Ashanti Linguist's Staff Top Showing Two Men, One Climbing Tree with One Pushing

Two men, one tree, and quite possibly a proverb.

The okyeame, the Asante chief’s spokesman, carries a staff often crowned with a carved scene that calls a saying to mind. This top, carved by Ashanti artists in Ghana in the 20th century, shows a forked tree. One man clings to the trunk mid-climb in yellow shorts. Below, the other, in a blue shirt and yellow shorts, pushes him upward.

They stand on a square platform with a carved border, above a tapering blue socket incised with crosshatching. Sixteen inches in all.

Somebody climbs. Somebody pushes. Nobody says which is harder.