| Textile
Resources
Home Page -coming soon
Francophone gallery - view
cloths we have for sale here
Francophone links:
Art of Burkina Faso -
by Dr Christopher Roy, has a section on weaving here
Baule
weaving - a brief introduction
Amidou Coulibaly,
Malinke weaver, Ivory Coast at African Crafts site here
webPulaaku
- historical background on the Fulani, partly in French
webMande
- the Mande peoples in French.
World of the Mande here
Francophone References:
General:
Coquet,M. Textiles
Africains (1998)
Boser-Sarivaxevanis,R. Les
tissus de l'Afrique Occidentale (1972)
Gardi,B. Le Boubou -c'est
chic (2000)
Monteil,C. Le Coton
Chez les Noirs (1927)
Schaedler,K.F. African
Weaving South of the Sahara (1987)
Benin:
Adams,M. "Fon
Appliqued cloths" in African Arts XIII (2) (1980)
Etienne-Nugue,J Artisanats
traditionnels en Afrique Noire: Benin (1984)
Iroko, A.F. &
Rivallain J. Les Appliqués sur tissus du Benin (1998)
Burkina Faso:
Etienne-Nugue,J Artisanats
traditionnels en Afrique Noire: Haute-Volta (1982)
Roy,C. "Mossi
Weaving" in African Arts XV(3) (1982)
Côte D'Ivoire:
Adams,M. &
Holdcraft,T.R. "Dida Woven Raffia Cloth from Côte D'Ivoire2 in
African Arts XXV(3) (1992)
Kirstin Bauer, African
Styles: Kleidung und Textilien aus Afrika (Köln, Koppe,2001)
- chapter on Dyula (Dioula)
and Senufo weaving. Bauer did her Masters thesis on weaving in Kong
(Bayreuth, 1996)
Etienne,M. "Women
and Men, Cloth and Colonization: the transformation of
Production-Distribution Relations among the Baule" Cahiers d'etudes
africaines 17(1) (1977)
Etienne-Nugue,J Artisanats
traditionnels en Afrique Noire: Côte D'Ivoire (1985)
Bobbie Sumberg,
"Panther Skins & Loaves of Bread - the tie-dyed cloths of Oumé"
in Hali 124 Sep-Oct 2002.
Sumberg, Barbara A. A
History of Cloth Production and Use in the Gouro
Region of Côte-d'Ivoire. Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 2001
Mali: see also bogolan
introduction - with updated references soon.
Bafour-Paul,J.
"Muddy River Blues" in Hali 105 (1999)
Bolland,R. Tellem
Textiles: Archaeological Finds From Burial Caves in Mali's Bandiagara
Cliffs (1991)
Brett-Smith,S.
"Empty Space: the architecture of Dogon cloth" in Res
19/20 (1991)
Calame-Griaule,G.
"Le vêtement dogon, confection et usage" Journal des
Africanistes 21 (1951)
Gardi,B. Textiles du
Mali (2003)
Gardi B. & Seydou
C. "Arkilla Kerka: La tenture de mariage chez les Peuls du
Mali" in Man Does Not Go Naked eds. Engelbrecht B. &
Gardi B. (1989)
Imperato P. "Wool
Blankets of the Peul of Mali" in African Arts VI(3) 1973
Imperato P. "Kereka
blankets of the Peul" in African Arts IX(4) 1976
Imperato P. "Bamana
and Maninka covers and blankets" in African Arts VII(3) 1979
Imperato P.
"Blankets and Covers from the Niger bend" in African Arts
XII(4) 1973
Johnson,M. "Manding
Weaving" unpublished - Proceedings of the Manding Conference,
SOAS,London (1972)
Roberts,R.
"Women's Work and Women's Property: Household Social Relations in
the Maraka Textile Industry of the Nineteenth Century" in Comparative
Studies in Society and History 26 (1984)
Traoré,A. Mille
Tisserands en Quête de Futur (1999)
Niger:
Etienne-Nugue, J. &
Saley,M. Artisanats traditionnels en Afrique Noire.
Niger.
Senegal:
Dilley,
R. "Tukolor Weavers and the Organisation of their craft in village
and town" Africa 56(1986) -see also his PhD thesis.
