Still Drawn At A Chief's Installation Today

Akofena appears on cloth and regalia connected to chieftaincy and state authority specifically, alongside Adinkrahene, Ohene Adwa (the king's stool, recorded separately in this atlas) and other symbols of formal political office, forming a recognizable cluster within the corpus concerned with the legitimate exercise of power rather than with personal, domestic or purely devotional themes. Willis notes that actual ceremonial swords, as physical objects rather than as cloth stamps, continue to be used in documented Akan state ceremony today, including in oath-swearing before a chief, which places Akofena among the smaller number of Adinkra symbols whose real-world referent is not only historical but a still-living element of contemporary Akan governance and ceremony.

Willis records that reproductions of Akofena, both on cloth and as small decorative metal or wood objects, are commonly sold to visitors as souvenirs referencing Ghanaian chieftaincy generally, a commercial afterlife he distinguishes from the symbol's continuing, non-commercial ceremonial use within actual chieftaincy institutions. Willis is careful to keep the two uses distinct in his own account, treating the souvenir trade as evidence of the symbol's recognizability rather than as any diminishment of its standing ceremonial role.