Asante Stools and the Matrilineage
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Asante Stools and the Matrilineage The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Hale, Catherine Meredith. 2013. Asante Stools and the Matrilineage. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:11004913 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Asante Stools and the Matrilineage A dissertation presented by Catherine Meredith Hale to The Department of History of Art and Architecture in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of History of Art and Architecture Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts May 2013 © 2013 Catherine Meredith Hale All rights reserved. Professor Suzanne P. Blier Catherine Meredith Hale Asante Stools and the Matrilineage Abstract Discussions of Asante stools in Western literature and museum records have focused exclusively on their association with male chiefs. My research, which combines archival and oral histories, and sets the existing literature and documentation on stools in comparative perspective, reframes existing thinking by asserting that asese dwa (sing. sese dwa), or conventional Asante stools, are intimately connected with women, and especially, queen mothers. Although the stool today is known widely as a symbol of male chieftaincy, chiefs do not sit on them in public. They use them only in very specific private spheres. It is queen mothers who sit on stools publically as seats of authority. The physical form of the stool, especially the mmaa dwa or “woman’s stool” is a powerful symbol of female fecundity and the propagation of the Asante peoples. By exploring queen mother’s archives of stools and their dynamic uses of them, I present a more expansive history of these important cultural objects that challenges the taxonomies established by R. S. Rattray (1927) and others during the twentieth century. Contrary to the clearly defined hierarchies of symbolism, materials and structure that have informed assessments of historical stools in the West, Asante queen mothers have commissioned and used stools in an ongoing and context-dependent process of negotiation for at least a century. In this dissertation I explore the history of Asante stools since the late-nineteenth century through the lens of queen mothers’ perspectives. ! iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................v List of Figures ............................................................................................................vii Glossary of Key Terms ..............................................................................................x Introduction ................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1 Re-Engendering Asante Stools ..................................................................31 Chapter 2 Bodies and Stools: Ritual, Structure and Symbols ....................................59 Chapter 3 The Primacy of Archives ...........................................................................107 Conclusion .................................................................................................................166 Bibliography ..............................................................................................................171 ! iv Acknowledgements I am greatly indebted to my supervisor, Prof. Suzanne P. Blier, for her exceptional guidance and thoughtful discussions. My committee members, Prof. Tom Cummins and Prof. Cynthia Becker offered insightful commentary and suggestions for future development of this project. Without the generosity of numerous individuals in Ghana who shared their stories and perspectives my dissertation research would not have been possible. I am especially grateful to Nana Ama, Isaac, Akosua, Adowa, and Kwabena Agyeman, Nana Sarfo Kantanka, Nana Ama Serwah Nyarko, Nana Braku Yaa, Nana Yaa Birago Kokodurofo, Nana Ama Konadu II, Nana Ama Agyeman, Nana Afia Serwaa, Nana Akosua Abrafi II, Nana Birago Ababio, Nana Gyama Pensan II, Nana Kwartemaa Nyiano Ababio, Nana Sika Brayie, Nana Abena Gyamfua, Nana Adwoa Agyeiwa II, Nana Darkowaa Ababio II, Nana Frempong Boadu, Nana Brefo-Boateng, S. F. Adjei, Adom Gyamfi Richard, Elizabeth Paul Hutchison, Ebenezer Aikins-Opoku, Millington Dofuoh, Kwaku Amoako, Stephen Anderson, and Charity and Chris Scott. The British Museum, the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford, the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the National Museum of Ireland, and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard kindly provided me with access to their