From The Chronicle Newspaper in Ghana
Jan 20th, 2009 by Isa2
I thought you might find this article interesting. It concerns the desire to preserve traditional cultural clothing, called cloth in Ghana, which is rapidly being overtaken by Western Fashion… The photo is found at Africancraft.com which features contemporary African textile artists.
CNC ORGANIZES CLOTH WEARING CLINIC
The Center for National Culture (CNC), in collaboration with the Asante Akim North Municipal Assembly, has organised a cloth-wearing Clinic, at the Konongo Assembly Hall, for heads of departments, agencies and institutions.
Nana Kwadwo Nketia, a Resource Person from the Centre for National Culture, Kumasi, taught participants how to wear their cloths for the various occasions.
Nana Nketia mentioned different types of cloth wearing such as “Konfanko Akyemfo, Asikafoambantem, Me wë me biribi di, Dwabeng Anantuo, Ako Dua, and many more. He advised Ghanaians to let culture reflect in our national development agenda.
Nana Nketia suggested the study of culture in our schools, saying an Act of Parliament to enforce this, would be in the right direction.
The Municipal Cultural Officer of the Asante Akim North District Assembly, Mr. Kofi Obeng Onyina, noted that Ghanaian culture was dwindling, due to cultural adulteration westernisation and urbanisation, hence the need for cultural rejuvenation to promote, create and sustain the positive values.
He assured such clinics would be organised periodically, to educate the citizenry on some of the cultural values, and help maintain unique cultural identity and values as tools for preservation, exhibition, and enhancement of our national heritage and economic development.
The Cultural Officer disclosed that the Municipal Assembly had released a land at Nyaboo, for the siting of the cultural village, where the youth would be trained in the Ghanaian culture.
Mr. Obeng Onyina advised the people to keep their environment clean, because it formed part of our cultural heritage.
He urged the youth to desist from indecent dressing, saying it was not of Ghanaian culture for the youth, especially girls, to expose certain parts of their bodies in public.
The Principal Personnel Officer in the Asante Akim North Municipality, Mr. Emmanuel Kobi, thanked the organisers of the programme, which he said, was educative.”
For more information on Kente Cloth, one of Ghana’s traditional cloths, see this article.
Hello!
I learned about your site from my friend and fellow drummer, Tammi Hesson. I recently received a Kindia (sp?) cloth outfit that appears to be indigo dyed. Do I understand correctly that I can just wash it by itself until the blue stops running? Will my outfit become less blue?
Thank you!
Greetings. Aren’t you fortunate to have fabric from Kindia, Guinea. Kindia is well know for its manufacture of hand-decorated-and-dyed indigo fabrics. Some of the cloth is also handwoven, but much of the design work is done on imported bazin or damask fabric. If you read the article regarding indigo fabric posted here at AFL, you will see that it is possible to simple wash out the extra indigo dye with water. Washing with water alone or with a little detergent may take up to half a dozen washes/rinses or more. However, the reason that many people use a product known as Synthropol, or one called Dye Magnets is to help to do the job more quickly. When the extra indigo dye is washed into the water, it wants to reattach to the fabric. The dye magnets absorb the extra dye while the Synthropol causes the dye to remain in suspension in the water so that it washes away in the rinse rather than jumping back on to the cotton fabric.
In any case, the intensity of the color is not diminished by washing out the excess dye, though drying the material outside in the sunlight will help it to fade.
Enjoy your lovely outfit.