It was a ripe market for Asante traditional barbers as they cashed in on the silver jubilee of Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II.
As traditions demand, the regalia of Queen mothers in the Asante kingdom is incomplete without a black-dyed hair, locally known as ‘Dansikran’.
As the Asantehene climaxed his anniversary celebrations, Queen mothers in the kingdom graced the occasion in full traditional beauty.
When JoyNews visited Obaa Yaa, a traditional Asante barber, she was busy at work making up her client.
This was a Queen mother getting ready for the grand durbar of Otumfuo’s silver jubilee.
With a black dye and oil, she smears the two in the hair of her client and subsequently trim the round base of the skull, leaving a shape of a bowl on the head.
The beautiful, traditional look is what the Asantes term as Dansikran, coined from the English word, dancing crown.
“She’s using charcoal and oil for the hair, afterwards I’ll trim the hair to give it a nice look,” Obaa Yaa said while her apprentice worked on the hair of a queen mother.
In the heart of Asafo, a suburb in Kumasi, hundreds of Queen mothers queue up occasionally at Obaa Yaa’s open salon to have a good treat.
This has been a job she inherited from her mother fifteen years ago.
“I trim a lot of Queen mothers including Kumawu and Manso Nkwanta queens. We’re the only ones here in Asafo,” she said.
The haircut is a preserve of Queens and queen mothers in the Asante kingdom.
It is prominent during traditional gatherings like cultural gatherings and funerals to give them a unique look.
“Old women used to be queen mothers in the ancient times. You’d normally find them dyeing their hair in the morning to receive visitors. This is to showcase they are a head of a particular clan. We can also wear headgears but it’s custom to wear this type of hair,” Nana Adwoa Takyiwaa, a queenmother at Agric Nzema, said.
With hopes of passing on the traditional vocation to the next generation, Obaa Yaa is training her friends and family.
Mama is the senior apprentice at the salon.
She told JoyNews she is ready to learn.
“We dye the hair with charcoal and oil. Because I want to learn the job, I decided to shave some of the women when my master wasn’t around, and it came out great. I have realized I am becoming good at the haircut. Hopefully, I will become good like my master,” she said.
A season as ripe as the silver jubilee of the Asantehene, Obaa Yaa and her staff are cashing in.
“There’s a lot of profit in this compared to the modern salons. And it’s not really stressful. We get a lot of clients during this season. We have not slept since yesterday. We have attended to close to hundred queen mothers. I am really exhausted. This job has been lucrative in these past few days,” Obaa Yaa said.
Queen mother, Nana Achiaa Tiwaah, Abaasehemaa, looking glamorous and happy added that: “this gives us a beautiful look. We had some people who were passing by say we looked ravishing”.
After the beautiful shave, the Queen mothers are ready to match their hairdo with a resplendent traditional attire and accessories for the durbar.
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