African Clothing
(This is the second page; click here for the first page)
People dyed this bark cloth to make all kinds of patterns. The most important dye was indigo, which is the dye we use today to make blue jeans blue. Africans used tie-dyeing to make patterns on their cloth. In some parts of Africa, women did most of the fabric work, and in other parts of Africa, men did most of it. But early Africans also kept on wearing fur, and leather, and feather hats and headdresses, and jewelry made of ostrich shells, gold, feathers, and braided grass.
By about 2000 BC, some people in Africa began to weave their cloth instead of pounding it, probably because there were so many people now that there wasn't enough bark for everyone. We know that the Egyptians were weaving linen by this time, at least. The idea of weaving gradually spread to other parts of Africa - almost immediately to Meroe, south of Egypt, and then more gradually to West Africa and Central Africa. Some people wove linen, others wove other kinds of grass like jute. Archaeologists have found local grasses woven into cloth like linen at West African sites from the 800's AD. By the 1100's AD people were using looms in Mauretania.
At first people made their own cloth, but soon a lot of North African cloth was made by experts, professionals - men and women who did not farm, but just wove or dyed cloth all day, and sold it to other people in order to buy their food. Under the Egyptians, and then the Carthaginians, and the Romans, most people bought their clothes instead of making them themselves. Under Islamic rule as well, there were organized guilds of weavers and dyers in North Africa, who controlled the production of linen, wool, and cotton for sale. Along the coast of East Africa, too, professional weavers and dyers made most of the cloth. By the 1400's AD, West Africa also had professional dyers, who were famous all the way across the Sahara. These dyers worked mainly for the local kings, and their courts, making luxury fabrics for the king and other powerful people to wear - ordinary people still made a lot of their own cloth in West Africa.
More about African clothing
To find out more about African cloth and clothing, you might want to buy these books, or get them at your local library:
Traditional African Costumes Paper Dolls, by Yuko Green (1999).
African Girl and Boy Paper Dolls, by Yuko Green (1997).
African Textiles, by John Gillow (2003). Not for kids.
Main clothing page
African Clothing costumes, books and toys
Main Africa page
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