Pottery is one of the oldest handicrafts in Ghana, representing a major industry and an integral part of the nation's culture. This article explores the history, production, and cultural significance of ceramic bowls in Ghana, with a focus on the traditional pottery practices in Mpraeso and the broader socio-economic context.
Map of Ghana, showing the regions where pottery is prevalent.
Traditional Pottery in Ghana
The production of traditional earthenware is a prehistorical and historical practice among women in Mpraeso, located in the Eastern Region of Ghana. The potters dig their clay from nearby deposits and carry it back to their yards, where they clean it of debris, wet it down and spread it out to dry. They sieve the dry, powdered clay before adding sand and rewetting back to a workable consistency. Almost every woman in this neighborhood is a potter.
Potters follow certain basic patterns of forms i.e., oval, circular and semi-circular forms especially for earthenware styles. The materials influence the forms potters make as well as the decorations used. In traditional pottery, the oval form denotes pots for cleansing hence the oval shape of the Akan bathing pot “kutu”. A clay body can be decorated before or after firing.
Houses in Mpraeso are more or less arranged in rows along a street, with the yards behind connected by a maze of dirt paths that people use going from house to house. Mpraeso's pottery represents big business.
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The Mpraeso Pottery District
The Mpraeso potters all live in one district, the older, more traditional-looking part of town. Houses there are mud brick or sometimes concrete, single-story, usually with two or three rooms and surrounded by some sort of fence marking the extent of their yards. In the middle of each yard is a potter's wheel, or rather the local equivalent. While waiting for our pots to dry, we visited some of the other potters in the neighborhood.
In one yard we saw several potters working, while some older women were cooking and watching the children. One particular woman, clearly the star, was circling her pot at a tremendous speed. She's known as Nzuma, after a famous boxer in Ghana, because she's so quick on her feet. She's known as Nzuma, after a famous boxer in Ghana, because she's so quick on her feet. She's known as Nzuma, after a famous boxer in Ghana, because she's so quick on her feet.
Felicia and I wandered along the dirt paths leading from house to house, peeking over the fences to see what was going on in each yard. It was seldom dull. In one yard we saw several potters working, while some older women were cooking and watching the children. One particular woman, clearly the star, was circling her pot at a tremendous speed.
Ghanaian pottery on display.
The Crafting Process
Prior to some shaping processes, clay must be prepared. Kneading helps to ensure an even moisture content throughout the body. Air trapped within the clay body needs to be removed. This is called de-airing and can be accomplished manually by wedging. Wedging can also help produce an even moisture content. Once a clay body has been kneaded and de-aired or wedged, it is shaped by a variety of techniques.
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Hand building is the earliest forming method. Wares can be constructed by hand form coils of clay, combining flat slabs of clay or pinching solid balls of clay or some combination of these. Different villages make different pot shapes. Mpraeso is noted particularly for its grinding bowls, shallow dishes with strong, inverted rims and ridges on the interior. The clay, brown, tan or black, is mixed with sand after being cleaned to add body. The walls must be of even thickness. Scoop the clay from the inside base and wall. Bits of cloth or leather, or a small corncob, are dipped in water and used to smooth the walls.
With African wheels, the pot stays still while the potter gets her exercise moving, often at a run, around it as she works. In America we handbuild using a banding wheel and stay in one spot, turning the wheel to reach different sections of our pot. I tried this technique in one yard we visited, attracting a large audience for my efforts. Trotting around in circles under the near-equatorial sun soon left me thoroughly dizzy and disoriented.
There are no kilns as such. Firings usually begin very early, often at dawn, to be well underway before the worst heat of the day. The smokey atmosphere produced by the dung et al. Pots are placed in a circle with fuel around them. Pit firing under the banana trees at Mpraeso.
The Asanka: A Traditional Grinding Bowl
The Asanka, an earthenware dish, is a Ghanaian grinding bowl made out of clay with ridges inside. It is one of two kitchen tools commonly used in Ghanaian homes and comes with a wooden pestle masher called eta or tapoli in the local language. The Ga's call it Kaa whiles the Akans call it apotoyewaa or Asanka. It is commonly referred to as traditional blender and appropriately used where there is no electricity. It is also called a 'pounding pot.' Earthenware dish is one of the oldest kitchen tools in Ghana and can be found in almost every Ghanaian home.
