Golden emblems of maternal benevolence: transformations of form and meaning in Akan regalia.

I knew Roy Sieber as a teacher and mentor. I became his student after he had officially retired, but as in all other aspects of his active and productive career, retirement didn't end his commitment to train a new generation of African-arts scholars. He still taught an annual graduate seminar and continued the tradition of more informal mentoring during long afternoons spent in the Sieber living room. I too was given this wonderful gift of spending time with Roy, looking at and discussing African art together and listening to him and Sophie reminisce about their family's days in west Africa.

And of course, learning about African art from Roy Sieber meant many trips to Motel 6 to view African traders' wares and learn what "looked right" and what didn't. Sometimes more costly pieces were brought to Roy for evaluation. I will never forget the afternoon when he asked me and another graduate student to carry a large wooden sculpture upstairs into the bathroom so that he could test its authenticity. As we turned it over, Roy took out a small bottle, dipped a Q-tip into it, and after a quick rub on its base, announced that the patina was indeed genuine. It was only later that I learned that the sculpture I had been holding upside down in the bathroom was valued at $600,000. Just another day in the Sieber household.

For all of us who knew Roy, it is hard to accept that we can no longer give him a quick telephone call or drop in for a visit during a trip to Bloomington. But I do feel his continuing presence through memories of times we spent together, often laughing, and through his eloquent and insightful writings on African art. Having this article published in this memorial issue is particularly meaningful to me, because during the summer before his death, Roy worked with me in readying the manuscript for submission to African Arts.

The Asante, an Akan people of southern Ghana, are renowned for communicating status, wealth, and power through displays of golden ornament and elaborately woven cloth. This opulence, combined with the symbolic richness of Akan regalia in general, has generated a special appreciation for Asante leadership arts. (1) For many scholars, the centerpiece of these arts is the profusion of golden regalia worn or displayed by male and female traditional rulers and their court officials on state occasions. (2)

Yet one particularly intriguing form of regalia has remained relatively unexamined: an Asante chest ornament, or pectoral, that consists of paired golden disks in the form of stylized breasts suspended from a massive chain (Figs. 1-4). It appears to have originated within the context of Akan leadership arts, and it continues to be seen in the adornment of the two Asante royal fly-whisk attendants called mprakyirefo[??] (Fig. 5). In addition, over the course of the past century, the dual-disk pectoral has increasingly become associated with a new display context, that of the funeral, where it is known as awisiado, or "orphan's necklace" (Fig. 6). (3)

[FIGURES 1-6 OMITTED]

Although the process by which the dual-disk pectoral came into being may always be somewhat of a mystery, its meanings related to fertility and maternity suggest some manner of historical association between the necklace worn by the mprakyirefo[??] and the funerary awisiado. At least one, and perhaps two, early European accounts offer intriguing information that, allied with more recent ethnographic research, provides insights into the apparent transformation of the Akan single-disk pectoral into the Asante dual form.

Akan Pectoral Ornaments

The Asante necklace with two pendant disks belongs to the broader category of Akan chest ornaments known as ad[??]bo or adaabo[??], which are among the profusion of golden ornaments worn and displayed by Asante rulers and members of the royal entourage (Christaller 1933:70; Kyerematen 1961:3). The single-disk akrafok[??]nmu (popularly translated as "soul washer's badges" or "soul disks"; sing. [??]krafok[??]nmu) are considered to be the most characteristic type of Akan golden pectoral. They are worn by court officials called akrafo (Fig. 7), whose full range of duties has only recently begun to be understood (see Ross 2002a, b).

[FIGURE 7 OMITTED]

Akan pectorals, including Asante double-disk pectorals, are either cast, using the lost-wax process, or made from sheet gold, using repoussee or gold-leaf techniques. The cast examples may be made of solid gold, of base metal electroplated with silver and gold, or of brass that has been polished to a golden shine. Akan pectoral disks have a distinctive suspension structure. For a single-disk pectoral, a stick is passed horizontally behind the center of the disk and inserted through two hollow cylinders on each side. The pectoral hangs from a cord attached to the protruding ends of the stick. (4) The suspension method for the Asante double-disk pectoral is similar, requiring only a longer stick (see Fig. 1b, the reverse of Fig. 1a). Similar suspension structures in gold discoid beads from at least the seventeenth century to the present, as well as the symbolic resonance of the circular form across a spectrum of Akan visual culture, attest to the historical depth of such discoid forms within the region. (5)

The fact that the Asante dual-disk ornament has remained largely unrecognized or poorly understood may be due in part to its relative absence from major museum collections. (6) There is no documentation of this form among the many gold objects that the British acquired as a result of Anglo-Asante wars in the late nineteenth century. In her catalogue of Asante regalia in museum collections, Martha Ehrlich did find two sheet-gold disks, "broken in half and numbered separately," that had been accessioned in 1875 by the Royal Scottish Museum. They may have originally formed one pectoral prior to their removal from Kumase, the Asante capital, during the 1874 war (Ehrlich 1981, vol. 2: fig. 36).

It is possible that other single-disk pectorals in museum or private collections are only half of the original ornament. (7) The paired Asante disks are not actually attached to each other, and they co u I d have been disassembled--as might have happened during British soldiers' efforts to consolidate Asante war booty for transport. (8)

Early Historical Evidence of Golden Dual-Disk Ornaments in the Akan Court

The earliest known image of a dual-disk ornament from the Gold Coast (modern Ghana) appears in Dutch trader Pieter de Marees' 1602 account, which contains two captioned illustrations (nos. 15, 16) of a distinctive gold bracelet worn by women. (9) One of these copperplate engravings depicts women of three different social stations (Fig. 8). The central figure, "A," displays a large ornament comprising two disks on the wrist of her upraised arm. In the accompanying caption, De Marees identifies the woman as "a King's Wife ... dressed in her Sunday best in order to go out.... [wearing] Around one arm ... a golden bracelet, such as great Ladies wear" (1987 [1602]:174). The other engraving (Fig. 9) illustrates the "triumphal ceremony" for a man who has attained the status of "Nobleman." De Marees directs the viewer's attention to figure "C," "the Wife of the Nobleman ... [who wears] on her left arm a golden Bracelet whose tips are round and hollow"--a bracelet in the form of "a Ring [bangle] which has on each end a round Figure [shape] in the form of the lid of a Pot, made entirely of Gold" (1987 [1602]:167-69). (10) Although it is difficult to attribute any direct historical association between these early-seventeenth-century gold bracelets and the dual-disk pectoral, one can argue that the prominence of the two round terminals in the engravings may indicate not only the presence but also the appeal of the dual-disk form in early Gold Coast regalia.

