THE MATHEMATICAL SYMMETRIES OF ADINKRA AS MENTAL VEHICLES FOR THE EXPLORATION OF THE UNKNOWN


The mathematical symmetry of Ifa and Adinkra take me into the exploration of shapes and patterns, patterns that describe the world without and the world within, real and imagined, visual and mental, static and dynamic, abstract patterns, numerical patterns, patterns of shape, patterns of motion, patterns of behaviour, from the material and the social worlds, from the depths of space and time, from the inner workings of the human mind[1].

Adinkra are visual symbols of which there are hundreds of distinct examples. Each one has a distinctive shape associated with a distinctive symbolic meaning. One Adinkra I find particularly intriguing is known as Kuntunkantan. It combines most evocatively the correlation of mathematical, literary, philosophical and religious possibilities that the multivalent African systems demonstrate.

Kuntunkantan is particularly intriguing on account of its evocation of universes of association in amplifying the symbolic possibilities of a circle by conjoining the smooth flow of multiple circles, creating a form of soundless music.

Two circles on the left, two circles on the right, one on top of the other. The space at the centre where they all touch forming a four sided polygon, a star shaped quadrilateral.

A fifth circle in the centre intersects all four circles, holding in balance both the four outer circles and their polygonal nucleus.

The character of the geometric forms suggest and invite cognitive processes. Those processes enable me to see Kuntunkantan as suggestive of both the methods for achieving my goal and the outcome of that achievement.

Adinkra became expressive for me of the processes for arriving at a mental integration of the cosmos and a transcendence of that unity. It also suggested to me the structure of knowledge that results from this process. Kuntunkantan embodied for me what the Hermetic philosopher describes as both a way and a goal in lines that had long haunted me with their enigmatic beauty “The way is the goal and the goal is the way”.

[1] Description of mathematics as the science of patterns in Keith Devlin’s Mathematics: The Science of Patterns

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