Global Trade and Cultural Authentication

The Kalabari of the Niger Delta

Joanne B. Eicher

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 2022
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9780253062628
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: History

Global Trade and Cultural Authentication, edited by Joanne Eicher, showcases the complexity and enduring aesthetic and ingenuity of Kalabari artisans. The Kalabari people, most of whom make their homes in the eastern Niger Delta region of western Africa, are renowned for the artistry in working with globally imported textiles and dress for centuries.
 
The 22 essays in this edited volume feature the work of leading Nigerian and American scholars and offer an in-depth, nuanced understanding of Kalabari textiles, aesthetics, and engagement with past and present global trade networks.
 
Using dress and textiles as a lens, Global Trade and Cultural Authentication explores the Kalabari people's centuries-long role in the global trade arena. Their economic interconnectedness demonstrates that Africa was never a "dark continent" but, rather, critically involved in a global trade built around Kalabari resourcefulness and imagination.

II

Kalabari Dress

Section II provides eight chapters concerning how the Kalabari use imported textiles, along with imported jewelry and headwear, for their dress, based on the comprehensive definition of dress as all body supplements and body modifications (Eicher and Roach-Higgins 1995), which includes more than garments. This concept of dress, explored in The Visible Self (Eicher and Evenson 2014), relates to establishing personal and sociocultural identity, found in all cultures. Chapters 10–13 center on the significance of female and male ensembles throughout Kalabari life. Chapter 14 highlights the dress of a contemporary Kalabari businessman who became a chief and was later knighted. Chapters 15–17 present data on beads (particularly coral) and headwear. The Kalabari examples throughout the volume illustrate dressing for the public self in contrast to the private and secret selves (Eicher and Miller 1994; Eicher 2015b).

10

Male and Female Artistry

M. Catherine Daly, Joanne B. Eicher, and Tonye Victor Erekosima

THE DISTINCTIVE AESTHETIC of Kalabari dress, our focus in this chapter, derives from trade providing the resources for the unique and expressive ensembles, assemblages of borrowed and indigenous Western and non-Western elements.¹ The creative composition of these materials and artistic techniques “is their ethnic identity and genius.” (Daly, Eicher, and Erekosima 1984, 2).

Typically the ensembles for both males and females may include cloth in the form of wrappers, blouses, head ties, shirts, and handkerchiefs along with (1) accessories of coral, gold, and glass beads fashioned into jewelry such as necklaces, bracelets, rings, armbands, kneebands, and earrings; (2) sandals and shoes; (3) cosmetic chalks and pomades; and (4) handheld items—purses, fans, canes, elephant tusks, umbrellas, and the like. To the Western eye, perhaps some dress combinations may seem haphazard or without thought. Yet, conscious choices are made and justified, based on knowledge of not only what is aesthetically pleasing but also what is culturally correct.

The basic ensemble for adult women includes an imported lace or eyelet blouse (Plankensteiner and Adediran 2010) worn with what is called an “up-and-down” wrapper combination of a knee-length wrapper worn over an ankle-length one (see bite sara in fig. 11.1). The wrappers come in a variety of materials such as striped imported Indian madras (injiri), printed woolen flannel (blangidi), handwoven Ewe strip cloth (accraa), and striped Indian silk (loko). For men, trousers or an Indian madras wrapper combined with a loose jumper or shirt known as woko is standard. More expensive and complex assemblages are usually the privilege of age for men and women, as figure 10.1 illustrates. Older women may add accessories such as head ties, jewelry, and purses. Older men may also wear costly jewelry, don a distinctive hat like a bowler or top hat, and carry a cane or walking stick.

According to Kalabari respondents, color, rather than pattern or texture, is often the critical factor in unifying ensembles. A green lace blouse with a multicolored print or striped wrapper is considered coordinated if green is repeated in the wrapper. Other factors, like comparable cost, may link the diverse elements in an outfit: lace blouses, worn with blangidi, Akwete, and accraa or loko wrappers, are equivalent in price.

A dress assemblage may also be unified through the combination of various items of historical significance to the family. Members often dress in wrappers and other heirlooms that have been brought forth from the ancestral cloth boxes for funerals, chieftaincy installations, or traditional womanhood ceremonies. Many of these are the corporate property of a lineage group and are especially prized because of the length of family ownership.

Learning how to dress as a Kalabari begins early. Within the household, conversations about attire are frequent. Children observe men and women planning their wardrobes and hear them discussing, for instance, whether a wrapper is tied correctly, whether the fabrics used are complementary, whether the selection of accessories is suitable. Through such socialization, each person internalizes the group standard of dress.

In ordinary situations a person may dress alone, and self-appraisal of one’s attire may precede the assessment of others. Before going out, however, members of the family, usually female elders, but sometimes male elders as well, check the ensemble. Their approval is important because the individual is also representing the family, lineage, and even ancestors to the community, and elders are respected as experts and considered repositories of knowledge. For special occasions, other individuals attend the person dressing and guarantee that the individual’s appearance is meticulous and aesthetically pleasing. When formal dress is required, elder women in the family, considered knowledgeable arbiters of taste because of their age and experience, are summoned as consultants. They help select items of attire for both sexes and execute or oversee the process of putting together an ensemble for women. Their presence is especially important when other women are being dressed for important occasions.

The female elders also act as the final judges of male attire. Though men do confer with each other and seek the advice of respected older men, almost all will defer to the judgment of these women before stepping out the door into the public domain of village or town. In public, challenges are heard between rival War-Canoe Houses (wari) regarding the appropriateness of a member’s dress. For various men’s and women’s club events, a feature of Kalabari social life, attire is often uniform, as illustrated and described for the eremne-ogbo in chapter 12, and members regularly critique each other’s appearance.

