Additional Information: A stunning Asante doll figure with an oversized oval head, a heart-shaped face, a ringed neck, short extended arms, a large elongated trunk and a cylindrical base.   Akua'Ba (aqua'ba), among the Akan, are considered objects with the capacity to help women conceive and deliver healthy babies. The akua'ba figures are sculpturally abstracted with a tubular body and short arms surmounted by a flattened head and face and smaller in size than this example. Though most akuaba are listed as Asante, their shape, color and detail may vary according to the particular group of Akan from which they come. Some have round heads, others flat and rectangular, bodies may be totally abstracted or have anthropomorphic details added as in this example. Among the Akan childbearing is an important responsibility of women who are considered to have not fulfilled their purpose on earth unless they have had children and inasmuch as the Akan are a matrilineal society girl babies are preferred. The tradition of how akuaba came to be is based upon the story of a childless woman named Akua who went to her local shrine to consult with the priest of her desire to have a child. The priest advised her to have a small figure carved and to treat it as she would a real child carrying it in a cloth on her back. At first ridiculed, she was in time to deliver a real child, a girl, to the astonishment of her friends who exclaimed to her "Akua, wo ba ni" - "Akua, this is your child". The child was named Akua or Wednesday born. Since that time barren women among the Akan who wish children will have a figure carved to keep by their side or after the child is born to place the akuaba in a shrine as offering and remembrance. As shrine pieces an akuaba is often painted with white clay to carry messages to the spirits. If kept by women at home akuaba would be dressed with cloth, wear jewelry and have hairstyles carved along the edges of...

• Type of Object: carving, artifact, doll
• Materials: Wood, beads, copper alloy earring, pigment
• Country of Origin: Ghana
• Dimensions: Height: 15.5 InchesWidth: 6.5 Inches
• People: Asante

Type of Object: carving, artifact, dollAfrica Direct