A Prampram Dangme couple

A Prampram Dangme couple, southern Ghana, collected in Ningo.

The Ga-Dangme ethnolinguistic cluster comprises several coastal subgroups, including the Dangme communities of Prampram and neighboring Ningo, whose inhabitants speak Dangme (a Kwa language closely related to Ga). These communities form part of the wider Ga-Dangme cultural landscape, historically oriented toward fishing, coastal exchange, and complex rites of passage within localized social systems.
Prampram couple sculptures, while comparatively rare in both local oral documentation and institutional collections, are localized sculptural expressions attributable to this southeastern Ghanaian context. They typically appear as wooden male-female pairs carved in the round, standing upright with frontal orientation and arms positioned close to the body in a composed, symmetrical arrangement.
Stylistically, these figures share a distinctive coastal Ga-Dangme profile: prominent almond-shaped eyes, flattened or broad noses, and simplified facial modeling that emphasize frontal presence over naturalism. Traces of pigment or surface use indicate that the sculptures were once activated through ritual placement in domestic or shrine settings, where libations, offerings, or other interventions could occur.
Functionally, Prampram couple sculptures have been associated with funerary and ancestral cult practices within Ga-Dangme traditions, although ethnographic records remain sparse. They may have served as material intermediaries in rites maintaining the equilibrium between the living and the deceased or as embodiments of relational principles—particularly in the articulation of gendered social roles and communal memory.
Attribution and interpretation are complicated by the historical mobility of artists, ideas, and ritual forms along Ghana’s southern coast and by the relatively limited scholarly attention these objects have received. Nonetheless, Prampram couple figures are important for understanding the regional diversity of Ga-Dangme figurative traditions, which complement the more widely documented mask cultures of Accra, Ada, and related groups.

CAB28781

Height: 117 cm / 116 cm
Weight: 8,1 kg / 5,7 kg (incl. stand)