Dilley, R. "Myth,
Meaning, and the Tukolor Loom" Man 22 (2) (1987)
Dilley, R. "Tukolor
Weaving Origin Myths: Islam and Reinterpretation" in A. Al-Shahi
ed. The Diversity of the Muslim Community (London, Ithaca Press)
(1987)
Pitts,
D. An Economic and Social History of Cloth Production in Senegambia
(PhD
thesis, University of Chicago) (1978)
Togo:
Etienne-Nugue,J Artisanats
traditionnels en Afrique Noire: Togo (1992)
Posnansky,M.
"Traditional Cloth from the Ewe Heartland" in History, Design,
and Craft in West African Strip-Woven Cloth (1992)
(c) Duncan Clarke, Version
6/04/2003 |
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On
this page we introduce you to a few of the many textile
traditions of the French-speaking countries of West Africa,
specifically Burkina Faso, Cote D'Ivoire, Niger, Mali, Senegal,
Togo, Benin and Guinea. Clearly the
separation into Anglophone and Francophone blocks when
discussing textile traditions is largely an arbitrary one - it is important to note that
cloth making and cloth using traditions and practices did not
follow colonial or national boundaries, being instead either
more locally specific or in some instances more widely
distributed.
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A
weavers' compound in St.Louis, Senegal, Circa 1920.
(postcard, published by P.Tacher) |
Turning to
the
documentation and study of weaving however there is one useful
generalisation that may be made. This is that unfortunately
French speaking scholars were, with few exceptions, even less
interested in cloth than Anglophone ones, and that consequently,
the many textile traditions of these countries are mostly yet to
be systematically studied. Some valuable research has been done,
as the bibliography left shows, but its coverage remains
extremely patchy. We can
however make a few introductory points. Across the region
a wide
range of mostly blue and white warped striped cotton cloths was
woven in narrow strips of various widths by male weavers using
the double heddle loom. Plain white cloths were resist dyed
with indigo, or in parts of Mali, painted with mud pigments.
Wider cloths woven by women on single heddle looms were found
only in parts of Benin (formerly Dahomey) and Togo. Decorative
techniques used in some areas included supplementary weft float,
and more rarely warp ikat and warp float.
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Early
C20th postcard captioned "A notable of Conakry and
his wife" (photographer/publisher A. James.) The man
wears a tailored boubou of Islamic inspiration, the woman
a wrapper of locally woven cloth under a tailored blouse
of imported fabric. |
As elsewhere
in West Africa dress involved an interplay between tailored and
wrapped cloths, with robes or boubou important in areas where
Islamic influence was marked. At least from the late C19th these
also interacted with European influenced dress modes as the
picture above illustrates. Islam played an important part in the
distribution of weaving and textiles, both through its influence
on dress styles and through its crucial role in long distance
trade, but by no means all weavers were Muslims.
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Fragment
of an arkilla kunta, a wool marriage blanket of the
Songhay,
woven in the Niger bend region of Mali. |
The second
major group of cloths associated with Francophone West Africa
are the blankets and covers mostly woven in areas of the Sahel,
an arid region of semi-desert south of the Sahara, stretching
across large areas of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and the
extreme north of Nigeria. Throughout this area wool or cotton
blankets and cover cloths are used both for warmth in the
surprisingly cold nights and as protection against mosquitoes. Weavers
of Mande
speaking origin (Mande, Bamana, Maninka, Mandingo, Yarse,
etc) would seem to be the most widespread and influential
producers of these cloths, but distinctive types are also made
by the Fulani (Peul), Hausa, and Dogon among others. All utilise
a weft faced weave structure, producing bands of designs across
the cloth strips. This appears to be an ancient technique in the
area as it is used on Tellem textile fragments dating back to
the C11th &12th found in Bandiagara, Mali. Both the
blankets and the influence of their design have in the past
spread far south into the forest belt, for example in Sierra
Leone, and even influenced certain types of Ewe weaving. Through the
twentieth century some cloths, such as Fulani kaasa and arkila,
continued to be woven in long established designs, while many
other new styles developed to make vivid and inventive use of
the full range of imported dyed cotton that became available.
Malinke
weaver, Guinee, 1905. Old postcard, publisher/photographer
Edmond Fortier
Old
postcard (circa 1920s ?): The Moro Naba, king of the Mossi in
Ougadougou, Burkina Faso. Note the weft faced cloth worn by the
woman at left.
To View
Our Francophone Africa Cloths CLICK HERE
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