Fantes Symbol Pendant

A beautiful Brass Pendant depicting  a beautiful Ghanaian proverb … a turtle with a gun and a snail on its back.

quote from the  book ‘King Peggy’

“The Fantes embodied the non-violence, hospitality and friendliness of modern Ghana, and Peggy supposed that the people of Otuam were the most peaceful of the peaceful. The symbol of the Otuam, the figures carved on top of the chief’s speaking staff, Peggy remembered, were a gun, a snail and a turtle. During her last visit there, she had asked Tsiami what those symbols represented. He had told her that they came from an old Ghanaian proverb that said a hunter in the bush wouldn’t trouble himself with a turtle or a snail, peaceful creatures that stayed low and quiet on the ground. The hunter would shoot  a lion or a rhino, powerful, aggressive creatures. The people of Otuam felt no shame in seeing themselves as the snail and the turtle. In fact, they felt it was a clear indication of their intelligence; snails and turtles would never be shot.”