Shaping for the Fire
Akan and
Asante
History and the
Gold
Trade *
Gold-
Handling
Equipment *
Goldweights:
Lost-Wax
Casting,
Weight System,
Designs, and
Symbolism *
Akan
Goldweights and
Proverbs
Akan goldweights are always popular in both museum and private
collections.
Their animation, humor, and freedom of expression coupled with endless
variety
and detail excite curiosity about their origins and meaning. Such
inquiry is
rewarding, because goldweight forms often reflect Akan history and life,
from
religion and politics to social behavior and responsibilities of the
individual.
Goldweight symbolism can also be linked to Akan proverbs, providing
another
major path into Akan thought, which is often remarkably similar to our
own.
Akan and
Asante
History and the
Gold
Trade
Akan is the name of a language spoken in many dialects by
related groups of
people living in the south-central forest zone and coastal areas of
Ghana and in
southeastern Ivory Coast. The Asante and Fante are probably the best
known
Akan groups of Ghana, and the Ivory Coast Akan groups include the Baule
and
Agni peoples. Stimulated by trade, Akan leaders founded the Asante
state in what
is now Ghana around 1700 as a confederacy of five smaller states. By
1750, the
Asante confederacy had developed into an aggressive trading state
centered on the
inland city of Kumasi.
A genuine empire by 1800, Asante incorporated
many
non-Akan peoples and was ruled by a divine king and his wealthy court,
who
made lavish use of gold and gold-plated regalia and were supported by a
standing
army, royal spies, and diplomats, all nourished by military conquest and
control
of the lucrative gold and slave-trading routes to the north and south.
Like other powerful West
African states of the 18th and 19th centuries, the Asante eventually
threatened
European gold and slave-trading facilities at the coast. A series of
conflicts
between the British, who had replaced other Europeans at the coast, and
the
Asante led to the eventual defeat of the Asante in 1900 and its
annexation as part
of Britain's Gold Coast colony. Renamed Ghana, the Gold Coast colony
became
the first independent post-colonial African state in 1957.
, the first of many European coastal gold-trading forts, to
circumvent
Islamic control of the European gold supply at the source. A parade of
Europeans from many countries soon followed, each group building one or
more
forts on the coast, and trans-Saharan trade routes declined as the
northerly flow
of gold reversed itself, going south to European traders at the coast
instead. The
gold trade grew until the slave trade overtook it around 1750. When
British
prohibition of slave trading began to be enforced by her navy off the
West
African coast around 1825, the gold trade revived for several decades,
finally
ending about 1900.<p>Akan peoples excel in metalworking with non-ferrous
metals because of the gold
trade and its heavy influence from Islamized North Africa. A North
African
influence underlies Akan lost-wax casting and hammering techniques in
brass and
gold, as well as the types of things produced and much of the stylistic
vocabulary.
Later European influences appeared on this broad North African-Islamic
base,
which also supplied the framework for the system of weights and measures
employed by the Akan in the gold trade.<p>
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Proceed
through this exhibit, return to the
Doorway
, or compare with the Yoruba
section.
Last updated 29 March 1995.