Dogon uldebe cloths

Dogon elders wearing indigo and white cotton uldebe cloths. These cloths are still important among the Dogon as a mark of high status and will play an important role in funeral rites. Photo by Boukary Konate on Facebook.

New book- “Indigo: the Colour that Changed the World” by Catherine Legrand

This is a beautifully presented and illustrated book that, perhaps inevitably,  relies heavily on the pioneering and more scholarly work of  Jenny Balfour-Paul (Indigo – British Museum Press, 1998), covering much of the same ground but adding some interesting if largely anecdotal material and a good number of often wonderful photographs.

The African section presents brief summaries of familiar material but also a fresh look at the most accessible surviving centre of indigo dyeing on the continent,  among the Dogon people of Mali. The author travelled this region in the company of Belgian author and film maker Patricia Gerimont (whose excellent book and DVD on Malian dyers should not be missed.)

All photos from Indigo: the Colour that Changed the World by Catherine Legrand (Thames & Hudson, 2013.)

An exceptional Dogon uldebe blanket

Superb early example of a style of nine strip blanket with nine rows of pattern that is called Uldebe among the Dogon, where it has an important and very specific role in the funerary and post funeral rites of high status men and women. According to Bernhard Gardi (Dogon, ed. Helene Leloup, 2011, page 180) each family would have one uldebe blanket that was used to wrap the body of any important deceased man or woman during funeral ceremonies, but then, rather than being buried with the corpse as was typical of funerary cloths in West Africa, retrieved and displayed in the courtyard of the deceased for six days as a focal point for homage to the dead. A very specific variant of the blue and white cotton blankets that were used throughout much of Mali, uldebe (also known as gamba) were woven only in a few villages in the district of Pinia. A Uldebe blanket was the sole textile included in the recent Dogon exhibition in the Musee Quai Branly, Paris.

However this particular cloth was collected in a remote village in northern Ghana where Malian blue and white blankets have been prized in Ghana for centuries and were used for prestige display be chiefs (and therefore would not have been used at funerals !) This is an exceptionally fine and early example, circa 1920-40s, woven from hand spun thread throughout, and in excellent condition. More ordinary uldebe blankets are fairly easy to obtain and indeed still in use in Mali, but an intact example of this age, quality, and condition is very rare. Click here to see this cloth and others in our online gallery.

Modern uldebe used to receive tribute offerings at the installation of a hogon or medicinal specialist. Photo by Inogo Dolo, 2012. More details here

Rare image of a Fulbe elder (not Dogon) wearing an uldebe cloth as a prestige wrapper, early C20th. (vintage postcard, published by Larger, author’s collection.)

A glimpse of Dogon textiles today.

Some more photos taken earlier this year in Dogon country, Mali, this time by Ilsemargret Luttmann. As we can see design innovation in indigo dyeing, embroidery, and weaving are very much a feature of contemporary dress.

All photos copyright Ilsemargret Luttmann. Please do not reproduce without permission.

“Dames de Couleurs / Colourful Ladies”–new DVD on women dyers in Mali

“Sanata and Dicko are dyers  in Mali. Sanata produces coloured bazin fabrics with her co-wives in Bamako.
Dicko lives in the bush in Dogon country and dyes loincloths using indigo.
They have amazing skills, and yet both constantly face the same challenge : ensuring a decent life for their children.”

“Dames de Couleurs” is a new Dvd exploring the continued vitality of dyeing traditions in Mali today, moving from urban Bamako to a village in Dogon country. Produced by Patricia Gerimont and Jean-Claude Taburlaux it will be available in September from http://www.cvb-videp.be/ – hopefully with an English subtitle version. Patricia Gerimont is the author of Teinturieres a Bamako: Quand la couleur sort de sa reserve (Ibis, 2008) which is one of the best recent books on an African textile traditions, available from French Africanist bookseller Soumbala.

Below are a few more of Patricia’s photographs – click on images to enlarge. All photographs in this post are copyright Patricia Gerimont. Please do not reproduce without permission.

Bamako

Dogon country

Installing a Hogon in Sangha, Mali, 2012

Hogon are medicinal specialists, herbalists and healers among the Dogon people of Mali. These photos, from a set recently posted on Facebook, shows views of the installation of two hogon in the village of Sangha, one of the best known and most frequently visited Dogon villages. The great quantity and variety of locally made textiles on display provide a superb insight into the use of hand-woven cloth in the region today.

In the photo above a mud brick house has been draped in cloths to serve as a backdrop for the event. Brightly coloured strip weave blankets of the types that can be found in markets throughout the Sahel provide dramatic blocks of colour. Most of these cloths would have been the work of Mabuube weavers, a weavers ‘clan’ attached to Fulani families. In between is a darker row (click the photo to enlarge) made up of blue and white prestige blankets called uldebe. These cloths, in which nine strips are matched to nine blocks of weft designs, are of considerable prestige and ritual significance among the Dogon. Finally, stacked at the stop are wheels of plain white cotton cloth strips, an ancient form of wealth throughout the Sahel, that today form the basis for either indigo resist dyed wrappers of for bogolan mud dyed fabrics for sale to tourists.

The hogon is seated on an uldebe cloth against a backdrop of multi-coloured tapie blankets, with more wheels of white cotton cloth at his side. He wears a beautiful indigo dyed robe, and on his head, a turban of very narrow strip indigo cloth most likely imported from Nigeria. At his feet another uldebe serves as a receptacle for gifts.

A women celebrant in her best outfit wears another blanket, an updated black and yellow version of an old blue and white design,  as a prestige shawl.

All photos by Inogo Dolo, reproduced with permission.

Dogon country, Mali, 2010

Dogon weaver in the village of Aouguine, Mali, September 2010.

Koro Guindo spinning cotton thread, Aouguine, Mali, September 2010.

Both photographs copyright Huib Blom. Please do not reproduce without permission from Huib who can be reached at his site www.dogon-lobi.ch where you can also order his remarkable book of photographs.

For an important discussion of the rather controversial topic of Dogon weaving see Bernhard Gardi’s recent contribution to the French exhibition catalogue Dogon by Hélène Leloup (Somogy, 2011).