Kuba Raffia Cloth from Congo

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Kuba Raffia Cloth Embroidery

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Web Resources:

Africa Focus Database - excellent picture archive has collection of Jan Vansina, a leading authority on the Kuba, taken in the 1950s. Search using term "Kuba." I really recommend this as a great background source.

Further Reading:

Click the reading link above for a great list. Also try:

Douglas M. The Lele of the Kasai (1963) - fascinating ethnography explores raffia cloth use among neighbours of the Kuba

Himmelheber H. Zaire 1938/39 (1993) - great archive photos

Coming soon - old photos of textile production on vintage postcards.

At the moment we are not selling any Kuba cloth.

Poor quality Kuba with sparse pile and unimaginative design

The basic unit of Kuba weaving is the plain square of undecorated raffia cloth, the mbal, woven by men on a type of upright single-heddle loom. Although men also do some of the many cloth decorating techniques, the most laborious and prestigious type of cloth decoration, cut-pile embroidery, is only produced by women. The raffia thread is prepared by the use of local plant dyes which produced shades of red, blue, black, and yellow. A needle is used to insert a strand of raffia into the plain square of cloth in such a way that it goes under a crossover between a single warp and weft thread, then is drawn up again until the end of the strand on the cloth surface is only one or two millimetres long. Using a small very sharp knife the strand is cut equally close to the cloth leaving two very short tufts. There is no knot, it is simply the tightness of the weave that holds the stitch in place. The process is repeated again and again until a linear block of the same colour has been completed. By rubbing over the tufts with the edge of a knife the ends are split and fluffed out so that the ground cloth is completely concealed by the pile. It is said to take about a month of regular work for a woman to complete a small square of embroidery using this technique. Except with novices, the design to be embroidered is worked out as she proceeds, usually elaborating a new combination of familiar existing designs, without any overall plan being laid out on the cloth in advance.

A woman embroidering cut-pile cloth. Painting by Norman Hardy, from E.Torday & T.A.Joyce, Notes Ethnographiques, 1910-11.

The designs used by women expert in the embroidery of cut-pile cloth are drawn from a huge repertoire of known patterns, at least two hundred of which were identified by name. The same patterns were used on other Kuba art forms, including wood sculpture, metal-working, mat-making, and women's body scarification. Although the regular interlacing of warp and weft on the background cloth might seem to promote a regular and symmetrical design, in fact Kuba artists seem to favour a more improvisational, fluid effect that plays with deliberate asymmetries and pattern variation. This trait, which is quite widespread in African textile design, has been compared with the emphasis on the off-beat in African music, suggesting a more general aesthetic preference. However it has been noted that cloths embroidered by women of the royal clan, the Bushoong, were generally symmetrical. Although many of the designs are named after perceived visual similarities, for instance to the design on a crocodile back, others are called after the woman who first embroidered them or the King at the time they were invented.

Today large numbers of these textiles are brought for sale in Europe and the United States, where their mastery of abstract form attracts great admiration. A few have been used locally or kept for long periods in family stores, but most are of quite recent work. Although some people dismiss these as "tourist art" it seems to me that the best pieces, whether or not they have signs of local use, are minor masterpieces of design and artistry. Moreover, particularly in the appalling circumstances of poverty and civil war in the Congo today, anything that provides income and employment should be supported. Some of the pieces available are shoddy work with sparse plush or harsh colours (these types have been made since at least the 1950s,) others are as good as any early museum pieces. Selective patronage of better quality pieces will hopefully promote the continued survival of this amazing textile art.