Adinkra Cloth
Adinkra is the stamped cloth of the Akan, dyed in dark tones and printed with the symbolic motifs that bear the same name, each one carrying a proverb and a moral lesson: the sankofa bird that looks back to learn, gye nyame, 'except God,' and dozens more that together form a written language in cloth. The dye is made from the bark of the badie tree, boiled down to a deep black, and the blocks are carved from calabash, pressed into the fabric to stamp the patterns row by row. The cloth was traditionally worn at funerals and by the bereaved, its dark ground expressing mourning while the symbols