Aso-Oke Production and Use among the Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria

Abstract

Introduction The production of traditional handcrafted textiles among people of Africa is long rooted in their culture. These textiles are produced from locally sourced materials ranging from cotton, local silk, bark, goats wool to raffia, commonly used in weaving (Renne,1995;102).While felted backcloth acclaimed to be oldest form of indigenous African cloth, woven cotton fabrics dating to eight century have also been found in burials in Niger (Clarke 1998;18), and fragments of plain patterned strip woven cloth dated to eleventh century were also discovered at Tellem burial cave in Dogon region of Mali. Thus, both provide evidence of a long standing clothing tradition in Africa (Bolland 1992; 13). Although origin of textiles productions and usage in Nigeria, most especially among Yoruba remain unknown, there are evidences of Yoruba's long use of textile as apparel as reflected in ancient sculptures, which has been dated back to 10th and 12th century A.D. W. Fagg (1977; 29-39), mentions that these sculptures depict use of accoutrements which include loin cloth, cap, sashes badge, hats and others He, also suggests that materials used for manufacture of these clothing are derived locally because, they resemble today's traditional Yoruba hand woven strip cloth 'Aso-Oke'. While relative dating of local production of Aso-Oke among Yoruba remain difficult due to its ephemeral nature, association theory of Krigger (1990; 39) brought more confusion when he claim that earliest use of textiles made from men's loom among Yoruba came via introduction of Islam to Kano through Nupe, and later to Yoruba land in 15th century. However, diffusion theory used by Krigger to establish evolution of weaving among Yoruba is tenable considering Picton's comments in Ademuleya (2002; 35) that the distinctiveness of West African narrow strip loom (Yoruba inclusive) is a pointer to an independent tradition. He thus cautions' against popular speculations that there must have been only one point of origin or source of inspiration; it could therefore be argued that Yoruba production of textiles, Aso-Oke in particular could have been developed by Yoruba before contact. Furthermore, since radio carbon dates confirms earlier existence of these sculptural pieces to between 10th and 12th century date which was prior to introduction of Islam or contact with Nupe people in 15th century, one can conclude that Yoruba use of textiles as apparel or as clothing is an age-long tradition which predates contact with Islam. Weaving Tools Yoruba traditional weavers according to chief Onakanmi of Fedegbo compound in Ogbomoso use two types of loom for production of their traditional hand-woven textiles 'Aso-Oke'. First, upright single heddle loom, also known as broad loom (used by women) is a fixed vertical frame upon which warp is held under tension used to weave cloth of a predetermined length with about 30 to 90 cm width to allow two or three pieces stitched together to make a wraparound iro for women. The fabric produce on this loom is what Aremu (1980; 18) refers to as kijipa (see plate 2 below) Second, double heddle loom (used by men) is an horizontal loom with unwoven warp yarns stretched out several yards in front of weaver with a heavy shed to maintain tension (see plate 3 below). The loom produce strips of woven fabrics which is about 14-15cm wide; fabrics are cut and edge stitched together to make larger piece of cloth which could be used for clothing or coverings. The men's horizontal loom compared to women vertical loom uses more accessories and provides opportunity for use of a variety of warp threads which often determines types of design found on Aso-Oke. Ojo (2006;105), identifies these accessories to include: heddles (omu aso), treadles' (itese), beater (Apasa), shuttle (oko), winding shaft (gogowu/ikawu), shedding stick (oju/poporo), and pulley (ikeke) to describe for varieties of warp threads and means for introducing weft thread. …

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 17 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.