How are African textiles woven and patterns made?
African textiles are woven or made from one or another material, or a combination, of fibers such as: cotton, raffia, flax, silk, wool, roots, vines, bark or brass amongst others.
Some of these textiles are made on looms.
"Cloth" that is not woven, but cured, like suede or processed like bark, also falls within this genre and is still used by many.
Leather and suede are common to nomadic people, who invested in camels, or cattle and used them as legal tender, bride price and as symbolic repositories of history, identity and being.
Beautiful suede garments made from these animals, were imbued with multiple proverbial meanings and cultural significance, for example: the Isidwaba skirt, worn by married Zulu women. Leather apparel is apotrophaic, durable and adaptable to a range of climatic conditions. Designs were shaved out of the hair, painted or beadwork and metal attached to the skin for adornment.
Himba women, from Namibia still wear traditional garments made from various skins.. Acknowledged for their style, elegance and beauty, these Goddesses serve as our modern muse. From a contemporary idiom, their garments are recycled: handmade using no carbon footprint, sweat-shops or dodgy dyes. The red oxide used, comes from the earth.
Leather serves many other functions as coverlets, tents, horse and camel trappings and is embellished. This spectacular leather mat was made with skill and mastery by the Tuareg, of the Sahel region. Sections were precisely drawn, then half- incised out of the leather, with a sharp knife and a steady hand. The result is an excersise of precision and refinement of geometric detail, a hallmark of these desert nomads.
Indigenous weaving systems for cloth still exist everywhere today with the exception of Namibia, parts of Kenya and Southern Africa. (However historically, evidence shows that weaving occurred in small areas along the East coast of Southern Africa, influenced by Swahili traders).
Weaving is labour intensive, blending the intellectual and practical skills of many people in disparite fields. for example: hunters who collect the silk cocoons of the Anaphe and Epanaphe genera worms in the bush. farmers who grow cotton. Women who process, spin yarn and dye it, young adults who weave and those who dye completed cloth either by hand or in vats, others who embroider and refine and finally textile sellers responsible for marketing and selling the fabric..
Looms: African weaving is gender specific. In different geographic regions, men and women use looms of different design and scale. These are set up in various social spaces, some in, some out of doors.
Loom size dictates cloth dimensions and how it is sewn together and worn. There are many types and adaptions of looms and heddles in Africa. Some are upright vertical looms, used by women in Nigeria or Morroco, whereas others like the narrow backstrap loom, used by men in the Sahel region, can be easily dismantled and moved to another venue.
Where looms are placed and for how long, depends on the flexibility of how business is conducted. Clients may commission a weaver to come to their home, erect his loom and make specific cloths for them, or weavers may be gathered at a particular site, (into a form of co-operative) for an ongoing commercial venture over time.
Textile design is often constructed through a division of labour, where the one assembling a cloth (not the weaver) will decide on how the woven strips are assembled, creating the pattern, i.e. during the process of making an Asa oke cloth. Or, raffia cloths of the D.R.C where men weave and one or more women decorate it.
The organic beauty of African design often depends on slight disruptions in the pattern and proportion, adding a sinuous vibrancy and life to cloth..
Some weaving, for example those made by the Dida, of Ivory Coast are done without any loom at all.
Pattern and adornment:
The love of pattern and adornment is a universal human trait.
One could discuss whether it was gleaned from observing nature, or it was a more cerebral process? Perhaps both. Over time, groups of people developed more complex and nuanced symbolism and colour usage that signified status, identity and a visual aesthetic, that informed their artistic practice.
Colour and patterns chosen, depend also on the buyers religion or the fabrics purpose within specific contexts, or ritual occasions, i.e. at funerals, ritual ceremonies or investitures.
African fabric is often preconceived as being bright. This may apply to some Kente cloths, but in most part, traditionally made fabrics, the yarn, colour and patterns are sombre, with restrained decoration.
Colour: Initially, an extensive body of technical knowledge existed on how to use different plant components for the production of dyes. Natural, organic dyes were extracted from the bark, leaves, roots or flowers of plants and trees. These, imbued the fabric with soft, warm colours that were sustainable, originating from nature.
Batiks in Africa are especially beautiful and noteworthy: Personally i love the largely unknown old indigenous batik fabric from Mauretania, or as far as pattern goes, the soft organic shapes and nuanced blurred edgings that meld together the tones found in the work of the Dida people of Ivory Coast or the Kuba of Congo. These examples are to be appreciated as they are unique and so full of life. They differ from the hard edged, more conventional designs favoured in the East, for example, in Indonesia.
Earth: The Himba daub earth oxides onto suede, to colour it red. The Abantwane/Sotho in South Africa used earth oxides to colour leather back skirts, black.
