item #453

from: Ghana

tribe: Ashanti

price: $7500.00

This is an exceptionally beautiful gold chain with an extraordinarily fine heart shape pendant. The shape of this pendant, though well known in the West as a symbol of love, is actually not considered to be a heart at all in Ashanti tradition. Indeed the real human heart is not shaped like this at all. The Ashanti devised this shape as a reference to the san ko fa bird whose head is turned 180 degrees around to look behind it. That bird is the symbol of a proverb which signifies, loosely interpreted, that we must learn by looking to our past.

photo # 453.1