An Animal Motif Wider Than Its One Adinkra Meaning

Willis notes that crocodile imagery recurs across West African visual and oral traditions well beyond the Adinkra corpus specifically, appearing in Akan goldweights, in regalia, and in the symbolism of several neighbouring cultures, so Denkyem's specific Adinkra proverb of adaptability sits within, without being identical to, a much broader regional stock of crocodile symbolism carrying its own separate range of meanings elsewhere.

Within Adinkra cloth Denkyem is commonly used to praise a person or an institution that has successfully navigated a change in circumstance, a new role, environment or set of demands, rather than being reserved for any single life occasion the way more narrowly targeted symbols such as Nsoromma or Duafe are; Willis records it as one of the corpus's more generally applicable character symbols rather than an occasion-specific one. Willis records Denkyem appearing with some frequency on cloth commissioned around a change of career, residence or role, occasions where the adaptability the crocodile represents applies directly and literally to the wearer's own circumstance, a fit between symbol and occasion Willis treats as one of the more transparent pairings in the whole corpus.