As a new exhibition of African textiles from the Karun Thakar Collection goes online, Duncan Clarke offers an informed overview of Ghana’s Asafo flag tradition

Until quite recently many aficionados of African art traditions regarded the colonial era as something to be downplayed and disregarded, along with the centuries of interactions between Europeans and Africans that preceded it. Somehow, it was suggested, it was possible to reach behind the veil of this encounter to appreciate and collect ‘pure’ instances of tribal artistry untouched by European presence. Only in the past decade—with groundbreaking exhibitions such as ‘Kongo: Power and Majesty’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (HALI 186, pp. 118–19)—has the art market began to acknowledge the extent to which many of the great masterpieces of African sculpture emerged from periods of turmoil consequent on the growing incursions of European powers into Africa.

The Asafo flags of the Fante people of western Ghana are the quintessential hybrid artefacts of this centuries-long engagement. Appropriated from European naval ensigns and national flags, the form became the vessel for an exploration of local values and indigenous artistic creativity. Asafo flags were among the highlights of last year’s popular exhibition ‘African Textiles: the Karun Thakar Collection’ at the Brunei Gallery in London (HALI 201, pp. 98–107).

Now in the very different circumstances of 2020 Karun is returning to the subject with an online exhibition that displays the full wealth of over 250 flags. This total includes numerous damaged and fragmentary flags, a legacy of one of Karun’s earliest collecting visits to Ghana. In a unique experiment these have been restored digitally for this exhibition.

Asafo means ‘war people’ and was the name given to military associations throughout the large area of west and central Ghana occupied by peoples of the Akan language group, including the Asante and the Fante. The art associated with Asafo, however, took on a different and more elaborate form among the militia ‘companies’ of the coastal Fante as a result of over 500 years of contact with European traders. This period began in 1482 with the construction of the Portuguese fort of São Jorge da Mina (today Elmina).

Asafo flags are appliqué- and embroidery-decorated cloth banners used by these village-based militia groups. Produced by specialist artists, they are among the most vivid and accessible of African art traditions. In the shadow of ancient European forts on the coast of Ghana, the Fante Asafo groups developed dramatic flags that asserted their power, challenged rivals, and expressed local values through proverbs and recollections of historical incidents. Asafo flags are not Outsider Art, despite their appeal to collectors in that field. Locally called frankaa, they are the primary art form of a complex set of cultural and social institutions in Fante communities involving both men and women.

Asafo flags are paraded through the fishing villages and towns of the Fante region in a vibrant tradition that depicts a cast of characters blending local mythology with European heraldry. Kings and queens interact with soldiers and musicians, dragons and gryphons, elephants and leopards, whales and sharks, ships, trains and aeroplanes.

Countering the traditional perspective of African arts as the work of anonymous craftsmen, researchers have identified a number of important flag artists active from the early decades of the 20th century, each of whom brought a distinctive approach to a tradition of local flag making that may date back as far as the 17th century.

The Asafo companies have been remarkably long-lived. Each company has a number of titled officials, including the Supi or leader, the Safohin or section leader, the Frankakitanyi or flag-bearer, and the Asikamahin, leader of six to twenty-four dedicated flag guards. Today the flag-bearer’s principal role is to dance with a selected flag during company parades, but in times past he and the guards had to protect the flag from capture by the enemy at all costs.

In external conflicts,  the various companies fought together to defend their community. But it was in the frequent internal disputes between rival companies that flags played their most prominent role. Each company considered that it had proprietary rights over certain images and colours on its flags. In 1909, following a violent intercompany dispute, a Gold Coast Government enquiry produced a report that tried to codify these image rights in Cape Coast. It recorded that, for example, the Number 1 Company, Bentsir, used a red background and owned, among other images: a man with a padlock and keys; a hen and chickens; a shark with a man in its mouth; a rainbow; a lantern. At a time when tensions in the town were high, a company parading a flag that transgressed these rules could provoke a hostile response that led to what a 1930s account called ‘rather disturbing sanguinary riots’. Particularly memorable outrages in the course of such disturbances, such as beheadings, could be depicted on new flags that in turn led to new conflicts.

