arkilla kunta;
marriage equipment
- Museum number
- Af1978,21.1
- Description
-
Arkilla Kunta: marriage tapestry. The tapestry is composed of four narrow strips of woven sheep's wool hand sewn together selvedge to selvedge. The tapestry consists of a number of decorative bands in light brown, dark brown, brick red, yellow and undyed wool. The bands are decorated with a series of symbolic geometric motifs in brown, yellow, white and dyed turquoise wool as part of the ground weave and in supplementary weft work. The textile is unhemmed.
- Dimensions
-
Length: 329 centimetres (including warp ends)
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Width: 138 centimetres
- Curator's comments
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Reproduced by John Picton & John Mack, 'African textiles', BM 2nd ed.1989, pp.102-3; the caption reads: 'Woollen textile, Niger. Woven on the man's double-heddle loom of sheep's wool and goat's hair, with white cotton, in 13 inch (33cm) wide weft-faced strips, patterned with stripes, tapestry weave and extra weft floats. These cloths are woven at Tillaberi on the river Niger for the local pastoral peoples, who use them to drape across the inside of marriage tents.'
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The textile is probably an incomplete piece woven in the tradition of the marriage tent-shaped tapestries called arkilla kunta, used by the Wogo people of Niger. The full piece would include one more strip (the bottom one) and on both sides more length with motifs.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
1995, London, Museum of Mankind (Room 5), 'Display and Modesty'
- Acquisition date
- 1978
- Acquisition notes
- Purchased from Malcolm McLeod, Keeper of the Department of Ethnography (refund of purchase price)
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Af1978,21.1