Of ends and beginnings
Ghana at first looks like a series of linked hearts, but on closer inspection, I notice a stylised bird. I learn that this is the Sankofa, a mythical bird from their culture that flies forward while looking backward, with an egg held in its mouth.
The word Sankofa derives from the Akan people, a West African ethnic group that resides in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. The Akan, over centuries, developed a highly artistic and communicative system of ideographic and pictographic symbols, each representing a specific concept or proverb rooted in the Akan experience....
Their beliefs were handed down mostly orally through proverbs and stories, or through pictorial symbols. A proverb from which the concept and meaning of Sankofa is derived declares, 'It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.' It speaks of bringing good from the past into the present and progress through the benevolent use of knowledge.
The Sankofa bird is stylised in a circular fashion to represent that there is no end and no beginning. It has an egg in its mouth, which represents not only the knowledge of the past upon which wisdom is based, but also signifies the generation to come that would benefit from that wisdom.
Culturally, the Sankofa bird represents the collective wisdom of a people, and teaches that a people must know its past legacy to understand their present situation in order to protect and create a future for generations.
