Kente Cloth and a Forest Escape

Kente Cloth

Continuing on from Ntonso, Frank took us to the village of Adanwomase (an actual village!). There we learned about the process of making kente cloth. Kente cloth has long traditional roots. It was originally made for only royalty (Ashanti kings) to wear but it has become acceptable for others to wear for special occasions. The colors and the weaves have their own symbolic meanings. As with the blogpost about adrinkra printing, here's a link to an excellent website that explains in more detail the cloth making process. We visited the center mentioned in the website. 

http://iweb.tntech.edu/cventura/KenteAdawomase.htm 

The mission of this Cultural Center is two-fold. First, it is designed to acquaint the public (like us) with the proud tradition of the Ashanti. However, its most important role is to train kente craftsman from the village to continue the craft. The craftsmen from this center sell their product in the many shops in the village itself. This way the Center contributes to the success of the village it is located in.

Here Donn is working on putting thread onto a spool.

Then the spools are mounted onto a rack and carefully measured out to the assigned warp length for the particular cloth that is to be made. Men's and women's cloths required different warp lengths, beginning at 12 feet of warp thread!

Eventually the warp thread is beautifully bundled. Then it's ready to be strung through heddles and then attached to the loom.

The bundle is positioned well away from the loom. Slowly it unwinds as the weft (the cross threads) are woven into the warp.

This weaver has a set pattern that he is working on. The weft thread comes off of the spindles he has in his hand. You can see the yellow warp threads through which they are being woven.

He uses his toes to control the position of the warp threads that have been threaded on the heddles.










The more experienced weavers move the spindles so quickly that their hands are a blur and there is a musical quality to the weaving. This video was taken on my phone.

Weavers rent space at an open-air weaving area. They also have to supply their own looms.

There's also an indoor building for when it's the rainy season

For a man's cloth, the weavers make 14 strips. Then the strips are sewn together to make the large cloth.











We discovered a very interesting fact regarding child slavery from our discussions on this tour. This center does not allow school-age children to be present during school hours. We did see young boys (as young as 10) learning to weave, but we were there on a school holiday. We were all glad that they expressed their sentiment so sincerely.

Bobiri Forest Reserve and Butterfly Sanctuary

The last part of our trip for the day was to a forest reserve (about 55 square km) and butterfly sanctuary (about 400 species have been identified) not far from Adanwomase. The way into the reserve took awhile, but once we arrived we were treated to a tour through part of the forest. We did see a few butterflies, but not nearly as many as we could during the "butterfly season."

The trees, as you can see, are massive, especially at the base of the trunk. Many of these trees fan out into buttresses to help anchor the tree to the ground.

When harvested, trees like these found in the reserve are used to make a multitude of products: drums, shelving, mortars and pestles, canoes, lumber for buildings. Some of the trees have medicinal qualities as well.

As Tarzan Donn clearly shows, the liana vines growing up and down the forest canopy can be a source of fun as well!

I wonder how many people can hold hands and wrap their arms around this tree!

The trees are quite tall as well.

There are three sections to this forest. One of the sections - the one we saw - is set aside as a wildlife sanctuary. A second section has limited "management" activities to make use of the many attributes of the harvested timber. The third section is set aside for research. We did not learn too much about this section because our guide was not particularly talkative.

These experiences were very enjoyable. We also learned a lot about Ghanaian culture and history. 

It is now time for some relaxation. Stay tuned for our blog about our adventures at Big Milly's Backyard at Kokrobite beach south of Accra. 

Kumasi's Craft Villages

Kumasi's Craft Villages

Outside of Kumasi are craft villages, which show how some the traditional Ghanian workshops operate. Frank, a friend of Jeff and Tini, took us to some of the villages to see what goes on.

Wood Carving
 
First stop was wood carving. When I heard the words "craft village" my mind conjured up probably what yours is doing now - driving along a dusty road, palm trees on the side, maybe a dog or two, stepping out of the car and walking toward the proverbial mud and thatch-roofed houses. Well, that was not the case with the wood carving village. 

It's actually a series of stalls next to or across a busy street from each other. What this particular workshop we stopped at had above the others was a sense of calm and selflessness. By that I mean that the men in the workshop didn't have an agenda to get us to buy something. 

Nana Frimpong Boadu and Frank, our guide

The master carver, Nana Frimpong, casually explained the meaning of the masks and figures for us, when we asked.

  




 










He had an assistant who was more available, but definitely not as knowledgeable as Nana Frimpong. 












     The electricity was out, so the assistant was kind enough to find flashlights for us to use.




 







We spent a good long time exploring his shop and learning more about the pieces. 











Our goal was to find a something that was original and one of a kind, not a copy of a copy of a . . .

During one of Nana's stories, we found out that he is the Chief Carver of Otumfoa Osel Tutu II - the current Ashanti King. Wow. We came to the right shop.




 




We were successful! The mask we bought was something he carved over 40 years ago, definitely one of a kind. There were so many pieces to choose from. Also, when Nana Frimpong heard we would not be able to come back to his shop again, he had his assistant go back in and get us a couple unfinished pieces. They are fertility dolls!




Adinkra Printing

After purchasing some freshly cooked plantains from a local vender, we were off to the next village, Ntonso, to experience first-hand how adinkra prints are made.

I highly recommend that you check out this website about the entire process. It explains much better than I can, all of the steps the go into making a finished piece. The place in the website is where we went.

http://iweb.tntech.edu/cventura/adinkra.htm

Here's what I can show you, but really, you should go to the site.

 




This is the tree from which the inner bark is used to make the ink for printing.

The inner bark is soaked for a long time and then pounded in a mortar.

The bark is soaked in water and then boiled for many hours before the inky-type qualities come through.

To make our sample adinkra print, the guide set out many different print blocks, with each block having a different meaning. It was hard to choose just three, but that was the limit, he said. Any more than that and the message gets confusing.

These are some smaller print blocks. They are carved from treated calabash gourds. 

Here's the heated ink and an example of a calabash, untreated.

   

I got to try out the printing process. It's a little difficult to know how long to keep the inked stamp on the fabric.

One of the cloths used for printing on is kente cloth. Here is part of the set-up for a kente cloth loom.

Here is the loom itself. Pretty cool, eh

Tini gets to try, now. The symbol with a star in the center is one they are contemplating using for their Project Peanut Butter logo here in Ghana.













I hope you take the opportunity to learn more about the adrinka printing process. It was very interesting and informative for us. I really enjoyed taking part in part of the print-making.