The Bambara people of Mali, collect mud that, through a process, colours cotton fabric black with concise resist designs, like the below example.
This brown cloth is painted in freehand with powdered bark paste.
Indigo: This colour, beloved in Africa, is universally treasured and its appeal goes beyond ethnic origin, being appreciated by humans all over the planet. West African indigo cloths are admired by the Japanese.
Worth mentioning are Nigerian designs with a range of white resist patterns, printed on fabric and worn by laymen. To achieve this result, different technical processes ensue, for example: raffia stitching, raffia tyeing, waxed calabash stamps and other stamped designs, mixtures of cassava or rice paste applied to cloth and then additionally, folding the fabric in various ways, prior to the cloth being submerged in indigo.
Other indigo cloths, worn by Chiefs and dignitaries have more complex designs.
Across the countries of the Sahel, for over a century, indigo blue was used to dye European fabrics, like satin and damask, that were treasured by the Tuareg. This illustrates a flexible approach to what was classified as traditional wear.
Handwoven indigo cloth, styled and heavily emboidered (below) are prestige garments made by the Hausa, Nupe and Yoruba men of Nigeria.
Silk yarn from the Borocera and Bombyx mori worms, is woven in Madagascar for prestige cloths, associated with funerary practices.
These designs using silk thread in Nigeria, emphasise the graffic element of writing and calligraphy ( below) . Besides the aesthetic appeal, they also locate these cloths with a sense of place and identity..
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In the same way, contemporary printed cotton cloth incorporates names or proverbial sayings. This concept can be related to another medium, beadwork, where lettering was first included in Ndebele garments from 1920 and later, names, admonishments and aphorisms were included into Zulu loveletters in the 1950/60s in South Africa.
In early Colonial times, European fabrics, were unravelled and rewoven into African textiles in creative ways: with Kente cloth in Ghana, or Kuba raffia cloths in the Congo. This invention introduced new fibers and colours, expanding African visual language to encompass the new and exotic.
But existing traditions and technical prowess developed alongside these ideas, resulting in increasing levels of sophistication.
In this below example, the concepts and patterns are moderated by an innate sense of proportion, balance and harmony.
Patterns and designs on African fabric are not always made in a conventional way, by weaving, or dyeing.
Inventive pattens on a plain background, can be painted or stamped as in this below example.,
Some designs are appliqued, patchworked, embroidered or created through cut-pile technique like the raffia cloths of the D.R.C.
Other decorative techniques adapted the weaving itself, or made eyelets in the fabric.
Embellishment to costume included applying sections of shells, brass pieces and beading, for marvelous effects.
Amongst people with no weaving tradition, patterns were drawn or applied directly, or permanently tatooed onto the skin.
In West Africa, patterns may intentionally incorporate errors. ( attributed to Islamic influence as only Allah is perfect). Over time, this concept, through Swahili trading influence, seeped into other parts of Africa. Ideas become entrenched in indigenous cultures, for example on the East coast, in Mozambique, where the Tsonga womens cloth wraps are cut suiting their aesthetic of style, to incorporating a disparate piece of fabric, usually positioned and worn at the back,. This concept (of adding a disruptive piece) pervades other areas of their visual language and iv"e also seen it in beaded examples.
Textiles are an integral part of universal trading systems., acting as legal tender or "holding" multiple meanings. During colonial times, cloth of various kinds was a commercial staple. In the 16th and 17th century, Fabric, beloved in Congo and Angola was exported to the Americas. Being cheap, it was bought by owners, to be worn by slaves. Here, in this context, cloth was divisive as the wearer was then visually defined, segregated by the texture, fabric and look of what they wore, from those who for example wore [printed cotton or silk]
In the early 20 th century, competition between India and the United Kingdom for market share in the Colonies was rife. Indian fabric, popularized for decades in parts of Africa was copied by competitive cloth manufacturers in the U.K, who then secured parts of the African market.
Tip: Also, "traditional-looking" Kente cloths, manufactured in the U.K, were made for sale in Ghana. Examples are sometimes collected, looking like the real thing,( i got caught early in my career), but the cloth was reproduced in large dimensions, woven on a commercial loom, and obviously not made using the customary narrow strip-woven technique. Today, printed facsimiles of Kente cloths are made in the East.
If you are a fabric enthusiast, please view my other textile blog posts:
Raffia exhibition, D.R.C
Dida textiles of Ivory Coast
Raffia textiles of the Kuba people, D.R.C
Fante flags, Ghana
Asa-Oke cloth, Yoruba people, Nigeria
Or check out John Gillows Book called African Textiles.