collections and archives to aid in my research. Christopher and Lou Ellen Hale, Carla Taunton, Kristen Steele, Khadija Carroll and many others too numerous to name here were instrumental in ushering me from the start to finish of my doctoral degree. ! v I would also like to express my thanks to Dr. Sean O’Harrow, Prof. Christopher D. Roy and my colleagues at the University of Iowa Museum of Art for their ongoing support and encouragement. Research for this dissertation was completed with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada), Committee on African Studies (Harvard University), and the Stanley-UI Foundation Support Organization (University of Iowa). ! vi List of Figures Figure 1 The Golden Stool or Sika Dwa Kofi Figure 2 Conventional Stool or Sese Dwa in the Mmaa dwa design. "Smoked" color and metal plating indicate high status. Collection of the British Museum, Af 1954,23.3215. Figure 3 Underside of Sese Dwa showing concentric squares carved around opening of hollow central core. Collection of the British Museum, Af 1954,23.3215. Figure 4 Kotoko dwa stool belonging to the Sewuahemaa, Nana Akosua Abrafi II, with concentric spider-web shapes carved into its underside. Figure 5 Asipim and Akonkromfi chairs for church officials at St. Peter's Basilica, Kumase. Figure 6 Nana Gyama Pensan II sits on her sese dwa next to the Aboasohene’s asipim chair. Figure 7 Chair for the Offinsohene commissioned by the Offinsohemaa to keep in her home. Figure 8 Map of Ghana showing trade routes and Asante dominance in the mid- 19th century. Figure 9 Map of Ghana showing contemporary administrative regions. Figure 10 Nana Kwartemaa Nyiano Ababio, Wadie Adwumakasehemaa, sitting on her Mmaa dwa stool next to her Nyansapo stool. Figure 11 “Yaw Sapong, Asante Chief,” photographed by Frederick A. L. Ramseyer c. 1888-1895. Figure 12 “Juaben Hene and Ohema with stool,” photographed by R.S. Rattray c. 1921-1929. Figure 13 Young initiates ‘enstooled’ publically as part of bragoro. Nana Darkowaa Ababio II (far left) and other queen mothers who officiated the event stand behind the girls. The gifts they received are pictured in front. ! vii Figure 14 Nana Ama Serwah Nyarko, Offinsohemaa, feeds one of the initiates an egg during the rehearsal of bragoro I attended at her home on 29 May 2012. Figure 15 “All the abosom and their priests assembled in the Gyase Kesie, when the gods took this oath to the chief through the mouths of their priests…[after which] the shrines of the gods were each set upon his stool and the chief passed among them,” photograph by R.S. Rattray, c. 1921-32. Figure 16 Interior of newly built palace for the Mantia Stool that draws on the traditional form of an open courtyard surrounded by open and closed front rooms. Figure 17 Basic four-part plan of traditional Asante architecture. Figure 18 “The King’s Sleeping Room,” illustrated by T.E. Bowdich. Figure 19 Asante stool in the collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art bearing the “violin” motif in its metalwork. Figure 20 Ceremonial cooking area at the Bawjwiasi shrine that shares a design similar to the one found in the sleeping room of the Asantehene. Figure 21 Visual parallels between traditional architecture and Mmaa dwa design of Asante stools. Figure 22 Visual parallels between the fihankra symbol and an elaborately carved stool seat. Figure 23 Asante Stool collected by Garnet Joseph Wolseley, c. 1874, purported to be the “travelling war stool of the King of Ashanti King Koffee.” Collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum, 1978.7.1. Figure 24 Mmaa dwa or “woman’s stool” in the collection of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. Figure 25 Nana Ama Serwah Nyarko’s Pantu stool. Figure 26 Nana Ama Serwah Nyarko’s historical Mmaa dwa. Figure 27 Underside of Nana Ama Serwha Nyarko’s historical Mmaa dwa showing remnants of curvilinear consecration marks. Figure 28 Nana Darkowaa Ababio II’s sese dwa with consecration marks on its underside. ! viii Figure 29 Nana Braku Yaa I’s “leisure” stool. Figure 30 Nana Braku Yaa I’s Bathing Stool. Figure 31 Nana Yaa Birago Kokodurofo’s Bathing Stool. Figure 32 Nana Yaa Birago Kokodurofo’s contemporary Mmaa dwa. Figure 33 Nana Yaa Birago Kokodurofo’s Obi-te-obi-so stool. Figure 34 Nana Birago Ababio’s contemporary Mmaa dwa. Figure 35 Nana Birago Ababio’s Kotoko dwa. Figure 36 Kontonkowori in the collection of the British Museum that I showed to carvers at Ahwiaa. Figure 37 Nana Akosua Abrafi II’s Kotoko dwa. Figure 38 The stool the abusuapanin keeps at his residence for Nana Kwartemaa Nyiano Ababio. Figure