Abstract
Two photographs were contributed to the ANU exhibition 'The Colours of Anthropology: A Visual Anthropology Exhibition'.
Exegesis for contributed photographs:
These photos depict the town of Akwamufie in southern Ghana, home for the majority of my PhD field research. The woman, Akosua, was my landlady. Akosua is a gentle, clever, cheeky and kind lady with an infectious smile. She is also a widow. In much of Ghana, when a woman’s husband dies she is expected to perform widowhood in behaviour and in colour. The Akwamu people with whom I worked are matrilineal, however a widow is still tied to her husband’s family for another year as she mourns. Black and red are the solemn colours worn for funerals and any ritual relating to death. For this year, if Akosua entered into the public town space, she would first bathe, comb her hair, and consciously clothe herself in black and/or red, colour-coding her status as a widow in solitude. That was until the day these photos was taken. The day before saw much sorrow in the final parting with Akosua’s husband’s personal items, which she had kept watch over as per Akwamu custom. In physically handing over her husband’s possessions to his family, she also symbolically released herself of her responsibility to him as wife. After one year, shrouded in the sadness of black cloth to mourn her husband, Akosua publicly donned white. She said: “on this day, I will be free.” These images document Akosua’s transitional journey as she walked from the Presbyterian Church where she publicly thanked (a Christian) God for her husband’s life, down the main street of Akwamufie community where she passed another woman still in morning cloth, to her home now demarcated as free from widowhood. On this journey, Akosua (left) was flanked by her family, all dressed in classifications of celebratory white cloth, who welcomed her into a new state from darkness to white.
Exegesis for contributed photographs:
These photos depict the town of Akwamufie in southern Ghana, home for the majority of my PhD field research. The woman, Akosua, was my landlady. Akosua is a gentle, clever, cheeky and kind lady with an infectious smile. She is also a widow. In much of Ghana, when a woman’s husband dies she is expected to perform widowhood in behaviour and in colour. The Akwamu people with whom I worked are matrilineal, however a widow is still tied to her husband’s family for another year as she mourns. Black and red are the solemn colours worn for funerals and any ritual relating to death. For this year, if Akosua entered into the public town space, she would first bathe, comb her hair, and consciously clothe herself in black and/or red, colour-coding her status as a widow in solitude. That was until the day these photos was taken. The day before saw much sorrow in the final parting with Akosua’s husband’s personal items, which she had kept watch over as per Akwamu custom. In physically handing over her husband’s possessions to his family, she also symbolically released herself of her responsibility to him as wife. After one year, shrouded in the sadness of black cloth to mourn her husband, Akosua publicly donned white. She said: “on this day, I will be free.” These images document Akosua’s transitional journey as she walked from the Presbyterian Church where she publicly thanked (a Christian) God for her husband’s life, down the main street of Akwamufie community where she passed another woman still in morning cloth, to her home now demarcated as free from widowhood. On this journey, Akosua (left) was flanked by her family, all dressed in classifications of celebratory white cloth, who welcomed her into a new state from darkness to white.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Australian National University |
| Publication status | Published - 14 Sept 2018 |