Coming this week: Arkilla kunta / arkilla kerka: patterns – by Bernhard Gardi

This week I am excited to be bringing you the first ever guest contribution to our blog, an extended consideration of the patterns in wool blankets from Mali written by eminent Swiss scholar Bernhard Gardi. He was for many years the curator of the Africa Department of the Museum der Kulturen, Basel and is the author of numerous book and articles on  African textile related topics. Among these are the catalogues of two of the important exhibitions that he curated  Woven Beauty: The Art of African Textiles (2009, Christoph Merian Verlag) and Le Boubou: C’est Chic (2000, Christoph Merian Verlag).

In his post Bernhard will look at woven patterns in a rare type of wool blanket called an arkilla kunta, shown below (MKB_III_20462 –click photo to enlarge)

and he will explore the similarities and differences with the much more common arkilla kerka (below, click to enlarge, photo by Bernhard Gardi, 1979.)

A fine Arkilla Kerka from Mali

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After a special request by Bernhard Gardi for some wool cloths on the blog after he complained “always kente kente kente”, today we look at a notably fine wool and cotton wedding hanging from Mali, of the type called arkilla kerka.

In his catalogue Woven Beauty: The Art of West African Textiles (Basel, 2009 – incidentally the best book published on African Textiles) Gardi notes:

“The kerka is the ‘mother of all arkilla.’ They are no longer produced today. A kerka consists of six patterned strips, occasionally a seventh strip, striped black and white and called sigaretti (from the French ‘cigarette’), is added and used for hanging up the blanket. The white sections and the warp are made of cotton, the rest is wool. Black is never applied, only dark indigo blue. A kerka blanket of the highest quality requires between 25,000 and 30,000 metres of hand-spun yarn.”

This example was collected in Bamako by an English family in the 1950s and is now in the Musée di Quai Branly, Paris. It is an old well used piece with exceptionally fine weaving. Gardi commented “There are very nice noppi nawliraaBe motives, 'ears of the co-wive'. Looks very much as woven from a weaver who was equally weaving arkilla jenngo blankets. That means, that kerka does not come from the Guimballa area (East of Lake Debo) but from Niafunke or further North-West.”

Click on the photos to enlarge.

Cloth of the month–an exceptional Bondoukou man’s cloth.

fr473 - One of a very small number of museum quality Bondoukou men's cloths, this subtle and beautiful piece uses complex blocks of coloured weft threads muted by the predominant indigo warp as the sole decorative effect. Although this is a very old decorative technique found in some of the earliest Ghanaian textiles the sophisticated effect achieved here by varying the colours and the placement of blocks is to my knowledge unique. One strip is missing from each edge (they were likely removed because they were excessively frayed) but the cloth is otherwise in very good condition with no patches, holes, or stains. Dates from C19th or early C20th. Measurements: 118ins x 71ins, 300cm x 180cm. PRICE: Email for price.

Bondoukou is in the north east of Ivory Coast, not far from the border with Ghana. Culturally and historically  it shares many features with the nearby Brong-Ahafo region of Ghana, such as small Akan kingdoms and chieftaincies ruling primarily farming peoples and significant communities of Muslim traders of Malian ancestry. The textiles of this region, as I discussed in my article in Hali magazine a few years ago, now on my website here, share features with both Asante and Ewe cloths from Ghana and with Ivoirian cloths of the Guro and Baule.

Two cloths from the collection of the Museum de Kulturen, Basel, published in the important exhibition catalogue Woven Beauty: The Art of West African Textiles edited by Berhard Gardi (Basel, 2009) illustrate the early use of the same technique.

This cloth, collected in 1840, is the oldest documented kente in the world. Here red, yellow, and blue weft stripes are muted by the white warp. The author notes that it may be attributed to either an Asante or an Ewe weaver – although I would suggest the red edge strip is strongly indicative of an Ewe origin.

This second piece, collected in 1886, is attributed by the author to the Asante on the rather weak grounds that the collection location is nearer Asante than it is to the Ewe. It is closer to our cloth in that indigo and white stripes are used in the warp although the variety of weft colours is still much less, and the pattern layout much less sophisticated. Click on the photos to enlarge. More Bondoukou cloths on our website here.

Basel exhibition - Woven Beauty

The exhibition is displayed over three floors in an annex of the Museum der Kulturen in the medievel old centre of Basel. The main museum buildings are currently closed for a major restructuring designed by Basel's star architects Herzog & de Meuron. The bulk of the exhibition is made up of three large galleries, the first devoted to mainly to Ghana and Cote D'Ivoire, the second to Mali, and the third to Nigeria. In each the complete cloths are fully visible, without glass, hung either on the walls or on central panels. This allows the visitor both to take in the full visual impact of each cloth and to move as close as desired in order to examine pattern details or weave structures. Highlights of the ground floor gallery are the museum's three C19th Ghanaian cloths including one presented to a Basel missionary by the King of Akropong in 1840 that is the earliest documented "kente." Selections from the museum's comprehensive collection of Fulani kaasa and arkilla blankets, along with a modern figurative "couverture personnage" by Oumar Bocoum made up the Malian section on the first floor. The final main gallery showed an interesting range of Nigerian textiles from two rare C19th magenta silk "alaari" wrappers to a shiny rayon shawl woven in Okene early in the C21st. Smaller galleries explained the techniques and materials used in making African textiles, as did a short video that included rare footage of a single-heddle Cameroon ground loom in action. Captions and texts throughout were in English as well as French and German.

Woven Beauty - Basle Exhibition Catalogue now available

The exhibition catalogue of the Basle show is now available in English and German editions. It can be ordered direct from the publishers here or from the museum shop here.There is also a website to accompany the exhibit here.

Edited by Bernhard Gardi the catalogue makes some of his many years of research on Malian textiles and Kerstin Bauer's work on the Dyula of northern Cote D'Ivoire available in English for the first time. It also includes articles and shorter texts by John Picton, Jean Borgatti, Malika Kraamer, Kolado Cisse,Rogier Bedaux and Annette Schmidt and a short chapter on Nigeria by myself. Colour photos show groups of related cloths from several regions.


This is a significant contribution to the field of African textile studies which every collector and scholar with an interest in African arts should buy !