“A Yoruba bride and bridegroom”- vintage postcard circa 1910.

A Yoruba Ifa Diviner’s Bowl.

A few months ago I posted a photo of this unusual object I had noticed pictured in a dealer’s advertisement in an early issue of African Arts magazine. As I noted at the time depictions of any form of artistic activity are extremely rare in Yoruba ritual sculpture and I know of only one other depiction of a weaver –  another Ifa diviner’s bowl, that one showing a woman weaving on a vertical loom, in the Ethnographic Museum in Berlin. I have now found the bowl listed in the collection of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, online here, from which these three photographs are taken.

As these photos show it is a surprisingly accurate depiction of a Yoruba aso oke weaver at work. Note that it is miscataloged as a “kola nut presentation bowl” – actually it is in the standard form of bowl’s once used by Yoruba Ifa diviners, babalawo, as a prestige holder for the 16 sacred palm nuts that they used to cast divination signs.

Incidentally, the same museum has some very early and interesting West African textiles in it’s collection, many of which may now be viewed online. I will be discussing some of these in  future posts.

Vintage African Textile Cushions

We now have a small selection of cushions handmade from our vintage African textiles. Indigo strip weave cloths from Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso are backed with indigo dyed antique French linen. Beige Yoruba strip weave aso oke from Nigeria is backed with vintage hemp fabric from Hungary. All have high quality feather pads and zip closures. Cloths used are carefully selected for neatness and aesthetic appeal. As each cloth is unique the number of cushions in each design is limited to four or six pieces. All cushions are priced at US$165/GBP95 each.

To view our currently available selection please click here.

Cloth of the month: an early indigo dyed aso oke wrapper.

“AS492 - Exceptional and early indigo strip weave aso oke from the Yoruba region of Nigeria, with a beautiful and subtle effect achieved by pale indigo warp stripes against a dark indigo check background, with fine hand spun cotton used throughout. The slight sheen apparent in the photo is an effect of a recent washing and starching to prepare it for resale in Nigeria, an old tradition that is still maintained in some districts - it is less visible in reality than under the photo lighting. Retains its original hand stitched seams throughout and is in excellent condition. Age circa 1900. Measurements: 80 ins x 56, 203cm x 142cm.” – on our gallery here.

This cloth is called an iro, and would have been worn as a wrap around skirt by a wealthy Yoruba lady on an important occasion such as a wedding or a chieftaincy ceremony. It would have formed part of a set of cloths woven in the same pattern, along with two or three smaller pieces worn as shawl, headtie, and  sometimes a hip cloth.  What makes this an exceptional piece ? To my eye what singles out this cloth is the quality of the indigo dyeing. Very dark, almost black, indigo dyed strip weave cloth was prestigious and expensive because of the high number of immersions in the dye required to achieve that colour. When patterned as a fine check or plaid of lighter blue or white threads, it was known as etu, or guinea fowl, after the speckled plumage of the bird. In the Yoruba aso oke tradition etu formed part of a threefold classification of high status cloths along with magenta silk alaari obtained from the trans-Sahana caravan trade network, and local beige wild silk called sanyan.

On this cloth the small scale check of etu is replaced by a larger check design that was called petuje, that literally translates as “kill and eat guineafowl” but meant “surpasses etu”. Here though it is combined with warp stripes in a beautifully dyed mid-blue. One stripe runs along the selvedge of each strip while a second is set slightly off centre to create the regular layout.

Click on the photos to enlarge. Our galleries of indigo cloths are here and here.

Yoruba asooke in the Gold Coast, circa 1900

This photograph from the Basel Mission archive shows a wife of the King of Accra. She is dressed in the fashionable style of the day, with a typical high swept hairstyle, and most likely would have been of Ga ethnicity.   Although the description only notes that it dates to “before 1917” it appears earlier and more likely around 1900.  Aside from being a fine image it interests me because it provides a rare early glimpse of Yoruba asooke cloth in use in the Gold Coast. Folded across her lap is a shawl in a classic Yoruba strip weave design of the late C19th, similar to the example from our gallery shown below.

