No abstract
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center and Regents of the University of California are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to African Arts. Oneof the best-documented traditional technologies of West Africa is the cire perdue or lost-wax metal-casting process of the Akan of Ghana. It has been used to produce a variety of objects in gold, silver, and brass (metals associated with commerce and status in Akan society), such as chiefly regalia, geometric and figurative goldweights, and the elegant, lidded containers called kuduo.As early as 1817, Thomas Bowdich (1966:311-12) commissioned the casting of some small gold objects and documented the process, providing us with the first published description of the technique. A little more than 100 years later the British ethnographer R.S. Rattray recorded in greater detail the casting of brass goldweights in the Bono town of Takyiman (1923:306-8), and bells and kuduo in the Asante town of Bekwai (1927:309-16). The fullest accounts are recent ones by Menzel (1968:22-35), Garrard (1980a:119-22), and McLeod (1981:80-82).With the exception of Rattray's notes on Takyiman goldweight casting, all describe the process as practiced in or near Kumase. Admittedly, it is virtually the same throughout the Akan region. Nevertheless, there are subtle differences in procedure and vocabulary that may at some future date yield fresh insights into the evolution of this art. The following description of brass casting among the Bono and the discussion of oral traditions associated with it are presented as a contribution to the growing body of information about Akan cire perdue technology.The thousands of kuduo and millions of goldweights maintained in museum and private collections testify to the importance of lost-wax casting in the art history of the Akan. However, the industry has atrophied over the last century. Rattray was aware of this situation sixty years ago when he wrote: "The art of metal-work (i.e. in connexion with brass castings) is no longer taught, and would have been extinct altogether had it not survived in the goldsmith's trade, which is still in a fairly flourishing condition and employs somewhat parallel methods" (Rattray 1927:310-11).Today, the cire perdue process continues to survive primarily in the production of gold objects;2 those artisans who specialize in the casting of brass have all but disappeared from most parts of the Akan region. Unlike goldwork, brass objects (i.e., gold-weighing equipment and kuduo) are no longer in demand there. The only market for them is the tourist trade, and most brass production seems to be concentrated in a single Asante village, Kurofofurom, located a few kilomete...
This paper explores contemporary visual imagery associated with the Ethicpian Orthodox Churoh, focusing on the tension between innovation and conservatism deriving from traditions that straddle the realms of religion and commerce. Specifically, it considers the circulation of popular massproduced chromolithographie prints and the contexts in which this imagery has been integrated into Orthodox religious practice. These prints today may be found displayed in churches where they serve as objects of devotion and as models for paintings produced by local artists. The paper argues that the current phenomenon is in fact a iatter day manifestation of a process that has been practiced for centuries in the highlands of Ethiopia,
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