Fertility Doll in Ghanaian Culture

In the Ghanaian traditional system, a fertility doll (Akua’ba as it is called in the Akan Twi language) is given to an infertile woman to care for, as if it is an actual baby until she becomes pregnant and conceives her own child. The mother then gives the fertility doll to her child as a playing instrument while he or she is a toddler. The child also plays with it until he or she becomes a teenager. This has been one of the common traditional cultural practices among the Ghanaian people from ancient to present day. Currently, a Ghanaian artist who is famous for making sculpture heads of supposed living and dead African ancestors took the concept of fertility doll of the Akan system by molding male and female fertility dolls to symbolize a new birth and fresh beginning for Africans in relations to the infamous transatlantic slave trade that befell their forefathers especially those in diaspora.