During the 13th century, the Akan people developed their unique art of adinkra printing. Hand-printed and hand-embroidered adinkra clothes were made and used exclusively by the royalty and spiritual leaders for devotional ceremonies and rituals. Each of the motifs that make up the corpus of adinkra symbolism has a name and meaning derived from a proverb, a historical event, human attitude, animal behavior, plant life, or shapes of inanimate and man-made objects. These are graphically rendered in stylized geometric shapes. The meanings of the motifs may be categorized into aesthetics, ethics, human relations, and religious concepts.