According to tradition, the great fetish priest Okomfo Anokye in around 1695 invited carvers to a festival in Denkyira to see who was the most skilled.
Kofi Yoyo was acclaimed the best, and Okomfo Anokye blessed his home village of Ahwiaa and told the villagers to learn Kofi Yoyo’s skills and pass them on to their children.
Thus Ahwiaa became and remains the traditional Ashanti centre for carving Royal sceptres and stools, fertility dolls, drums and masks.
Villagers work in open workshops outdoors, each specialising in a particular type of carving. One of the larger worshops creates stools each carved from a single block of wood.
Stools are powerfully symbolic. There are stools of every type for every status: common ones for the ordinary man or woman, and the more elaborate ones for chiefs and queenmothers.
The top is crescent-shaped and signifies the warm embrace of the mother; the middle column may be carved in a variety of animal shapes or abstract symbols; and the rectangular bottom part has a series of pyramid steps.
You can see Ashanti Wood Carving and try it for yourself on an Ashanti Crafts Tour. Find out more about our Ghana Tours.
