The Stories Told By the African Cloth

I was looking at some items in a sack bag, then I saw a smaller polythene bag with cloth materials in it. A whole lot of them that made me have a mother-daughter interview with my mum.

The Vlisco Fashion Company African Prints, and each of them had their names and type tag. It was through this one that each cloth in Africa had unique names and there are little stories behind them.

Below are some of the cloth and their respective names.

Please note. I wrote the words as I saw it on the cloth pieces. Spellings is not entirely my intention. That is how they wrote it on the pieces. You might notice different spellings for some local words, but that’s how they were displayed. Also, the groupings is done by my own interesting and naming. ;)

Animals

These are prints of animals, both domestic and wild animals.

big snail and shrimps

big snail and speedbird

snake skin

spider and guinea fowl

Basin

These ones are the most expensive ones and very quality ones

French

These have French names. I think they are from the Francophone countries. 

The meaning is written in the brackets in English.

cerceaux (hoop)  and loeil de ma rivale (my rival's eye)

jalouse (Jealousy) and  petit lion (little lion)

labre tombe(Grave Tree)

sucre(sugar) and jour et nuit(day and Night)

 Household

I named this household because they are things that can be found at home, or in a home.

opener and staircase

table ronde and steps

Objects

diamond and mask

record and helment

The record print is called that because it is like the compact disk (CD). They used to use such kind of disc to play music from. Now this is very popular among Ghanaians.

Sa Sawa

Some time ago, Sa Sawa became trendy. Almost everyone had sewn a dress with it. Sa Sawa is pieces of cloth sewn together to make one cloth.

School

I named this school because it had objects that are being used in school.

pencil and eight

wax  print abc n wax block abc

The Blues

They are blue in colour, and almost everyone has this kind of cloth.

grapes and kings chair

blue

Others

ankofna and akoufou

atche che dietchi (the back of a tortoise)

java print

sugar cain

super wax

wax print

zoba zoba

grand bassam

jowdonkwe and mboke

mopandzi and loso loso

wusa arm and zamba zamba

These are of great culture, and we carry the stories and symbols around without even noticing.

These are the stories told by the African cloth.