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 It was originally made for only royalty (Ashanti kings) to wear but it has become acceptable for others to wear for special occasions.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.