From the later decades of the C19th until the 1960s Ghana provided a large and important market for Yoruba weavers. Growing numbers of Yoruba people settled in the Gold Coast (most were expelled from the then independent Ghana in 1969) and traders from the Oyo Yoruba town of Ogbomoso dominated the export trade in asooke. Much of the cloth was woven to order, with traders gathering sufficient orders then walking back to their home region to organise the weaving of  the cloth, either in Ogbomoso or in the larger weaving towns nearby such as Iseyin,  Ilorin and Oyo. In the early decades of the twentieth century many of these traders used bicycles, packing a large bundle of cloth on the saddle then pushing it several hundred miles back to the north of Ghana.

Although locally woven cloth and cloth traded from elsewhere in the country was of course available throughout Ghana from Asante, Ewe, and other weavers, the imported varieties from Nigeria offered an alternative that at least in the case of more expensive examples using silk from the trans-Saharan trade, was highly valued. Our photograph provides a rare visual proof of this high status. Posing for a portrait photograph was a rare and important event at that period, and every detail of the sitter’s appearance and outfit would have been carefully selected. For a high status woman such as the wife of a king to display an asooke shawl so prominently in the photograph clearly indicates that it was a prized and prestigious possession. 

Interesting new book on Nigerian dress traditions…

Published in Nigeria in 2011 but new to me this is a substantial (600 + pages) volume that explores dress traditions across numerous ethnic groups in Nigeria in considerable detail. The author Dani Lyndersay, a theatre studies expert, lived in Nigeria for many years and has a Phd from the University of Ibadan. She draws on both her own field and archive research and a pretty thorough overview of the literature illustrated by numerous line drawings. These drawings are in may cases quite detailed and make up for the limited and rather poorly reproduced photographs (often a problem with books published in Nigeria.) There is much new and interesting information here – 28 pages on the dress of the Kanuri, for example.

The book is not listed on Amazon but I did find it at an online seller here. I bought my copy at SOAS bookshop in London, who no doubt could obtain more.

Yoruba sculptures of weavers

Depictions of weaving, or indeed of other artistry, in African sculpture are quite unusual, and these are the only two Yoruba examples that I know. Both objects are opon ifa, small bowls approximately 10 inches high, that were used by a Yoruba ifa diviner or babalawo as a prestige receptacle for the sixteen palm nuts he cast in reaching a divination. The male strip weaver was shown in a gallery advert in African Arts magazine in the early 1970s and its present location is unknown, the woman weaving on the single heddle loom is in the Ethnographic Museum in Berlin.

Cloth of the month: a unique embroidered Yoruba wrapper.

AS435 - Unique women's wrapper skirt cloth hand sewn from early C20th aso oke woven with local hand spun indigo dyed cotton with weft stripes of magenta silk “alaari” imported via the trans-Saharan caravan trade. Exceptionally the cloth is decorated with endless knot motifs and lines hand embroidered in colourful imported thread. Embroidery on wrappers is not usual among the Yoruba (although there was a brief vogue for machine embroidered wrappers in the 1970s) but was a custom among the Hausa, so it is possible that the embroidery on this piece is by a for a Hausa woman patron, or was influenced by knowledge of Hausa examples. Excellent condition. Dates from circa 1920s - 30s. Measurements: 77 ins x 55ins, 197 cm x 140.

Click on the photos to enlarge. More information on our website here.

Eyo Masqueraders, openwork shawls and early aso oke.

Eyo or Adamorisha, is the signature masquerade performance of Lagos island, still enacted as an annual festival event. Today the performers wear imported white lace robes and veils but images from the early colonial era , above, show a combination of agbada gowns in various colours with locally woven openwork aso oke cloths similar to the two now very rare C19th examples shown above. We can imagine the performers borrowing women’s shawls from wives or mothers for this purpose, and that there participation in the spiritually charged performance added an additional layer of meaning to the textiles.

For more details on the shawls please visit out Nigerian men’s weaving gallery here. For robes see our agbada gallery.

The second masquerade picture above is in the British Museum, ref Af,A51.75. Other images authors collection.

