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NORTH AFRICA.

WEST AFRICA.

GHANA/Wst.Afr.

EAST AFRICA.

SOUTHERN
AFRICA (in preparation)

Guest Book
photos by J.Picton & J.Mack,
British Museum, London

On the whole African languages have no single word that encompasses "Art" in the European sense. They do not have 'artists' per se as a general category; they have 'skilled creators'. Their creations are simply but aptly described as "beautiful" (P.G.Ben-Amos, 1995, p.18). And who would argue with that. This applies especially to the textiles that have been woven throughout the continent for hundreds of years. The 'creators' were the weavers, both men and women. The subject has been studied in great detail by a number of anthropologists and others and a plethora of publications is available.

All seem to concur with a basic concept: textiles in Africa were produced on single-heddle looms (horizontal, vertical, oblique) and double-heddle/treadle looms. Three of the latter types were with fixed warp, i.e. pyramid, pole & long-frame. Eight were with movable warp, i.e. Haussa, Yoruba, Sudanic, Tukulor, Mandjako, Ashanti, Cape Verde & Pit Looms. Double-heddle looms provided their creators with another opportunity to indulge their sense for the beautiful. They required pulleys to lift and lower the warp by means of heddle shedding devices. These little instruments, i.e. heddle pulleys, gave rise to some of the most fascinating carving skills in Africa. The materials woven on both types of loom varied from cotton, to bast, raffia, silk and wool. The colourfulness and sheer aesthetic beauty of many of the materials remains unsurpassed.

Particularly characteristic for North Africa is the so-called 'Berber Loom'. This is a horizontal single-heddle loom with which Berber women weave tent cloths. Axccording to Picton & Mack (see bibliography) it is thought to have been introduced into Berber culture by nomadic Arabs. This is the more interesting since the vertical single-heddle loom was central to pre-Arab Berber culture. Women's woollen cloaks and saddle bags were the most common product from this implement.

Probably the cloth best known outside Africa is the "Kente" cloth from Ghana. It is an Asante silk cloth over which the King of Asante had a complete monopoly. In Asante it is known as asasia cloth. Somehow or the other, Fante traders who bought it in Central Ghana (i.e.Bonwire) for resale at the coast of the country named it 'kente' which is said to be a corruption of the Fante word for basket (J.Picton & J.Mack, 1989, p.121). Perhaps they did not weave at the time but made baskets . The warp-weft effect of the latter may have reminded them of it when they saw the cloth. All African cloth is woven in strips from as little as 1.5cm to 100cm wide. The most common width is 10-20cm. The strips are then sown together along the selvage to form a sheet of material of a desired size.

Certain looms were used for specific cloths. For example, horizontal looms were used to weave cloth for tents & tent bags, especially in North Africa. The material used was woollen yarn and the strips were 60-70cm wide. Vertical & oblique looms were mostly used for weaving raffia (by male weavers) and cotton (by female weavers). High-pole looms were favoured for fabrics with intricate patterns, while on low-pole looms ordinary, narrow-strip cotton fabrics were produced. The quality of the weave depended on the different ways in which warp & weft elements could be interlaced. The simplest method was the Plain Weave (of which there are 8 types successively increasing in complexity), the most complex was the Compound Weave (of which there are 3 types).

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Different ethnic groups on the continent had different preferences with regard to colours. Thus people in and around today's Nigeria predominantly liked indigo colours of varying shades. Blue dominates cloth from those parts.

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(click image to enlarge)

A form often used to embellish woven cloth is embroidery, i.e. with the aid of needle and yarn. It should not be confused with supplementary weft-float patterns which can present the same effect. One of the finest examples is a gown in the collection of the British Museum, an embroidered cotton tunic from Ethiopia.

Another famous and very characteristic cloth from Africa is the Shoowa embroidered cut-pile raphia textile from the Democratic Republic of Kongo, loosely called 'velvet' (G.Meurant, 1986, p.4).

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(click image to enlarge)

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