An exceptional silk and cotton Yoruba wrapper.

NW513 -Fine and rare Yoruba women's wrapper cloth dating from late C19th or early C20th with an exceptionally complex and subtle array of warp stripes incorporating magenta trans-Saharan silk "alaari" in an indigo dyed hand spun cotton ground. Unlike strip woven aso oke produced by male weavers, these cloths were woven in two wide panels on an upright single heddle loom by a woman weaver. The use of silk in these women's weave wrappers was an established tradition in the C19th and at the start of the C20th, allowing wealthy women to outshine the plainer blue and white style.

However today it is extremely hard to find surviving examples and almost all those we do see have been patched or repaired. These cloths are not well represented in museum collections and published sources, reflecting their rarity but one piece collected before 1890 and now in the American Museum of Natural History, New York may be seen here. This is a particularly fine completely intact example in excellent condition and with an unusually elaborate configuration of stripes. It would have been an heirloom cloth passed down from mother to daughter over several generations. It retains it's very neat hand stitched seams throughout. Measurements: 78ins x 66ins, 200cm x 168cm

Click on the photos to enlarge.‘ To see this cloth and others in our online gallery of Nigerian women’s weaving click here.

Cloth of the month–a lower Niger prestige sash.

Man's prestige sash, worn over the shoulder, with the warp woven from luxury magenta silk imported to Nigeria by the Saharan caravan trade. Woven by a woman on an upright single heddle loom, the precise origin of this unusual cloth is hard to pinpoint but we can narrow it down to the lower reaches of the Niger and suggest the weaver was most likely Igbo. The neatly woven decoration is in blue, cream, green, and orange, with the same order of colours maintained across the three pattern sections. This is a very rare piece, with only one fairly similar example known (in the British Museum, # Af1956,07.35, collected by Charles Partridge before 1915.) Condition: Excellent. Measurements: 53 inches x 15, 135 cm x 38cm

The image below shows how the cloth would have been worn over the shoulder.

Below is the similar cloth collected by Charles Partridge before 1915 and now in the British Museum.

Click on the photos to enlarge. Click here to view this piece and other rare Nigerian textiles in our gallery.

Akwete Cloths in the British Museum

The Beving Collection in the British Museum is without doubt the most important collection of nineteenth century and early C20th African textiles. Among its highlights is a remarkable group of cloths from the town of Akwete in south eastern Nigeria. Akwete is on the southern fringes of the Igbo speaking area of Nigeria and its women wove cloths that were traded throughout the Niger delta, both as formal dress and for use on various ceremonial occasions. The Akwete loom is the widest variant of the upright single heddle loom with a continuous circular warp that was used in many parts of Nigeria. The cloths woven were up to 120 cm in width allowing them to be worn as a single panel rather than the two joined panels that were more typical of Nigerian women’s weaving.

Postcard, CMS Bookshop, Lagos, 1960s. Author’s collection.

Photo source: Vintage Nigeria. The loom has been moved outside to be photographed.

Photo source: Vintage Nigeria.  Circa 1960s.  Two cloths were worn overlapping each other.

The Beving Collection

“There were two generations of Charles Beving.
Charles Beving senior was a West Africa trader born in Baden (he was Christened Karl), born in 1858. He worked from Manchester in the cotton business, first as a trader, trading in Africa for all but a few months every two years. He became partner in a cotton printing company Blakeley & Beving, and later owned his own company Beving & Co, apparently at a late stage in his career. He is listed in the 1891 Manchester census as 'Africa Merchant' and in 1901 as 'merchant and calico printer'. He died in 1913. He formed for his company a large collection of items, largely textiles, from West Africa and Indonesia, as specimens on which his firm might model its productions for the African market.
This collection was donated to the Museum in 1934 by his eldest son, Charles Adolphus Beving, on behalf of Messrs Beving & Co of Manchester, with the request that it be known as the 'Charles Beving collection' in his father's memory (see letter on file). Braunholtz states that the collection was formed by Beving senior, and there is no reason to think that the son ever made additions to the collection. All items in it therefore have a secure dating before 1913, which makes this one of the earliest documented collections of African textiles.”

