A Narrow Claim, Aimed At A Narrow Set Of Occasions

Willis records Mate Masie used on cloth and in contexts honouring elders, counsellors, and others whose position depends on being trusted with confidential or sensitive information, a narrower and more role-specific application than a general symbol of wisdom such as Nyansapo would carry; where Nyansapo praises wisdom as an intricate, many-sided capacity, Mate Masie isolates one specific, practical component of it, the discipline of discretion, and makes that single component the whole of its meaning. Willis notes this precision is characteristic of a number of the corpus's less universally reproduced symbols, which trade the broad recognizability of designs such as Gye Nyame or Sankofa for a sharper, more specific claim aimed at a narrower set of occasions.

Willis records Mate Masie's specific association with elders and counsellors giving it recorded use on cloth presented at installations of chiefs' advisors and similar consultative offices, a narrow, role-specific occasion comparable in kind, though not in subject, to Mpuannum's association with a specific court hairstyle and office rather than with leadership or wisdom in general. Willis treats both as examples of the corpus using a narrow, office-specific symbol where a broader character symbol would lose the precision the occasion calls for.