Owuo Atwedee, the ladder of death, is drawn as a stepped or rung-like form, and Willis records its proverb stating plainly that the ladder of death is one no single person climbs alone, since everyone eventually ascends it regardless of the status, wealth or achievement gained during life. The image of a ladder specifically, rather than a road, a door or another figure for mortality, emphasizes ascent and inevitability together, a structure that must be climbed rung by rung rather than avoided or bypassed, and Willis notes this specific choice of image gives the proverb a levelling force: rank and rungs on a social ladder are, by the design's own logic, meaningless against the one ladder every person is compelled to climb regardless of any other ladder they climbed in life.
Willis notes the number of rungs shown varies between carvers, some rendering only a few steps and others a longer ladder, a variation he treats as without independent significance, since the proverb's force rests on the ladder existing and being universally climbed rather than on any specific count of steps a given rendering happens to show. Willis treats the ladder's existence and its universal ascent, rather than its exact height, as the whole of what the design is required to communicate.