Akoma (the heart)
Akoma, “the heart”, is the adinkra symbol of patience and endurance. Its saying is nyaakoma, “take heart”.
Meaning
Akoma is an Akan symbol from Ghana, stamped on adinkra cloth and carved on the African Burial Ground memorial in New York. Jasmine Danzy, in her 2009 thesis at Stony Brook University, gives the proverb it stands for as nyaakoma, “literally meaning ‘take heart’ or have patience”. The design-tools table at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute gives “Patience & tolerance”; the National Park Service glosses the carving in New York as “Endurance, Understanding”.
A heart that is not about love
Danzy uses Akoma to show how adinkra works as writing: the heart has a fixed name and a fixed meaning in Twi, and in Akan it means patience, while “in English the symbol for heart stands for love”.
Often confused with the heart-shaped Sankofa
The heart-shaped Sankofa is also a heart, but its sides curl into two spirals at the top and it has two small scrolls at its foot. It means learning from the past. Akoma is the plain heart.
Read next
- Next in Adinkra symbolsAkoma NtosoAkoma Ntoso, “linked hearts”, is the adinkra symbol of understanding and agreement.
- The same shape in Celtic symbolsCeltic knotA pattern of bands woven over and under one another with no loose ends: the interlace of early medieval art in Ireland and Britain, best known from the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels. Its makers left no record of what, if anything, the knots meant. Readings such as eternity and unending love are modern.
See also
Sankofa (heart), Gye Nyame, Nyame Dua, Nsoromma (star), Osram ne Nsoromma (moon and star), Sankofa.
Sources
- Adinkra Symbols Explained (African Burial Ground National Monument), National Park Service, African Burial Ground National Monument, “Adinkra Symbols Explained” (last updated 30 June 2021), U.S. National Park Service, list of the symbols in the memorial
- Adinkra Symbols (Culturally Situated Design Tools), Culturally Situated Design Tools (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, with the National Science Foundation), “Adinkra: Symbols”, Culturally Situated Design Tools, table of symbols
- Adinkra Symbols: An Ideographic Writing System (Jasmine Danzy 2009), Jasmine Danzy, “Adinkra Symbols: An Ideographic Writing System” (MA thesis, Stony Brook University, 2009), Stony Brook University Libraries (SUNY Connect), chapter on Adinkra as a script
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from curves and waves.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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