precious beads, jewellery and gold dust.
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