Let it Be

Understanding Suffering & Surrender (Being) through Ghanaian Adinkra symbols and Catholic and Buddhist Teaching

Adinkra symbols are a strong cultural and philosophical aspect of Ghana. They serve as a visual representation of how humanity should live. The first set of the symbols were revealed in a dream to the King of Gyaman, ruler of part of the present day Bono region of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. The King, Nana Kwadwo Agyemang Adinkra, commissioned designs of the symbols and their meanings on his royal attire and initially, only he wore the symbols. Soon after, they became such a revered and valued part of Bono custom that they spread to other regions like the Asante/Ashanti kingdom and wider Akan kingdoms, chiefdoms and communities in Ghana.

A sample of Adinkra symbols (Source: Doore Dasi)

Initially, Nana Adinkra was loyal to the King of the Asante, Osei Tutu Kwamena Asibey Bonsu, and offered tribute and military support to the Asante kingdom. When tribute demands grew too much in 1818, Nana Adinkra recreated the golden stool, which was the Asante kingdom’s symbol of power since the 17th century. In doing so, Nana Adinkra effectively declared Gyaman independent from Asante. This led to a successful military invasion of the territory of Gyaman by the Asantehene, Osei Tutu Kwamena.

Despite the conflict, the meaning and value of the Adinkra symbols endured and their origins and naming remained in Akan culture, andd spread even further to the rest of Ghana. Only a few days ago, six new symbols were announced to celebrate the leadership of the current Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, who was enstooled in 1999. One of the symbols, the only one to have been named so far, is the ‘Otumfuo Nsa’ meaning ‘The Hand of Otumfuo’. The symbol is in the form of two hands holding an oval shape signifying, I was happy to learn, inclusivity and harmony between Asante and other cultures within and beyond Ghana.

Images of the six new Adinkra symbols (Source: Opemsuo)

There are several Adinkra symbols I’ve come to learn. The most common I’ve seen is the ‘Gye Nyame’ symbol, meaning ‘Except God’ or ‘God is King.’ A gold Gye Nyame symbol is prominent on the front of the lecterns at the Catholic Church I go to. Once, I attended a mass at the Apostolic Nunciature in Accra and noticed the Gye Nyame tattoo on the upper back of a woman in front of me. The tattoo matched the symbol on the backs of the white plastic chairs we all sat on. The Gye Nyame symbol is also on the largest denomination of Ghanaian currency – the 200 cedi note.

The ‘Gye Nyame’ Adinkra symbol (Source: Adinkra Symbols)

The second most common Adinkra symbol I’ve seen is the ‘Sankofa’, which is summarised below:

“Go back and get it!... [Sankofa is a] symbol of the wisdom of learning from the past to build for the future. From the Akan proverb, "Se wo were fi na wosan kofa a yenkyiri," meaning, "It is not taboo to go back for what you forgot (or left behind)."[1]

The Two Representations of the ‘Sankofa’ Adinkra symbol (Source: Adobe Stock)

---

I’ve been doing slow research on suffering and narrative from both theological and social perspectives, which prompted me to find out whether there are Adinkra symbols about suffering. There are.

The first one I came across is ‘Fawohodie’ summarised below:

“Freedom or independence. A symbol of freedom, independence, emancipation, self-determination, and self-government. From the proverb, “Fawohodie ne obre na enam,” literally, “Freedom walks with suffering,” that is, “Freedom or independence comes with responsibilities.”[2]

The ‘Fawohodie’ Adinkra Symbol (Source: Adinkra Symbols)

The second contains a misspelling of the Akan word for “enemy,” which is “Tanfo” but the symbol is named as ‘Tamfo Bebre’ to symbolise an enemy’s bad intentions and envy. “‘The enemy will stew in his own juice’… ‘Ɔtanfo Bɛbrɛ' literally means ‘An (unnamed) enemy will suffer’ while ‘Me tanfo bɛbrɛ’ means ‘My enemy will suffer.’”

The ‘Tamfo Bebre’ Adinkra Symbol (Source: Adinkra Symbols)

I’m not sure what Ghanaians have to say about suffering in general but I’ve observed their ability to practice nuance and see people as complex and imperfect, more than in other communities I’ve lived in. I notice this peculiarity in the ways people may raise their voices suddenly to argue but the disagreement is resolved before any physical action. Mostly, peace and acquiescence prevails.
I have yet to witness a physical fight and when I first moved, I often found myself at the entrance of malls and event spaces already opening my bag for a search, only to remember that bag searching and going through metal detectors doesn’t really happen here.