[FIGURES 8-9 OMITTED]

The earliest evidence of gold pectorals of this type appears one hundred years later, in the 1702 account of French prefect Fr. Godefroy Loyer, who describes an audience with Akassini, ruler of Assini, a gold-rich coastal state straddling the present-day border region of Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire. In J.B. Donne's discussion of this passage (1977:101), he notes that although Loyer "makes no mention" of Akassini's wearing gold, he did see an abundance of gold ornament displayed by members of the royal entourage.

Of particular interest for our present inquiry is the following passage, illustrated by a frontispiece drawing (Fig. 10), in which Loyer describes ornaments worn by the ruler's "two favorite wives":

  Seated to the side of the King on this
   same dais, but a little to the real
   were his two favorite wives, each
   bearing on her shoulders a wide
   saber with a hilt of gold, from which
   hung a sheep's skull of gold, as
   large as life, or more. On the scabbard
   there was a large shell of the
   same, around which were strung
   about a hundred Tigers' teeth.

      These two women were adorned
   with great necklaces of gold, bracelets
   of the same, and large gold
   disks in the form of breasts, which
   were suspended over their bosoms
   by means of a gold chain

   (Loyer 1935 [1714]:161-62;
   my translation)

[FIGURE 10 OMITTED]

Although Loyer provides the only known description of gold dual-disk pectorals prior to the twentieth century, it is unlikely that such ornamentation was unique to the Assini court, given the frequency with which emerging Gold Coast states adopted the regalia practices of more established polities. (11)

Dual-Disk Ornaments in the Contemporary Court

Except for the matter of gender, Loyer's early-eighteenth century description of the two Assini royal female sword bearers bears a strong similarity to T. E. Bowdich's early-nineteenth-century descriptions of these important Asante court functionaries (1966 [1819]:34-35, 291). Bowdich makes no mention of the king's sword bearers, who are male, or any other attendants wearing such breastlike ornaments. Doran Ross, however, has observed that the male bearer of the Bosomuru sword, considered the earliest Asante sword of state, does wear today a small golden dual disk pectoral (Fig. 11). This sword is also the first of the Abosomfena, those state swords representative of the king's sunsum, or "vital spiritual essence." (12)

[FIGURE 11 OMITTED]

A.A.Y. Kyerematen describes the sacred nature of the Bosomuru sword, which is ornamented with a magically empowered mangabey skull believed to have been caught from the skies by the legendary late-seventeenth-century priest Okomfo Anokye for the first Asante king, Asantehene Osei Tutu. At his installation, the king-elect makes his most solemn vows of office as he accepts the Bosomuru sword (Kyerematen 1961:11-13; 1969-70:22-25).

During the latter half of the twentieth century, various scholars noted that golden dual-disk pectorals are also among the regalia of the young female attendants known as mprakyirefo[??] (Fig. 5), who are daughters or granddaughters of the Asantehene or members of the royal matrilineage (Ross 2002b:29). (13) Kyerematen describes the two mprakyirefo[??] in the Asantehene's entourage as "gorgeously dressed in a traditional manner, borne shoulder high, and switching in the air white horse-tail whisks" (1961:15)--an activity that, according to Edward Ayensu, is designed "to ward off evil spirits that may follow the Asantehene" (1997:139). However, "their real place in the procession," Kyerematen emphasizes, "is to show the wealth of the King" (1961:15).

Mprakyirefo[??] have also been described as symbolizing "the soul of the people" and as portraying "the Asante concept of beauty" (Tufuo & Donkor 1989:62; Boaten 1993:65-66). According to Akan customary belief, the corporeal body is the visible form of the kra, or "inner spiritual self," and good health and beauty are a reflection of spiritual wholeness (Hagan 1964:102). Michelle Gilbert has analyzed the attributes and significance of the royal entourage of the ruler of Akuapem, another Akan kingdom, particularly the akrafo attendants who wear the golden "soul-disk" pectorals (akrafok[??]nmu). She describes such a pairing of ideal beauty with the inner spiritual self:

  Immediately in front of the king
   are seated the extensions of his
   own inner spiritual nature. Nearest
   him are the akrafo ('souls'), who are
   chosen when children and whose
   beauty represents that of the king
   himself; they share the destiny of
   the king (in the past they would die
   when he did), and prevent dangers
   from coming close to him.

   (Gilbert 1987:312)

It is a common practice, Ross observes, for Akan chiefs attending festival and ceremonial events to be preceded "by a young girl, usually the chief's niece, who represents the matrilineage and the soul (kra) of the chief" (1998:43).

The mprakyirefo[??], with their royal identity and physical and spiritual beauty, serve as idealized representations of the Asantehene and, by extension, the Asante people. Their wearing of the breastlike pectorals is a crucial expression of fertility and a "maternal," nurturing benevolence--ideals for men as well as women that are associated with Asante leadership. (14) Libations to the ancestors are accompanied by prayers for fertility in members of both sexes. Sterility has long been "regarded as disgraceful and unfortunate," and Asante kings who proved to be impotent or sterile could be destooled (Nketia 1955:36).

I have found no evidence, nor have I myself observed, any dual-disk pectorals in the entourage of an Asante queen mother. The explanation lies in the different symbolic roles of Akan kings and queen mothers. Gilbert observes that although a queen mother in Akuapem as well as Asante is regarded as "the personification of motherhood" (Rattray 1923:85), (15) she is not required to be fertile. According to Gilbert's argument, this is because it is not she but the king who serves as the symbol of the kingdom. Thus, although a king in matrilineal Akan society does not produce his royal heir, "he must produce children to show that it is he, as symbol of the kingdom, who is fertile" (1993:5-6). It is for this reason, I believe, that it is important on state occasions for an Asante king to express this idea through mprakyirefo[??] adorned with golden, breastlike regalia.

Courtlike Displays of Wealth in Ennoblement Ceremonies

We have seen that pectorals like those worn today by the Asante royal mprakyirefo[??] have been documented by Loyer in the court display of an early-eighteenth-century Gold Coast ruler. How, though, did they, in the form of the awisiado, become such an integral part of late-twentieth-century Asante funeral rites for non-royal persons? Clues may be found in Akan practices of "ennoblement" that date from at least the early seventeenth century and in major changes regarding the accumulation and display of wealth that took place in late-nineteenth-century Asante.

