What Are Adinkra Symbols? The Visual Language of the Akan

Adinkra symbols are the stamped designs of the Akan peoples of Ghana, above all the Asante. Each has a name, and many are linked to a proverb, a saying or a historical event, so that a cloth printed with them can speak. They appear on cloth, gold and brass weights, carved stools and, today, on buildings, logos and jewellery.

A cloth of farewell

The word adinkra is usually explained as a message given at parting, a farewell, and Adinkra cloth was traditionally worn for funerals and mourning, originally by royalty and spiritual leaders. The Minneapolis Institute of Art notes that it became increasingly popular in the twentieth century and is now also worn at weddings and naming ceremonies. Tradition connects the name with Adinkra, king of Gyaman, whose defeat by the Asante in the early nineteenth century is said to have brought the craft to Kumasi.

The oldest cloth

One of the earliest known Adinkra cloths was collected in Kumasi in 1817 by the English visitor Thomas Edward Bowdich and is now in the British Museum. In 1927 the British anthropologist R. S. Rattray recorded fifty-three Adinkra stamps with their names and explanations, a record that remains an essential source.

How Adinkra is made

The symbols are carved into stamps cut from calabash, then printed onto cloth with a dark dye boiled from the bark of the badie tree. The village of Ntonso, near Kumasi, remains a centre of the craft, where visitors can still watch cloth being stamped by hand.

A living, growing language

The Minneapolis Institute of Art describes a core vocabulary of about sixty symbols, augmented by hundreds of others, some of them local or made to commemorate a particular person. The Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art notes that older signs are most often linked to proverbs and folktales, while newer designs draw on plants, animals, everyday objects and even letters. New symbols continue to be created, including Owia A Repue, the rising sun.

The symbols in this Journal

• Abe Dua: the palm tree
• Agyindawuru: the gong of Agyin
• Asetena Pa: good living
• Fawohodie: independence
• Kintinkantan: do not be arrogant
• Kramo Bone: a warning against hypocrisy
• Mate Masie: what I hear, I keep
• Mframadan: the wind-resistant house
• Nnamfo Pa Baanu: two good friends
• Nyame Nwu Na Mawu: God does not die, so I cannot die
• Ohene Kra Konmunde: the king's soul-washer's disc
• Otumfuo Wuo Ye Ya: a symbol made for a king's death
• Sepow: the executioner's knife

Wearing Adinkra

Adinkra is a living tradition of the Akan and of Ghana, and its symbols carry real proverbs and histories. Wearing one well means knowing its name and what it says. AURYN's Adinkra designs can be found in the charms collection; for the famous spider-web symbol and the trickster Anansi, see our spider symbolism story.