ASANTE, GHANA

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Disk-headed akuaba figures are perhaps one of the most iconic forms in the African figural corpus. They are ritually consecrated images that depict children and are carried by aspiring mothers who wish to overcome barrenness and conceive, aided by the power of community spirits. Their use arose out of an Akan legend about a woman named Akua who used such a figure for exactly this purpose. Akuaba (“Akua’s child”) are carried flat against the back, wrapped in skirts, exactly as a human child would be. After influencing a successful pregnancy, they are returned to shrines in testament to the spirits’ power or kept by the family as a reminder of their child.

The fine akuaba shown here displays all the classic characteristics of its type, with a wide disk head, arched eyebrows and nose in relief, horizontal arms, and a cylindrical torso. The flat surface of the facial disk, which suggests the flattening performed upon Akan children’s foreheads by the gentle modeling of the infant’s soft cranial bones, is carefully decorated with a group of lightly incised designs. A ridged neck, another Akan beauty ideal, communicates robust health. Small, close-set breasts identify the figure as female. This is in keeping with all genuine akuaba, girls being the preferred outcome for a birth in the matrilineal society of the Akan.

Holes pierced at the ends of the arms likely once held pendant beads or other adornments like the string of tiny beads that encircle the neck of the figure.

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