While the display of the regalia and attendants associated with Asante leadership has conventionally been regarded as the exclusive prerogative of enstooled male and female rulers, in recent years historians have drawn our attention to a special occasion when certain other individuals were given the opportunity to put on a "royal" display of wealth (Wilks 1979; Arhin 1983, 1990; McCaskie 1983, 1986). This was the once-in-a-lifetime event associated with a wealthy person's attainment of the special status of [??]bir[??]mp[??]n, (pl. abir[??]mp[??]n), a term derived from the pairing of the words [??]barima ("valiant man") and p[??]n ("great, powerful"). (16)

In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Asante, personal wealth was subject to a rigorous system of death duties (awunnyade[??]) and inheritance taxes (ayibuade[??]) that effectively transferred much of this wealth from the family to the state. During their lives, singularly rich individuals were honored as "benefactors of the community" and given the rank of [??]bir[??]mp[??]n (Wilks 1979; McCaskie 1995). This achievement was proclaimed and celebrated by ritual and ceremonial displays of royal proportions--supreme examples of poatwa ("challenge"), an Asante practice that involves both the "verbal and nonverbal assertion of superior status" (Arhin 1990:532). Given the inextricable link between gold, wealth, and power in Asante, great quantities of gold ornaments figured prominently in these courtlike, status-asserting displays.

One such occasion was witnessed in 1817 by William Hutchison, Acting British Consul in Kumase. In recording the preparations for an [??]bir[??]mp[??]n display, Hutchison noted that the main activity involved fashioning "their gold into various articles of dress for show." He described the regalia that had been commissioned by an important court official, "Apokoo" (identified as Gyaasewahene Opoku Frefre in Wilks 1979:15), for his "exhibition" of riches:

  Apokoo ... shewed me his varieties,
   weighing upwards of 800 bendas
   [7,200 [pounds sterling] currency] of the finest gold;
   among fire articles, was a girdle two
   inches broad. Gold chains for the
   neck, arms, legs, &c. ornaments for
   the ancles of all descriptions, consisting
   of manacles, with keys, bells,
   chairs, and padlocks. For his numerous
   family of wives, child ten, and
   captains, were armlets and various
   ornaments.... New umbrellas made
   in fantastical shapes, gold swords
   and figures of animals, birds, beasts,
   and fishes of the same metal.

   (Hutchison in Bowdich 1966
   [1819]:395) (17)

Hutchison's 1817 account appears to document a centuries-old tradition. Two centuries earlier, De Marees had observed a "triumphal ceremony" celebrating a man's rise to the status of "Brenipono," or "Nobleman." In the caption to the copperplate engraving illustrating such an occasion (see Fig. 9), he writes: "In this picture, you may see in what manner and with what kind of triumphal ceremony they make a Nobleman, who (when he is promoted to this status) gives away all his goods to the people in order to be a Nobleman, which is something they very much hope to achieve, from their youth onwards" (De Marees 1987 [1602]:167). In his 1702 account, Loyer does not mention such an event during his stay in Assini, but the prefect did record a trader's daily prayer asking the supreme deity Anguioume (Onyame) for "Brembi," Loyer's version of the term [??]bir[??]mp[??]n. (18) The prayer may indicate the presence of similar ennoblement ceremonies, marked by courtlike representations of golden wealth, in eighteenth-century Assini as well as other Gold Coast states. (19)

Beginning in the late nineteenth century in Asante, displays of gold regalia, once restricted to royalty and exclusive events like the attainment of the rank of [??]bir[??]mp[??]n, became increasingly accessible to the larger population. Kwame Arhin observes that this "democratization" of the accumulation and display of wealth was part of a larger economic and conceptual "break with the past," brought on by internal instability, the formal and informal inroads of British colonial authority, and the efforts of Asante's newly emergent entrepreneurial elite, the akonkofo[??] (Arhin 1990:525-28; McCaskie 1983:39). (20)

In the early twentieth century, with "the absence of the restraining hand of the state" a broader sector of the population began to engage in poatwa:

   Much of the well-known present-day
    Asante competitive acquisition,
    poatwa, of the biggest buildings, the
    latest and largest car models and
    extremely expensive funeral rites is
    calculated self-assertion: it is a message
    that one may not be an indigenous
    ruler but one is in certain
    material respects equal to or even
    above such a ruler.

    (Arhin 1990:533) (21)

I believe that it was d u ring this period of social upheaval and realignment that the Asante dual-disk item of regalia emerged as a new category of chest ornament--the funerary necklace popularly known as awisiado.

Courtlike Displays of Wealth for Life-Cycle Events

According to certain accounts of the time, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, golden regalia was being employed by both royals and nonroyals in such life-cycle events as female nubility rites and funerals. Not surprisingly, the earliest documentation of such regal displays by nonroyals is of observances taking place within the more expansive social milieu of the coast, rather than in the Asante interior. These historical accounts also reveal that those of limited means managed to stage courtlike life-cycle displays by borrowing, or even pawning. As we shall see, this enlistment of extra-familial resources eventually developed into the more formalized, and affordable, "hiring" system that is present in contemporary Asante.

Female Nubility Rites

Brodie Cruikshank, in the 1853 account of his eighteen-year stay among the Fante, a coastal Akan people, described the courtlike display that characterized a young woman's coming-of-age rites:

  ... the girl is dressed out with most
   extraordinary care in rich silks, borrowed
   in many instances for the
   occasion. Her hair is completely
   covered with golden ornaments,
   consisting of doubloons, sovereigns,
   figures of serpents, fish, alligators,
   and crosses. Chains of gold hang
   down over her bosom.... Armlets
   and anklets of gold encircle her
   wrists and feet.... As soon as she has
   been properly attired, she is paraded
   through the streets, attended by a
   numerous escort of her own sex, one
   of whom holds an umbrella over her
   head, to protect her from the sun, or
   rather, perhaps, to aid the effect of
   her elaborate toilet.

   (Cruikshank 1966 [1853]:193-94)

Rattray's 1927 documentation of the Asante nubility rites (bragoro) held for "a young princess of the royal clan" shows the initiate seated in state, wearing a large golden dual-disk ornament (Fig. 12). To my knowledge, this is the earliest photograph of an Asante dual-disk pectoral. In this instance it is unclear whether it was worn because of the initiate's royal lineage or because it was a feature of bragoro (Rattray 1927:7-71). No such necklace is evident in a studio portrait, dated 1925-1945, that was apparently made to record the "outdooring" finery worn by an Asante bragoro initiate for her public presentation (Fig. 13; see also Kyei 1992:xi, xiii), nor in the photograph of initiates in Bishop Peter Sarpong's 1977 study of Asante nubility rites. (22)

[FIGURES 12-13 OMITTED]

However, all of these portraits do reveal the special importance of breast display during bragoro. According to Sarpong, the exposure of an initiate's breasts "serves to demonstrate her maturity and consequently her right to be numbered among Ashanti adult women." Firm rather than "loose drooping breasts" also attest to an initiate's "moral integrity," being regarded as visible proof that the girl had not become shamefully pregnant prior to undergoing the rites required for socially sanctioned maturity (Sarpong 1977:63, 30-31). In Rattray's account, the dual-disk pectoral worn above the exposed breasts of this Asante "princess" may have served to accentuate the fertility and maternal ideals not only of this young initiate but also of her royal lineage.

