The majority of the records and manifests obtained from ships carry transporting captive Africans to Europe and the New world during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade identify the ancient civilizations that inhabited the coast of Africa from Senegal to Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Benin as their source of human cargo. The Akan of Western Africa make up one of the largest ethnic/cultural groups inhabiting Ghana and the Ivory Coast . Selection of the Akan as representative of early African slaves brought to the New World is arbitrary only insofar as historical evidence points towards the Western coast of Africa as the primary source of imported slaves.

The Akan have an ancient and rich cultural heritage that includes the extensive use of pictorial symbolism in the writing system known as Adinkra , which was created by the Ashanti craftsmen of Ghana . The Adinkra symbolize the Akan way of life, and individually each symbol can be associated with an aphorism or proverb rooted in the Akan experience. African proverbs offer insight into African philosophical thought, cosmology, and worldview, so that collectively, the Adinkra and their accompanying proverbs form a communication system that preserves and transmits the accumulated cultural and spiritual values of the people.

http://www.welltempered.net/adinkra

A large number of African proverbs survived the transition from African to African American culture. For a closer examination of this subject, see Julia Stewart, African Proverbs and Wisdom, Carol Publishers, 1997.

Sankofa is an Akan term that literally means, "to go back and get it." One of the Adinkra symbols for Sankofa (seen on the left) depicts a mythical bird flying forward with its head turned backward. The egg in its mouth represents the "gems" or knowledge of the past upon which wisdom is based; it also signifies the generation to come that would benefit from that wisdom. This symbol often is associated with the proverb, “Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi," which translates to, "It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten." The Akan believe that the past illuminates the present and that the search for knowledge is a life-long process. The pictograph illustrates the quest for knowledge, while the proverb suggests the rightness of such a quest as long as it is based on knowledge of the past.

(san = "to return") + (ko = "to go") + (fa = "to look, to seek and take")

Contemporary African American communities include descendents of the Akan and many other West African tribal groups whose members were transported to North America during the slave trade. And while writing systems, cosmology, and religious figures may have been replaced, there is still much that is African among African Americans. A continuation of African religious ontology can be found in the African American community's deep attachment to and involvement with the Christian church. A continuation of the Akan pictorial writing system can be found in many African American communities in the "graffiti art" murals that transmit cultural ideals and values. Moreover, a continuation of the philosophical expressions of African spirituality also can be found in many of today's African American communities, where the concept of Sankofa exists in the form of the oft-repeated proverb: "You can't know where you're going unless you know where you come from."

Certainly there is written literature in Africa , although the written has always been intertwined with the oral, particularly when employed in the expression of spiritual beliefs. Of prime importance in African culture, as in many cultures, is the communal expression of spirituality. For the African, spirituality is equivalent to ontology; it is everything one defines oneself to be and cannot be separated from one's being. John S. Mbiti, leading scholar in the study of African religions and philosophy, maintains that Africans are "notoriously religious" because there is no separation between religious life and daily life.

Africans have traditionally used both symbolic language and written symbols to express their spirituality. But unlike Judaism, Christianity and Islam, African religions have no sacred texts. "To speak of any sacred scriptures as it pertains to religion in Africa is to speak of what is written in the hearts of the African people," states scholar David Abdulai in the introduction to his book, African Proverbs: Wisdom of the Ages.

Despite attempts made by their captors to destroy all practices connected with their homeland, enslaved Africans transplanted to the New World in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade continued to express traditional African beliefs and spirituality. Fortunately, because of parallels and similarities in and between African and Protestant Christian cosmologies, it was not difficult for captive Africans to substitute the religious figures and symbols of their captors for their own, and thereby continue to practice an African way of life. It was not difficult for the slaves to adapt their view of a Supreme Being that is in every thing to the Christian view of a God that is every where. Thus, while undergoing an intense and violent transformation, captive Africans managed to retain their African sense of the world and find comfort through the practice of a kind of "Africanized Christianity."