A wooden sculpture - Ada - Ghana (No reserve price)

An Adan Kalao bird, South-east Ghana, signs of ritual use and age.

The carved bird sculptures associated with the Adan (also sometimes written “Ada/Adangbe”) people of Ghana are known in collectors’ literature as “Aklama” figures. These artifacts are characterised by being carved of wood (often light hardwood) and finished with natural pigments or kaolin, the forms often stylised and in some cases clearly bird‑shaped. Examples appear in auction catalogues described as “Ghana Adan wood, natural pigments … in the shape of a bird”One listing further notes that such figures “represent various deities linked to hunting” and that they are “used by the Ewe of Adangbe/Ada language of Ghana” and are “objects of voodoo cult” in that describing tradition.

Culturally the Aklama‑figures are interpreted as “helper spirits” or intermediaries in ritual contexts of the Ewe/Dangme cultural zone (which includes the Adan/Ada community). According to one source the figures were placed on private altars, sometimes grouped in a basket and covered with cloth, similar in usage to the Vinavi figures among the Ewe. The bird symbolism may link to notions of mediation, hunting, or ancestral power, though explicit ethnographic detail for Adan‑community use remains limited.

For your exhibition catalogue work one might emphasise the interplay of form, function and cultural context: carved bird form; material and surface as indicators of ritual use; the setting within Ada/Adangbe cultural universe; and the fact that while these objects appear in markets, robust academic documentation is still sparse — so attributions should be handled with care.

If you wish, I can search for field‑notes or museum‑archive references (e.g., in German or French ethnographic archives) which might give deeper insight into the creation, ritual use, and local meanings of Aklama figures among the Adan.