https:/.../2020-07-08_arh303_royal-art-asante-empire.mp4

Alrighty, welcome back.

And we are going to now talk about
our first key image,

and this is an image -- an object from
present day Ghana,

this is part of the Asante or Ashanti
culture in Ghana which still exists,

and if any of you as kids ever knew
the story of "Anansi the Spider"

that is part of Ashanti culture,
I can hear the song about it in my head,

my kids were little,
all these years later.

And this is -- you can see here, sometimes
we don't know the artists for these,

but in this case,
this is a very important object,

and we do know the artist, or the artist
that it's attributed to, Kojo Bonsu,

and it is a finial of a speaker's staff.

And so, if you think about -- oh
I should have brought in an image of a --

like a Bishop's crook,
or the Pope carries a staff,

or some sort of staff that has
something at the top.

Oh I know what, at graduation
there's usually the Marshal at graduation

who has a staff --
a piece of wood on top of it.

So, that is an age-old,
cross-cultural symbol of power,

to hold a staff like that.

And then of course, you can use
the finial, or the top of it,

has a lot of rich possibilities
for iconography.

And there are many, many,
many examples of these,

and this is just one particularly
beautiful one here that is wood and gold,

and -- but when I say the height is
11 inches that's the height of the figure,

because the staff would be
of human height.

And you can see 1960s-1970s,
so this is not an ancient object,

this is something that was created
relatively recently,

and is the sort of object that is --
that continues to be created.

You will also notice that it's some
very fine wood-carving here,

and then just, a lavish amount
of gold, because again,

we are in the part of the world
where there is a lot of gold and so

many of these objects are very richly
made because of the natural resources.

Here you can see-- here is Ghana,
again, in the Western part, Ivory Coast,

and then Africa goes up this way.

And then you can see here we have
the Ashanti who are down here in this

Southernmost part of Ghana.
And so they are, you know

the Ashanti or the Asante.

Still very much a vibrant culture in this
region and a lot of really important

African art from this region.

So this spokesperson staff, so this
is not really the King's staff,

this is the spokesperson's staff
and the spokesperson to the ruler.

And so the ruler could sort of sit
back-- and it's interesting that the ruler

has this orb that is, again, sort of
a symbol of power that goes

across the orb and the scepter
that go across cultures, but

this person would be like I don't know,
like the secretary of state or something

like that, would be the next most
important. You can imagine going out

with this golden-- and I'll show you
a picture in a minute, this golden

rod and sort of stomping it and
being able to be the spokesperson.

As I said, one of the important things
about this is the fact that this is really

solid gold and your book mentions--
and it's a little hard to see from this,

but this is, it's particularly shiny
and yellow and particularly high quality

gold in this and so these are, as you
can imagine, these are very sought after

objects. These are-- they are carved
of wood and then they, in this instance,

they now glue the gold on. But apparently
they used to use these almost sort of like

staple-like that were also made
out of gold to keep the gold

tacked onto these. And so--
and you can see here, all the sort of

decorative carving and the carving
of the seat and again,

the idea of abstraction. Okay?
And so, while this may have been used

in a specific person's rule and
for a specific person,

there is an abstract quality
to the facial features here.

Here you can see some of the
other examples and these things are

beautiful and you know,
sadly many of them are also

not in collections - not in Africa,
they are in collections elsewhere.

I did not put the one that has the--
from the Metropolitan, the Metropolitan

Museum has a beautiful one and
you can see here sometimes

these are ebony wood, you know
this very dark wood, sometimes

it's painted and just different
scenes that relate to

some story or some part of their
mythology. And this is my particular

favorite one because it happens,
I have a dog who happens to look

quite-- who's sleeping here next to me,
who happens to look quite a bit

like this one. So, you know, a jackal
is a hunter and other important--

my dog is not important, but it's a very
important hunter and symbol

of strength and wiliness. Again,
across a lot of different cultures.

They were also feared because
they were, you know bad for

if you had livestock.

Here you can see the-- a speaker,

an Okyeame here holding the
speaker poles here

and so you can-- this would have
been a conference of a number of different

sections of the Asante
or Ashanti region.

And each person you can see the
variations, sort of the spectacular nature

again all of this is either ebony and
then gold on top of this, so these are

quite splendid objects.

The other thing you'll note, and this is
actually one of your reading images

is the kente cloth, this cloth that
is very typical of the region.

And that is woven and has been
woven from natural fibers and

is now, you know, they're using more
synthetic fibers but it is

a very important, very ceremonial part
of the dress in this region. Not unlike

what we saw with the Inca tunic.

Okay, in our next segment,
we're going to be going

just a little bit farther south and
looking at the Congo culture.