ADINKRA AS AN INTEGRATIVE MATRIX FOR AFRICAN SYMBOL SYSTEMS


The point that led to this challenge I now face to my existence emerges from my effort to integrate the various African symbol systems I had encountered in terms of the symbolism of Adinkra, a symbol system developed by the Akan of Ghana. It is s system of evocative visual designs, each of which is related a proverb, and at times to a story. Along with Kente symbolism, it is one of the best known symbol systems of the Akan. Like Kente, its use began from being woven on clothes. It is also used for a variety of purposes, from architecture to the contemporary use in the design of web sites. Its appeal lies in its combination of compelling visual power and profound symbolic meaning, ranging from the social to the metaphysical and spiritual. Within the conventional understanding of these visual symbols, however, it conceals a depth of possibility, however, which I stumbled upon and which has led to my present tragic condition.

Akan Kente and Adinkra symbolism represent forms that that can be understood as operating simultaneously in terms of social philosophy as well as metaphysical and spiritual conceptions. This correlation between the social, the spiritual and the metaphysical seems to be realised much more explicitly in Kente than in Adinkra symbolism. Most Adinkra symbols seem to be understood exclusively either in terms of metaphysical or spiritual conceptions or in terms of social values. The correlation of all three levels of signification in terms of particular symbols seems to be the exception rather than the norm in the explications of Adinkra I have come across so far. This is most ironic, since Adinkra symbolism, on account of the multivalent possibilities of its style of symbolisation, emerging from its various modes of relating images and their symbolic attributions, is capable of evoking a range of significations that are limited only by the ingenuity of the person responding to them. These symbolic resonances include the correlation of the social, the spiritual and the metaphysical that emerges with particular explicitness in the explications of Kente I have encountered.

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