Whence
Kuba cloth (raffia 'velvet')
Fashion

Where does Kuba cloth (raffia 'velvet') come from?

Kuba cloth comes from the old Kuba Kingdom in the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Woven from raffia palm fibre and embroidered into a soft, velvety pile, it is counted among the great textile arts of Africa.

Woven by men, finished by women

Men grow the raffia palm and weave its leaf fibre into squares on simple looms, and traditionally only men and boys may even watch the weaving. Fresh from the loom the cloth is coarse, so it is pounded in a mortar until soft. The cloth is dyed, and then women embroider it. For the famous pile, they push short raffia strands under the weave with a needle and cut them close to the surface, leaving a dense, plush texture like velvet.

A kingdom of fine things

The Kuba Kingdom flourished from the 17th to the 19th century between the Sankuru, Lulua and Kasai rivers. Kuba oral history credits a ruler called Shyaam a-Mbul a Ngoong with uniting its chiefdoms in about 1625. Its cut-pile 'Kasai velvet' was prized by royal courts in the Kuba lands and, as early as the 18th century, in Europe. The kingdom still exists today, led by a king called the nyim.

Cloth as wealth and teamwork

Fine panels could be collected to show status or store wealth. Women's ceremonial overskirts, first worn at funerals and later at dances and celebrations, are sewn together from many panels, each embroidered by a different woman of the clan to her own design, so no two skirts are alike. A single panel can take months or even years. In the early 1900s the ethnographer Emil Torday acquired the oldest surviving group of Kuba textiles from King Kot aPe.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org › Kuba textiles ↗ · en.wikipedia.org › Kuba Kingdom ↗ · learn.ncartmuseum.org ↗ · metmuseum.org ↗

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