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TEXTILES IN NIGERIA
Philip J. Shea
The visitor to Nigeria is ordinarily
most impressed at first by the textiles. The tremendous variety, beauty,
flamboyance, colors, textures, elegance and style are all immediately
striking. Women and men sometimes store impressive amounts of cloth as
well as finished clothing and it is not unusual for people to have clothing
which belonged to their grandparents or which are even older than that.This
national passion for beautiful textiles is the result of many centuries
of development and of considerable investment in time, energy, enterprise,
ingenuity and capital is one of Nigeria's most important technical activity:
cloth-making.
The variety of Nigerian textiles
is rivaled only by the variety of technologies which have been developed
to produce these impressive artifacts. These technologies have been
developed over many centuries, and they have varied from area to area
within the country as well as over time. The development of new technologies
has largely been accretional - that is a new technology is often welcomed
and employed alongside older technologies.Very seldom have older technologies
been discarded altogether and this is of considerable assistance to
the historian of textile technology.Most studies done on Nigerian textiles
have been concerned with the artistic qualities but more attention has
to be paid to the technological and economic aspects
behind the production of these materials.
Over the centuries there have
been a number of different fibers used by Nigerian producers of textiles.
In the Jos Museum, Plateau State, Nigeria, there is an example of an
Angas bag with designs in beige and black using tree bark fibers- essential
parts of the dress of every adult male Angas historically. Other tree
fibers, such as those from the raffia palm tree in southeastern Nigeria,
also produce fabrics with beautiful designs. In the northernpart of
the country the fibers from the fronds of the dum palm are also woven
into mats as well as the ingenious foldable raincoats used by the nomadic
Fulbe.
Far and away the most important
fibre used in Nigerian textile production has been cotton - and it has
been used for well over five hundred years . There have been a large
number of different kinds of cotton plants in Nigeria which have been
used for textile production. Some of the earliest cotton plants used
in Nigeria were perennial bushy plants that last for a number of years
and produce cotton each year.The low growing annual cotton plant is
almost universally used today. After the conquest of Nigeria the British
enforced the cultivation of a particular kind of annual cotton plant
which suited the purposes of their own machinery best. The British
prohibited the sale of the traditional kinds of cotton, and
today virtually all the cotton grown in Nigeria is the kind enforced
by the colonial power.
Silk is produced by various kinds
of Anaphe moths, and is known in Hausa as tsamiya, in Yoruba
as sanyan,in Igbo as akpa-obubu, and in Edo as sapar
ubele. Because it is more difficult to use and because its preparation
is generally more sophisticated than that of other fibers, its use is
presumably more recent than some other fibers. Nonetheless, there is
every indication that it has also been used for hundreds of years. As
with tree and cotton fibers, there were traditionally a large number
of different kinds of silk produced by different kinds of silk worms
in Nigeria - and these vary somewhat from area to area. Nonetheless,
silk was produced in almost all parts of Nigeria. The different kinds
of insects feed on different host trees and plants, and the resulting
silk also differs somewhat in color, texture, and quality.
A large number of different kinds
of cloth and finished clothing materials were also imported Sometimes
the imported cloth would be unravelled so that the fibres could be used
in locally produced textiles. With the development of intercontinental
trade on the Atlantic coast other fibers seem to have been imported
from Asia, Europe andNorth Africa. Wool was imported in this way - although
it never became very important in Nigerian textile production. During
the colonial period, the kinds of fibers imported increased considerably
although the colonial power was not interested in importing raw materials
for an industry which competed with their own textile industry. Nevertheless,
a large number of different kinds of fibers were imported as yarn or
thread.This imported thread was sometimes incorporated into the traditional
cloth production techniques. Thus, often a piece of traditional cloth
would have a warp of factory produced cotton thread. Also, over the
years Nigerian textile producers imported different kinds of silk and
silky threads, many of which were increasingly man-made. In recent years,
Nigerian weavers have made a great deal of use of artificial fibers
such as lurex and other bright fibers.Today many hand-procluced Nigerian
fibers are made entirely of artificial fibers.
The introduction of new fibers
almost never seems to have replaced previous fibers. Different kinds
of products are, of course, produced using different fibers, but commonly
incorporated into the production of a single cloth or gannent. Thus,
it is common to see a finished piece of clothing which uses as many
as three or our different kinds of fibers - and these different fibers
add strength,color, texture, sheen, design, and variety to the finished
products.Often fibers would be taken long distances from where they
were collected or cultivated. In the 19th century they were transported
a hundred kilometers or more, from Zaria to Kano. Silk was more valuable
and so was frequently transported much longer distances. Raw silk from
Bauchi State has been known as far as Senegal.
Preparing cotton thread is difficult.
The first stage is from thc cotton bolls, and in Nigeria, this has traditionally
been done by rolling an iron rod over the cotton bolls. The seeds are
thus squeezed out.This process is ginning, but since the earliest years
of colonial rule there have been mechanical cotton gins for the ginning
of cotton. This was designed to prepare the cotton for export.Some cotton
has always been retained for local processing.The fibers must be carded.
This involves combing the cotton fibers between two brushes which cleans
the fibers and aligns them in the same direction. After carding the
cotton, it is spun into thread. 'These processes have generally been
done by women, and, in the Muslim parts of the country, it has often
been done by housewives in seclusion.
Extract from P. Shea 'Textile Technology
in Nigeria: Practical Manifestations', in G.T Emeagwali (ed.)The Historical
Development of Science and Technology in Nigeria, Edwin Mellen, 1992
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Please send comments to Dr.Gloria Emeagwali, Professor
of History/African Studies, CCSU.
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