Cloth

Item number 3448/3 from the MOA: University of British Columbia.

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Description

Kente cloth composed of four hand woven cloth strips. Each strip has a wide white band flanked by two smaller white bands running down the length of a dark blue background. The strips have been stitched together along the long edge, and then embroidered with designs within small rectangles. Every second rectangle, offset from the neighbouring column, contains an embroidered band of red, flanked by gold, and then light green in horizontal bands. Fringed ends.

History Of Use

Kente cloth is known for its colourful hand-woven patterns and is worn to celebrate special events. Over three hundred types of patterns have been identified and each contains layers of meaning derived from proverbs, historical events, authority figures and plants. In
Ghana
, it was customarily worn only by kings as a ceremonial cloth but it is now worn widespread. Kente cloth is viewed by the African diaspora as an icon of African cultural heritage wherever it is worn.