From the British Museum site.  All cloths below are part of the Beving Collection and can be assumed to date from before 1913. All are woven from imported cotton thread.  Images © Trustees of the British Museum. For further information on any cloth the file name gives the museum reference number and may be looked up in the “Research the Collections” section of the museum site.

 

For more information on Akwete weaving see:

Lisa Aronson -  "Akwete Weaving: Tradition and Change" in Engelbrecht, B. & Gardi, B. eds. Man Does Not Go Naked (Basel, 1989)

Lisa Aronson - "We weave it:" Akwete Weavers, their patrons, and Innovation in a Global Economy. in Tornatore, S. ed. Cloth is the Center of the World: Nigerian Textiles, Global Perspectives. (2001)

Venice Lamb & Judy Holmes – Nigerian Weaving (Shell, 1980)

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.

Minimal #7: Yoruba women’s weave, trans-Saharan trade silk and wild silk.

More from an occasional series of posts that will highlight some rare West African textiles where the elaboration and complexity of design that usually typifies high status textiles is replaced by a more minimal aesthetic….

NW489 - Another extremely rare and early type of Yoruba women's weave cloth, dating from the late C19th or early C20th. One is shown in the classic book "Nigerian Weaving" (1980:200) by Venice Lamb and Judy Holmes and captioned "a very old pure silk Yoruba cloth." We have collected three others over the years, the last one about 5 years back. The warp is local beige and white wild silk sanyan, the weft white hand spun cotton, while the design alternates rows of openwork holes with threefold lines of supplementery weft float woven from thick loosely spun magenta silk from the trans Saharan trade. Formed of two panels of cloth joined at the centre and woven by a woman using an upright single heddle loom. Condition: loose fibres from the magenta silk have spread onto adjacent beige and white fibres in places, creating an appearance similar to slight colour bleeding, otherwise condition is excellent. Measurements: 78ins x 56, 200cm x 142.

Click on the photos to enlarge.

More details on our gallery here.

Minimal #6: Yoruba women’s weave wild silk wrapper cloth.

More from an occasional series of posts that will highlight some rare West African textiles where the elaboration and complexity of design that usually typifies high status textiles is replaced by a more minimal aesthetic….

NW469 - Very rare early C20th cloth woven from local beige wild silk "sanyan" with stripes of creamy white hand spun cotton. Bands of openwork woven holes decorate the lower edge of the cloth. Sanyan cloths woven by women are far scarcer than strip woven sanyan. Formed of two panels of cloth joined at the centre and woven by a woman using an upright single heddle loom. This beautiful cloth has a soft feel, a few minor marks and worn spots but overall is in good condition. Measurements: 77ins x 59ins, 195cm x 149 cm.

Click on the photos to enlarge.

More details on our gallery here.

Minimal #5–Yoruba women’s weave indigo wrapper cloth.

More from an occasional series of posts that will highlight some rare West African textiles where the elaboration and complexity of design that usually typifies high status textiles is replaced by a more minimal aesthetic….

NW470 - Indigo dyed marriage cloth from the Igbomina subgroup of the Yoruba people, in a style called "eleya" distinguished by a wide band of openwork decoration along the lower edge of the cloth. Formed of two panels of cloth joined at the centre and woven by a woman using an upright single heddle loom. Dates from circa 1930-50 and is in excellent condition. Measurements: 76ins x 57, 193cm x 145.

Click on the photos to enlarge.

More details on our gallery here.

A Nupe woman weaver.

Taken in the small town of Lafiagi near the river Niger in central Nigeria in 2006, the photo shows a Nupe woman weaving a two panel wrapper cloth. The Nupe live to the north and north east of the Yoruba, mainly in Niger State, and today make up probably the second most numerous group of female weavers in the country after the Ebira. To see some Nupe cloths and other Nigerian women's cloths visit our website at http://www.adire.clara.net/nigerianwomensgallery.htm