Cultural Artifacts

Words: 651
Pages: 3

Papa Amanor
English 101
Essay 2
October, 13 2016 Cultural Artifacts
An akuaba doll is a small wooden figure with a round head which represents an infant’s soft cranial bones, health and mother’s womb, it also has ringed necks which represents the fat around a lady’s neck as well as beauty, it has a flat figure which makes it easy for the mother to carry on her back, they also have jewels depending on the sex of the doll which signifies beauty. This doll originates from the Ashanti region located in Ghana.
However, the history of the akuaba doll goes way back into the 1920s, the legend of the origination of the Akua'ba doll comes from the story of a woman named "Akua" (many variations of the name are found as there are many variations of
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A sight that just reminds you that the significance and meaning of the akuaba doll has remained accurate throughout the many years of its …show more content…
Another popular tradition in relation to fertility in Ghana is the eating of ‘eto’ before marriage, “eto” is a local Ghanaian food made from either yam, plantain or cocoyam boiled and mashed and mixed with palm oil. This dish is usually garnished with groundnuts and eggs. “Eto” is starchy in nature because it’s made from boiled yam, hence brides and their attendants who ate “eto” in the morning of the wedding could stand up throughout the long ceremony without having to visit the wash room. The egg is believed to guarantee the fertility of the woman. Ghanaians are of the view that, when the bride eats an egg on her wedding day, it prepares her womb to conceive thus bearing more children. In the olden days it behooved the bride to swallow the egg whole. It was believed that if she bit the egg into two, she has bitten her unborn