Som Onyankopon — The Adinkra Symbol of Worship & Devotion

Most of the Adinkra symbols that address the divine describe God — name an attribute, express a hope, make a claim about what God is or what God does. Som Onyankopon does something different. It is not a description. It is a command. Som Onyankopon: worship God. Not "God is worthy of worship." Not "those who worship God are blessed." Not a proverb or a proverb-derived aphorism. An imperative, addressed directly to the person who encounters it: you. Worship God. The directness is the point. In a tradition that prized the indirect communication of proverbs, a symbol that simply commands is notable for what it does not bother to argue. The case for worship has already been made, in every other symbol in this tradition. This one just tells you what to do with it.

At a glance

What Som Onyankopon Means

Som Onyankopon means worship God. Som is to worship, to serve, to honour. Onyankopon is one of the Akan names for the Supreme Being — the unique and great one, the singular incomparable God. The symbol's name is the expression; the expression is the command. There is no proverb wrapped around it, no story to mediate it, no argument to first follow. Just the imperative: worship God.

In a tradition as rich in indirection as the Akan — where the wise are spoken to in proverbs, not plain language, where a chief's words are relayed through a linguist, where meaning almost always arrives wrapped in metaphor — a symbol that simply says what it means is striking. The directness is not clumsiness. It is a choice: here, no argument is necessary. All the other symbols have made the case. Gye Nyame has declared God's supremacy. Nyame Dua has named God's presence and protection. Nyame Nwu Na Mawu has asserted the soul's immortality in God. Osiadan Nyame has named God as the builder of everything that exists. Som Onyankopon does not need to establish the case for God. It tells you what to do with the case.

Worship, in the Akan understanding, was not a private emotional state or a weekly obligation. Som encompasses devotion, service, reverence, and the active orientation of a life toward what it recognises as supreme. To worship God in this sense is to live in a particular way — to allow the recognition of divine supremacy to shape how you move through the world, what you fear, what you trust, what you place above all other concerns. The symbol does not describe this. It commands it.

"Worship God."

The Story Behind the Symbol

The Akan name for God used in this symbol — Onyankopon — is one of the tradition's most theologically loaded divine titles. It combines ɔkɔ (alone) with pon (great), producing a name that asserts not merely God's greatness but God's singular incomparable greatness: the one who is alone in that category, beyond comparison. This is distinct from Nyame, which is the general name for the divine, and from Twereduampɔn, which emphasises God's reliability. Onyankopon is the name that emphasises unique supremacy — the God alongside whom nothing else belongs in the same rank.

The choice of Onyankopon in the symbol's name is therefore precise. You are not being told to worship a great being among others. You are being told to worship the incomparably singular one — the one who is alone great, to whom nothing is equivalent. This is the same God whose supremacy Gye Nyame encodes: the one except whom nothing else ultimately governs. Som Onyankopon is the practical consequence of Gye Nyame. If that supremacy is real, this is what you do with it.

Akan religious practice was not confined to formal ceremonies. It was woven into the daily language of greeting, the rituals of libation, the consultation of priests, the maintenance of household altars. The Nyame Dua — the sacred Y-shaped stump placed outside many Akan homes as a site for offerings — was a daily reminder of the ongoing relationship between the household and the divine. To carry the symbol Som Onyankopon was to carry this reminder on the body: not just that God exists and is supreme, but that the appropriate response to that supremacy is active, ongoing devotion.

Cultural Significance

Som Onyankopon occupies a distinctive position in the Adinkra symbol system because of its grammatical form. Almost every other symbol is a noun, a noun phrase, or a declarative sentence. This one is an imperative verb. It does not describe; it directs. In the context of a tradition where Adinkra symbols were worn on the body as a kind of public statement of belief and aspiration, wearing Som Onyankopon was a declaration of practice: I worship God. And simultaneously an instruction to those who saw it: you should worship God too.

The symbol connects the archive's two registers of divine engagement: the theological (what God is) and the practical (what you do in response). The theological register is carried by Gye Nyame, Nyame Ye Ohene, Osiadan Nyame, Nyame Nwu Na Mawu — each a statement about the divine. Som Onyankopon alone crosses into the practical register and names the response. Belief, in the Akan frame, was never merely intellectual assent. It was expressed through practice — through libation, through prayer, through the maintenance of the altar, through the orientation of life toward the divine. Som Onyankopon is the symbol that names all of that at once.

It connects too with Nyame Nti — "by God's grace" — in that both recognise the dependence of human life on the divine. Nyame Nti names what God gives; Som Onyankopon names the appropriate response to the recognition that it has been given. The circle is complete: God provides, the human receives, and the fitting response to receiving is worship — not as repayment, but as acknowledgment of the source.

Why It Still Matters

Contemporary religious life often privatises worship — confines it to specific times and spaces, separates it from the texture of daily life, treats it as one category of activity among many rather than as the orientation from which all other activity flows. Som Onyankopon does not know this division. It is a command meant to be carried on the body, visible in daily life, present in the fabric of ordinary existence. Worship God is not the instructions for Sunday morning. It is the instruction for every day.

The symbol also speaks across the lines of specific religious tradition. Onyankopon is the Akan name for the Supreme Being, but the call to worship the incomparably great one — the singular source of everything — is not bound to any particular religion's vocabulary. Across traditions that affirm divine supremacy, Som Onyankopon names the same practical consequence: if you believe in the source of all things, orient yourself toward it. Not just in belief. In practice. In the daily, embodied, active way you live.

The directness of this symbol is its gift. It does not leave room for the comfortable middle ground of believing in God without particularly doing anything about it. The Akan tradition did not consider this coherent. If God is what Gye Nyame says God is, if the soul is what Nyame Nwu Na Mawu says the soul is, if the world was built the way Osiadan Nyame says it was built — then the fitting response is available, and the symbol tells you what it is. Worship God. The command is complete.

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