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Cultivation of cotton in west Africa was extended by the influence of Islam, and it soon substituted the vegetable fibre, especially the one obtained from the raffia, that is a long-leaf palm. Since then, cotton was used only by rich people. Surprisingly, most of the clothes sold nowadays in Africa come from Germany, Holland, U.S.A. and east countries, and in its trading many exiled Lebanese people take part. However, in Africa it's still used cotton and wool to obtain clothes by means of an old method with a rudimentary hand-loom. Especially, outside big cities, it's used to make the most traditional and elegant clothes, and to make the tapestry. There are two methods for tapestry: treating the cloth successively until we get the desired colour, or painting directly on the cloth. This is the case of our tapestry, from Mali and Ivory Coast. They have been made by a traditional method that consists of the use of iron and wood tools. Lines are painted with an iron tool, and the thickness of the line depends on the thickness of the tool, that is curved shape. Wood tools are used to paint surfaces. The most used colors are black, brown and ochre.
Please, click on the images to see more tapestries:
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