Message #203799

[Kara Sundstrom]

(There has also been some inconsistency regarding what the sankofa, thought to stand for a West African proverb, means. The 2006 reports render the proverb as, “It is not a taboo to return and fetch it when you forget,” while the new interpretive display offers the easier-to-grasp phrase, “Look to the past to understand the present.”

Dr. Seeman’s study finds several problems with the sankofa identification. First, he writes, there is no evidence that the cloth existed in the 18th century. (The earliest surviving example of adinkra cloth, now in the British Museum, dates to 1817, and the earliest known depiction of the sankofa comes from a 1927 catalog of adinkra symbols.)

Second, Dr. Seeman writes that it was customary for masters to supply coffins for their slaves, and so, if the man in Burial 101 was a slave, “it would have been his master’s decision to pay extra for the tacks on his lid.” Finally, Dr. Seeman notes that hearts portrayed by an outline of tacks were a common form of decoration on Anglo-American coffin lids.