Sankofa is an adinkra symbol which means it’s okay to go back to the past and redeem yourself- ‘’Se wo were fi na wosan kofa a yenkyiri“ (It is not a taboo to go back for what you forgot or left behind). This drives my thoughts and writing today.
The Atlantic slave trade was something of the past, but visiting the slave castle and dungeons at Cape coast was a reminder of what had happened. Sitting with the thought of how captured humans were locked up and treated inhumanly in these dark, airless dungeons required was deep reflection. I know it was a terrible experience for my ancestors. I keep asking myself why people did that to other humans No reason can justify this act of inhuman treatment.
I know there is evil in this world but this and what I saw and experienced at the dungeon is hard to comprehend. As an African from Cameroon, how had I managed to move on with my life without knowing about the details and history of the slave trade?
The past always has something to say and has been there to serve as a tool for guidance, as was confirmed during a group visit to Uncle Tete’s mentor the legendary African musician Agya Koo Nimo. He is 94 years old, and he had some life lessons to share with us. He kept on repeating and telling the young men “…not to hit women.”
He said he has lived this long because he treated women with respect. He also said time waits for no one and “You cannot bath in the same running water twice.” He had his concerns about the current state of learning and lack of dedication in musicians and people in general. For example, some traditional Akan drummers of the Fontomfrom have only memorized 4 beats out of the 77 perhaps out of convenience, a practice which is certain to result in the loss of the true art and its history.
The past serves as a solid foundation for which the future can be built on. Our ancestors are not physically present with us, but we often offer libation prayers to them so that they can serve as guides for what is happening in the present.
I like the idea of Sankofa: going back and taking from the past to rectify the present. When we look at our African educational systems, borrowed from our colonial past, we realize our school curricula doesn’t address our unique problems because it wasn’t designed by us and for us. Sankofa means we can go back to some of the ways of our ancestors and see how their systems created civilizations and taught their children, and we can use that knowledge to address some of our educational problems now.
When we visited the Manhyia palace museum in Kumasi, the tour guide explained to us that in the past we were dining as a family, this implied everyone shared from the same bowl of food and this symbolized unity and love in the family. This also meant there was some level of protection because one family member could not be targeted to be poisoned. But today, we have “isolated ourselves” with foreign cutlery sets, we eat individually and at different times, and there is hardly time for conversations and dialogue as a family unit. If we can go back to the past and revisit this custom and tradition of our culture, these ideas and values would be preserved and passed down from one generation to the other.
Yvette is the Co-founder of Bright Minds Academy Nasarawa Toto, Nigeria