HISTORY OF CLOTHING IN AFRICA
Clothing was not generally needed for warmth or protection in most areas of the African continent due to the warm and hospitable climate and many tribes did not wear much at all. The men wore just a loin cloth or apron and the women wore wraps around their waist or breasts, often adorning the rest of their bodies with scarification and paint ochres.
Bark cloth, furs, skins and hides were mainly used for these first forms of clothing.
Males simply wrapped the bark cloth over a belt and passed between the legs while women draped the cloth over the belt to hide the front of their bodies.
Raffia was used to sew together separate pieces of bark cloth as well as being used for grass skirts.
Stone age man onward made bark cloth by peeling bark from trees and then pounding it with a rock until thin and malleable. Small pieces would be sewn together with hide or raffia to make larger pieces to cover the body.
Sometimes it was decorated with patterns giving rise to the tradition of decoration that exists in almost every African country.
Adornment of clothing came by way of fashioning jewelry and head gear from seashells, bones, ostrich egg shell pieces and feathers.
The earliest evidence of textile manufacture appeared at Igbo-Ukwu and consisted of excavated fragments of unpatterned, bast-fibre cloth dating from the 9th Century. (Bast is the plant fibre made from the phloem, the inner bark). Discovery of the Tellem caves in Mali exposed 11th and 12th Century funerary sites which revealed fragments of cotton and wool fabric dyed with indigo.
And then around the 15th Century, trade occurred in Africa with shipping routes being opened up between Europe, Africa and the East. Exotic items arrived on the continent and began to be coveted by the local inhabitants for decoration of their local cloth. Beads, shells and buttons began to appear on garments, either as embellishment or making up the entire garment like beaded aprons, capes, headbands and shoes.
Various weaving techniques were developed in different areas, some more progressive than others. Fibres used were cotton, raffia, silk and wool. Woven and decorated textiles used for African clothing became a reflection of the tribe’s status, its socioeconomic standing, its culture, its environment and its climate.