Staff of office or prestige staff (ȯkyeame poma),

20th century, after 1920s

Royal counsellors called akyeame (singular, ȯkyeame) carry gold-leafed ȯkyeame poma staffs as a sign of their office. Highly skilled public speakers and masters of Akan proverbs, akyeame mediate communication between the ruler and his people. While early akyeame poma resembled plain walking sticks, in the late nineteenth century they developed elaborate figurated finials influenced by European walking sticks and Akan umbrella finials. Transmitting proverbial ideas about the chief’s character, staff finial motifs are also used in royal courts to clarify the law, as in this example of one man dipping into a bowl and the other touching his mouth. The scene references the proverb Nea adeė wȯ no na ȯdie, na nyė nea ȯkȯm de no. (“It’s the rightful heir who inherits property, not the hungry man”), which is frequently used in arbitration courts to argue that norms and customs prevail in issues of inheritance and succession.