ADINKRA AS FACILITATING AN INTEGRATIVE UNDERSTANDING OF EXISTENCE


These forms of communication, carried by word of mouth, by memory and in art, were in fact weighty repositories of knowledge of the most diverse kind, which not only allowed the human being to learn about his/their surroundings and other cultures but enabled the individual to relate with the nonhuman world, not simply as objects of knowledge but as entities to be interacted with.

My researches have ranged over the symbol systems of that continent, from Ifa among the Yoruba to Fa among in present Dahomey, to the Dogon of Mali,to the Bamana, the Fulani and even beyond Ethiopia into the pre-Islamic traditions of North Africa.

Eventually I concluded that all these symbol systems represented the fragmented expressions of one gigantic system of knowledge, a unity not suspected by many of the peoples who hold each of the pieces, each rope in the strand, each thread of the tapestry. How wonderful it would be to integrate this vast vision into its primordial wholeness! The vision of its creators would then be fulfilled and I would accomplish one of my life’s greatest goals/dreams. Why travel to India, to Tibet, to name two of the most prestigious destinations in the search of ultimate truth, when I can discover something completely new here, in the Dark Continent, aptly called because much of its knowledge is truly not known to the rest of the world in its true magnificence, its authentic splendour.

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