Continuing our series on Africa’s traditional textiles . Jamila Versi delves into the fascinating story of some of the most popular traditional textiles and design styles across the continent. The end product is always more than just material to fashion into dresses and is replete with culture, tradition, ritual and even serves as a means of social commentary.
Markets, homes and dresses across West and Central Africa are famous for their colourful, traditional African patterns. But the story behind them is in fact far more interconnected and international than it may first seem, with each piece of cloth carrying its own unique tale – one that moves between continents, cultures and generations.
Close-up of a hand crafting traditional batik with hot wax in Jakarta, Indonesia. (Image: Daniel Lee)
Batik
Batik wax printing is actually a traditional Indonesian process. Hot wax, known as malam in Javanese, is applied to areas of fabric using a pen-like tool called a canting – a small metal cup attached to a handle through which the wax can be carefully drawn.
Designs may also be stamped or painted onto the cloth before it is dyed. The wax protects certain areas from the colour, so that when it is finally removed, patterns appear in the contrast between dyed and undyed fabric. Layer upon layer of wax and colour can be added, gradually building an intricate design.
What happened next is a fascinating story of movement, imitation and reinvention. During the 19 th century, Dutch textile manufacturers attempted to reproduce Indonesian batik industrially, developing mechanised methods of printing wax-resist patterns onto cotton.
The European imitations were not particularly well received in Indonesia, but they found an enthusiastic reception in West and Central Africa.
Exactly how these fabrics first became popular in West Africa has several versions. One often-told story takes us into the world of the Belanda Hitam , or ‘Black Dutchmen’.
Between 1831 and 1872, more than 3,000 West African men were recruited from the Dutch Gold Coast to serve in the Dutch colonial army in the East Indies. Many were Akan, and after completing their contracts, some returned to the Gold Coast, while others settled permanently in Java, beginning the first Afro-Indonesian community.
Accounts connecting these returning soldiers directly to the rise of wax print are difficult to prove completely, but they form part of the fascinating story of how textiles, people and ideas travelled between Indonesia, Europe and Africa.
Once wax prints reached African markets, however, they certainly took on a life of their own. Female traders became particularly important in deciding which patterns succeeded and in giving imported designs new local meanings.
In Togo, some of the most successful traders became known as the ‘Nana Benzi’, a nickname associated with their wealth and their ability to afford Mercedes-Benz cars (and their adoration of them). Through traders and consumers, patterns acquired names, sayings and stories, turning pieces of cloth into a kind of visual language.
A design might refer to money, marriage, politics, jealousy or family life. A pattern of birds known as Sika Wo Ntaban , or ‘money has wings’, suggests how quickly wealth can disappear. Other prints commemorate public events, while some allow the wearer to communicate a far more personal message. Fabrics have even been given names such as ‘Ungrateful Husband’, offering a wonderfully indirect way of telling somebody exactly where they stand.
Elegant woman wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, holding a large woven basket. (Image: MADUGU Abdullahi)
Palm Tree Fibre – Raffia
Another textile tradition on the continent begins not with cotton, but with a tree, growing in the forest between baobabs and breadfruit trees. Raffia comes from raffia palms, whose enormous leaves can be processed into long, strong fibres.
Across parts of tropical Africa, these fibres have been woven, plaited and embroidered to make clothing as well as mats, baskets, ropes and ceremonial objects.
Raffia has been particularly important in Central Africa and Madagascar, where the material can be transformed from something coarse and plant-like into surprisingly intricate cloth.
(In Madagascar, the raffia palm was regarded as a landmark for international mariners – a crucial marker for sea captains seeking safe anchorage).
Across the globe, Madagascan raffia palm fibre was shipped to Europe for use in vineyards. Within the country, raffia textiles have held practical and ceremonial importance. They say that, while silk was reserved for the dead, ‘raffia was for the living’. It was used alongside other materials to construct houses on stilts, and among the Sakalava, master weavers produced a dyed raffia textile known as laimasaka , translated as ‘cooked tapestry’.
Perhaps the most celebrated transformation of raffia into cloth, however, is found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, among the Kuba peoples.
African woman in traditional Yoruba attire, outdoors in Ado Ekiti, Nigeria. (Image: Kold Shots)
Kuba Cloth
One of the most remarkable raffia traditions is Kuba cloth, created by the Kuba peoples of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At first glance, the textiles are striking for their complex geometry – diamonds, broken lines, triangles and interlocking shapes that seem to move across the surface of the cloth.
Making Kuba textiles has traditionally been a collaborative process. Men weave the basic cloth from raffia-palm fibres, while women historically carry out much of the later decoration, stitching pieces together and adding embroidery, appliqué and dyed raffia threads.
In some pieces, embroidered raffia is cut extremely short to create a dense, velvety pile. The resulting textiles can look almost like patterned velvet, despite beginning as the fibres of a palm leaf.
What is especially beautiful about Kuba design is that the repetition is rarely completely predictable. A geometric pattern may suddenly change direction, break apart, expand or be interrupted by another shape.
Rather than creating a perfectly regular surface, the maker introduces variation and rhythm. Artists traditionally develop many of these patterns from memory, and individual motifs are also given names with meanings significant to those who make or wear them.
Kuba cloth was not simply decorative. Textiles could be worn as elaborate ceremonial skirts and wrappers, displayed as prestige objects and exchanged as valuable goods. Some embroidered panels even served as markers of status and forms of currency.
Like wax print and mud cloth, Kuba textiles show how fabric can carry far more than pattern. The process of making them brings together the natural world, specialist craftsmanship, social traditions and individual creativity. A palm leaf becomes fibre, fibre becomes cloth, and cloth becomes something capable of expressing wealth, identity, memory and belonging.
Colourful traditional fabric dyeing scene in Kano, Nigeria, showcasing local craftsmanship. (Image: Umar Faruq)
Malian Mud Cloth – Bògòlanfini
If raffia cloth begins with the palm tree, Malian mud cloth begins with cotton, leaves and earth. Described as the cloth of ‘the earth, the water, and the sun’, bògòlanfini , or often simply bogolan textile, is especially associated with the Bambara people of Mali. Its name itself describes its making: bogo refers to mud or clay, lan to the idea of being made with something, and fini to cloth.
Traditionally, men weave narrow strips of cotton which are then sewn together to create a larger cloth. Women have historically been responsible for much of the dyeing and decoration.
The cloth is first treated in a dye bath made from leaves and other plant materials. Fermented, iron-rich mud is then painted onto the surface. Rather than simply sitting on top of the fabric like paint, the mud reacts with the plant-treated cloth to create a dark colour that becomes more intense as the process is repeated.
The designs left behind are usually bold and geometric: lines, circles, crosses, dots and zigzags arranged against strong areas of black, brown and cream. Yet, as with wax print, these patterns carry meanings beyond their appearance. Designs have been used to encode historical, social, moral and even medicinal ideas, meaning that knowledge of how to read a cloth could be as important as knowing how to make one.
Traditionally, bògòlanfini was also connected with moments of change. Hunters wore it for camouflage and protection, and after childbirth, women would wrap themselves in it, believing that the cloth had the power to absorb any dangerous forces that might be released under such circumstances.
Today bogolan has moved far beyond its original setting. It appears in contemporary Malian art, international fashion and interior design, but its distinctive appearance still comes from an extraordinarily local combination of materials: handwoven cotton, plants, water and the earth itself.
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The enduring magic of Africa’s traditional fabrics
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