Gold-Handling Equipment

Gold dust suspected of impurities could be put in a sheet-brass blowpan, or famfa , derived from European prototypes, and blown upon gently from the smaller, open end. Lighter impurities would blow away, leaving pure, heavy metal at the enclosed back of the pan for transfer to scale pan or storage box with little, hammered or sheet-brass cutout spoons, saawa, which are very well represented in the Meyer Collection. These ornate spoons always have compass- drawn bowls and usually a cutout sheet-brass handle all in one piece, but a few were hammered from bars, and an occasional example was made in two pieces or broken and repaired.

Silver spoons, like other metal spoons, may once have been used to give an eight-day-old infant its first solid food ( Rattray: 60) or to give food offerings to the gods (McLeod: 131), but they are so common in goldweight equipment that they may simply indicate the higher social status of their owner.

Loose gold dust, or small, pre-measured amounts wrapped in cloth squares and tied with thread for use in small market purchases, were kept in small, cast-brass, rectangular boxes, or in oval or circular, sheet-brass ones. All types are called abampruwa or adakawa . Lid flanges on cast-brass types fit tightly inside the bottoms and their cast-on patterns resemble those of geometric goldweights. Sheet-brass types have lid flanges that fit over the bottoms, and their repouss ornaments are similar to those of the saawa, or spoons. Equal numbers of cast and sheet-brass boxes survive, although cast-brass boxes are probably older. The sheet-brass versions, which use very thin, European mechanically rolled brass crimped and riveted together, are undeniably fragile and probably use oval or circular forms for their inherent strength as well as for simplicity.

The entire kit, or futoo, wrapped in cloth, could be put into a leather container, a wood box, or if the owner was a wealthy man, a cast-brass kuduo. These derived from 14th- and 15th-century Islamic brass prototypes, evolving from simple cup-bowl or squat, flat-topped cylindrical types with flat bases, into larger, more elaborate forms with cast-on feet or cast-on open-ring stands designed to raise the bottom and avoid abrasion. Some of these later Akan versions featured innovations in the form of cast-on three-dimensional decorations on the lids, which had never been seen in the prototypes (Ross and Garrard, eds.:16). The Meyer Collection example, though battered, is an early example of a cylindrical casket type with fitted lid. It once had a movable bail handle fitted into cast-on sockets, and its ring foot has been compressed into the vessel's underside. A kuduo, full of gold dust, could be buried with its deceased owner and dug up again if needed, or it could be hidden temporarily in time of trouble. Surviving examples are heirlooms, passed down on the male side of wealthy families.

Less wealthy people sometimes used mforowa in a similar way. Mforowa are repouss-decorated sheet-brass cylindrical containers for shea-nut butter, a body cosmetic, but some people pressed them into service as containers for goldweights and futoo (McLeod:132-3), :132-3), although they were never intended for such use. Mforowa are constructed in exactly the same way as are the small sheet-brass gold-dust boxes and have similar repouss decorations, although the occasional forowa has figurative motifs. Both container types were probably made by the same men, who must have specialized in them. The Meyer Collection's two examples are typical. Like a kuduo, a forowa usually had a ring stand to raise the bottom and protect it from abrasion; the taller example retains its stand, but the shorter one has lost its stand, which was once attached with rivets or staples and crimping of the metal edges. A ring stand could be closed at the bottom for added strength, and mforowa owners sometimes put them near the cooking fires to soften the solid cosmetic inside for application to the skin.

Last updated 29 March 1995.