Mmusuyidee: An Object That Draws Misfortune Away

Mmusuyidee, that which removes bad luck, or sanctity, is associated by Willis with a specific historical object kept in Akan royal households near a ruler's sleeping place, understood to draw misfortune away from the household rather than merely to bring good fortune toward it, a distinction Willis treats as significant: the symbol's logic is protective and subtractive, removing an active threat, rather than purely accumulative in the way a straightforward wealth or abundance symbol such as Bese Saka or Nsirewa would be. As a design it stands for good fortune and spiritual protection more broadly beyond its royal origin, invoked to ward off calamity rather than to celebrate prosperity already secured.

Willis notes that accounts of the specific royal object behind Mmusuyidee vary somewhat in detail between informants, some describing it as worn and others as kept stationary near the sleeping place, a variation in the underlying historical practice he records without resolving, treating the general protective, misfortune-drawing function as the securely established element across accounts. Willis records the protective, misfortune-drawing function itself as consistent across every account he consulted, whatever the described form of the object.