Sankofa: A Design That Pictures Its Own Proverb

Sankofa is read by Willis as one of the clearest cases in the whole Adinkra corpus of a design that pictures its own proverb rather than standing for it by association: the most common form shows a bird with its body facing forward and its head turned backward, taking an egg from its own back, a literal illustration of "go back and get it."

The fuller Akan proverb, se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi, translates as it is not wrong to go back for what you have forgotten, and Willis records a widely repeated variant image, a simple heart-shaped or stylized spiral scroll, used as an abstract alternative to the bird form on cloth where a more geometric stamp suited the design better. Both forms carry the identical proverb and meaning in Willis's account, the bird and the abstract scroll functioning as two visual solutions to one message rather than as two different symbols. Willis also records that Sankofa is one of the Adinkra symbols most frequently reproduced with small variations in the curl and proportion of the bird's neck and head across different carvers' stamps, a normal degree of craft variation he distinguishes from a meaningful change in the symbol's identity, since every version retains the same defining feature, a bird's head turned back toward its own tail.