African textiles: the kente, royal cloths of the Ashanti

Ashanti Kente Cloth featured in "Measure of Earth: Textiles and Territory in West Africa", Gregg Museum of Art & Design

These colourful strip-woven cloths are the most recognizable of all African textiles. They are known by the name kente and their creators are the Ashanti, an ethnic group native to the Ashanti Region of modern-day Ghana. The term kente is not used by the Ashanti themselves, but may have come from the word kenten meaning "basket". It refers to the checkerboard appearance of the cloths. According to legend the first weaver learnt his skill by studying the way in which a spider - a symbol of treachery and wisdom in Ashanti folklore - spun its web.

African textiles: the bogolanfini, mud cloths of Mali

Bogolanfini, The British Museum

One of the best-known types of textile from Africa, along with the Kente, is the bogolanfini, the cloth of the Bamana people from Mali in West Africa. This distinctive fabric features variety of wavy lines, circles, chevrons, spots and other geometric figures in white on a black background. But this is not the only thing that makes this textile so unique and interesting. Bogolanfini translates from the Bamana as "mud cloth" and indeed, the main and most important element of the bogolan cloth's production process is mud. But it's not any ordinary mud you can find around the corner. The mud used for bogolanfini making is collected from the very deepest sections of the ponds which become exposed for a few months at the height of the dry season. This mud then is left in a covered pot for about a year, during which time it darkens.

African masks

Bangende mask. Cotton, cowrie shell, beads, raffia, wood 
 Democratic Republic of Congo. From the collection of the Horniman Museum 

The only time I had a chance to have a closer look at African masks was during my visits to the British and Horniman Museums in London. The masks definitely left a strong impression on me...some looked really scary, some were beautiful in their own unique way and others struck with skillfulness and complexity of handicraft work. African masks are not something you can easily forget once you have seen them. Sometimes masks are a realistic representation of the human or animal head but more often they are carved in an exaggerated or distorted way designed to suggest a supernatural presence.