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The Collector(s) / Donor(s) William Mithoefer has been a Foreign Service Officer in the U.S. Department of State since 1958, and has served in various capacities in over 12 posts, many of them in West Africa. He has been an avid collector of African art since 1957 and possesses a large and diverse collection of African art that he has acquired primarily during his tours at various African posts. He lived in Monrovia, Liberia in the early 1980s while serving as the Political Counselor in the U.S. Embassy. He took advantage of his residence in Monrovia to collect a good number of Sande society masks. This mask is one of over 40 sowei masks that he donated to Michigan State University in 1990. The Object(s) Kenteis perhaps the best known of all African textiles. It is a narrow strip woven cloth produced by various Akan and Ewe peoples living in southern Ghana and adjacent areas of Côte d'Ivoire. Formerly, kente was a prerogative of Akan chiefs and kings. But today, anyone who can afford these expensive cloths can purchase and wear them. The oldest kentecloths were woven using silk threads. Akan weavers obtained the silk by unraveling the threads of imported silk fabrics. However, early in the 20th century, rayon began to replace silk--it is an synthetic fiber that resembles silk in texture and appearance. Today, it has completely replaced silk as the fiber of choice for the production of the finest kentecloths. Cotton is also used, particularly by Ewe weavers, to produce a less expensive variety of kente. The cloth is made on a double-treadle loom that produces narrow (ca. 4-inch) strips of cloth that are then cut and sewn side-by-side to produce a full-size cloth that can be as large as 12 x 8 feet. These cloths are worn by men as a single piece in a configuration similar to the toga in ancient Rome. Women wear two smaller pieces, one wrapped around the waist as a skirt, and the other wrapped around the torso and drapped over the left shoulder. Like much Akan visual imagery, the woven patterns that comprise the kentecloth each have a verbal meaning. Some cloths that utilize a specific repertoire of patterns and colors have been given names. This cloth combines a solid white warp base and a number of weft designs and is named ohene afro hyen, which translates, "the king has boarded a ship," and derives from Asantehene (king of Asante) Agyeman Prempeh II's trip to England in 1937. The weft motif composed of green, yellow, red, and (sometimes) black bands is a common design called babadua (a name derived from a segmented bamboo-like cane); the zigzag is called nkyimkyim ("zigzag" or "to turn or twist," a term that is sometimes used to describe someone who is confused or indecisive); the motif of four bands of yellow and red vertical bars separated by three bands of a delicate checkerboard pattern is called wotoa or nwatoa (this may refer to the shell of a snail); the opposed triangle pattern is called kawo ("centipede"?), and the flattend red and yellow diamond is called ntabon ("weaving sword," i.e., a tool used by weavers). Further Information Books and Articles Peter Adler and Nicholas Barnard. African Majesty: The Textile Art of the Ashanti and Ewe. London: Thames and Hudson, 1992. Sjarief Hale. "Kente Cloth of Ghana." African Art 3 (3) 1970: 26-29. Venice Lamb. West African Weaving. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd. 1975. Doran Ross, et al. Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 1998. Shea Clark Smith. "Ashanti Kente Cloth Motifs." African Arts 9 (1) 1975: 36-39. Internet Resourcesnone
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