It is significant that in the context of bragoro, the distinction between royal and nonroyal status is intentionally obscured. An initiate is given the honorific title of "Six-day queen mother" (Nna nsia hemmaa) in reference to her exalted position during the six-day period of confinement. A bragoro "queen mother" symbolically exercises the privileges and responsibilities of her elevated status, being served and cared for by young girls who "are at her beck and call to obey her 'commands.'" The initiate may even "settle petty cases" in a mock court, much like a true queen mother. She also appears in public like a royal, dressed as richly as possible and with a retinue of child attendants (Sarpong 1977:38-39, 45, pl. 7; see also Kyei 1992:131). (23)

Funerals

For the Akan, funeral observances constitute an important display event, and Ghanaians typically characterize the Asante as being especially "particular about funerals." A family will expend great effort to make a prestigious show. A grand funeral upholds the honor of the matrilineage and, according to customary belief, elevates the position of the deceased in the ancestral world.

Various stages of Asante funeral rites employ "royal" modes of display. For the more prestigious "wake-keepings," the deceased is richly dressed and adorned with precious beads and gold jewelry--particularly the distinctive golden ahene komate (chief's necklace)--and laid upon a bed in a room decorated with lace, kente, and other expensive cloths (Fig. 14). During the course of the night-long wake-keeping, two, three, or four changes of dress and room decor may occur as a means of asserting the wealth and status of the deceased and the bereaved family. (24)

[FIGURE 14 OMITTED]

It is in this context of mourning and high-status display that one finds the dual-disk pectoral known as the "orphan's necklace." In the late 1980s, Timothy Garrard was the first scholar to report that gold or gold-plated pectoral disks "called awisiado or ewisiado" were being worn at contemporary Asante funerals (1989:66); he did not, however, see them himself. Only in the last decade have certain scholars identified the golden awisiado necklace as a funerary gift for the adult child of a deceased parent (Arhin 1994:316; Manuh 1995:198; De Witte 2001:70). The formal presentation of this golden embodiment of benevolent, "motherly" care is regarded as an admirable and prestigious gesture of "consolation" that a spouse and their family may make to the "orphan" (Figs. 6, 15, 16). (25)

[FIGURES 15-16 OMITTED]

From Court to Funerals: Transformations of Meaning for the Dual-Disk Pectoral

What is the historical connection between the awisiado presented at contemporary Asante funerals and the dual-disk gold ornaments described by De Marees and Loyer in the early seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? As we have seen, their early sightings of these ornaments occurred in the context of the court, and courtlike, displays of two coastal states. Such exhibitions of wealth and status were to become increasingly accessible to the general population during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This expanding practice of high-status display apparently was first a phenomenon of the more fluid social milieu of coastal trade centers (Arhin 1983). Not surprisingly, golden regalia was linked to those lifecycle observances that elevated the status of individuals and their families.

Ivor Wilks observes that in nineteenth-century Asante, wealthy men (and women) were honored with "lavish" funeral rites "in recognition of their contribution to the national well-being," particularly with respect to the death duties levied by the state (1979:11). Bowdich, during his 1817 stay in Kumase, recorded the funeral rites held for the mother of an official in the Asantehene's court. Every effort was made to create an impressive display, by dressing the corpse richly and providing cloth, gold, and slaves to accompany the deceased as she entered the realm of the ancestors (1966 [1819]:282-83).

By the early twentieth century, courtlike processions featuring young women adorned with golden dual-disk pectorals had become associated with more prestigious Asante funerals. This special dance procession, called ad[??]soa-kyekyere, or simply ad[??]soa, was sponsored by a wife (or wives) as a means of "consoling" her husband by "uplifting the image" of his deceased father or mother. (26) Today it continues to be the most prestigious means of presenting the awisiado to one's bereaved husband or wife following such a loss. Former queen mother Nana Afua Pokuaa, an ad[??]soa specialist who is in her nineties, describes this event as "a ritual to herald the triumphant entry of the deceased into the ancestral world." (27)

The name ad[??]soa-kyekyere refers to the bringing together or "bundling" (kyekyere) of precious family heirlooms (ad[??]soa or ad[??]sowa) to make a regal commemorative display. (28) On a more metaphoric level, the name refers to the act of "consolation" (awer[??]kyekyer[??])--a term that combines the words wer[??] ("heart," as the seat of feelings) with kyekye, or kyekyere ("to bind up")--literally, "to bind up a wounded heart" (Christaller 1933:571-73).

According to Professor Mawere Opoku, founder of the Ghana National Dance Ensemble, the early-twentieth-century ad[??]soa kyekyere, featuring an Ad[??]soahemaa (Ad[??]soa "queen") and Ad[??]soahene (Ad[??]soa "king"), was apparently much more elaborate than the late-twentieth-century procession in which one richly dressed female dancer, the Ad[??]soahemaa, is flanked by two young girls. Professor Opoku writes of one "spectacular" ad[??]soakyekyere that he witnessed as a young boy in Kumase in the early 1920s. It was performed during the funeral rites for a divisional chief:

  ... two lines of young girls in silken
   loincloths flanked a phalanx of carriers
   of the Ad[??]soa heirlooms, an
   exhibition of wealth, status, and
   prestige. Behind these girls came
   the bearers of state swords and
   other regalia, then the Ad[??]soa queen
   and an Ad[??]soa king who was really
   a girl dressed as an ohene, or chief.
   The pair sat in a carriage festooned
   with rare blankets and cushions;
   last came the bearer of a state umbrella
   borrowed for the occasion.
   The carriage was drawn not by
   horses but by relays of stalwart
   women; the explanation given by
   the status-conscious Asante elders
   was that the horse and rider would
   have looked taller and therefore
   symbolically would seem to be of
   higher rank than the ad[??]soa royals.

