New Book: “The Silence of the Women: Bamana Mud Cloths” by Sarah C. Brett-Smith

I am very excited to finally have a copy of the long awaited book The Silence of the Women: Bamana Mud Cloths by Sarah C. Brett-Smith. Published by 5 Continents this is an important as well as beautiful volume that combines art book presentation with deep ethnographic research. It is several decades since Sarah published a number of interesting and insightful articles on bogolanfini mud cloth, the subject of her Phd research in the 1970s, so it is great to finally read her full work on the subject.

Photo by Sarah C. Brett-Smith. “Salimata Kone painting the “foot of the dove” (ntufan sen) motif in the centre of a cloth decorated with the “Town gate” (Kalanga da) pattern. She is using a metal spatula. Kolokani, 7/5/78.

Exploring the West African textile collections of the Musee du Quai Branly: Part Two – some early bogolanfini

The majority of these cloths were collected at the start of the twentieth century by Francois de Zeltner, who published an article on bogolan in 1910. We can note both that some are remarkable similar to designs produced a century later, and that some are notably different.

Click on the photos to enlarge.

The Musee du Quai Branly, Paris, holds one of the world’s most significant collections of West African textiles, with particular strength in some of the former French colonies. The entire collection is accessible on line  via their website. Check the textiles button then enter the country name in the box below.