Unravelling Regional and Global Connections

Researching the history of West Africa through the lens of material culture enriches our understanding of the complex ways in which this region has long been embedded in global history. Using West African textiles as primary historical source, as Colleen Kriger has eloquently shown, not only deepens our understanding of fashion, dress, and textile developments through time and space, but also provokes new interpretations of West African history, bringing African subjectivity to the fore (Kriger 2006; Kraamer 2023). This research on historical kente and related textile traditions in Ghana, Togo, and Côte d'Ivoire, which I began in 2022, contributes to a growing body of literature that focuses on textiles as global artifacts and as a “site for elaborating material strategies of subjectivity” (Marín-Aguilera and Hanß 2023: 21).1Multidisciplinary approaches of heritage studies have continuously been expanded with contemporary discourses on gender, material culture, the use of technical research, and issues of restitution. However, the use of technical analyses on historical textiles in and from Africa is still limited (Kriger 2005; Douny 2020; Gleba, Kraamer, and Coleman 2022).2 This is problematic as it understates the role of West African material culture in the early modern period—an era often referred to as the “cloth age” (Lemire 2018: 32)—and in colonial times. Furthermore, in a world where a large part of African cultural heritage, including West African historical textiles, is stored in museums and private collections outside Africa, and where debates on restitution are amplifying, the need to understand the precise provenance of this cultural heritage is essential and urgent.3I argue that a holistic approach—material, technical, visual, archival, and relying on local systems of knowledge—to the study of cloth from West Africa enhances provenance research of individual artifacts in museum collections worldwide and textile holdings in West Africa. I also propose that a greater reliance on these textiles as historical sources, focusing on the acts of making, trading, and using, enriches our understandings of their gendered histories, of the often shifting regional and global textile connections, and of the ways in which these textiles shaped, disrupted, and transformed subjectivities in the age of globalization.In this article, I will discuss my research work and preliminary findings, having completed two of the four planned research journeys. First, I will discuss the research methods, emphasizing the importance of contemporary field research. Then, I will focus on textile histories and the connections between trade and weaving centers. I will also explore the contested origin and shifting meaning of the word “kente” and its implications for this research. Next, I will summarize the study on textiles in the antislavery campaign chest of Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846) and how it has shaped my current research (Fig. 1). I will explore how these eighteenth-century textiles questioned racial regimes and how some of these have been identified as kente. Lastly, I will discuss some key findings from my study of historical and contemporary woven textiles in this region.Festival-goers in Ghana, Togo, and Côte d'Ivoire demonstrate the latest trends in dress and textiles. In the south of these countries, most men and women wrap fashionable handwoven cloth around their bodies, while some women wear trendy kabas—matching skirt, blouse, and headscarf. At festivals in the north, women also put on handwoven wrappers or kabas, while many men dress in smart smocks with trousers that may or may not match the smock. Some men and women put on flowing embroidered boubous, as is common throughout the Sahel zone. In both the north and south, people also opt for imported clothing.Narrow strips, woven in weaving centers throughout this region, form the basis of most of the handwoven outfits (Figs. 2–4a,4b). However, their production and trade have largely been studied separately. I propose that we should analyze these processes together, as cloth has been traded over long distances and weavers have migrated extensively, specifically those from the Agotime and Anlo-Somé region in southeast Ghana and the Kong and Korhogo regions in northern Côte d'Ivoire.The study aims to unravel the intricate regional and global web in which weaving and trading centers in Ghana, Togo, and Côte d'Ivoire form hubs through which cloth and weavers move. By focusing on the relationship between weaving and trading centers, the networked relationships between and among locations, people, and products can become clearer.My research focusses primarily on textiles that have been referred to locally and internationally as kente, kita, or kete. Many of these textiles are woven with two pairs of heddles, which were introduced somewhere during the eighteenth or nineteenth century in weaving centers in the Asante, Agotime, Anlo-Somé, and Gontoukou regions. The study concentrates on these historical textiles in relation to cloth woven in adjacent trade and weaving hubs, such as the region around Sokodé and Kara in Togo, Daboya, Wa, and Yendi in Ghana, and Tiebiessou, Kong, and Korhogo in Côte d'Ivoire. These weaving sites did not form a closed system.4 Other outlying centers may prove to be more important for the social and design developments in kente textiles.5Two textile traditions that have not yet received thorough scholarly attention will be assessed in detail: weft-faced plain weave cloth from Agotime and other weaving areas in southeast Ghana and southern Togo (Kraamer 2005: 113–16),6 and textiles with figurative motifs from places around Bondoukou in Côte d'Ivoire (Clarke 2008: 95–99, 155).The timeframe of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries covers the height of the transatlantic slave trade, when trade routes