Edmond Fortier and textile production in West Africa, 1900-1910

Edmond Fortier (1862-1928) was one of the most prolific photographers and postcard publishers active in West Africa in the early years of the colonial era. Based in Dakar, he published around 3,300 different postcards between 19808 and 1910, with numerous re-issue series subsequently. His work is quite well known and more details and examples may be found on these websites: Centre Edmond Fortier and The Postcards of Edmond Fortier. Here I want to focus on aspects of textile production at that period as shown in a small number of his photographs. Click on any picture for a larger view.

The first three photographs were taken on a journey Fortier made through the Futa Djallon region of Guinea in 1905, and are to my mind, among the most beautiful of his images. Above is a group of women spinning cotton, below a man weaving and some women dyeing with indigo. Note the woman at front left of the dyeing photo who is beating the dyed cloth to give a glazed finish.

A second series, taken in the area of what is now Mali, probably 1905 or 1906, shows the stages of cotton preparation and weaving.

Ginning the cotton to remove the seeds.

Carding to align the fibres.

Spinning the cotton thread.

Weavers at work. Note the wheels of woven cloth strip carried by the man at left.

Below are the other weaving related images by Fortier that I am aware off. There may be still more that I have yet to locate.

In the above photo, captioned Dakar, a weaver is preparing his warp threads stretched out along the fence at left side.

Spinning cotton. Most spinning in West Africa was done by women, but in some areas men also spun.

A beautiful image of weavers shaded by a tree.

Looms in an urban Senegalese setting. We can note the different structures used for the Senegalese looms compared with those in Mali and Guinea shown above.

At this period French colonial authorities in West Africa attempted to finance their administration through a poll tax which, as few people had access to coinage, was also payable in cloth strips or wrappers (pagne.) The two photographs from Mali below give a glimpse of the scale of this process.

Finally, to give an idea of how woven cloths were worn, are four images showing aspects of dress in this region of West Africa 100 years ago. As is, albeit to a lesser extent, still often the case today, locally woven cloth was worn in conjunction with imported fabric for both ceremonial and everyday wear.

“Ibadan is sweet:” exploring a Yoruba adire eleko cloth.

(click on the photo for a larger view. Image copyright Duncan Clarke 2011. Do not reproduce without permission.)

Adire eleko is a tradition of elaborate indigo dyed resist patterned cloths that flourished among the Yoruba people of south west Nigeria from the early C20th until the 1970s. Eleko means “with starch” and refers to the cassava starch hand painted on the cloth as a resist agent prior to dyeing with indigo, while adire is Yoruba for “tie and dye”, alluding to the earlier traditions of resist patterning from which this style was created.

The cloth shown above is a notably fine example of one of the classic adire eleko designs, called “Ibadandun”, which translates as “Ibadan is sweet or happy.” Ibadan, a large city north of Lagos, was, along with Abeokuta, the major centre where adire cloths were made. It was collected in the 1960s by Doig Simmonds, co-editor with Jane Barbour of the important book “Adire Cloth in Nigeria” (Institute of African Studies, Ibadan, 1971.)

In this post I will explore some of the designs that make up an Ibadandun, drawing on another publication by the late Jane Barbour that is still the most detailed documentation of adire designs (“Nigerian ‘Adire’ Cloths”, Baessler-Archiv, Neue Folge, Band XVIII, 1970.) Each completed cloth had a different combination of these designs, together with others, and individual variations on them. The interpretations that Barbour collected, a few of which are given below, seem to have been widely agreed in some cases, disputed in others, but are nevertheless worth noting.

Spoons and the pillars of Mapo Hall. Mapo Hall is a grand pillared structure built in Ibadan in the late 1940s.

Umbrella and cassava leaves.

Eggs. I have heard this called cocoa pods.

Hens, hedgehogs, divination board, roundabouts..

Chameleons, scorpions, hens..

To see this cloth and others for sale on our website click here

"Bògòlanfini, Patterns of Bamana Culture," exhibition at SUNY Cortland

“An exhibition of the African artistic abilities that transform natural materials such as cloth and clay into spectacular artifacts will open on Monday, Feb. 28, in Dowd Gallery at SUNY Cortland.

"Bògòlanfini, Patterns of Bamana Culture," an exhibit that explores authentic mudcloth methods practiced by people belonging to Bamana Culture in Mali, Africa, is from the personal collection of Kassim Kone, professor of anthropology and linguistics at SUNY Cortland.

An opening reception will take place the same day beginning at 5 p.m. at Dowd Gallery. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be enhanced by a dance performance by the Africana Dance Ensemble. Refreshments will be served.

Three lectures will accompany the exhibit, which runs through Monday, April 18:

• Barbara Hoffman, associate professor in the Anthropology Department at Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio, will speak beginning at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, March 8;

• Tavy Aherne, visiting professor and art historian from DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., will present at 5 p.m. on Thursday, March 31; and

• Kone will discuss his collection at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 6.

All lectures will be in the Dowd Gallery and are free and open to the public.

The project represents a collaboration between Kone and Dowd Gallery Guest Curator Jenn McNamara, assistant professor of fibers in the College's Art and Art History Department.

"In Bamanakan, bogo means clay or mud, lan by the means of, and fini or finis means cloth," explained McNamara. "Choosing the work for this show was rather difficult given so many beautiful examples. In the end, the exhibit is arranged so the viewer may see the wide variety of functions the mudcloth serves: initiation ceremonies, hunting garb, symbology and storytelling as well as the appearance of global influences on the cloth. Each symbol incorporated in the design has a specific meaning and importance."

