In the old Baule country, gold was viewed as a divine metal because the earth was considered rich in it. The extract does not describe unrestricted mining or private accumulation. Gold was placed within a moral and religious order that regulated both its extraction and the uses to which it could be put.

Anyone could extract gold, but a nugget exceeding the accepted standard weight could not be kept by the discoverer. It had to be returned to the god and added to the royal gold, a sacred reserve. Even the kings were not entitled to draw upon this store, and some royal treasures were preserved intact until the European occupation.

Gold was used above all for royal or religious objects, as a means of exchange, and for gifts. The same conception of divine ownership extended to land: because the earth belonged to God, an individual could not own land outright but held rights of usufruct. Material resources were therefore embedded in religious obligations and political institutions.