The late Binyavanga Wainaina talked about this particular part of Ghana culture in his essay, ‘The Most Authentic, Blackest, Africanest Soccer Team.’
He describes a night out in Accra packed with men and very few women. This is still the case today and I plan to write about how valued male fraternities are in Ghana. Groups of men who have experienced decades of friendship since their schooling days meet regularly for weekends-away to catch-up – entire groups of them! To illustrate this, one of the most prominent entrepreneurs in Accra threw what is now considered the biggest party of the year to celebrate his 40^th birthday in March. Yet, he made sure to hold a smaller gathering with what looked like about 20 of his closest male friends the day before his big event. When I showed the footage to my husband, he said, “Didn’t I tell you? Brotherhood is very serious here, maybe even more important than marriage.” This is purely from his observation; we have a lot more to happily and curiously learn.

Wainaina wrote about his night in Accra saying:

“We sit on one side of the road and chat, watching people dance on the street. This could never happen in Nairobi – this level of boisterousness would be assumed to lead to chaos and anarchy, and would be clipped quickly… I notice there are no broken bottles, no visible bouncer. No clues that this level of happiness ever leads to meaningful violence.” [3]

I have only been out to a few places in Accra, but I am yet to see a bouncer at any of them. What Binyavanga describes as never happening in Nairobi, I think he can in fact broaden to East Africa.

In Ghana, there is an assumption that you will not resort to physical violence unless you have no cultural values whatsoever or have been driven to the edge of madness, and thus subsequent ‘mad’ actions are easily explained.
Physical violence is not regarded as a way to earn easy respect here. On the contrary, you might be perceived as very unstable, not as someone to fear, or even misguidedly respect.

Of course, there are other elements of violence that may be far more common in Ghanaian society, like warranted assumptions of mysticism being at play and frequent land quarrels and financial fights – yet, all of this has created a litigious population. Courts of law are such an accepted and widely used form of conflict resolution, I find myself reasoning that mediation must be a driving force in Ghanaian national culture – if not from God’s intervention as the ultimate mediator (or intervention from other religious and mystic practices), people turn to earthly arbitration.

I’m still at it in my research on suffering, but so far, it is leading me to a realisation espoused from the religions I’m focusing on (Catholicism and Buddhism), and one also embodied in the aforementioned Fawohodie Adinkra symbol.

Majority of Catholic teaching I have come across encourages focus on Jesus Christ as the most suffering of all figures, and asks readers and listeners to reject self-centred suffering (what Jesuits call ‘false consolation’). In this teaching, self-centred suffering is what humans feel when expectations aren’t met, or when we can’t solve our problems ourselves. A Catholic thought-leader could ask people in their periods of suffering to “give up trying to save [themselves]” surrender everything to God.

Similarly, the Buddha taught that most suffering is caused by craving and desire. He shared ‘The Wheel of Life’ – an image depicting a pig, a rooster and a snake, known as the ‘Three Poisons’. The three animals represent human behaviour in the forms of ignorance, greed (craving/desire) and hate, respectively. By avoiding all three through ethical behaviour, meditation, and gravitating towards wisdom, Buddhists believe people can reach enlightenment.

When the Akan people, through Fawohodie, emphasise that freedom walks with suffering, where some translations read suffering as responsibility, and the Pali word for ‘dukkha’ in Buddhism is usually translated as suffering but more accurately means a wheel off its axle, I start to view suffering differently. I am still struggling with the fairness of it all, asking “why”, but all of that stops at least for a moment, when I come across spiritual passages that ask us to think of the self as removed from one’s circumstances and actions, and surrender to what is. For that moment at least, it makes the ‘letting go’ possible, and the ‘letting be’ feel more accessible.

It’s no wonder that I can recite the entirety of The Beatles’ ‘Let it Be’, without any previous intention or effort to look the song up.
There are some things so spiritual and universal to humanity, that our subconscious keeps them long before we ever register their presence.

*

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be

---

[1] Adinkra Symbols. https://www.adinkrasymbols.org/

[2] Ibid.

[3] Wainaina, B. (2022). The Most Authentic, Blackest, Africanest Soccer Team. In A. Prabhala (Ed.), How to Write About Africa (1st ed., pp. 299 - 313). One World.