from the north to the south were extensively used, and the onset of colonial rule in the late nineteenth century. At the end of this period, different colonial governments experimented with New World cotton, which serves as a clear time marker for the analysis of fibers. This time frame corresponds with the availability of historical textiles from this region in museums and private holdings both in and outside West Africa.My research combines a variety of sources—materiality of the textiles, visual and archival documentation, oral histories, and contextual contemporary research of historical textiles still existing or remembered in these three countries. It expands on my own and other scholars’ research on kente cloth and related textiles.7 While much has been written on kente, and several scholars focused on cloth in Côte d'Ivoire, textiles in northern Ghana and Togo have received far less attention.8 The research also builds on the project that examined the eighteenth century West African textiles in the chest of Wisbech-born Thomas Clarkson (Figs. 1, 5–6) (Gleba, Kraamer, and Coleman 2022: 46–50; Kraamer 2023: 137–59).9 Clarkson used these textiles as part of the campaign for the abolition of the trade in enslaved people. This research on sixteen textile and textile-related artifacts was carried out between 2018 and 2022 and was supported by Sarah Coleman of the Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Margarita Gleba of University of Padova, and Ina Vanden Berghe of the KIK-IRPA Institute.In this research on Clarkson's chest, we combined scientific methods of fiber and dye analysis (Gleba 2021; Vanden Berghe 2021) with European (travel) accounts, other archival and visual sources, oral histories, field research, material analysis of weaving technology, and local knowledge systems of weaving. This multidisciplinary methodology demonstrated its potential in identifying the origins of the textiles, which span four continents: Africa, South Asia, North America, and Europe. I identified three, and potentially four, of the textiles in Clarkson's chest as the earliest extant kente, woven before 1787 (Kraamer 2023; Fig. 5). These textiles were produced more than fifty years before the 1840 cloth that had previously been considered the oldest kente in existence (Ross 1998: 154).10The research on the textiles in Clarkson's campaign chest feeds into my present study. It involves the same holistic approach to historical textiles in Ghana, Togo, and Côte d'Ivoire and includes contemporary dialogues with textile and trade specialists in the region. Historical locations of weaving, spinning, and trade are identified not only through literature and archival research, but also through contemporary fieldwork.11Contemporary fieldwork is crucial for critically assessing assumptions made in the study of historical textiles. Even with an exploratory research approach, earlier understandings, hypothetical questions, and implicit assumptions can influence the way research is conducted and findings are interpreted. Given this, the following principal questions guide this study: How are various textiles categorized, and how are textile traditions comprehended? How can the intricate relationships between different kinds of cloth and traditions across time and space be understood? What were the main migration patterns of weavers in this period, and what were the long-distance routes of cloth? Additionally, how was this trade related to the trade of other goods and enslaved people? Which shifts in gender roles and division of labor have taken place? Moreover, how do diverse local groups understand heritage, and what are their concerns regarding the historical textiles of their ancestors held outside of Africa? In short, what are the local (decolonial) discourses regarding textile heritage?I collaborate with various organizations and research teams in each region, visiting a range of places. Collaborating with spinners, weavers, and community historians is crucial to develop knowledge and hypotheses on past activities. Historical textiles, textile traditions, and notions of heritage within and between different centers are discussed with individuals and in group gatherings. In this research, I expand on my PhD research by closely examining bodily knowledge and the transmission of local knowledge systems. For example, understanding the locally specific numerical systems used by weavers when communicating with each other can indicate continuities over time.In September and December 2022, I worked with Malik Saako Mahmoud and other members of the curatorial team on the extensive textile collections of the National Museum of Ghana. I renewed contacts for follow-up research on the textile holdings of the Okyehene and Asantehene courts. Additionally, I interviewed the Dabehene Baafour Offei-Yirenkye, who is responsible for the wardrobe of the Okyehene.12Most of the research during the summer of 2022 took place in northern Ghana. While in Tamale, I with and other members of the of we and a part of their of century smocks from and we Yendi and Daboya, the historical main weaving and my time in Tamale, I several weavers from the Anlo-Somé region (Fig. Many of work for the who is responsible for cloth for the main the I from to with a and textile several places the In Wa, I received from the of the National for in Wa, as as from and our to various locations, we had with many weavers and women who used to in the past (Fig. local for weaving and origin histories on the of weaving. is important it history and can to in weaving the implications of weaving I with the University of Ghana in the and the individual or group as by the we on the textiles that to discussed the of the making, trade, and we took of from some and I with a and many of textiles to The will be by Margarita Gleba and textile in Europe. The study aims to research findings, including the of the oldest extant