Fig. 10.1. Tonye Erekosima, wearing woko with injiri wrapper. Stella Kintebe, left, and Bekinwari Elebe, right, both wearing bite sara with lace blouses; cotton Akwete wrapper on Kintebe, silk loko wrapper on Elebe. Buguma, 1984.

Part of the aesthetic of Kalabari dress is scrupulous attention to detail. The local expression, “Take time,” applied to one’s demeanor and dress, illustrates this concern. Other factors affecting the art of assembly concern the differentiation of sex, age, status or role, socioeconomic position, family, and lineage affiliation.

The materials used in dress are manipulated into characteristically Kalabari ensembles in several ways. This wide variety of processes is especially evident during iria, the traditional womanhood ceremonies. At each stage, specific processes used in the proper assemblage of dress are learned; these processes, when understood and correctly executed, are featured in each rite of passage. Cloth is tied; items are carried; ears are pierced; hair is shaved, plaited, and combed; arms, legs, and torso are colored; the body, fattened through diet and cleansed by washing, is adorned with jewelry. Knowledge about dress materials and processes is cumulative and in the final stage of iriabo culminates in the ultimate expression of femaleness.

The Kalabari worldview, which incorporates the ancestors, the water people, and the community deities (Horton 1960a; Horton 1962; Madume 1976), is reflected in the complementarity of male and female artistry in Kalabari dress. The ancestors, as founders of lineages who are honored, represent the communal nature of Kalabari society, in which the basic necessities like food and compound space are shared for the welfare of the group. The clothing of deceased family members becomes corporate property as well. Wealth is displayed through the donning of generations-old cloths and precious ornaments such as gold or coral beads. Cut-thread cloths are an example of treasured items worn to venerate the ancestors who bequeathed them. Artistry in dress is determined not only by the contents of the cloth boxes but by access to them: as guardian of the family cloth boxes and dispenser of their contents, the eldest female controls the male lineage property and its use.

The water people, the spirits inhabiting the rivers and streams, mold and control the environment from which the Kalabari have made their living historically by fishing and trading. They also are responsible for a person’s good or bad fortune and his creativity, including creativity in dress. Their power extends to almost any economic activity, one example being artistic services provided by the knowledgeable elder women, who are often financially compensated. The coral, gold, and rare clothlike madras and embroidered velvets and other items used to create a typical Kalabari ensemble have come by water as a result of successful commercial ventures. People who wear these fine objects may have acquired them through personal enterprise, attributable to the water people, as well as from the ancestral cloth boxes (Erekosima 1989).

Unusual fashions and clothing innovations are also linked to the water people. In the past the acquisition of coral beads, imported cloth, hats, canes, handkerchiefs, and other Western paraphernalia that the Kalabari combine in innovative ways was the result of male commercial activity from which women benefited in their kinship roles; the man’s success or failure in obtaining these items was ascribed to the water people, as was the aesthetic influence of the water people on women, which they exercise in making cut-thread cloth, decorating funeral rooms, and being arbiters of dress. Successful and affluent Kalabari women, however, are also recognized for their economic pursuits and business acumen. Through their own efforts they may extend their wardrobes with traditional costly items of dress and pay for the services of the female elders.

Acting as intermediaries between the ancestors and water people are the community deities, who are concerned with the welfare and culture of the group. For example, Owamekaso, head of the community deities, is said to have taught the people their skill in trading. We posit that the deities, as the bearers and guardians of culture, are responsible for Kalabari identity as reflected in dress. The distinctiveness of Kalabari dress is epitomized by the opulent ensembles that women wear for postnatal practices associated with iria.

Because of the role of dress in communicating wealth, status, and prestige, both Kalabari men and women are meticulous in their assembly of items. Both draw from the heritage of heirloom textiles and accessories from the family cloth boxes, and both defer to the expertise and aesthetic advice of female elders, the gatekeepers of Kalabari culture, and the women who also have created the subtle designs of cut-thread cloth. Naturally, some differences occur between the sexes in form, process, technique, and intent. For example, women wear a double set of wrappers while men wear one. Arrangement and meaning differ as well. Women wrap their bodies to emphasize the girth of the abdomen and suggest fecundity. In contrast, the wrapper and woko worn by men give an impression of linearity and imply social stature and power. The Kalabari dress ensemble is a symbol of the “fabric of culture [in which] the warp of the revered past and woof of the opulent present are woven into a seamless whole through a creative commitment to the society’s future or persistent well-being” (Erekosima 1982. Many other peoples in and outside Africa are known for creative assemblage in their attire; analyzing the nature of Kalabari artistry in dress allows insight into both Western and non-Western cultures.

M. CATHERINE DALY, research associate, Eoin McKiernan Library, has extensive skills in the textile and dress arts. She completed research in Nigeria for her MA degree at Michigan State University and moved to the University of Minnesota for her PhD on the Kalabari topic of the female maturation process and dress called iria. She conducted her fieldwork primarily in Abonnema. After her PhD, she pursued research on Afghan dress, published in the Encyclopedia of Dress and Fashion (2010). She currently researches lumberjack wear in North America.

JOANNE B. EICHER, PhD, is Regents Professor Emerita in the Department of Design, Housing, and Apparel at the University of Minnesota. She is coeditor of The Anthropology of Dress and Fashion: A Reader; coeditor of The Visible Self: Global Perspectives on Dress, Culture, a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• I. Cultural Authentication and Textiles
• II. Kalabari Dress
• III. Kalabari Rituals
• IV. The Kalabari Diaspora
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author