The vanishing textiles of Africa

Recently, I presented the launch of the double-volume opus, African Twilight, The Vanishing Rituals and Ceremonies of Africa, by photographers Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher at African Heritage House.

Along with the vanishing rituals and ceremonies are the handwoven and hand-printed textiles of Africa, one of Africa’s greatest gifts to the rest of the world. I showed a collection of authentic African costumes and fashions created from the textiles of Africa over the past 50 years that I have been in Africa.

Most of these textiles are vanishing, some nearly extinct and most are rarely used by designers any longer, who favour cheaper imports. The handmade textiles that once gave prestige to the wearer, as well as the weaver, are very labour-intensive and now are used only for ceremonies like weddings.

We look at some of the fashion collections created of authentic African textiles now owned by Makena Mwiraria of Ari Africa, with the intention of saving some of them in an existing museum space or building a special museum for this purpose, with African Heritage House as a potential site. Here is a textile tour through the African continent:

THE ROYAL TEXTILES OF GHANA  

The Kente, one of the world’s most complicated weaves, is woven only by Ashanti men on looms for both hands and feet. The Ashanti still have grand ceremonies, such as the coronation of a king, weddings and funerals, for which the old Kente cloths are used.

They were once woven only of silk from imported cloths that came across the Sahara desert by caravan and were then painstakingly picked apart and re-dyed and rewoven into sumptuous cloths worn by the royalty and the royal court. Few of the original Kentes are in existence, but the Kente patterns are revered around the world as the most recognisable cloth of Africa. So it does continue to live on through mass printed fabrics on cotton, and there are still Kentes from the original designs woven with cotton or rayon.

THE ADINKIRA

This is also a royal cloth of the Ashanti, is hand-printed with combs or stamps cut out of calabashes and then hand embroidered with multicolour patterns along each seam. The black Adinkira is usually reserved for funerals. The original embroidery on Adinkira is now extinct, and machine-printed multicolour bands are used. The original Adinkira, hand-printed stamps cut from the rind of calabashes with calabash is now nearly extinct.

THE EMBROIDERED SHARMA CLOTH OF ETHIOPIA 

Sharma cloth is the gauzy handwoven cotton cloth famous in Ethiopia with magnificent and colourful bands of embroidery along the edges. It is still worn in many parts of the country, as well as being exported, but as in all of Africa, more and more people turn to the cheaper imports from China or cast off clothing from the USA. I used sharma (or shema) cloth for the first design of what became Kenya’s African Heritage Festival, which travelled the world with its cast of models, musicians, acrobats, stiltwalkers, chefs and hairdressers.

THE VIBRANT CULTURE OF THE CAMEROON

From the kingdoms of Bamoun comes wondrous beadwork often used in ceremonial masks, including furniture and royal accessories. Most of these crafts are now pursued for the tourist markets, feeding the interior décorators in the West and other parts of the world. The Indigo-dyed, handwoven cotton cloth called “NDOP” is now rare. Formerly, it often had maps depicting a chief’s compound, showing the plots of his wives, his farms and his domain.

NIGERIA: MEN’S and WOMEN’S WEAVES 

Nigeria is the richest in its textile heritage. Men weave on a narrow hand loom outside the house while women weave on wide stationery looms and remain inside the house to look after the children

The most famous men’s weave is the ASEOKE, a Yoruba prestige fabric for both the wearer and the weaver. Now, much of this glorious heritage is forsaken for cheaper imports from China and other countries, and only worn for such occasions as weddings. During WWII, when the Yoruba could not import lace from London, they started incorporating holes and wefts in the weave to represent lace. Strips of Aseoke are now exported for the dwindling overseas market

Women’s weaves include the gorgeous panels of OKENE woven in a village of that name, and the Ibo AKWETE, as well as the sumptuous cloths from Bida in Central Nigeria.

The Ibos produced amazing appliques for their masquerade costumes which are now very rare and once again given up for imports

Probably the most famous of Nigerian fabrics is the indigo dyed fabrics. Indigo is a dye sought after by many cultures for centuries from the roots and leaves of the Indien plant. The famous “Adire” cloth created by Yoruba women painting the designs with cassava starch on cotton cloth with a palm frond of feather, and then dipping the cloth several times to get the dark blue colour before chipping off the starch and dipping one more time to get the light blue. Sometimes men create a stencil for the cloth from zinc. Nike Seven Seven Okundaye has spent a good deal of her life reviving this art of the Yoruba women.

