Book
Fighting with art: appliquéd flags of the Fante Asafo
UCLA Museum of Cultural History • 1 (5) • Published In 1979 • Pages: 24
By: Ross, Doran, H..
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This is a museum catalog for an exhibition of Fante military company flags held at the UCLA Museum of Cultural History. The flags were made in the period between 1935 and 1978. The earliest record of the use of company flags in Ghana is around 1600. Ghana companies (ASAFO) are democratic and patrilineal, and provide a counterweight to the matrilineal and elitist elements of Fante society. The asafo are extremely competitive amongst themselves and their flags are meant to be provocative, ‘in-your-face,’ declarations of a company's courage and prowess. Most flags refer to well-known proverbs. An example is a flag bearing the image of a mouse and a cat that recalls the proverb: ‘It is foolish mouse that reaches into the bag of a cat.’ Another is of a child picking peppers from a bush, which alludes to the proverb: 'If a child wants to pick pepper, let him do it; when it gets into his eyes he will stop by himself.'
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Military organization
- Discipline and morale
- Uniform and accouterment
- Verbal arts
- Visual arts
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Akan
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2000
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Africa
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Western Africa
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- Book
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Educator
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ; 1999
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1974-1978
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1841-1978
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Ghana
- NotesAdditional notes
- by Doran H. Ross
- 'Exhibited at the UCLA Museum of Cultural History, Spring, 1979'--Cover
- Caption title
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 24)
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Akan (African people)