kente, through and and individual part of the of research a textile is planned for or the National Museum of research has the gender in the weaving as as in used, the of of and the of the in such as Daboya, where weavers have not in weaving and dress different and the for such may of the weaving in this region has been by and to and material such as to In the way of a to have on oral history, and historical in different during and colonial times. However, the of in northern Ghana and Togo in the late and a of and visual in and weaving can indicate connections between weaving centers, but this is not in the same time that weavers in Tamale, Daboya, and Sokodé in Togo women to weave on a of the which was by the in Fig. This in gender throughout the northern regions of Ghana, Togo, and also in Côte I in Agotime on the Ghana of the with from a in the University of Ghana, and to discussed and many and technology, and had extensive on notions of heritage and the of cloth from Ghana. we work in Agotime, and in Togo with from the Kara and the to Sokodé and the or (Figs. the of the which was to most of in wrappers woven in the of southern Togo, and Ghana. Some of the women but many these textiles locally from or and we many weavers who produced kente cloth for the Some of the textiles to where many women trade cloth in the while worked for in and many men the long with or the handwoven in the same as from northern to many local weavers and some who that these kinds of had been woven locally for several This that as still by private and museum to the place of should be with connections with as Sokodé on the trade knowledge In northern Ghana and Togo, weavers as far as the of with to the people from the Kara region of Togo, I was by a and in gender and used for The is more complex than in northern Ghana. men on while women used However, in the women have to use and to those in northern Ghana, and a of the while the has been (Figs. Even some men have the While of the and centuries be to technical and of can to understand the of and to our of historical textiles contemporary weaving can our understanding of over time and the of used, weaving methods, gender trade and dress fieldwork in West Africa to a range of historical textiles than those in collections outside the region. While historical cloth in museum collections contextual such as often indicate when a cloth into the textiles in private holdings in West Africa much more on the production when may be more current focus on provenance research in European museums has new but provenance for many African artifacts in museums outside Africa problematic on many This includes a of precise documentation, as as a of on the before and the of Furthermore, the artifacts are not a of the range of woven cloth in the Many textiles from this that in European and museums have on the of the cloth before these cultural (Fig. place of may be far from the of production or Furthermore, these textiles may only a of the variety of cloth produced a time and may be of to local historical textiles in museums to those held in West Africa can the provenance research of these textiles and new into connections between centers, in and of 1998: and over time and textiles in southern and northern Ghana and Togo is in the of over dress with a understanding of This approach complex connections in trade, and production of textiles in different Additionally, it also problematic century historical of textile traditions, still by understandings of groups from a have been handwoven wrappers throughout the (Figs. in the north, smocks have also been as outfits for and and in and in the south (Fig. was in West Africa before the eighteenth many groups in northern Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Togo did not to the end of the nineteenth century or into the century. to took place in the southern region and in the north the but only in greater early century. Many of the main trading from the north, specifically those identifying as or have throughout the region. are often weaving centers. these may not some are in the long-distance trade of cloth and use textiles from their For example, in a from of the main trading groups the cloth in the Anlo-Somé region, a cloth woven in in the that used for (Fig. Kraamer 2005: In the south, greater is on cloth that is to be woven locally when what to while in the north, the specific dress form is more and colonial Kong, and Bondoukou in Côte Wa, Daboya, and several Agotime in and and Agotime in Togo were important trade centers. took place in these centers and in the region to the early century (Clarke 2008: in the region can be to the end of the with the of the and However, the of weaving in the region, including Agotime, is not West Africa, the and to handwoven textiles made in southern Ghana and Togo, and in southern Côte d'Ivoire. is used in the region, and in Côte d'Ivoire. However, these are used for textiles in local in different southern production centers. In the region, the meaning is used for handwoven textiles, while in the is used for both handwoven and handwoven cloth produced in northern Ghana has been referred to as in centers in southern Ghana. However, many people in weaving centers in the north, such as and Wa, to this and to use local for cloth and their main made out of these textiles, such as or scholars that “kente” most from the word for The that the word “kente” to have been used on the in the nineteenth century this The time that the in to the in a the of the nineteenth century In the most of the handwoven cloth by the when over their to the in the National Museum of was as Some from southern Ghana or Togo, but are more to from In the nineteenth people around used “kente” as the for handwoven cloth from the to the cloth in the and centuries often and are woven with two pairs of but other of cloth are also considered kente. This that many textiles, those with are in many different