West Africa · Kumasi, Ghana
Sankofa
Also known as Sankɔfa
A bird turning its head to gather an egg from its back: sankofa, the Akan adinkra symbol of Ghana, teaches that there is wisdom in returning to the past to build the future.
Sankofa is one of the best loved symbols of the peoples of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. It is drawn either as a bird turning its head to reach behind it, or as a stylised heart with curling spirals, and it carries a simple, profound idea: it is never wrong to go back for what you have left behind.
The meaning of the word
The name comes from Twi, the language of the Asante and other Akan groups. It is usually explained as a combination of san, “return”, ko, “go”, and fa, “take” or “fetch”, so that sankofa means “go back and get it”. The symbol is tied to an Akan proverb, often translated as “it is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten”.
The idea is not nostalgia. Sankofa asks people to recover the knowledge, values and history of those who came before, and to carry them into the present. It is a symbol of wisdom grounded in memory, community and learning.
Two forms of one idea
The best known form shows a bird with its feet planted forward and its head turned back, reaching for an egg on its back or holding one in its beak. The egg is commonly read as the precious knowledge of the past, and the forward-facing feet as a reminder that the journey continues.
The second form is a heart-like shape with spirals curling inwards at the top and often at the base. It is easy to stamp, carve or cast, and it appears widely in metalwork and furniture as well as in jewellery. Both forms share the same name and meaning.
Adinkra: a language of symbols
Sankofa belongs to adinkra, a large family of visual symbols, each linked with a proverb, a saying or a historical event. They were traditionally stamped onto cotton cloth with carved pieces of calabash gourd, dipped in a dark dye made from boiled tree bark.
Adinkra cloth was closely associated with funerals and mourning, and the word is often explained as meaning farewell. Today, however, it is worn for many occasions, and its symbols appear on everything from buildings to everyday clothes.
The tradition is centred on the Asante region around Kumasi, and the nearby village of Ntonso has long been known for its cloth printers. The earliest known adinkra cloth was collected in Kumasi in 1817 by Thomas Edward Bowdich, a member of a British mission to the Asante court, and it is now in the British Museum. Many symbols were recorded in more detail by later writers in the twentieth century.
Adinkra symbols belong to a wider world of Akan art that includes brass weights for measuring gold dust, carved stools and fine goldsmiths’ work. Gold holds special significance in Asante culture, which is one reason sankofa is so often made in gold or brass today.
Sankofa in the diaspora
In the twentieth century sankofa travelled far beyond Ghana. For many people of African descent in the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe, it became a symbol of reclaiming histories interrupted by the transatlantic slave trade. It appears on monuments, in the names of schools and community groups, and in the title of a 1993 film by the Ethiopian director Haile Gerima. Teachers and historians in particular have embraced it as a picture of why the study of the past matters.
Its message speaks to anyone who pauses to look back with care before moving on, which is perhaps why it has found friends in so many places.
Looking back is not a retreat; it is how the bird gathers what it needs for the journey.
Wearing sankofa
Sankofa is worn as a pendant, printed on cloth, carved in wood or framed as art. It makes a meaningful gift at graduations, family reunions and moments of new beginning, when past and future meet. Many people choose it to mark a return of some kind: to a homeland, to their studies, or to a family story waiting to be written down.
For the most meaningful piece, look for work by Ghanaian and other African makers: cloth printed by adinkra artisans, carving from Ghanaian workshops, or jewellery made by the goldsmiths and brass casters of the region. Their work keeps the symbol in the hands of the culture that created it. Our guide to wearing cultural symbols with respect offers more thoughts.
Relatives
Sankofa sits among the talismans of West Africa beside the cowrie shell, once the money of the region’s markets. Further afield, the spirals of the Celtic Triskele and the Māori Koru also speak of time, growth and return, a reminder that many cultures have drawn the same curve to describe a life that moves forward while remembering where it began.
taliaris describes beliefs and customs; it makes no claim that a talisman has an effect.