Some early Yoruba aso oke strips

Yoruba aso oke strips, circa 1900. Indigo dyed hand spun cotton with magenta silk from the trans-Saharan caravans……

An exceptional C19th Yoruba aso oke cloth

This classic style of nineteenth century Yoruba aso oke cloth involved the alternation of a simple warp striped strip with a second design in which supplementary weft float motifs are laid out on a fine blue and white checked background. In an early example such as this the magenta silk thread alaari from the trans-Saharan caravan trade is combined with local hand spun indigo dyed cotton. In some cases, as here, there is one different warp striped design to add variety. Although the supplementary weft float motifs are largely based on the Koranic board shape (a wooden rectangle with an arrow head at the top, used by boys at Islamic schools as a writing board) in early examples as here the weaver plays around with variations on the shape. On C20th examples the design format becomes more rigid. This cloth can be dated by comparison with examples in the British Museum accessioned in 1900. It has a very slight pink tinge from a recent washing but otherwise is in very good condition for a piece of this age. More details here.

This is one of a group of rare Nigerian textiles we have recently added to our website. Click here and visit the Nigerian gallery pages for more.

Wearing African Textiles–part 5: Yoruba Aso Oke

Vintage postcard, circa 1950, authors collection. The two ladies at the centre of the photograph wear ikat patterned aso oke strip weave cloth. Click the photo to enlarge.

Ikat patterned aso oke strip woven cloth, Yoruba, Nigeria, circa 1950.

Our current selection of vintage aso oke is online here.

Wearing African Textiles - part 3

	Yoruba aso oke strip woven cloth from Nigeria was widely admired in West Africa and was traded in large quantities to nearby countries. In this rare postcard image from Sierra Leone, taken around 1905, the lady at the right is wearing an aso oke shawl similar to the C19th example below.
	Very rare C19th wrapper cloth. Magenta trans-Saharan silk is used for both warp and weft in the plain strips making the cloth very lightweight. These strips alternate with magenta silk weft float patterns on a fine blue and white check ground. This is an early example of a style of cloth that continued to be made into the 1950s. More information on this cloth in our online gallery here

Some field photographs

The master weaver and cloth dealer Alhaji Kegunhe in his shop, Iseyin, Oyo State, Nigeria. 1997. Recently published in B.Gardi ed. "Woven Beauty: The Art of West African Textiles." (Basel, 2009) Iseyin is one of the two main centres of Yoruba aso oke weaving and the Alhaji was one of its most successful weavers and dealers. Each bag contains sufficient cloth strips to be sewn up to make a woman’s wrapper skirt, shawl, and headtie, an outfit known as a “complete.”

Every four days before dawn in Okene market, Kogo State, Ebira women weavers display their completed cloths for sale folded in piles on their heads. Okene, circa 2002. Today Okene is the main centre for women’s weaving on the upright single heddle loom in Nigeria, with several thousand active weavers producing shiny rayon shawls in a variety of patterns which can be found on sale as far afield as Accra.

Hausa men weaving white cloth in strips 1cm in width. The completed strips will be sewn together edge to edge to make veils and robes, dyed dark indigo, then exported to Tuareg peoples in Niger and Mali. Kura, Kano State. Nigeria 2005. These are the narrowest strip of cloth woven in Africa and are among the most expensive of locally produced textiles. The production of this cloth for export to the peoples of the Sahara was once the main industry of Kano but today only a few skilled practitioners remain.

A pair of Hausa cloth beaters at work in the village of Kura. Completed and dyed veils are beaten with a mix of powdered indigo, goat fat, and water that imparts a metallic dark blue sheen. The cloth will be folded over into ever smaller sections and beaten repeatedly until the tightly pressed cloth forms a solid rectangular block about 30cm long. It is then wrapped in brown paper for sale. These two men are among the last remaining exponents of an ancient and highly skilled craft. Kura, Kano State, Nigeria, 2005.

A Nupe woman weaver at work in her husband's family compound, Lafiagi, Niger State, Nigeria, 2006. Unlike the Ebira, Nupe women weave mainly for local and family use and their cloths are rarely found for sale elsewhere in Nigeria or neighbouring countries.

Click on any image to enlarge. All photos copyright Duncan Clarke. Do not reproduce without permission.

Strip Weave Cloth Sample Packs

Over the years a number of people have asked us for packs of sample pieces of strip woven cloth. These are a good educational resource providing a way to learn about patterns, techniques etc, as well as a useful source for collectors, quilters, and textile artists. We can put together mixed packs of strip pieces of average length about 10ins/25cm to include Asante and Ewe kente, Yoruba aso oke and others. Cloths will date from 1900 to 1990s, with most before 1950. These will be similar but not identical in content to the one illustrated. More details here