The use of Asanka requires skill, forearm strength, and correct technique to prevent sore wrists. Ingredients are chopped into pieces prior to placing into the Asanka to make grinding easier. Ridges in the Asanka reduce overall surface area in contact with ingredients, enabling it to grind effectively. Forceful use of a wooden masher, the eta or tapoli, uses the friction between the ridges to mix the ingredients.
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How to clean your Earthenware bowl (Asanka) before using it
The Socio-Economic Impact
Mpraeso's pottery represents big business. The black, unadorned grinding bowls are sold in outdoor markets and along roadsides all over the country. Some potters simply pile their bowls on their heads and walk to market; others fill up a truck with pots; still others ship their work by bus. Sometimes they sell to a middleman (or woman) who then re-sells the pots at market.
Several women told me they had put their children through school on their pottery earnings. One woman's son was in medical school in Boston. Location was a highly influential factor in determining the potters' economic condition. Analyses revealed that there is an appreciable socioeconomic variance between potters who solely depended on pottery as opposed to others who combined it with other jobs.
No one gets upset if a pot breaks; the low-fired, fragile wares are expected to break, and a new pot is cheap enough. Pots are primarily functional items in Ghana, although in Accra you might see a few flowerpots. Because they are plainly utilitarian as well as fragile, not many pots are exported.
Potting is a primary economic activity for women in Mpraeso. The industry needs to be developed in view of the role it plays in Mpraeso, as it promotes the transmission of culture and the art of pottery production and stimulates the local economy of Ghana.
An Asanka bowl with its tapoli.
The Cultural Significance
A great variety of pottery containers are produced to meet the demands of daily life activities in indigenous societies, precisely Ghana. The varied shapes and sizes modelled determine to a large extent how the pots are used. These may be grouped as domestic, commercial, prestigious and religious pots. It is in the interest of the this paper to explore the forms, names and uses of pots.
The celebration of the life of the traditional Akans of Ghana was associated with various rites and rituals at various stages from birth through to death and after death. Akans are a matrilineal group of people who live in the middle belts of Ghana and La Côte d’Ivoire. The study confirmed that pottery was an important aspect of the life of the indigenous Akan people which provided them with both utilitarian and spiritual answers to their everyday life.
Indigenous Ghanaian pottery plays an important role in the society. The image of the traditional pottery is ruined because of the surface decoration given. The products are finished and decorated either by incising, embossment, sqrafitto etc. The need therefore to explore with non-conventional materials in order to add value, enhance the texture and aesthetic quality of the products.
Pottery and Akan Rituals
The study revealed that indigenous Akans of Ghana produced special pottery wares such as Abusuakruwa (family cup), Kruwa (cup) and terracotta heads for rituals associated with death and burial rites respectively.
Modern Innovations and Challenges
To critique by the content of African art texts and current trends in the region's curatorial work, it seems safe to say that the use of indigenous aesthetics for modern ceramic art expression has not been given much prominence in Ghanaian ceramic practice. The study revealed that James Kwame Amoah has contributed significantly to the preservation of indigenous pottery heritage through his appropriation and interpretation of forms and decoration in a modernist orientation.
Ghanaian pottery practices and their modern reintroduction have been rendered masculine especially in tertiary institutions. Feminine participation in contemporary Ghanaian pottery/ceramic practices is virtually non-existent. The study believed women's participation had contributions to make to pottery practices, and hence advocated the employment of feminine subjectivities and traditional spaces as well as indigenous pottery trade strategies and other feminine idiom within contemporary studio practices as means to rescue the stagnating practices and involve womanhood in the evolution of ceramic art at tertiary levels.
This paper signals a rethinking of forms, economic exchange, materiality and recommends that it is expedient to expand Ghanaian clay practice discourse in all forms to connect to the ecologies of practice by forward-thinking, looking at the indigenous cerami... The paper recommends teaching artists to intervene in developing the artistic skills of these traditional potters, a development of traditional in-depth design exploration through workshops.
Conclusion
Ghanaian pottery, particularly the creation of ceramic bowls, showcases a rich blend of tradition, culture, and economic activity. From the skilled women potters of Mpraeso to the cultural significance of the Asanka bowl, pottery remains an integral part of Ghanaian life. Efforts to modernize and explore new materials while preserving indigenous techniques are crucial for sustaining this art form for future generations.
A collection of Ghanaian pottery.
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