Thank you, Jon, for attracting my attention to the fact that these Dida textiles are usually dyed with three colours. I have to admit that, although I admired the artistic effect of them, I had not looked closely enough to realise this and the black dye recedes so that it almost disappears into shadow and the whole affect is very three dimensional.
I don't have much literature on African textiles but I had a look in John Gillow's 'Printed and Dyed Textiles from Africa' in the Fabric Folio series for the British Museum (see pages 13, 32-33) and also his much larger book 'African Textiles' published by Thames & Hudson. Some stunning photos in the latter (pages 66, 67) and a fascinating discussion of the actual 'weaving' or 'tubular oblique interlacing' technique used to create a fabric from the raphia. John's description of the dyeing process is almost identical in both volumes.
Quote:
"patterns by means of tied resists and dyeing them with natural dyes in a colour palette of forest colours. Red and black on a yellowish ground is preferred."....."Adams and Holdcraft (1992) state that the yellow dye is obtained from the roots of a shrub and the red from the hardened root of a tree, while the black is said to come from a combination of manganese and leaves. As with all tie-dyed work, the garments are dyed from the lightest colour to the darkest - in this case, first yellow, then red, then black. Where the black shades into red, a reddish brown colour results, but remains pure black on the fringes of the garment."
Yours, Louis, could be an experimentation perhaps even with a chemical dye perhaps even Gentian violet? Referring to Deryn O'Connor's book 'Miao Costumes' she talks on page 49 about Gentian violet in connection with Huangping textiles:
Quote:
"...one of the many Rosaniline purple dyes, the so-called triphenyl methane dyes, invented in the latter part of the 19th century and prepared from aniline. This group contains dyes which were marketed under such names as Hofmann's violet, Crystal violet, Methyl violet, Spiller's purple etc. ....... Crystal violet, Methal violet and Methyl rosaniline were used to make Gentian violet, an antiseptic and bacteriocidal agent, often painted on the skin in the recent past in the west".
In the case of Guizhou Deryn speculates that perhaps Gentian violet was introduced by the English missionaries of the China Inland Mission who established a base near Huangping in 1895. I wonder if this might also been the case - an introduction via missionary activity - on the Ivory Coast in Africa where the Dida live.
I am probably making 2 and 2 add up to well over 5!
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Pamela
http://www.tribaltextiles.infoon-line tribal textiles resource