A study of the form and variety of Akan metal arts leads one to questions of origin and development. Do they form a homogenous group, characterized by an Akan sense of form and design, or do they reveal outside influence? Have they remained unchanged since their first creation by the ancestral craftsmen, or are they the products of a long period of evolution? The concepts of culture and cultural change need to be handled with care, for complexities appear as one delves beneath the surface. One may begin by reconsidering one basic matter, the quantities of metal available for use by the Akan.

It is apparent that only iron and gold were locally produced. The remainder of the metals-silver, copper, lead, brass, pewter, and a variety of other alloys-were imported, either through the commerce of the savanna and Sahel or from European merchants on the coast. Iron was the first metal to be worked. How and when this knowledge was first acquired it is impossible to say, but archaeology has provided a few clues. During the first millennium A.D., iron-smelting was clearly being carried on around the northern periphery of Akan territory, in the Brong region of Ghana and probably also in Ivory Coast. The identity of the smelters and blacksmiths at this period is unknown. Initially they were perhaps drawn from the savanna peoples, who would have then imparted their technical skills to the northern Akan. By about the elev enth century, if not before, iron smelting and smithing appear to have been regularly practiced in the Begho area, and probably also around Tekyiman. It is not unlikely that Akan blacksmiths were beginning to ply their trade as well, for although the Mande group known as the Numu later acquired a reputation as prominent blacksmiths in the region, these immigrants do not seem to have had a monopoly on the trade.

"Kitchen utensils" from a prominent Ashanti shrine, including spoons, castings, Kuduo parts and more modern hammered brass plates.

There is almost nothing known about the subsequent spread of ironworking among the Akan, but one can imagine its effects. Food surpluses achieved by using efficient iron tools increased Akan population. Iron weapons conferred superiority over neighboring groups. With a regional trade in iron objects, the metal began to emerge as a permanent form of wealth. Markets developed, and there was a greater tendency toward urbanization, thereby stimulating the formulation of states and the growth of political power. These factors favored the spread, not only of the Akan people, but of their language and culture. The use of iron, in short, may have greatly quick- ened the pace of social and cultural development among the Akan. I suspect that the technology of iron smelting and smithing became known in the central forest and along the coast at some time between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. The uses of stone tools may have lingered for a century or two longer, but by 1691 they had become the object of superstitious belief, as they are today. [1]

The work of various archaeologists, notably Oliver Davies and Merrick Posnansky, has shown that smelting was once extensively carried on in various parts of the Akan area. Data on the output of their furnaces are unfortunately lacking, and one has only the uncertain analogy of recent practice in the Northern Region and Upper Region of Ghana as a guide. Ac- cording to studies by Leonard Pole in this area, furnaces were capable of producing 2-3.5 kilograms of iron per smelt, and were operated perhaps forty times in a season (1975: 11, 18, 36-7). The annual output for each furnace was therefore 80-140 kilograms. By about the fourteenth century, the Akan were probably producing as much as 100 tons of iron each year, and possibly more. By this time, then, sufficient iron was available for the techniques of blacksmithing to be widely practiced by the Akan.

Late period Kuduo, cast brass, approximately 20.1cm. Volkerkundemuseum der Universitat Zurich.

Present evidence suggests that at about the fourteenth century, Jenne and Timbuktu began to gain prominence as markets, due in part to a thriving trade that began to grow up between the northern Akan and the ubiquitous Mande, some of whom formed permanent settlements in the Brong region and in Ivory Coast. It was presumably the Mande who first introduced the Akan to two imported metals, copper and brass. Much of these metals may have been in the form of bowls and other vessels, some of North African workmanship and others fashioned in the workshops of Timbuktu and Jenne. These vessels were highly prized by the Akan and be- came the focus of myths of origin; the ancestral founders of various Akan communities are said to have descended from heaven in a brass bowl, which may continue to be preserved in the community as a "fetish" object. In view of the distances over which this metalware had to be transported, and the rarity of surviving specimens, the quantity reaching the Akan in any one year must have been small. The bowls generally weigh, at most, one or two kilograms, and even if one assumes optimistically that several thousand such articles reached the Akan each year, an import on this scale would amount to no more than 2-3 tons annually, which is equivalent to 10-15 camel loads of brass and copper carried across the Sahara, 45-70 donkey loads brought from Timbuktu and Jenne to the forest fringes, or 80-120 headloads carried by porters into the forest. [2]

It is important to have some idea, however speculative, of the size of northern brass and copper imports in order to contrast it with the volume of European imports on the coast. European records from the late fifteenth century onward contain valuable data, unjustly neglected, on the volume of brass and copper (and also iron) shipments to the Gold Coast at various times. Sufficient documentation may well exist for a fair assessment to be made of European imports of these metals from 1500 to 1900. Such an exercise cannot be under- taken here, but a few items of evidence may be considered.

On January 20, 1548, the King of Portugal's agent signed a contract with the firm of Anton Fugger and Nephew of Antwerp for the supply of 6,750 quintals of manillas for the Guinea trade (a total of over 400 tons of metal, 360 of which were for Elmina). In addition, 24,000 chamber pots were to be supplied together with large quantities of cauldrons, basins, and similar goods. All were to be reckoned in Portuguese weight at 128 pounds a quintal and 16 ounces to the pound. They were to be delivered at Antwerp within three years, and the manillas were to be "of a type and perfection which the other contractors always used to make for the said trade of Mina and Guinea" (Strieder 1930:451-4). Of those for Elmina, 160 were to weigh a hundred pounds, more or less, from which it is clear that the standard manilla used in the Elmina trade weighed about ten Portuguese ounces. This is significant when one considers two sets of accounts rendered forty years earlier by the Portuguese factors at Axim and Elmina. Between May 1, 1505, and September 30, 1506, Ayres Botelho received at Axim a total of 67,095 brass manillas as well as 408 shaving bowls, 714 chamber pots, 6 urinal pots and 69 iron kettles. Between August 20, 1504, and January 10, 1507, Estevao Barradas received at Elmina 287,813 brass and copper manillas together with 1,582 shaving bowls, 520 urinal pots, and 3,192 chamber pots (Blake 1942:97, 107). These figures suggest that annual sales at Axim may have been in the region of 48,000 manillas and 750 brass vessels, and at Elmina 120,000 manillas and 2,160 metal vessels. Taking the manillas as weighing ten ounces each and the vessels at an average of one pound gives us an ap- proximate scale of 45 tons of metal a year.