Seth Kane Kwei (Ghanaian, 1922–1992) belonged to a royal clan of the Ga; he lived in the suburb of Teshie, near Accra, the capital of Ghana. In the 1950s, he was an apprentice to a carpenter and sometimes made traditional rectangular coffins, in addition to palanquins used for transporting chiefs. He made a coffin shaped like an airplane for his grandmother, who had always been fascinated by planes flying overhead but had not flown before her death. Soon, orders were placed with Kwei for other representational coffins, each one alluding to the customer’s lifelong trade or status, such as boats for fishermen or mother hens for mothers. Since Ghana is one of the world’s largest cocoa producers, the cocoa pod was a popular form.