So what do we know about this textile imagery that was capable of provoking such extreme responses? On most Asafo flags the design evokes a saying or proverb that would be widely known locally. Among the Fante and in the wider cultural sphere of Akan peoples there was an expectation that speech should be indirect and allusive, with wise elders in particular deploying proverbs and shared ‘symbols’ to convey meaning. In the case of Fante flags the image and its associated verbal form generally either boasts of the power of the company or mocks and ridicules its rivals. Trains evoke the phrase ‘the train is ready to go’ and align the company with the unprecedented power of the locomotive. Two men stand by a large boiling pot on a fire; one has his hand in the bubbling liquid, telling a rival company ‘it boils but it doesn’t burn’, asserting that the rival company makes a big show but is not actually dangerous. Lions and leopards feature in many flags with the saying ‘only the lion can drink from the palm wine pot of the leopard’.

Although there are scattered 18th- and early 19th-century references to the ‘distinctive flags’ of the Asafo companies, it remains unclear when local production and use began. Dating flags in the absence of firm reference points can only be approximate, but we can consider them in three broad groupings with distinct attributes: ‘early’, roughly pre-1910; between 1910 and Ghanaian Independence in 1957; and post-1957. On ‘early’ flags the Union Jack canton in the corner is small and sometimes reduced to a few blue or black and white lines; backgrounds are usually red, black, dark blue or white, borders are narrow and simple or omitted altogether. The central design is often quite small, leaving a large area of plain background. Flags from this period are not well represented in museum collections (only two or three are shown in the comprehensive exhibition catalogue by Silvia Forni and Doran Ross, Art, Honor and Ridicule, ROM/UCLA, 2017).

The period from the First World War to Ghanaian Independence in 1957 can be considered the Golden Age of Asafo flag design. Four workshops that spanned two or more generations of flag artists emerged in the small towns of Kormantse, Saltpond, Anomabo and Swedru, allowing Doran Ross and other scholars to document both workshop styles and the hand of individual artists. Flagmakers were apprenticed as young boys who learned over several years from an existing master, much as in any other trade at the time.

The Union Jack cantons became larger and borders became more elaborate. Borders of large alternating triangles in two colours were associated with the Kormantse workshop and its most prolific artist, Kobina Badowah (1925–2000), while more complex and dynamic borders were made by the Saltpond workshop, notably by Kweku Kakanu (1910–1982). Paper patterns for the human figures and animals were introduced, probably by Kakanu’s ‘master’, his uncle Kweku Essel Manso (died ca. 1940). The central motif became larger, frequently occupying the entire space of the field.

The Anomabu workshop was the home of the earliest artist documented to date, John Freeman Acquah (1861–1928) who created three astonishing embroidered flags now in the British Museum. Two other artists, ‘Mr McCarty’ (died ca. 1955) and the long-lived and innovative Kwamina Amoaku (1895–1985), were also based in Anomabu. Perhaps influenced by the embroidery skills of their predecessor both these flagmakers eschewed paper patterns and produced flags with thinner more elongated figures. The work of Amoaku is represented by a number of examples in the Thakar collection.

After the Gold Coast became the independent state of Ghana in 1957 the new Black Star flag replaced the Union Jack as the canton on Asafo flags. Master flagmakers from the previous period, especially Amoaku and Badowah, continued to be active. A wider range of colours was used, with turquoise and purple becoming popular. Reflecting increasing literacy there was more use of text on flags. Often the name of the company officer who had commissioned the flag was added to the company number.

In the second half of this period a collectors’ market for flags developed, stimulated greatly by the successful series of exhibitions and accompanying book by Peter Adler in 1992. Companies throughout the Fante region began to sell groups of their old flags, commissioning new replacements from local artists. In some cases these replacements had the Black Star canton, in others the Union Jack of the original was retained. In recent years a few of these replacements have appeared on the international market.

Over the past twenty years the flow of original flags to the art market in Accra has dwindled to a trickle, and dealers have ordered what are mostly rather dull and formulaic copies from the flagmakers to supply tourist and art-market demand. Generally these can be easily distinguished from original flags by anyone who takes the time to look carefully. At the same time the companies still parade and the flagbearers still dance through Fante towns and villages, and new flags are still ordered. At least two talented master flagmakers, Baba Issaka in Swedru and Kwame Sasa in Kormantse, remain active.