African Traditions - Tribal Cloth Weaving

Western Africa is home to hundreds of separate ethnic groups and many of them have their own traditional methods of making cloth. In Ghana there is "Kente" which has been declared It's national cloth. The Akan or Ashanti Culture is the largest in Ghana and they are the producers of the high quality and very bright cloth called "Kente". Many of the Cultural Textiles of Africa are no longer produced, but Kente is alive and well. There are special days when people dress up in Kente.

A piece of Ashanti Kete.

Here is a link to a site that does a succinct job of introducing people to Kente Cloth.

http://csdt.rpi.edu/african/kente/index.html 

There is an Smaller Tribe that is East of the Volta River in Ghana and extends into Togo and Benin, which is called the Ewe tribe. They also have a strong tradition of weaving traditional cloth but theirs is called "Kete" without the 'n'. Most people here refer to it as Ewe Kente. This is perhaps the most sought after traditional cloth in Africa. Like the Ashanti version it is woven in 4" wide strips about 8 feet long which are then sown together into men's cloth's which are worn toga style and Women's 'wraps' which are worn as wrap skirts and another piece is used for a top. The BIG DIFFERENCE is that the Ewe cloth is woven in muted colors and designs, and often have symbols on them which at first appear to be embroidered on. In fact these designs are woven in at the time the strip is being woven ... They are amazing works of art.

Last week we took a couple of hours and went to the weaving workshop of Bob Dennis and watched them weaving Ewe Kete. They have a huge order from Jeans West in Australia to produce the powder blue and white strips shown below

This one looks more like Ashanti Kente