History of NIgerian Adire Art

Adire textile, pronounced as Ah-DEE-reh is an indigo die textile indigenous to the Yoruba tribe of the Southwestern Nigeria. This textile is rich in beauty and culture as much as it has a rich history. Adire, is a Yoruba (a tribe in Southwestern Nigeria) word for tie and dye. It was first made by Yoruba women of old by using a variety of resist-dyeing techniques, now men do this art too. The earliest pieces of Adire were simple tied designs on cotton cloth handspun and woven locally. The first Adire material was made with local white cloth and Elu Dye which is made from elu leaf .

The simplest design for tie and dye is made by pulling up portions of the cloth at an interval, and either knotting or binding round them before dyeing. The tied portion is later removed after dyeing thereby creating a pattern of circles. In some situations, seeds or pebbles are sometimes tied into the cloth to create patterns. Also, some impressions may be sown into the fabric with thread and the stitches drawn up tightly before dyeing .

There are three primary resist techniques used in Nigeria presently:

Oniko: This process involves tying raffia around hundreds of individual corn kernels or pebbles to produce small white circles on a blue background. The fabric can also be twisted and tied on itself or folded into stripes.

Alabere: Stitching raffia onto the fabric in a pattern prior to dyeing. The raffia palm is stripped, and the spine sewn into the fabric. After dyeing the raffia is usually ripped out, although some choose to leave it in and let wear and tear on the garment slowly reveal the design.

Eleko: Resist dyeing with cassava paste painted onto the fabric. Traditionally done with different sizes of chicken feathers, calabash carved into different designs etc., in a manner similar to block printing. Since the early twentieth century, metal stencils cut from the sheets of tin that lined tea chests have also been used.

History of African Drumming

African drums hold a special place in the history of Africa. In Western Culture the idea of drumming is entertainment or just to add to the musical quality of a song. In Africa, drums hold a deeper symbolic and historical meaning.

Drums are almost always an accompaniment for any manner of ceremony – births, deaths, marriages – together with a ritual dance.

The Djembe drum is the most influential and basic of all the African drums. It dates back to 500 A.D. The Djembe was originally created as a sacred drum to be used in healing ceremonies, rites of passage, ancestral worship, warrior rituals, as well as social dances. The drum rhythm of the djembe is performed in the evening for most celebrations, especially during full moon, spring, summer and winter harvesting time, weddings, baptisms, honoring of mothers, immediately after Ramadaan (the month of fast for all Muslims) or countless other celebrations.

In much of Africa, certain drums symbolize and protect royalty and are often housed in sacred dwellings. In fact you could say the drum was actually the first form of telephone. Tribes, with use of the drum would communicate with other tribes often miles away. The talking drums of Africa imitate the pitch patterns of language and transmit messages over many miles.