A Dyeing Art

For many, part of the vacation ritual is spending anywhere from a couple hours to a couple days searching out the best souvenirs and tchotchkes to commemorate the trip. Depending on where you visit, you return with anything from Venetian glass to woven silk rugs to a simple T-shirt implying "I was here." In Lagos, the more popular curios are trading beads (which I'm sure are mass produced in a factory outside the city and have never been used for trading), items made of ebony (or not, which is most often the case), or centuries-old Portuguese gin bottles (mostly fakes...after all, Nigerians know the real value of these items and won't let them go for a pittance).

But amidst the curios of questionable value is an art truly worthy of remembrance: cloth dyeing. It is undeniable that the textiles in Nigeria rival designs found anywhere else, even other parts of Africa. (Our roommate's mother who lives in Uganda specifically requested Nigerian cloth from her son.) Bright yellows, fuchsia pinks, and neon greens are routinely worn street-side, in offices, and at home. And among these more vibrant colors is the batik and tie-dyed indigo cloth still dyed by hand.

In both Kano (in the north) and Abeokuta (just outside Lagos), I've seen indigo dyeing first hand. Despite synthetic indigo becoming more widespread, much of the indigo dye in Nigeria continues to be produced naturally -- indigo shrub leaves are soaked and fermented to produce the blue color then caked with a base before dissolved again in water. Dye pits consist of concrete well-looking vats where cloth is dunked repeatedly to obtain its rich color. The final color can range anywhere from light sky blue to almost black depending on the length of contact time between cloth and dye. You can usually identify the village "dunkers" by their conspicuous and permanently blue-tainted hands.

To produce various designs, from stripes to flowers to circular patterns, the cloth is strategically sewed together (not rubber-banded) during dyeing then the thread is ripped out before it is dried. Often the ripping requires a foot-on-cloth method for balance and leverage then a violent thrust upward to remove the temporary seams that created the design. For a more shiny (and pricey) piece, the dyed and dried cloth is then sent to be ironed. For this the cloth is placed on the curved length of a halved log, then beaten against the log with large wooden mallets. This produces a shiny finish on the cloth and also a beautiful percussive rhythm for those that happen to pass by.

One of the more beautiful and celebrated art forms in Nigeria, cloth dyeing has maintained its true essence here. Where cloth and its production has turned to mass production in much of the world, this "dyeing" art remains a fundamental process and industry in this West African country.