Exhibition and book: “Emblems of Power: Asafo Flags from Ghana” at the African Art Museum of the SMA Fathers

On now and through May at the African Art Museum of the SMA Fathers, Tenafly, New Jersey, the exhibition shows the Asafo flag collection of Mary and Paul Rosen and includes two very fine long banners. It is accompanied by a 100 page catalogue by Mary and Paul Rosen that features their photographs of Asafo posuban shrines and is a useful addition to the small group of books on the topic. Price for the catalogue is US$20 plus postage and it is available from Paul Rosen at ppr2001@med.cornell.edu .

Cloth of the Month: A Fante Asafo Frankaa

Asafo112 - Exceptional and interesting mid C20th Fante Asafo flag (frankaa)  illustrating the proverb "the spider (Ananse) was on the stool before God made the world."  Condition: has a number of very small rust holes. Measurement: 53ins x 33 ins, 135cm x 84cm.

Ananse (Anansi) is a key god in the religious mythology of the Akan peoples of Ghana (including the Fante) and related diaspora groups.  He is typically represented, as here, by a spider, the literal translation of the word ananse in the Akan language. Here he is associated with the wisdom and cunning of the gods and by virtue of the depiction seated on a chiefly stool, is claiming that wisdom for the chief. In Akan culture the stool is closely associated with the identity and persona of its owner during his life, and in many cases after the owners death his stool would be painted white and preserved as a focus of libations to the deceased ancestor  in an ancestral “stool room.” It is also the key embodiment of royal and chiefly identity and of royal regalia.

The most interesting feature of this flag is the way in which a specifically local Akan set of iconographic features is combined with other imagery apparently of a more global origin. Below the spider on it’s throne we see a crawling monkey like figure.

The function of this image in the interpretation of the flag remains obscure but in their caption to a very similar flag by the same artist, shown below, Adler and Barnard in their book Asafo ! African Flags of the Fante (Thames and Hudson, 1992, figure 42) suggest that the image is drawn from a popular print based on William Blake’s classic representation of King Nebuchadnezzar.

This is certainly an intriguing idea, and anyone who has listened to the radio in Ghana would not under estimate the extent of reference to even more obscure biblical figures, but I would be curious to see the source of this link in a popular print.

By the same token the depiction of the figure holding up the world may perhaps be drawn from a print depiction of Greek god Atlas.

What are we to make of the similarity between our flag and the one in the Adler collection, below ?

Each flag artist developed a personal style within the overall expectation set by the format. Several of these artists were identified and discussed in the earliest published research on the tradition by Doran Ross in his small book: Fighting with Art: Appliqued Flags of the Fante Asafo (UCLA, 1979) from which most subsequently published information has been drawn. Close attention to genuine flags allows one to identify individual styles and hands, and within that it was not unusual for an artist to repeat a design that either he or his patrons felt had been particularly successful and admired.

Click on the photos to enlarge. Click here to visit our updated gallery of Asafo flags for sale.

"Fanti Women in Full Dress"

Vintage postcard: "Fanti Women in Full Dress" Photographer Jacob Vitta, Takwa, Ghana, circa 1910

Fante Asafo Flag details

To view the complete flags please visit the newly updated gallery on our website here.

Fanti Asafo, Fanti Hairstyles….

Today’s post marks an update to our gallery of Fanti Asafo flags from Ghana with a focus on two of the remarkable women’s hair styles of the region.  [The first three images are from our collection, the fourth courtesy of the Smithsonian Eliot Elisofon archive. ]

Here are the complete flags:

For more details please visit our gallery online here.

More on “The Fashionable Hair”–style on Africa’s west coast in the 1900s

In a post last month I looked at a series of early postcards by the African photographer Arkhurst showing images of women’s dress and hair styles on Africa’s west coast, the region stretching from Nigeria up to Sierra Leone, in the early 1900s. Since so many people enjoyed seeing them, today I have brought together another group of postcards from the same era, this time by other photographers, showing similar fashions. All photos author’s collection, click to enlarge.

“Gold Coast, Fanti Woman” – postcard circa 1900, photographer “W.S. Johnston & Sons, Art Photographers, Freetown, Sa Leone.”

The above two photos “Gold in evidence gold coast Type” and “Gold Coast Beauty” are a rare instance of two views from the same sitting. Photographer “Photoholm – Lagos” circa 1900.

“Fantee-women” published by L. Pagenstecher & Co, Sekondi. circa 1900.

“Accra” – photographer and publisher unknown. circa 1900.

“Sekondi – Fantee Woman” photographer and publisher unknown. circa 1900.

“Congo. Femme Acra” photographer and publisher unknown. circa 1900.

For a discussion of this kind of image in the wider context of the history of photography in Africa I can recommend the book Photography and Africa by Erin Haney (reaktion books, 2010.)

Asafo Company Banner–over 5 metres long

Superb and dramatic Asafo company banner, made for the Number 2 Company in the village of Otuamkesi. The style suggests the banner was made around mid C20th, probably in a workshop in the village of Saltpond or Kromantse.  Depicts dramatic battle scenes of decapitation and mutilation as a warning to the enemies of the Company.

These long banners are very rare - this is only the second I have collected. They were made as a public demonstration of prosperity by a wealthy Company, and the longest examples were many times larger than this. Condition is good, with minor losses to the border and two places where small tears have been sewn up.  Details and more Asafo flags in our gallery here

Wearing African Textiles-part 6: an Ewe woman’s cloth

Vintage postcard, “Fantee women”, mailed 1904. The Fante, who live along the coast of Ghana to the west of Accra, do not weave themselves, but wore a wide variety of textiles locally imported from the Ewe and Asante, as well as European and Indian made fabrics. Here the lady seated at front right wears a cloth woven by a male Ewe weaver in what today is the eastern Volta region of Ghana. This type of Ewe cloth with groups of three weft face blocks rather than two, seems to be more typical of the C19th. Click on the photos to enlarge.

Ewe woman’s size cloth, circa 1900.

Our current selection of vintage Ewe cloths is online here.

New book: “Asafo” by Federico Carmignani

With text in both Italian and English this brief (48 pages) new book written by Federico Carmignani introduces the Asafo flag tradition in an article illustrated with both archival images and field photographs, then presents a selection of beautiful, well chosen, examples. It is an important addition to the small literature on Fanti Asafo flags. Available from the publisher here.