Disk-headed akuaba figures remain one of the most recognizable forms in African art. The flat, disklike head is a strongly exaggerated convention of the Akan ideal of beauty: a high, oval forehead, slightly flattened in actual practice by gentle modeling of an infant's soft cranial bones.
The name akua ba comes from the Akan legend of a woman named Akua who was barren, but like all Akan women, she desired most of all to bear children.

Ashanti, people of south-central Ghana and adjacent areas of Togo and Côte d’Ivoire. Most of the Asante live in a region centered on the city of Kumasi, which was the capital of the former independent Asante state. They speak the Twi language of the Kwa branch of the Niger-Congo language family and are a subgroup of the Akan peoples.