Plate No. 163fabric

Gold, red, and green blocks crossed by fine warp lines.

First documented
1700s
Origin
Bonwire, Ashanti, Ghana
Fiber
silk, cotton
Weave
strip-woven cloth of color blocks and geometric motifs
Family
motifs

Plate No. 163 · fabric

Kente

Kente is the strip-woven cloth of the Akan peoples, above all the Asante of Ghana and the Ewe of Ghana and Togo. It is woven in long narrow bands on a specialized loom, each band a sequence of bright color blocks crossed with geometric motifs, and the finished strips are sewn edge to edge into a bold, large cloth. Every pattern and color carries meaning, gold for status, green for growth, red for sacrifice, and particular designs were once reserved for Asante royalty. From the weaving town of Bonwire it has become a global emblem of African and diasporic heritage, worn on graduation stoles and state occasions alike.

Illustration: a weaver at a narrow strip loom in Bonwire, Ghana, long handwoven kente strips in gold, green, and red stretched out across the yard to a peg, finished folded cloth nearby, a weaver seen from behind, palms and a clay wall beyond in warm light
A weaver at a narrow strip loom in Bonwire, Ghana, long handwoven kente strips in gold, green, and red stretched out across the yard to a peg, finished folded cloth nearby, a weaver seen from behind, palms and a clay wall beyond in warm light.

Named for

Most often traced to the Akan kenten, a basket, for the cloth's basket-like interlaced pattern.

Often confused with

Mud Cloth vs Kente →

Sources & References

  1. 1.Kente cloth, Wikipedia
  2. 2.Weaving, Wikipedia

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