   (Opoku 1987:195) (29)

In these early years, regalia of state swords and umbrellas, as well as royal kete drums and drummers, could only be borrowed from the royal court. A family's privileged social standing was evidenced by its ability to mount a display of regalia lent by the Asantehene or a local chief for an ad[??]soa presentation. (30)

In ad[??]soa dance processions of the past, the richly adorned Ad[??]soahemaa dancer, flanked by her two young "attendants," would remove the awisiado from her own neck and place it around the neck of the husband in a regal gesture of consolation (Fig. 17). (31) Today the awisiado is usually placed on a silver tray, along with a dozen handkerchiefs ("to wipe away your tears") and a bottle of schnapps (a time-honored means of libation), to be formally presented among the gifts of cloth and expensive liquors given by the wife's family (see Fig. 16).

[FIGURE 17 OMITTED]

Although the ad[??]soa remains the most prestigious means of presentation, less costly ones frequently take place. In fact, for these contemporary exhibitions of poatwa (assertions of wealth and status), the silver trays and brass pans bearing high-status cloths (and beads, for a deceased woman), liquors, and the awisiado are now usually hired for the event (Figs. 18, 19). If a client has sufficient funds, the present-day suppliers of funerary regalia can also arrange for an ad[??]soa dance performance.

[FIGURES 18-19 OMITTED]

Today these funerary presentations may be sponsored by the spouse of not only a bereaved husband but also a bereaved wife. The gift of the breastlike awisiado expresses deep consolation as well as a degree of enduring support that, over the course of the twentieth century, many Asante have increasingly come to associate with one's mother and matrilineage.

Maternal Nurturance and the Consoling Awisiado

The Significance of the Maternal Principle

In the Ashanti Region of Ghana, the maternal principle has long been invested with a special moral and emotional resonance. In his study of Asante kinship and marriage, Meyer Fortes describes the mother-child bond as the "keystone of all social relations," observing that in an "individual's life-history, his or her mother stands for unquestioning protection and support against the world at large" (1950:263-64). In recent years, as the fiscal pressures of Ghana's troubled economy have put increasing strains on the more tenuous paternal obligations of Asante's matrilineal, polygynous social system, Takyiwaa Manuh finds that children's welfare has become increasingly dependent on mothers and their matrilineage (1993:179). The historical roots of such changes have been examined in a recent study of women in colonial Asante (Allman & Tashjian 2000:85-132).

Motherliness is expressed by the word [??]baatan ("mother"). The term refers literally to the customary forty-day period of rest and seclusion ([??]tan) by a woman ([??]baa) following childbirth (Clark 1999:722; Christaller 1933:493). Gracia Clark observes, however, that it is invariably understood to mean "a nursing mother"--a fundamental attribute of Asante motherhood that connotes far more than the literal provision of breast milk (1999:721-23). (32) During my own fieldwork, I learned that female animals with young may be given the personified, honorific appellation of [??]baatan, as in the name for the popular factory-cloth design of a mother hen and her chicks: Akok[??]baatan ne ne mma (lit. "Nursing-mother chicken and her children").

Clark's analysis of the concept [??]baatan ("nursing mother"), and the related term [??]baatan adwuma, or "nursing-mother work," reveals the "economic" nature of Asante motherhood (Clark 1999:723). The idea that such nurturing benevolence is an essentially female characteristic was forcefully expressed by one female trader I interviewed in Kumase in 1990: "In Ashanti, the mother is everything.... I am the one who takes care of her." This trader spoke with pride of her own hard work and self-sacrifice as a mature Asante woman with the commitment and will to care for her elderly mother and her grandson, and who was able to send three children to England for their advanced education.

Nursing-Mother Imagery in Akan Visual and Verbal Art

Nursing-mother imagery is a prominent feature of Akan visual and verbal art. Herbert Cole and Doran Ross have observed that wooden nursing-mother figures (see Fig. 20) express "ideas of nourishment, the family, and the continuity of a lineage or state" (1977:111). The power of Asante motherhood is also evident in more menacing breast imagery, such as that Rattray found in the Fwemso witch-finding shrine--a life-size clay model of a pair of breasts, with a knife thrust in between, symbolizing its powerful capacity to seize and kill a witch's spirit (Fig. 21; see Rattray 1927:31-32). (33)

[FIGURES 20-21 OMITTED]

The master drums, or "mother" drums, of the Akan popular bands that flourished during the first half of the twentieth century frequently display nursing imagery, often in the form of up to eight carved breasts affixed to the front (Cole & Ross 1977; Ross 1984, 1988, 1989). Ross, who has written extensively on the iconography of these drums, has drawn our attention to one particularly intriguing, early-twentieth-century master drum (1988). It features a pair of breasts attached to the relief carving of a crowned European woman whom he has identified as Queen Victoria (Fig. 22). The colonial government, Ross notes, widely circulated photographs of the British monarch as "a symbol of benevolence and sustenance," and the Akan carver's placement of her image on a breasted drum "was consistent with indigenous conceptions of the drum" (Ross 1988:117).

[FIGURE 22 OMITTED]

Benevolence and sustenance, as ideals of Akan leadership, have long been expressed in such images of maternal nurturance. Among the Asantehene's state regalia are a sword and an umbrella that each bear the golden image of a mother hen and her chicks. The associated proverb, "A hen steps on her chicks not to kill but to set them on the right path," casts the powers and responsibilities of Asante royal authority in motherly, benevolent terms (Kyerematen 1961:10). This state sword and umbrella are both known as Akokobaatan, or "Mother hen" (lit. "nursing-mother" chicken), a term that explicitly references the all-encompassing care of an Asante nursing mother. The proverb "[??]hene nufu d[??]so a, amansan na enum" ("When a chief has plenty of breast milk, then all the people of the state drink of it") expresses this royal ideal of maternal nurturance. (34)

Metaphors of Maternity in Asante Funerals

  Me y[??] akyemirekuku. Meeb[??]wu ama
   esie adwiri.

   (I am the ant queen. When I die
   the whole ant hill will collapse.)

As M.H. Frempong recalled the elderly uncle who sang these words on his deathbed, he explained the appropriateness of this maternal metaphor for the "one devoted person who is the real family tree." The ant queen, he explained, who "is very soft and full of fat," provided a symbol of generative nurturance that was especially fitting for this "benevolent" uncle who had provided sustenance and support for his extended family. (35)

In Akan funeral dirges, the imagery used to mourn the loss of an especially benevolent father or male relative may be expressed in maternal terms. Such an individual may be lauded as "a man who was a mother to children" (Nketia 1955:35-36). After one father's death, his children chose a cloth to place in his coffin. Its proverbial name was "[??]baatan nim s[??] ne baa didi" ("It is a mother who knows what her child eats"). The "nursing mother" meaning of the term [??]baatan expressed this father's exceptional care (Gott 1994:214). Similarly, Clark found that a father who provides unflagging financial support is often praised during his lifetime as being "a real [??]baatan" (1999:721-23).

