Ceremonial Hoe

Dan women form cooperative work groups to plant their rice farms. They use short-handled hoes for their labor. Each community chooses the leader of the work group based on her reputation for energy and leadership. As a symbol of her role as an important community leader, she carries a hoe carved with a figurative handle on those public occasions in which she wishes to show her status.

These hoes are examples of how utilitarian items may be embellished and elaborated to take on symbolic value. The heads on the handles may have been carved as portraits of the owners, or they may represent the artist's conception of an ideal face.