”Adieyie” To Wit, The Roving Tailors In Ghana

”Adieyie” is an Akan word. The predominant ethnicity in Ghana couched the refrainment for roving tailors. Literally, it means ”doing things well.”

These tailoring practitioners have reduced from their multiplicity in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s into the skeletal frame that exists today. In other words, they are now a handful, seldom spotted in the crowds and encountered by chance.

The signature tunes that announced their presence were the clangs from striking two metal items together and the sound goes ”karrrr karrrr or kpa kpa kpa.”  Once you hear these, then you know an ”adieyie” is around, and those who need their services quickly rush to the rooms to pick clothing that requires any form of sewing, from alterations to patching.

The roving tailor stomped through the markets and in the communities, and when called they settled by you to provide expedited tailoring services to clients.

Days were when the sewing machine used by these tailors who mend torn clothes was an indispensable part of the requisition list on a prospective husband by the bride’s family. Thus, in those days, when housewives pertained, and little of them in formal employment or as working mothers, they did their own sewings at home, essentially for their husbands and children.

The role of the ”adieyie” then provided the supplement in instances where the household had no sewing machine, the item was not functioning, or the housewife did not know how to sew.

The new epoch reveals a society that is increasingly busied by economic exigencies requiring movements and attendance to enlarged responsibilities and needs and less sedentary lifestyles. Changed society has left only the aged generation stuck to ”adieyie” suggesting a practice given to persons of pensionable age ready to subsist on a low income, especially if family members provided no succour.

The little coins that fall in the palms of the ”adieyie” gradually become a small ocean for a turnaround in a variety of circumstances concerning the individual. It is quite a laborious exercise for these elderly citizens who have to comb all over the place in the scorching sun and clang instruments with their fingers to make audible sounds announcing their presence to attract customers.