weaving centers within and the research West use the and for a variety of of cloth from different weaving centers. The origin of these is in Ghana and Togo in the (Kraamer The and use of the “kente” to the of the of a textile It also the complex and connections between people and cloth in different of the oldest extant and textiles from southern Ghana and Togo in a to Thomas in the Wisbech and Fenland Museum in the (Gleba, Kraamer, and Coleman Kraamer 2023). the chest, made in and its had been extensively our analysis of the West African textiles in this chest was the to their The on the origin of the used to weave these textiles were and South Asia, America, and Africa also also the oldest extant kente by a for the in by two of African from a in the of a in and had this to to become the of the The textiles who were a role in the of the of the was as a to the main in the transatlantic slave and for the into this a chest with of including other and part of a and other West African were to by in the transatlantic slave trade and in the trade between Africa and (Figs. 1, 5). The chest and its textiles in on to the trade in enslaved people and in The textiles, in a by and Hanß on of as a of the of the same of by to the trade (Kraamer 2023; in Clarkson's campaign chest from the in the which includes from European or cloth (Figs. Kraamer have this and of in cloth of cloth to the the has also been in other the fiber and dye analyses of used in West African textiles, we this is the oldest kente or I out to of Africa collections in various European museums to to this research, including the Museum in the National Museum in the National of World the Museum, the Museum of World in and the National Museum of World in the analysis will be completed by museum Margarita Gleba, textile research such as the for in and the for the University of of used and weaving in these eighteenth-century understand both and in regional weaving over the Clarkson's chest three of weft-faced European (Fig. 5). These were woven in the same weaving as are the same have the same of and and use the same and of these was woven with a a that is common in cloth woven in Agotime and other locations the end of the nineteenth and is with (Gleba 2021; Vanden Berghe While Clarkson that the is this is not the This how scientific analysis of these textiles can of European and expand our understanding of their and textiles as products of three weft-faced cloth in Clarkson's chest not be to kente of the years in the region, as the of are much than cloth woven in However, this research that from from the nineteenth and with the same have on the to the main of these in and of the in from the region in While the and adjacent regions have a history of weaving, it is the Agotime region south of Ghana and that has the of weaving weft-faced textiles, locally (Fig. Kraamer However, most historical woven in Agotime before century are of not more than Furthermore, the weft-faced with was a to and the many and weavers with I discussed these eighteenth-century textiles with are common in Agotime and Anlo-Somé the nineteenth are woven with a not a The research in December 2022 and which I with and on the of textiles with people of as their oldest of cloth and it a specific role in and (Kraamer The of a with such that I carried with to in Agotime and other weaving centers throughout In Agotime we discussed this of textile was woven or it have been traded from the north into the region weft-faced textiles from the have a and some have in These textiles their way to the and 2021) and have in Agotime through their in the trade of enslaved In with and from and Agotime was as the most place where these textiles The with a have been woven in Agotime, but also in the Anlo-Somé region. It is not different from weaving cloth on a and weft-faced textiles with are still the main weaving centers in Sokodé and in Kara in northern Togo, weavers that had of weft-faced plain that the weft-faced in Clarkson's chest are from have had to weft-faced textiles from the but did not it in their own The of the that my textile have from in northern but that was a in and not such cloth has been used in of the the or such a textile (Fig. of the fiber analysis of these textiles from Agotime, as as the weft-faced textiles with web in a private in that I in will For the we can that the weft-faced cloth in Clarkson's chest and related were woven in we that were the influence of cloth from or research on historical textiles West African textiles as a primary to new into the complex gendered social and design histories of dress and cloth in Ghana, Togo, and Côte d'Ivoire. By textiles as historical sources, the research African subjectivity to the fore and provokes new understandings of West African history in a embedded It has demonstrated that a combined approach, technical, visual, archival, and scientific fiber and dye and relying on local systems of is to and these textiles as primary research assumptions of a in dress and weaving in northern and southern between kente and and their complex It also understandings of the weaving regions in northern Ghana and Togo and deepens our understanding of the variety of cloth woven in the Additionally, the research new for provenance research on African textiles, that textile holdings in European and museums may not be of the textiles made of the range of as by local research also contributes to debates on heritage and issues of restitution by local understandings and It a to the of many in Ghana, Togo, and Côte d'Ivoire that not only a large part of their heritage is in outside Africa and to but also that their heritage to to the

Archaeology · Colonialism · Ethnology · Geography · Historical anthropology · Hybridity · Sociology · Subjectivity · Anthropology · Cultural Identity and Heritage · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History

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