Adinkra (Twi) · Adinkra duro (Twi)
Adinkra is one of the best-known Asante traditions, and one of the least settled in its history. One account says that when Denkyira was defeated in 1701, cloth makers from Denkyira arrived in Asokwa and began making adinkra cloth there; another holds that the origin is much earlier. A popular legend connects the cloth to a Gyaman king named Adinkra, defeated and brought to Kumasi, but that story appears mainly on commercial sites and should be read as folklore, not documented history. What is consistent across sources is the present geography: Asokwa as the official supplier of the Asantehene's cloth, and Ntonso, one of the craft villages near Kumasi, as the busiest production centre.
Stamps are cut from dry, thick-skinned calabash. One family workshop cures the gourd with shea butter for about a year to soften it, scrapes the outer skin, draws the pattern in pencil and carves away the negative space with a gouge. Raffia pieces hammered into the back form the handle. Between uses, stamps are soaked in warm dye to keep insects away. The carver Paul Nyamaah Boakye is documented carving more than seventy symbols, each tied to a proverb, belief or philosophy.
Adinkra dye (*adinkra duro*) is made from the bark and roots of the badie tree: the outer layer is removed, the inner bark is soaked for about a day, pounded, boiled, strained and boiled again. A second, black cloth dye is made from the bark and roots of another tree by soaking, boiling and beating until very dark.
The cloth is fixed flat; sections are laid out with a comb dipped in dye and pulled across freehand, then each section is stamped with the chosen symbol, dipped, pressed and rocked from edge to edge.
Most cloths today are machine-sewn, though some are seamed with decorative stitches known to textile historians as *randa*. The cloth was originally hand-woven; today most printing cloth is starched, lustred cotton, and some of it is machine-woven.
Each symbol is tied to a saying or proverb, so that one cloth can carry several messages: personal, political and philosophical. Traditional mourning cloths have black, red or brown grounds. Adinkra is now also worn at festive occasions, typically on white or brightly coloured grounds.
Ntonso artists now also experiment with foam stamps and silk-screening, and some cloth is industrially printed. These are legitimate products with different prices and uses, but they are not the same object as cloth hand-stamped with calabash. When you buy, ask how the symbols were applied, what the dye is, and who carved the stamps.
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