Artwork post: Staff of Office

 

The Piece of art I chose to write about is on the Staff of Office that has a figure and spider web like features at the top of the staff.  The Piece is covered in gold, likely carried by those of high rank within the courts of Akan.  With this society having no written traditions, the Akan people used their emphasis in speech.  Those who were capable of knowledge and proper articulation in the language may be appointed as a court linguist, which is the most important nonroyal court official.

 


Court linguists are very important to the Akan’s leadership.  With the amount of knowledge and diplomacy they can take on just about any role.  Such as, counselors, ambassadors, legal experts, or even historians.  The Staff itself is carved out of wood then covered in a gold foil.  The staff is suspected to be made to mimic the cane that was used by the first court linguist, which was a woman who had carried the cane due to her age.  The design at the head of the staff uses two human-like figures that appear to be flanking a large web with a spider at its center.  The design is depicted base of a saying, “No one goes to the house of the spider Ananse to teach him wisdom.”  Ananse the spider is a folk tail that is linked to the Akan people.  What the phrase means, is that neither the spider nor the linguist who wields the staff be challenged in their domains.  This piece of history has so much enveloped within that we may have only scraped the surface of its full meaning. 

 

Dr. Christa Clarke, "Historical overview: to 1600," in Smarthistory, September 21, 2016, accessed October 29, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/historical-overview/.

Comments

  1. Kirstyn CraigNovember 1, 2020 at 2:28 PM

    Great post! This is a visually interesting piece that is quite unique and very intriguing to the viewer. I initially thought the gold was an interesting choice but as a I read further I understood why that artistic choice was made. Overall, good job!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Madison CunninghamNovember 1, 2020 at 4:41 PM

    Hello Brenden! I think you did a great job at describing this piece. I also wrote about the Linguist Staff! As I think most of us did because its such a beautiful and interesting piece of art. The gold foil caught my interest. But once I remembered gold is a representation of power and wealth, all was well. Hope you have a good week!

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownNovember 1, 2020 at 5:57 PM

    Hey Brenden!

    It was nice to read your blog this week about the Linguistic Staff, I too wrote about it in mine. Something that I think worked out well for your post is that you talked more about the functionality of who may have used this staff and what the significance may have been behind it. I did not know that the spider actually had a name and was part of their African heritage as a folklore story! What was the full story behind the spider, like what did the spider do for their culture or belief system?
    -Autumn Fink

    ReplyDelete
  4. Emily SnyderNovember 1, 2020 at 10:56 PM

    I enjoyed reading this post! My favorite part is what the design means referring to, “No one goes to the house of the spider Ananse to teach him wisdom.” I also find it interesting that the staff determines someones wealth and placement. Good Job!

    ReplyDelete

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