Funeral dirges lamenting the passing of a beloved mother often include such panegyric phrases as: "The mother who gives to both mother and child"; "The mighty tree with big branches laden with fruit. When children come to you, they find something to eat." Other phrases associate maternal benevolence with the provision of nurturing breast milk (Nketia 1955:10): "Mother Aba, the great Breast that children suck," and "Mother Aba, the great wooden Food Bowl around which children gather."

In Akan expressive culture, a child who has lost his or her mother is the epitome of the orphan (awisiaa). Such a child is considered to be a particularly poignant image of vulnerability and abandonment, as in the proverb "Awisiaa su a, [??]mmr[??] nisuo ho" ("When the orphan weeps, tears come easily"; Akrofi 1962: no. 1013). In examining the image of death in Akan highlife songs, Sjaak van der Geest found the most common theme to be a mother's death and the devastating nature of maternal loss (1980:152-53):

  An orphan is to be pitied.
   My mother, who would help me,
   is dead and buried at the cemetery.
   I am a small boy, left alone in the
   world to face hardship.

He observed that such highlife lyrics express "the fact that someone without a mother is regarded as someone 'without anybody'" (Van der Geest 1980:150).

Mourning Imagery Expressing Parental Loss

In the Ashanti Region, the presentation and wearing of the awisiado is an established feature of contemporary funeral observances. The necklace derives its name from the pairing of awisiaa (orphan) and do (to love), literally meaning "for the love of the orphan." During the commemorative rites that follow burial, the daughters-in-law or sons-in-law of the deceased often present their bereaved spouses with an awisiado to wear as a special means of "consolation," because "with the death of the person who gave them life, they will be lonely." (36)

Within this matrilineal society, in which a man and woman after marrying often continue to reside in their respective matrilineal households, the breastlike awisiado is emblematic of an Asante ideal of enduring maternal support that continues well into adulthood. Its distinctive name and form express the mother's capacity to comfort the adult orphan. "Breasts are objects of joy," one senior Asante woman observed; "you drink from the breast and you become happy." (37) Nana Afua Pokuaa, former queen mother of Amoman and a renowned dancer of the ad[??]soa-kyekyere, the funeral procession in which the awisiado is formally presented, eloquently describes the ornament's significance: "The orphan is made like a newborn baby who is calling for breast milk whenever it is crying. When he is fed, he becomes relieved. This is awisiado. A child cries, 'Ngaa! Ngaa! Ngaa!' Then we say, 'Stop! Stop! Condolence!' We use this to wipe away the sorrow." (38)

Although the awisiado embodies the nurturing essence of motherhood, it expresses cultural ideals that transcend gender boundaries. Wearing the necklace signifies fertility, wealth, and sustaining benevolence--laudable qualities in both women and men, as well as qualities long associated with the powers and responsibilities of Akan leadership.

At Asante funerals, mourning for a father may be also expressed by wearing another gendered object: the atena ("net"--a simple head-covering consisting of a commercially produced hairnet, or a crocheted cap, that is embellished with a hollow eggshell and other symbolic forms (Figs. 23, 24). The atena identifies the bereaved children of a deceased father and commemorates his fruitful, successful life, for a deceased man is customarily praised for having fathered a substantial number of children. (39) According to Nana Afua Pokuaa, the eggshell affixed to the center of these head-coverings signifies that "the children had eaten their last meal," as it is a father's duty to provide food for his wife and children. The practice of tying a grey parrot's red tailfeather to the eggshell signifies the deep mourning that follows the loss of such paternal care. The Asante associate the color red with great emotional distress, wearing red cloth following the loss of their closest relations. The parrot's red tailfeathers are suggestive of mourning attire, and the cries of a lone parrot are reminiscent of the distress of an abandoned orphan. Nana Afua Pokuaa explained the use of a parrot's tailfeather on the atena by observing that "If a parrot is sitting on a tree, it says 'kaamo, kaamo'--if a parrot is sitting on a tree, it seems very pitiable." (40)

The atena, like the awisiado, expresses the sorrow of parental death by referencing ideals of parental sustenance. The atena attests to the deceased father's faithful fulfillment of customary obligations to his wife and children. The awisiado, which signifies the end of "maternal" nurturance by the death of a mother or father, is presented as a gesture of consolation for the "motherless orphan."

[FIGURES 23-24 OMITTED]

In present-day Asante funerals, the awisiado appears more frequently than the relatively humble atena, a difference that may in part be due to the golden awisiado's historical and ongoing links with prestigious court regalia. Its special appeal also arises from the particular resonance of nursing-mother imagery, which expresses an idealized maternal benevolence that transcends gender boundaries. In addition, photographs of girls wearing awisiado in unidentified ceremonial contexts are now available for sale as Asante cultural images (Fig. 25). This development, together with the more recent emergence of the golden dual-disk pectoral in the funerary context, reveals the dynamic processes by which an evocative cultural symbol continues to be manifested in a society's visual art and culture.

[FIGURE 25 OMITTED]

[This article was scripted for publication in December 2002.]

The field research for this article was handed, in 1999, by an Indiana University School of Fine Arts Friends of Art Research Travel Award and, in 1990, by a Fulbright-Hays Doctural Dissertation Research Grant, a grant from the International Doctoral Research Fellowship Program for Africa of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies, with funds provided by the Rockefeller Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; and an Indiana University Folklore Institute Special Projects Grant.

I also want to express my gratitude to the many individuals and scholars in Ghana, especially Professor Takyiwaa Manuh and the late Professor Mawere Opoku of the University of Ghana's Institute of African Studies, for their support and assistance in this research project. I am also particularly indebted to Roy Sieber, Doran Ross, Martha Ehrlich, Michelle Gilbert, and Monica Blackmun Visona for generously sharing their expertise, and I am extremely grateful to Patrick McNaughton, Christine Mullen Kreamer, and Elisabeth Cameron for their comments and suggestions during the preparation of this article.

(1.) Scholarly works on Asante leadership arts include: Kyerematen 1961, 1964, 1969-70: Crownover 1964; Bravmann 1968, 1972; Van Dantzig 1970; Fraser 1972; Fagg 1974; Cole & Ross 1977; Donne 1977; Ross 1977; Appiah 1979; Ehrlich 1981; McLeod 1981; Patton 1984; Bravmann & Silverman 1987; Garrard 1989; Ayensu 1997; and Ross 1998, 2002a, b.

