Weight

Although often identified with the Asante, the most numerous and best known of the Akan peoples, weights for measuring gold dust were made and used throughout Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire. For more than five centuries, from about 1400 to 1900, Akan smiths cast weights of immense diversity. Their small size made them portable and easy to trade. Each weight was cast individually in the lost-wax method. What resulted was a unique piece, but one that had to be a specific weight to function. The shape or figure of a weight did not correspond to a set unit of measure: a porcupine in one set could equal an antelope in another, or a geometric form in a third. For important transactions, gold dust was placed on one side of a small, handheld balance scale, a weight on the other. Each party to the dealing verified the amount of gold dust using his or her own weights. Weights may act as display pieces implying wealth in both the size of individual weights and the number owned.

Some figurative weights evoke well-known Akan proverbs, and more than one proverb may apply both positive and negative in tone. This is perhaps particularly true of animal weights. This weight depicting an elephant can refer to a number of proverbs, many relating to the power of chiefs: "One who follows the track of the elephant never gets wet from the dew on the bushes." (Follow an important man and he will protect you in time of trouble.) "When an elephant is thin, its meat will still fill a hundred baskets."

- "After the elephant there is still a greater creature, the hunter."

- "Toothache breaks the elephant's tusk."

Cast copper alloy figurative weight in the form of a spotted elephant standing on a base shaped like a circle flanked by two ovals.

Bevill Bressler & Schulman, Newark, New Jersey, -- to 1975

As part of our commitment to accessibility and transparency, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art is placing its collection records online. Please note that some records are incomplete (missing image or content descriptions) and others reflect out-of-date language or systems of thought regarding how to engage with and discuss cultural heritage and the specifics of individual artworks. If you see content requiring immediate action, we will do our best to address it in a timely manner. Please email nmafacuratorial@si.edu if you have any questions.

High resolution digital images are not available for some objects. For publication quality photography and permissions, please contact the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives at https://africa.si.edu/research/eliot-elisofon-photographic-archives/