Carved and Painted Ashanti Linguists Staff (detail)

The Chiefs of the

Ashanti Kingdom in Ghana, West Africa, each have their own royal court. One court official is known as the Orator or the Linguist. He is to the Chief what our Press Secretary is to the President. He is a spin doctor, but the way he spins the Chief’s policies and pronouncements is by reciting proverbs that both entertain and inform the public. In the Ashanti language there are over 3,600 proverbs dealing with just about every conceivable aspect of human life.

Ashanti Orators Staff

When the Orator speaks, he carries a staff with a detachable carved top; the top is a sculptural depiction of one or more of the proverbs recited by the Orator. The staff is the visible evidence of the Orator’s authority, and his performance is an art form admired and appreciated by all. Featured is an Ashanti

Orator’s Staff, also known as a Linguists Staff or Oykeame. It shows two identical birds in the midst of leaves standing on top of some sort of red fruit, each bird holding some of the fruit in their beak.

There are a lot of Ashanti proverbs about birds. They are one of the favorite subjects of the proverb writers, all of whom are anonymous. One possible proverb this staff top might depict provides a commentary on acceptance versus speculation. It speaks to the idea that sometimes what we have in hand is better than the promise of what we hope to get, even though a hand doesn’t appear anywhere in the carving. You may already know this proverb even though it originated in the Ashanti Kingdom long ago. It says, “A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush.”

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