(2.) "Traditional ruler" is a more inclusive and nuanced term than "chief," the designation that colonial administrators applied to all traditional office-holders. The indiscriminate use of this term, Kwame Arhin observes, "conceals real differences between the kinds of power or authority exercised by the various traditional office holders [i.e., kings, queen mothers, paramount chiefs, chiefs, etc.]" (Arhin 1985:1).

(3.) Translations of Akan and Asante terms are based on Christaller 1933, unless otherwise noted.

(4.) A chain may be used in place of a fiber cord, as in the David gold dual-disk pectoral (see note 6) or the brass dual-disk pectoral pictured in Figure 2. The long-established nature of this horizontal suspension method has been documented by Barbot's 1679 drawings of Gold Coast ornaments and by gold ornaments recovered from the 1717 wreckage of the slave ship Whydah, as well as by those taken from the Asante capital by British troops in 1874. See Barbot 1992 (1678-1712): fig. 43, pl. opp. 494) and Ehrlich 1987:52-55.

(5.) For seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century Akan gold discoid beads, see fig. 43, opp. p. 494, in Barbot 1992, vol. 2; and Ehrlich 1987. For discoid forms and motifs in other Akan metalwork, see Kyerematen 1969 70, Ross 1974, and Silverman 1983. The circular form may also be seen in the popular African factory-cloth design Nsubura ("Wells" or "Deep pools of water"), first introduced into Ghana during the 1930s (Nielsen 1974)

(6.) A dual-disk pectoral, from the Rene David Collection, was included in a recent exhibition at Pforzheim's Schmuck-museum and published in the exhibition catalogue Ife, Akan und Benin: Westafrikanische Kunst aus 2000 Jahren: Gold, Bronzen, Terrakotten (2000:121, fig. 63). Roy Sieber observed that certain African-art dealers report having acquired a limited number of dual-disk chest ornaments (personal communication, July 2001).

(7.) Ehrlich notes the difficulties in assigning a dual-disk origin to similar or even identical single-disk pectorals. One disk might be a replacement for an earlier, damaged disk, and what appears to be a matching pair of disks may simply be two single disks produced by the same workshop, as in a group of 1920-50 pectoral disks cast in the pattern akyekyede[??] akyi ("tortoise back") that are very similar in size, design, and workmanship (Martha Ehrlich, personal communication, May 2002).

(8.) It is interesting to note that each of two renowned illustrations of Asante regalia taken by British troops contains a pectoral stripped of suspension materials; see "Ashantee golden ornaments and trophies," from the Illustrated London News, 1874; and "Trophies from Coomassie," The Graphic, April 11, 1874, reproduced in Fagg 1974:44-46, figs. 6, 9.

(9.) This bracelet was perhaps mentioned fifty years earlier by John Lock, who observed, on a Gold Coast voyage, that certain women "weare in their bare armes certain foresleeves made of the plates of beaten golde" (in Blake 1942, col. 2:343).

(10.) It has been suggested that the bracelet of this "noblewoman" may be an early term of the Akan "queen mother's bracelet" known as babadua, a name that refers to a segmented, bamboo-like cane whose toughness and great height are associated with the strength of the matrilineage and the elevated status and necessity of traditional rule. However, the two circular disks in the 1602 engravings are substantially larger than the circular terminals of nineteenth- and twentieth century babadua (Garrard 1989:71) Given the ethnohistorical accuracy and precision of detail associated with De Marees' text and copperplate engravings (see Iselin 1994), it is highly unlikely that the prominence of the 1602 disks should be attributed to fanciful European exaggeration; and although babadua seems an appropriate name for the cane-like "knots" formed by the two circular terminals of the later "queen mother's bracelet," this name seems a less likely match for the extremely large disks of the bracelets in De Marees' engravings

(11.) Osei Tutu, before his late-seventeenth-century rise to power as the founding ruler of the Asante kingdom, spent time in the courts of the Denkyira and Akwamu, the two dominant powers of the time. Here the future Asantehene is believed to have acquired knowledge of statecraft and royal ritual, including probable inspiration for the sacred Golden Stool, whose miraculous descent from the heavens closely parallels the heavenly origin of the earlier Precious Bead Stool of the Denkyira (Bravmann 1968:4; Wilks 1989:110-12).

(12.) Doran Ross, personal communication, October 2002.

Among the different articulations of the Asante concept of sunsum ("spirit"), I have found the most compelling to be that of Hagan, who describes sunsum as a spiritual "essence" to which "an intrinsic principle of activity" is attributed (1964:24).

(13.) See Meyerowtiz 1951: fig. 2; Ehrlich 1981, col. 1:140-41; Tufuo & Donkor 1989:62; Beaten 1993:65-66, pl. 33; Ayensu 1997:139; and Ross 1998:43, fig. 3.13.

(14.) Ross has pointed out what appears to be a king wearing a dual disk pectoral on the lid of the British Museum's Barclay-Armitage kuduo. The representational anomalies--scarification and bare feet--associated with the king's image on this nineteenth- or early-twentieth-century vessel make it difficult to assess the meaning of such ornamentation in this particular context (personal communication, May 21R)2). See McLeod 1979, especially illustration 9.

(15.) See Beverly Stoeltje's discussion of the relationship between symbolic motherhood and Asante queen mothers' "moral authority" (1997:57-59).

(16.) There are no records of female [??]bir[??]mp[??]n displays, but that does not mean such an event never occurred or that such a gendered term was not applied to such a woman. See Clark's discussion of the contemporary term [??]baa barima ("manly or brave woman"), used for a market woman who "had achieved the level of financial success and economic independence considered essential for men" (1999:722).

(17.) According to the Bowdich Glossary, the "benda" was valued at 9 [pounds sterling] currency in 1819.

(18.) The complete prayer is "Anguioume, mame maro, mame orie, mame chike occori, mame akaka, mame Brembi, mame angouan a aounsan" (Loyer 1935 [1714]:213). It may be translated as "My God [Anguioume(Onyame)], give me rice, give me yams, give me gold [chike (sika)] and precious beads [occori (kori)], give me slaves [akaka], give me wealth [Brembi, i.e., obiremp[??]n status], give me health and fitness" (see Kea 1981:177).

(19.) Visona, in analyzing late-twentieth century regalia practices in Lagoons cultures, observed that "every man and woman may aspire to gold ownership." She notes that the ability to display gold objects during certain festivals often "entitles a man to special privileges as well as bestowing upon him a title usually translated as 'king'" (1987:299, 306-7). Garrard also draws our attention to the public display of gold by "big men" in the Lagoons region of southeastern Cote d'Ivoire, a practice described in the 1873 account of Fleuriot de Langle (1989:106-8).

