Kente (Akan: nwentoma; Ewe: kete) refers to textile from Ghana, made of handwoven cloth, strips of silk and cotton
Kente (Akan: nwentoma; Ewe: kete) refers to textile from Ghana, made of handwoven cloth, strips of silk and cotton.
Kente is a type of silk and cotton fabric made of interwoven cloth strips and is native to the Akan tribe in Ghana.
Kente is made in Akan lands such as Ashanti Kingdom and by Akans in Ivory Coast. It is also worn by many other groups who have been influenced by Akans.
Kente comes from the word kenten, which means basket in Akan dialect Asante. Akans refer to kente as Nwentoma, meaning woven cloth.
Ashanti folklore includes a story where kente was first made by two Akan friends who went hunting in an Asanteman forest and found the spider Anansi, making its web. The friends stood and watched the spider for two days then returned home and implemented what they had Fabrics have been woven.
“PREVIOUSLY, THIS FABRIC WAS WORN EXCLUSIVELY BY THE KINGS OF ETHNIC GROUPS.
TODAY KENTE TEXTILE PRINTS ARE NOT ONLY POPULAR IN WEST AFRICA BUT ALL OVER THE GLOBE”
In West African there has been weaving in countries such as Ghana and Ivory Coast since the 11th century. Now you see Kente fabrics. Kente production can be classified by three versions: authentic Kente cloth made by traditional weavers, Kente print produced by brands such as Vlisco and Akosombo Textile LTD, and mass-produced Kente pattern typically produced in China for Westerners. Authentic Kente cloth is the most expensive.
Pan-African diaspora
As one of the prominent symbols of African art and culture, Kente cloth has been embraced by the wider African diaspora (meaning people of African descent wherever they live). Kente fabric is especially popular in the United States among African Americans and can be found on all types of clothing, accessories and objects. These designs replicate registered Kente designs, but are often mass-produced outside Ghana without credit or payment going to the Akan artisans and designers, which author Boatema Boateng says represents a significant loss of revenue for Ghana.
Sources
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Kente cloth, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Thanks to Yale Peabody Museum, Pexels en Wikimedia Commons