Lot 110: ASANTE COUNSELOR'S STAFF, OKYEAME POMA, BY OSEI BONSU (1900-1977), GHANA

ASANTE COUNSELOR'S STAFF, OKYEAME POMA, BY OSEI BONSU (1900-1977), GHANA height: 59 7/8 in (152 cm)

Charles Davis, New Orleans
Sotheby's New York, November 9, 1993, lot 75
Acquired by the present owner at the above auction

An Asante Counselor's Staff

This carving is by the acclaimed Asante artist Osei Bonsu (1900-1977) who served three Kings of Asante and provided regalia for many other Akan paramount chiefs across much of southern Ghana during an active career spanning nearly sixty years (see Ross 1984). The distinctive egg shaped head of this work is typical of Bonsu's carvings from about 1935 to 1940 and the staff may have been carved shortly after the restoration of the Asante Confederacy in 1935 when many chiefs competed with each other to amplify their visual presence in festival displays.

This staff (poma) is the insignia of office of a chief's counselor (okyeame) sometimes misleadingly called a "linguist." According to Kwesi Yankah, in "addition to being the chief's orator, diplomat, envoy, prosecutor, protocol officer, and prayer officiant, the okyeame is also the chief's confidant and counselor" (1995: 84-85). An important chief may have several counselors with staffs who are said to "sweeten" his words on state occasions (see Ross 1982; Ross 2002: 88-109; and Ross 2009: 48-70).

The individual on this staff finial is carrying a musket with his right foot on a keg of gunpowder. Asante armies were relatively well equipped with firearms by the middle of the eighteenth century and muskets, pistols, cannons, and gunpowder kegs have been longstanding motifs in Asante art. The figure is depicted without sandals or elite headgear indicating that he is unlikely to be a chief. He is, however, wearing a substantial amulet laden war shirt called a batakari kese that distinguishes him as a military leader, perhaps a named individual renowned for his success in historic battles (cf. Ross 2002: figs. 6.45 and 6.46). The amulets of Muslim origin are represented by the rectangular shapes crossed by "X" forms and in actual war shirts contain passages from the Koran or other efficacious Islamic writings. The robust melding of European firepower with the protection of Muslim amulets recalls the long and complex history of contact and conflict that the Asante have had with both coastal trading forts to the south and the savannah based states in what is now northern Ghana.

Although this figure may not specifically represent a chief, he nevertheless stands as a metaphor for the leader. For similar staffs, but featuring a chief with sandals and headgear, I have been told on two occasions that the motif asserted that the chief was always prepared for battle, or more generally in recent times, any problems or conflicts within the state.

Doran H. Ross
Los Angeles, March 2010