(20.) The Asante akonkofo[??], who had fled to the coast in the 1880s and 1890s to establish their own inheritable wealth, free of the Asante state's system of death duties, did return to Kumase following the 1896 British defeat and exile of the Asantehene (Arhin 1986). Although the akonkofo[??] had shaken off the historical ideology governing state regulation of wealth, McCaskie notes that "they were still enmeshed--as their descendants are--in the received (if modified) cultural imagery of behaving like a 'big man', an [??]bir[??]mp[??]n" (1986:8).

(21.) In Kumase, the assumption of "royal" prerogatives by members of the moneyed rather than royal elite is a point of contention that has continued in the present day, as in the restrictions concerning the wearing of ahenemma mpaboa (royal sandals) by nonroyals at ceremonial and ritual gatherings.

(22.) In recent years, due to formal education and Christianity, female nubility rites have become increasingly abbreviated or have been abandoned altogether (Sarpong 1977:94-95; Obeng 1991:284). In 1990 the prestigious dress displays customarily associated with girls' bragoro appeared in a new coming-of-age context, in the succession of new ensembles Kumase girls donned for a series of photographic portraits, made following their Form 4 graduation class picture (Gott 1994;200-203). In certain Asante villages, a colleague witnessed "mock" bragoro rites, staged as cultural re-enactments by local female elders, under the sponsorship of governmental community development agencies--further indication of the abbreviation or abandonment of custom in late twentieth-century Asante (Barbara Stucki, personal communication, March 1990)

(23.) A similar occasion on which nonroyal females are temporarily honored in the manner of Asante royalty occurs after a woman gives birth, particularly for the first time. For her public reentry into society, the new mother is accompanied by attendants and adorned with a distinctive golden necklace popularly known as ahene komate ("chiefs' necklace"). See Gott 1994:205-11, and Garrard 1989:10 for an example of this type of royal necklace.

(24.) In Kumase, the decoration of the wake-keeping chamber is often the work of biped professionals. These decorators provide the lace and kente cloth for draping the walls of the chamber, as well as a special brass bed for the deceased ,and additional room decorations, such as lamps, strings of lights, and artificial or fresh flowers,

(25.) See Arhin 1994, Manuh 1995, and De Witte 2001 for recent examinations of Asante funerals. Manuh in particular focuses on the role of marital relationships with respect to funeral obligations.

(26.) Interview with Madam Abena Konadu, Kumase, September 1990. Translation by Gilbert A. Kyereme and Kwaku Asante-Darko, Department of Languages, the University of Science and Technology, Kumase.

(27.) Interview with Nana Afua Pokuaa, former queen mother of Amoman, Kumase, July 1999.

(28.) Rattray's brief description of a more humble form of ad[??]soa procession, with "male futuo," or foto[??] ("a bag of gold dust, or money") and "female ad[??]sowa" bundles, is notable for his documentation of gendered funerary bundles and the, capacity of these bundles to be possessed by the spirit of the deceased during the course of the procession (1927:174). Gendered ad[??]soa bundles, and their potential for possession, remain a feature of certain contemporary ad[??]soa ritual processions and are the subject of my current research.

(29.) Meyerowitz writes briefly of a similar "ad[??]sowa funeral custom," performed for Asante royalty, that featured a beautiful female Ad[??]soahene (Ad[??]soa king) and other female dancers dressed in male attire, who "in olden days" imitated fighting warriors--an activity later replaced by "swaggering about in men's cloths and smoking cigarettes" (1951:71).

(30.) These funeral dance processions offer an opportunity for co-wife rivalry. Professor Opoku recalled one such occasion, on which a female relative was surprised by her co-wife's last-minute challenge: instead of the planned co-sponsored ad[??]soa, each of them should stage her own ad[??]soa-kyekyere for their bereaved husband. Despite the short notice his aunt was able to pull together an outstanding ad[??]soa by calling upon the local chief for the loan of his kete drums and regalia. Her feat provided clear evidence of her social standing and superior social connections (interview with professor Albert Mawere Opoku, University of Ghana, Legon, July 1999; see also Arhin 1994:316).

(31.) For a more recent image of an Ad[??]soahemaa dancer wearing the awisiado pectoral, see Fisher 1984:92 and Beckwith & Fisher 1996:41. This particular dancer was, in fact, a member of the ad[??]soa dance troupe of ad[??]soa specialist Nasa Afua Pokuaa, former queen mother of Amoman. During my July 1999 interview in Kumase with Nana Pokuaa, she informed me that dressing the Ad[??]soahemaa in such a manner was largely a feature of earlier dance processions.

(32.) Clark notes that when Asante fathers show the kind of devotion associated with motherhood, "they are praised as good mothers, not fathers" (1999:721). Allman mad Tashjian provide historical evidence of "nursing" terms applied to especially devoted lathering (2000:95, 99).

(33.) Rattray noted that six anthropomorphic wooden figures, one armed with a knife, were arranged around the headless and armless breasted trunk, ready in aid in apprehending and defeating witches (1927:32).

(34.) See Proverb 415, p. 115, in Rattray 1969 [1916], an annotated translation of selected proverbs from Christaller's 1879 collection of Asante and Fante proverbs. In his notes, Rattray observes that the word nufu (lit., "breast") serves as a metonym for nufu nsu ("breast milk"). See also Christaller 1933:353.

(35.) Interview with Mr. M.H. Frempong, Kumase, May 1990.

(36.) Interview with Juliana Osei, Kumase, March 1990.

(37.) Interview with Mrs. Mary Owusu-Ansah, Kumase, September 1990. Translation by Gilbert A. Kyereme and Kwaku Asante-Darko, Department of Languages, University of Science and Technology, Kumase.

(38.) Interview with Nana Afua Pokuaa, former queen mother of Amoman, Kumase, July 1999. Translation by Kofi Agyekum, Lecturer, Department of Linguistics, University of Ghana, Legon.

(39.) Interview with Madam Abena Konadu and Mrs. Mary Owusu-Ansah, Kumase, September 1990

(40.) Interview with Nana Afua Pokuaa, Kumase, July 1999. See McCaskie 1992 for an exploration of Asante perceptions of forest animals, especially pp. 232-35 concerning the significance of color in symbolic constructions placed upon animals,

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Suzanne Gott is an assistant professor of art history at the Kansas City Art Institute. Her research and writing focus on the Asante of southern Ghana.