Sankofa (heart)
The heart-shaped Sankofa is the abstract form of the Akan symbol Sankofa, “go back for it”. It means the same as the bird: learn from the past.
Meaning
The heart-shaped Sankofa is one of the two forms of an Akan symbol from Ghana; the other is the bird looking back. Philip Owusu of the University of Ghana describes it as the bird “abstracted into a heart-shaped design with some sorts of appendages”, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art labels a heart-shaped stamp in its collection “another form of the bird looking backwards”, which “refers to proverbs about learning from the past”. The National Park Service, which uses it at the African Burial Ground National Monument in New York, translates it as “learn from the past to prepare for the future”.
Origin and history
The National Park Service describes the drawing in its brochure: a heart whose sides end at the top in two spirals inside the heart, turning in opposite directions, and whose foot ends in two shorter spirals outside it. The Smithsonian’s stamp, carved from gourd, has the two scrolling lines and a triangular point at the other end.
At the African Burial Ground
The African Burial Ground in Manhattan is the burial place of Africans and African descendants in early New York. In 2003, 419 of them were reburied on the site, and the National Park Service writes that the heart-shaped Sankofa “appears in many places” at the monument, “reminding us that the 419 Africans and African descendants buried here so long ago have much to teach us”. Owusu counts the Sankofa-inspired monuments there as a tribute to what the symbol means across the diaspora. The Culturally Situated Design Tools project at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute adds that an adinkra-like symbol “found in an African American burial ground from 1760” led the Park Service to use adinkra for its memorial.
Often confused with Akoma
The plain adinkra heart is a different symbol, Akoma, which stands for patience. What tells them apart is the curls: the Sankofa heart turns inward into two spirals at the top and has two small scrolls at its foot; Akoma has neither.
Read next
- Next in Adinkra symbolsMate MasieMate Masie, “what I hear, I keep”, is the adinkra symbol of wisdom, knowledge and prudence.
- The same shape in Aztec symbols and godsQuetzalcoatl (the feathered serpent)The feathered serpent, one of the oldest gods of ancient Mexico. For the Mexica (Aztecs) he was a god of wind, Venus and the morning, and the legendary priest-king of Tula; his name means “quetzal serpent” or “serpent of precious feathers”.
See also
Sankofa, Akoma (the heart), Gye Nyame, Nyame Dua, Nsoromma (star), Osram ne Nsoromma (moon and star).
Sources
- Brochures (African Burial Ground National Monument), National Park Service, African Burial Ground National Monument, “Brochures”: the text and audio descriptions of the park’s official print brochure, U.S. National Park Service, front of the brochure
- Adinkra Symbols as Multivocal Pedagogical/Socialization Tool (Philip Owusu 2019), Philip Owusu (Senior Assistant Curator, Institute of African Studies Teaching Museum, University of Ghana), “Adinkra Symbols as ‘Multivocal’ Pedagogical/Socialization Tool”, Contemporary Journal of African Studies 6, no. 1 (2019): 46–58, doi:10.4314/contjas.v6i1.3, Contemporary Journal of African Studies (University of Ghana), pp. 51–52
- Adinkra stamp known as sankofa (National Museum of African Art 2010-10-376), Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, adinkra stamp, Akan artist, Ghana, object 2010-10-376, catalogue record and label text, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, description and label text
- Adinkra Origins (Culturally Situated Design Tools), Culturally Situated Design Tools (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, with the National Science Foundation), “Adinkra: Origins”, Culturally Situated Design Tools, Present Day
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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