The adinkra symbol is called "duafe." It is associated with women and women-like qualities. It resembles the afro comb or "pick," which is a hair-grooming device/tool/accessory. Discussing the adinkra symbol and its historical situatedness in rituals as a form of displaying respect to the ancestors.

“The Akan of Ghana have elaborate funeral and memorial services...[which are] not just a public display of sorrow but a significant ritual process” (Willis, 1998, p. 25). Wearing funeral cloths at the service “demonstrates a person's sorrow at the loss of a family member, friend, or acquaintance” (26). There are Akan symbols adorning the funeral cloth, and they are called adinkra symbols. An artist could be commissioned to make a special funeral garment...[by] combin[ing] aspects of the family's history with other... information to create an expressive... cloth” (27). Adinkra symbols reveal the complexity of Akan social and spiritual existence, and “reflect cultural mores, communal values, philosophical concepts...and the social standards of the Akan people” (28).

Today adinkra symbols also constitute associations with the heritage of the African diaspora. The symbols appear on commercial items, but with “rigid and exact” (42) patterns that have delusory implications. These contemporary changes have had two major effects. One, the reverence and importance of adinkra specifically for mourning rituals has diminished and expanded into a variety of social events including “weddings, naming ceremonies, festivals, and initiation rites” (42). Second, the increased manufacturing and use of adinkra cloth has virtually eliminated the artist who formerly explained the symbols and the “history, proverbs, and parables” (43) represented in the cloth. Thus, many wearers of adinkra cloth do not “understand the deep spiritual and cultural meaning behind the symbols” (43). Rather, they wear the cloth because of their affinity for a geometric design or for some vague notion of what the symbol means.

Rather than selecting symbols because of their geometric design, I allow their deep spiritual and cultural meaning to illuminate this discussion.The duafe is used here to represent not only women, but the Afrocentric qualities that are shared by African American women, now and across the ages.