NIGER

The Tuareg and Fulani of Niger produce exquisite embroidered garments along with fabulous silver and leather work. Again all of these are endangered arts, and most of the embroideries have disappeared (Photo 14)

KORHOGO CLOTH

At the village of Korhogo in Ivory Coast, an art of hand painting the Senoufo strip wove cloth with Senoufo images, mostly animals, birds and masquerades was started about 60 years ago. This art now depends mostly on sales to overseas outlets and tourists. (Photo 15)

MALI

Mali has become synonymous with “ Bokolonfini” most commonly referred to as mud cloth, as it is dyed with high acetate mud from the bottom of lakes in a reverse process to get the black colour, and now other colours, mainly gold or rust are also part of the palette. The mud cloth has a large export market but is scarcely worn anymore in Mali by local people. (Photo 16)

KUBA CLOTH FROM THE CONGO

The Kuba of the Congo produce a huge variety of techniques and cloth woven of palm fibre by both men and women: embroideries, pile cloth cut like velvet, tie dye, appliques and other techniques. The cloth is sought after all over the world as a source for home decorators, to the detriment of some of the royal cloths being cut up without knowledge of its past when it was used by Kuba royalty in the royal courts. Since the Kuba live in a relatively inaccessible place due to lack of roads, and conflicts, the Kuba continue to produce this living art of Africa, but for how long?

MADAGASCAR

Some of the most extraordinary cloths of Africa are from this Island country off the coast of East Africa. The most sumptuous cloths are woven of raw silk by Merino women. (Photo 17)

KHANGA, KITENGE, and KIKOI FROM KENYA

Kenya has a centuries-old tradition of Nomadic people decorating skins from their cows with beadwork and other techniques. This tradition has all but disappeared as people turn to textiles, mostly imported.

There has been a burgeoning cottage industry in the country to replace the handwoven “Kikois” worn mostly in Somalia for men with machine-made Kikois which has found a huge market both for tourists and local people to denote they are from Kenya. Kikois and the beadwork of the Maasai have become an unofficial Kenyan national dress.

The same applies to the cotton Khanga, which was imported for centuries from India and other sources and the “lesos” that Muslim Malagasy and Coastal Kenyan women sewed together from handkerchiefs exposing only their eyes, grew into the market we know today as Khangas (from the word in English “Guinea Fowl” as most of the early Khangas had a spotted or dotted border or interior) with political and other slogans incorporated into the design.

This is still a thriving industry with khangas coming from many sources, and still being worn mostly at the Coast. What is called “Kitenge” developed as cheaper copies of the once fabled “Dutch Wax Prints” which were printed in Holland for the African Market and are still available and being used by modern designers in place of the hand woven and hand printed fabrics of the past. 

Kenya has a centuries-old tradition of Nomadic people decorating skins from their cows with beadwork and other techniques. This tradition has all but disappeared as people turn to textiles, mostly imported.

There has been a burgeoning cottage industry in the country to replace the handwoven “Kikois” worn mostly in Somalia for men with machine-made Kikois which has found a huge market both for tourists and local people to denote they are from Kenya. Kikois and the beadwork of the Maasai have become an unofficial Kenyan national dress.

The same applies to the cotton Khanga, which was imported for centuries from India and other sources and the “lesos” that Muslim Malagasy and Coastal Kenyan women sewed together from handkerchiefs exposing only their eyes, grew into the market we know today as Khangas (from the word in English “Guinea Fowl” as most of the early Khangas had a spotted or dotted border or interior) with political and other slogans incorporated into the design.

This is still a thriving industry with khangas coming from many sources, and still being worn mostly at the Coast. What is called “Kitenge” developed as cheaper copies of the once fabled “Dutch Wax Prints” which were printed in Holland for the African Market and are still available and being used by modern designers in place of the hand woven and hand printed fabrics of the past.