Many local women have studied this technique, dedicating their lives to introducing the craft to the world beyond African borders.

"The renowned artist Nakunte Jara, whose work has been on permanent display at the Smithsonian, created many of the mudcloths in Kassim's collection that are included in the exhibition," McNamara said.

"The mud dyeing technique not only reflects a long history and cultural integrity but has also become a tool to propel Mali's cultural future and its place in the contemporary world," McNamara explained.

The most recent high profile use of mudcloth was its inclusion in the RED product line launched by U2's Bono and Bobby Shriver in 2006 when Converse chose to make Chuck Taylor shoes from mudcloth. This highly publicized event began in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum and culminated at the Oprah Winfrey and Larry King Shows in the U.S. Kone was the anthropologist hired to purchase the mudcloth for Bono's RED-Converse mudcloth Chuck Taylor shoe project.

Kone grew up in the Beledugu region, believed to be the heart of Mali's mudcloth art.

"Bògòlan is a very important component of Bamana culture as this cloth is an essential part of most Bamana initiation and ritual events," Kone said. "I began to research bògòlan at a very early age when I worked as a research assistant to many American doctoral students. I began to collect mudcloth when I was in college. No two pieces are the same, even when dyed by the same artist. This explains why over the course of many years I have amassed a significant collection of mudcloths."”

Erykah Badu Yoruba Style

From ARISE magazine, issue 11. Erykah Badu wears a vintage Yoruba aso olona cloth. Aso olona (“cloth with designs”) are woven on the upright loom by Yoruba women in the vicinity of the city of Ijebu-ode and were worn as insignia of office by chiefs and officials in the Oshugbo/Ogboni association of Earth priests and priestesses. The style dates back to at least the C18th.

Femme Daga, Mali

Africaniste painting “Femme Daga” by G. Mahaut 1939

Vintage postcard, circa 1930.

Africa Through A Lens

“Africa Through A Lens” is a new project of the UK National Archives, making available online via Flickr thousands of photographs of Africa from the former Colonial Office archive. The home page for the project is here.The collection includes a number of important images of Nigerian chiefs and kings from the late C19th and early C20th, a great range of views of everyday dress in many parts of Nigeria, a superb set of photos of Ghana, including those shown above, and original prints of some well known images of Sierra Leone.

Agbada: embroidered robe traditions in Nigeria and beyond

Agbada is the Yoruba name for a type of flowing wide sleeved robe, usually decorated with embroidery, which is worn throughout much of Nigeria by important men, such as kings and chiefs, and on ceremonial occasions like weddings and funerals. The Hausa name for the robes is riga. Although today they are often still made from hand-woven cloth, the painstaking and beautiful hand embroidery that was used in the past is very rarely seen. Fine old robes have become family heirlooms passed on from father to son and worn with pride at major celebrations. In the past prestige robes were traded over vast distances and similar or related garments are found throughout much of West Africa.

Vintage postcard, circa 1900, author’s collection. (Click to enlarge) The Alake of Abeokuta was the senior king of the leading town of the Egba Yoruba in south western Nigeria.

During the late eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth century the existing order of power in much of what is now Nigeria was upset by the impact of an Islamic jihad inspired by the Muslim Fulani leader Uthman dan Fodio. Across the city states of the Hausa in the North, down to the Nupe people on the banks of the river Niger, and as far South as the Yoruba city of Ilorin rulers were swept aside to be replaced by Muslim emirates. The main Yoruba power of Oyo was defeated and their capital city abandoned in the 1830s. The new Fulani rulers brought with them a style of male dress consisting of flowing robes and huge baggy trousers adapted for horseback riding. They also bought an Islamic tradition of "robes of honour" where embroidered gowns and the flowing turbans worn with them became badges of office for both rulers and court officials. Emirs and other rulers purchased the finest robes for themselves and distributed numerous others to their courtiers. An elaborate trade network developed, with both Nupe and Yoruba weavers and embroiderers, along with specialist tailors, cloth beaters, and dyers, serving the the main emirates. Rulers of other courts such as Yoruba kings beyond the reach of Fulani power adopted the same style of dress, and in the twentieth century the gowns became the accepted dress of important men across a large area of Nigeria and into neighbouring countries. The best robes were tailored from highly prestigious cloths, including plain white handspun cotton fari, beige local wild silk tsamiya (Yoruba name sanyan), imported magenta (wine red) silk alharini (Yoruba alaari) and handspun indigo-dyed saki (known to the Yoruba as etu.) They were embroidered with variations on two classic designs known as "two knives" and "eight knives". It is thought that the embroidery may have had a protective role with elements related to Islamic amulet design (see the previous post on “magic squares” etc), as well as a practical function in strengthening the pocket and neck of the gown. In recent years changes in fashion, the introduction of embroidering machines, and the spread of luxury imported cloths have led to a decline in the demand for top quality hand-made robes and the old skills of weaving fine hand-spun cotton and of hand embroidery are almost lost.

Detail of “two knives” embroidery design on natural beige wild silk ground. Click on the photo to enlarge. For a full view of the robe go to our gallery page here.

Vintage postcard, circa 1910, authors collection. A chief of Shendam in central Nigeria. As well as his robe he wears embroidered trousers of the style shown below.

Vintage postcard, circa 1910, authors collection. The Moro Naba, king of the Mossi people in Ouagadougou, now in Burkina Faso. (Click to enlarge.)

To visit our web gallery and view robes currently in stock click here.