PSU Magazine Spring 1999

freedom to New York slaves who joined the British Navy. In another grave, a woman perhaps 25 years old was buried with strands of cowrie shells and glass beads tied around her waist. The e valuable items almost surely denote a woman of great importance in her culture. Was she African royalty? Was she believed to possess supernatural powers? How could she have hidden the prec ious items during an arduous voyage from Africa? How else could she have acquired them? Investigators hope to answer these intriguing questions with further analysis to determine the age of the beads and the specific region they came from in hope of determining the woman's cultural heritage. In a thor– oughly modern development, they plan to use digital morphing of her skull to create a computerized image of her face . r-;i erhaps the most intriguing 1..1111111 discovery: metal tacks care– fully hammered into the lid of a coffin in a heart design . For many observers, a heart would be an obvious choice for the coffin of a loved one. But for Agorsah , a Ghanaian national, another interpretation springs to mind. Among the people of Ghana, geometric forms symbolize certain concepts. The symbol called sankofa– usually represented as a bird-some– times takes form as a heart outline. "The sankofa symbolizes the Ghanaians' belief that if you don't pick up your past, you can't know your future," says Agorsah. "In other words, you can't know where you're going, until you know where you've been." D (Melissa Steineger, a Portland freelance writer, wrote the article "Is There a Doctor in the House? " which appeared in the winter 1999 PSU Magazine.) 10 PSU MAGAZINE SPRING 1999 CONNECT WITH YOUR FUTURE You take it seriously, and so do we. Professional development programs in... Human Services andEducation Initial and ContinuingAdministrative Licensure Graduate Teacher Added ElementaryEndorsement Vocational Rehabilitation Offerings ChemicallyDependent Client in Your Practice Best Practices for ImprovingCommunity Health Special Education (on- and off-campus) Child and Adolescent Treatment Standards-Based Education ESIJBilingual Endorsement Workplace Conflict Management Business Human Resource Management Workplace Conflict Management Supervision and Performance Management Entrepreneurial Excellence in Technology Contract/Customized Training Executive Assistant Project Management Multimedia Professional Complete your degree evenings and weekends. Downtown, Beaverton, Clackamas, Salem School of Extended Studies PORTLAND STATE lJNIVERSITY