Adinkra Symbols in New Orleans Ironwork

by Karel Sloane-Boekbinder

The Anvils Ring

Full speed of fire forges ahead with an insistence that there must be something more to a lump of metal than meets the eye—this is what connects all workers of iron.  I am an aficionado.  I live where iron carefully wraps around window sills, doorways, and balustrades; here the forge’s bright orange belly and the hammer have given birth to all manner of curves, angles, lines and spirals.  These lines and curves too, carry more than meets the eye. From fire into iron is where those who wrought lines and curves have folded their messages.

The messages forged into iron shapes have crossed centuries, cultures and continents.  As a person’s expertise with metal and fire can travel with that person, so can cultural patterns particular to the places they come from.  I have just finished a large (three parish) education project that explored cultural retentions and symbolism woven in to the architecture of the Mississippi Delta.  A cultural retention is something that remains from a culture, and can be identified as having come from that particular culture.  Many are aware of European cultural retentions.  Sometimes the elements of African cultures that have been retained are not so obvious.  Since the 1800’s, Adinkra symbols from West Africa have been woven into wrought-iron designs found up and down the Mississippi Delta.  These Adinkra symbols communicate complex messages and complicated concepts that relate to individuals and to society as a whole.

In Africa, between savannah and forest, since the 1200’s, smiths have forged metal by hand from clay furnaces fueled with charcoal.  One of the main professions of West Africans, it seems, is that of metalworking.  Further, according to a paper "African Ironmaking Culture Among African American Ironworkers in Western Maryland 1760-1850", Louisiana and the Mississippi Delta are not unique.  Technological diffusion occurred and occupational identity increased when workers made iron with methods based on African traditions, Libby, 1991.  The contributions of African ironworking to the culture and development of American wrought iron design is further detailed in two books:  Negro Iron Workers in New Orleans, 1718-1900, by Marcus Christian: Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Co., 2002, and Forging from sun-up to sun-down: African symbols in the works of Black ironworkers in New Orleans (1800-1863), by Eva Regina Martin: Temple Univ., 1995 (9600046.)