...Ghanaian Traditional Stools...

Stools in Ghana come in different shapes, sizes, designs and purposes... If you ever assumed that all stools can be used in the kitchen or worse still, that all stools can be used in the chief's palace then you are mistaken. Every clan, tribe, emblem or totem of the people of Ghana can in most cases be identified by the stools used in the various palaces of the areal they are found. You see, the thing with us Ghanaians is that we do have a lot of spiritual, symbolic and sometimes hard-to believe attachments to objects that might be taken for granted elsewhere. This is the land where almost every animal and object has some form of ancestral attachment to it. Take for instance the Ghanaian traditional stools... This is the Golden stool(lying flat) of the Great Ashanti kingdom and is made of pure gold. History has that this stool has never touched the ground and usually placed on the skin of an elephant indoors. It is believed that not many people had the opportunity to see it with their naked eyes. It continues to n=be hidden in an undisclosed place since it was the quest to posses it that brought a lot of wars in the Ashanti area of Ghana...Find below a number of different traditional stools. These stools represent different clans and tribes and are used on different occasions Take a very good look at the inaugural seat of Ghana...yes! that is certainly a stool and not your usual "chair"....:)

Ghanaian Beads Of Yesterday

A typical use of rich traditional Ghanaian beads; obviously one of the few significant traditions that differenciates us from the others. In the past, Ghanaian beads were worn only on special ocassions. And were the most significant items that were dispalyed during the DIPO RITES of the people in Krobo land. The DIPO RITES are performed to transform girls into womanhood. History has it that Ghanaian women who go through this rites are virgins hence it was a disgrace for a young woman to be defiled (not a virgin) before this rite is performed A young woman going through the Ghanaian Dipo Rites Another young dipo girl A rising trend due to modernisation: Given that some families have found it quite embarassing to have their growing girls go through the dipo rites, the ages of young women who are taken through these rites have reduced, Infact so drastically that toddlers can be found in the long dipo rite queues.... This is the rite that started today's waist beads trend.....as time went on, the use of traditional beads as waist beads even in Ghana changed...So much so that in place of the big, heavy and thick traditional waist beads, are smaller and crystal seed beads that come in a wider range of colours and textures .....Gradually replacing the tradioanal Ghanaian waist beads